“Your work is welcome within our court, Sir Sage,” she said.
Eileen nodded gravely and stepped forward, situating the canvas on the nail.
The sisters scooted back admiringly.
Murphy sighed. “I wish we could keep the castle up year-round.”
“No,” said Claire. “It’s better to have a set date. The twenty-first forever, like a birthday. It’s the once-a-year part that makes it special.”
“Dunno,” said Murphy, “I think life would be pretty special if every day was my birthday.”
Eileen snorted and said, “You’re not wrong, Murph.”
“My name is Prince Pepper,” Murphy corrected, pridefully raising her chin. “Or perhaps you didn’t recognize me without the crown.”
Eileen wrapped an arm around Murphy’s shoulder. She wrapped the other around Claire’s. Some days, like today, Eileen noticed a sore spot in her gut—a realization, growing little by little. Mom wasn’t around anymore. Even when she walked through this house, she was more ghost than human, pale and vacant-eyed. Once, she’d bought Eileen craft kits and put her art on display in the kitchen. Not anymore.
It wasn’t that Mom had grown cold; there were moments—glimmers—of her old smiling self. Eileen would probably get a glimpse of that in four days’ time, when Mom would try to arrange the best Christmas celebration she could.
But that didn’t change the fact that Leslie Sullivan was distant, and Eileen didn’t know how to draw her back. Not when Mom was talking constantly about bills and rent hikes and debts that hadn’t been repaid since their father’s death—debts that never seemed to go down, but only up with interest. That’s what happened, Mom had told Eileen once, when you got a bad cancer and had no insurance. She and Dad hadn’t been able to afford it at the time.
Now, Mom wouldn’t be able to afford Dad’s bills in perpetuity.
Soon, though, Eileen planned to get a bagging job at Safeway. Maybe the extra money would help. Maybe that would bring Mom back to the land of the living.
Until then, at least Eileen had sisters by her side. Nobility, the three of them. Constructors of an impermeable fortress.
“We made a good castle,” said Sir Sage.
“We did,” Princess Paprika agreed.
“And,” said Prince Pepper, “we’ll make an even better one next year.”
DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD
TEN Eileen
If we’d gone to the Dairy Queen bathroom, we could’ve gotten cheese curds.”
“Dairy Queen isn’t open this early, and we needed gas. Wash your hands.”
Eileen leaned against the tile wall, eyeing Murphy with annoyance.
This trip was supposed to be about her. Eileen’s life, her family, her past, her secret. When she’d snuck into the Caravan, she’d envisioned a solo trip. A transformative journey. Just her and an old house, filled with memories she desperately needed to uncover. Documents, even a mere slip of paper, that could either confirm or deny what she’d suspected since she was sixteen.
This was her goddamn self-revelatory journey.
So how the hell were her sisters here? Claire, a briber, and Murphy, a stowaway? Eileen was pissed. But she needed the gas money, and there was no way they were driving Murphy the two hours back to Emmet. This was reality: She was stuck with her sisters. The only thing Eileen could control now was the damage. Whatever documents were in that house for her to find, she’d keep them out of her sisters’ hands. Whether or not the secret was true, they couldn’t know about it. She’d kept it from them for two years, and she could go on doing so for one more night.
“I want cheese curds.” Murphy’s whining pierced through Eileen’s thoughts.
“You’re fourteen,” Eileen said flatly. “Get the hell over it.”
“But cheese. Cheese that’s fried.”
Eileen couldn’t tell if Murphy was genuinely whining or trying to be funny. Probably both. She was always putting on a show.
As Murphy lathered her hands with soap, Eileen glanced in the mirror. Black liner was smudged at the edges of her eyes, and she made quick work of wiping away the excess. That didn’t help her face much. It remained gaunt, cheekbones sharp as a metal frame. Her gaze was dark, shoulders slouched.
Did she know this version of herself? The one who threw back whiskey before driving her sisters up I-5?
Was this the face of a goddamn alcoholic?
Eileen snapped her gaze from the mirror to the sticky tile floor. No. That wasn’t the word for it. Claire’s charge had been bogus. Eileen had been buzzed, maybe, but she hadn’t been driving drunk. And she wasn’t a drunk. Even now, as the need for booze turned her throat to a