Page 30 of The Unknown

I perk up at this scrap of personal information. “Your sister?”

“Yes, Loretta,” Violet says. “I thought you knew.”

“No,” I say, suddenly picturing the two of them doing all the things my sister and I were never able to. Fighting in the back seat and braiding each other’s hair and calming pre-wedding jitters, one of them the maid of honor, the other the bride.

“Not bad for two girls from Vermont, right?” Violet says. “Althoughneither one of us makes it a thing. Both of us have succeeded on our own merits, but when she told me about this project, I begged her to be a part of it.”

“So you also knew about the women of New Avalon?”

“Knew about them? I was obsessed growing up. Loretta and I both were.”

I look across the room to where the transcript of Daisy’s diary sits. I suspect Violet has also read it. And that, much like Pete, she has opinions on the matter.

“What do you think happened here?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know. Personally, while I’m sure there’s more to the story, I suspect that a lot of what Daisy wrote in her diary was true.”

“You really think it was supernatural?”

Violet rises from the bed and drifts toward the window, seeming to transform right before my eyes into a completely different person. Her earlier warmth is gone, replaced by a cold intensity that borders on the ominous. Even her appearance seems to change, her face instantly becoming severe, almost sinister.

“Perhaps,” she says, sounding like herself but also…not. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard her sound like this. She used a similar voice during the table read, making me realize what’s happening. She’s trying on a version of Ruth Hume Semple to see how it fits. I watch, rapt, as she continues to adjust the way she speaks, moves, looks. It’s fascinating and intimidating in equal measure.

“Just like there are things we’ll never know,” she says, “I believe there are also things we’ll never be able to explain.”

I think of Molly, my bedroom, her shadow stretched across the wall.

Tell me a story.

A ghost story.

“I think what happened here is one of those unexplainable things,”Violet continues. “In my mind, what Daisy wrote—and what Ronan came up with in his script—is just as likely as anything else. Maybe even more so, considering this island’s past. All that talk of witches. Of covens. And of course there’s Roderick Semple to consider. The man made a fortune off instruments of death. I imagine the men struck down by his cannons—and the people who loved them—would hold quite a grudge about that, even in death. It makes perfect sense to me that, if it were possible, they’d want to seek revenge.”

I take a drink, swallowing hard, the gin burning. “Revenge?”

“It’s the most powerful force on earth.” Standing in a patch of shadow, Violet turns to look at me. Only her eyes are fully visible. An icy blue. So bright they seem to glow. “The one thing that could rouse someone from their grave.”

“So youdobelieve in ghosts?”

“I guess I do,” Violet says, stepping from the shadows and letting the character of Ruth Hume Semple fall away like a discarded robe. I look at her while sipping my drink, the rim of the glass splitting her in two. Her upper half is completely normal. Her lower blurred and distorted by the gin-slicked glass. Like a mermaid, dazzling yet dangerous. “Don’t you believe in ghosts? I thought you, of all people, would.”

“What do you mean?”

“I watched your audition,” she says, proceeding with caution. “Loretta wanted me to see it before a final decision was made. I think she wanted my approval.”

“Oh,” I say, unable to muster anything more. How does one react to knowing one of the most famous women in the world has seen you reveal your deepest, darkest secret?

“You told that story so well that I assumed it was true. Was it?”

I wish I knew. Most days I’m certain it never happened. That it was exactly what my parents said. Grief playing tricks on me, making me see something that wasn’t there. That is, by and large, the most logicalconclusion. It was a phase of mental imbalance. A year in which I thought I was being haunted.

And yet sometimes I think it was real.

It felt real, even as I recited the mantra that had been taught to me.

You’re not real. You don’t exist. Please be gone.

But that’s not a satisfying answer. Not to me and certainly not to Violet, who watches me with keen interest, eagerly awaiting my reply. Unsure which answer to give—the yes I think she wants or the no I assume she expects—I settle for a noncommittal “No comment.”