I never truly believed in the idea of haunted houses—they make a great story, but I’m way too skeptical for that. Haunted houses don’t leave notes. Someone got to my sister. Someone got to my house.
And whoever it was, they presumably still can.
I hate everything about this. I charge through the living room toward the sound, and I don’t care if I bump into furniture. What’s a few bruises now, anyway? I have to get to that recording.
“Ever? Are you there?”
“Ever, I’m not feeling well. I’m scared.”
“I don’t want to be alone, Ever.”
“Ever?”
It takes me too long to find it. It comes from a music box sitting on a window frame. Not one of the ones I put there, but one remarkably similar. It’s open. It’s one of the ones that usually has a princess or a ballerina turning pirouettes, but here it’s a carved cuckoo bird. Inside, there are endless notes and fragments of paper. And Elle’s voice, looping. It’s cut and pasted, but all of this was part of our phone call yesterday.
Who was there with her? Did she know she was being watched?
“Ever, I’m not feeling well. I’m scared.”
“I don’t want to be alone, Ever.”
She wasn’t alone, and that’s the part that messes me up endlessly.
I slam the button and try to stop the recording, but instead, it morphs, slowing down and speeding up Elle’s voice, drawing out her voice and compressing it. Ever? Eeeeeeeeever? Ever? Ever?
I take the music box, try to smother the microphone, and I throw it against the wall. Hard enough to shatter. I smash the pieces with the heel of my foot, until silence descends on the cabin once more.
And all that’s left is a handful of notes in the same handwriting as the other two. Hardly visible, but I’m morbidly curious enough to carry them into the moonlight.
Worthless, worthless, worthless.
Every one of us has a breaking point.
This is mine.
Twenty-One
Maddy
I see the door close—just out of reach—every time I close my eyes. And every time I open them, I see Finn slam at the window next to it in desperation. I don’t know how he keeps his balance like this. I can’t imagine how much these movements are hurting him. But I also don’t think he cares.
He looks at me once and the harsh lines and the intense combination of anger and utter despair cut through me. He’s all angles and edges. And while I could interpret, it feels like I’m grasping at straws.
I keep doing this. I keep missing beats, and that seems to be the story of my life. Wrong moment, wrong time. Seconds, heartbeats, it makes all the difference, and I keep failing, again and again and again.
If I’d paid attention while driving, maybe I could’ve swerved to avoid the car who hit me.
If I’d paid attention when Carter went back in, I could’ve saved him.
If I’d paid attention when Ever let go of the door, I could’ve caught it.
If I’d been a bit more aware of the world around me, if I could understand the world around me, if I hadn’t been such a failure, if your brain just processed things the normal way, Maddy, if, if, if, if, if.
Perhaps I simply shouldn’t be here. Perhaps I should be the one inside. Either way, the air that felt refreshing just moments ago feels freezing now, and I’d like to disappear off the face of the earth, if I can.
Finn keeps slamming the crutch against the window. But like the door, it’s locked and reinforced.
“It’s some kind of safety glass,” I remind him. “I’m not sure we can break through.”
Finn turns and snarls at me. “I know that. You don’t have to keep reminding me. Make yourself useful instead, because if we can’t get Ever out, I don’t know what I’ll do.” I don’t know if he intended to say those last few words, because he’s already resumed trying to break the glass.
I don’t know what I can do, though. The other crutch is still inside. Ever is nowhere to be seen. What do I do? I have a bread knife and a box of matches, neither of which would do me any good. What are the other options? Pound at the windows with my hands? I’d break more easily than the glass.
Finn does too.
The rubber tip of his crutch skids off the window, and every time it does, he loses balance.
He breaks, one part at the time. First his hand slips from the crutch. Then his knee buckles. His shoulders dip. His breath is labored.
He pushes himself up again and again. There are small hairline fractures in the glass, and they seem to be enough to give him hope, but they don’t grow beyond that. They don’t widen.
It’s just Finn. The glass. And the crutch that looks increasingly battered.
The second time his knee buckles, he drops and stays down. His shoulders are shaking.
Finn doesn’t cry. I’ve never seen him cry. It’s simply not a thing that happens. But right now, right there, he does. Quietly. He has his head down and turned away from me. He keeps himself as still as humanly possible.
But I can see the dark spots of his tears hitting the wooden planks.
There are still traces of blood too.
I stand awkwardly on the darkened porch, my hands outstretched, not knowing what comes next. I don’t know what’s expected from me, and it feels like my brain is constantly short-circuiting, like the door itself.
I failed him. I failed Carter. I failed them all.
I failed myself.
I want to know what I should do. I want to be able to do what people with normal brains expect of me. I want to cry. I want not to be frozen in terror.
I back away a step. Then another.
Then, before the rational part of my brain catches up to me and tells me what a foolish idea this
