Page 18 of The Unknown

They, too, have changed into their “island clothes,” which are far more stylish than mine. Susie wears a white knit top trimmed with satin over a pleated maroon skirt that brushes her knees. Heather has on anavy dress with white polka dots and a matching cloche hat. Even their shoes—black leather with ankle straps and kitten heels—are nice. Seeing them makes me feel like an Amish woman who’s just stumbled onto extras from yet another version ofThe Great Gatsby. That’s especially true when Susie produces a vape and, holding it to her lips, says, “Do you really think this is going to work?”

“It should,” Heather says. “I guess it all depends on Marin.”

Hearing my name makes me edge back into the woods, the hex signs temporarily forgotten. I crouch behind a blessedly unmarked tree, out of their line of sight but still within earshot. From my hiding spot, I watch Susie take a short, surreptitious puff from the vape.

“It’s a really good script,” she says.

“Better than any of the shit I’ve been offered lately,” Heather says with a nod. “And for once, the Black girl doesn’t die first.”

Susie gives her arm a playful swat. “No, I do! I’d kill for a role like Daisy. Ishouldbe playing her. I have no idea what Ronan was thinking when he cast that nobody.”

“I think she did fine,” Heather says, earning a point on the mental scorecard I didn’t realize I was keeping until just now. “I was impressed by what I saw during the table read.”

Another point for Heather.

“Acting is more than just saying lines,” Susie says, blowing out a stream of vapor. “Can she express her character through body language? Can she emote?”

“You worked for Disney,” Heather says. “That’s not exactly Juilliard.”

“Excuse me for not having a better pedigree. So I haven’t taught acting like Julianne and I’m not a fucking legend like Violet. But I learned a lot at the Disney Channel. More than our new Daisy knows. There has to be a reason Ronan chose her over literally everyone else.” Susie’s face brightens. “Do you think she slept with him?”

The question is such a shock that I almost gasp, forcing me to clamp a hand over my mouth before it can escape.

“I wouldn’t jump tothatconclusion,” Heather says.

“I bet she did,” Susie says. “Or else Ronan thinks she’s willing to. She better not be, if she knows what’s good for her.”

I retreat farther into the woods, too hurt and angry to hear the rest. I’m not mad that they questioned my acting ability, especially since I’m a novice and so much is riding on my performance. Since I don’t even know if I’ll be able to pull it off, I can’t expect them to feel any different. No, what irks me is the assumption that I slept with Ronan to get the part. I am not naive. I know the casting couch still exists. Even now, after the #metoo movement was supposed to change the culture in Hollywood. But I would never, ever fuck a director just to get a part.

Not that I think Ronan expects that of me. It’s a ridiculous notion. Ronan Peters is objectively hot. I am certain he is not lacking for romantic partners. I’ve seen the gossip sites linking him to various pop stars and stick-thin supermodels. He has absolutely no reason to give a big part to an unknown actress in the hope that she’ll sleep with him. I’m not the kind of actress directors actively try to seduce. I’m the kind who gets cast as the bridesmaid with eczema.

Yet what Susie said itches like a rash. WhydidRonan hire me? Why did he give me, an actress with no experience save for a single humiliating commercial, the role of a lifetime? Especially when someone else had already been cast?

I can’t stop myself from thinking about that last, ominous text from the previous Daisy, the mysterious LG.

don’t set foot on that island. if you do, i swear, you WILL regret it

While it’s possible bitterness or jealousy made her send it, my gut tells me it was something else. Maybe she was trying to warn me about Susie, who uttered a threat of her own—I better not want to sleep with Ronan if I know what’s good for me—which I take to mean Susie wants him all to herself. And while I guess I should be flattered she considersme a threat, all I can think about is that maybe Susie felt the same thing about LG and drove her off the film.

Whatever the reason behind her departure and my casting, it’s something I need to know now and not later, after filming has begun and it’s too late to do anything. I don’t want to spend the next six weeks having Susie’s unwarranted anger distract me from performing what could be the role of my career.

I move through the woods, again emerging from the trees near the iron archway. I march beneath it, following the stone path toward the main house. On my way, I glance at each cottage as I pass. To my right are No. 1, my cottage, and No. 2, which belongs to Heather, who presumably is still behind it, listening to Susie shit-talk me. Susie’s cottage, No. 3, is the first one on the left, followed by Julianne in No. 4.

After ducking under a low-hanging branch of the massive oak, I’m at the main house itself, hopping up the porch steps and past the hex sign carved next to them. Inside the house, I head straight to the only place I’m familiar with—the parlor.

Inside, I find Brad futzing with the candlesticks and mahogany box atop the sideboard. My sudden burst into the room startles him. There’s a sharp intake of air, followed by the clang of brass hitting brass.

“Sorry,” I say, momentarily distracted by the candlesticks and ornate box. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready for tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“Ronan wants to hold a séance,” Brad says with a shrug. “When in Rome, and all that.”

I think about the séance in the script. The inciting incident from which the rest of the scary story flows. Re-creating that—in the same location it allegedly happened, no less—again strikes me as a very bad idea.

“Do all of us have to take part?”