puffed at the base of the stairs, looking over Claire quizzically. “A phone?”
“My car broke down,” Claire explained, racking her brain for one last good lie. “I was on my way home, and the battery died. I wondered if I could call my parents? They only live one town over, in … in …”
“Seaside?” the woman supplied.
“Yes.” Claire gave an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, I ran all this way, my mind’s—”
“Well, of course, of course.” The woman cut her off, bustling to the counter, grabbing the landline phone from its cradle and handing it over. “You call them dear, that’s fine. How far away did you break down?”
“Um.” Claire motioned vaguely out the window, supplying no details. “Do you have the number for a taxi company, maybe? Some way I can get a ride? I figure it’ll be easier to get home tonight and worry about towing on the twenty-sixth.”
The woman slowly nodded. “Oh, yes, I see. Well, I don’t know how much luck you’ll have. A place as tucked away as Rockport.… You could try getting someone to come out west from Salem, but that’s a good two hours’ drive. Or—ma’am, are you all right?”
Claire stared at the phone, wordless.
A revelation had broken in. A truth she’d been too uncomfortable and anxious to see in Kerry’s SUV.
Leslie.
Kerry had said that Mark’s girlfriend was named Leslie.
That there was a turtle named Tortue.
She’d said, I see their faces in total strangers.
“Oh my God,” she breathed out.
“Ma’am?” The woman in the horrible Christmas sweater pressed. “Do you need to sit down?”
“No,” Claire whispered. “I need to go.”
She set the phone on the counter, dazed, and headed for the door.
“Ma’am!” the woman called. “Young lady, I don’t think you should go out. Why don’t you let me—your parents—”
Claire didn’t listen. She stumbled down the front steps.
Kerry’s SUV was gone. Good. Claire didn’t want the sheriff following her. Not when she had to get back to Laramie Court.
“Ma’am, please come back!” called the innkeeper—Barbara, was it?
Claire paid no mind. She started to walk, then kicked up to a run, following the road Kerry had driven to bring them here. Down Beachfront, then a left on Shoreline, then back, back to Laramie. Claire pumped her legs as streetlights blurred, vignetting her periphery. Cold air filled her lungs, wind stung her face. Her ponytail holder must have come loose, because her hair was no longer bunched atop her head in its proper bun, but flying wildly about.
Mark.
Leslie.
Tortue.
The three words rang in her mind.
Then, as Claire turned sharply on Shoreline, her heel gave way, skidding across ice, and Claire hurtled forward, toward the ground. She was going to wipe out again, and she braced for impact.
Then something slammed against her head—a pole, perhaps, a branch—and the world went black.
TWENTY-SEVEN Murphy
Murphy sat on the parlor sofa, hands formed into fists, and counted her protruding knuckles one by one.
One, two, three.
These were real.
Four, five, six.
Flesh and blood.
Seven, eight, nine.
Smaller, maybe, than other knuckles, but visible to her.
Ten.
Yes, these were real, she’d confirmed.
So why was Murphy a ghost to her sisters?
Was she such a good magician-in-training that she’d managed to pull off an invisibility trick, without even trying?
Murphy, shut up.
Murph, for the love of God, not now.
Their words looped inside her ears, the final in a long line of dismissals. In Emmet no one asked how the day had gone, or how school had been. No one asked Murphy’s favorites, or dislikes, or whether life was easy or hard. It hadn’t always been that way, though.
She treasured the old days of Cayenne Castle, the makeshift blanket fort, and her role as Prince Pepper. There were gut laughs then, and singing, and made-up stories. She’d been part of a shimmering kingdom.
Then the Dark Ages had come—slammed doors, eye rolls at her jokes. Murphy hadn’t understood why. Is that what it meant to grow up? One moment her sisters hadn’t been that different from her. Then they got to high school, and Claire started saying, “You’re too little to get it,” and Eileen stopped saying things, period.
They no longer shared a castle.
They no longer shared anything.
The others had simply forgotten Murphy existed. They’d left her to fade, fade, and one day disappear.
The way she’d left Siegfried to starve, starve, and die.
That was the trouble: Murphy was guilty too. She was more restless than ever, and, picking up the Tupperware coffin resting on her knees, she rose and crossed to the parlor sideboard. There she found The Three Musketeers. Sniffling, she opened the cover,