Page 51 of The Unknown

“I am not!” I cried, for it was the truth. I couldn’t help it if Mrs. Semple showed more interest in me than the others. It was only natural that she would, seeing as how I possessed more power than she expected. I still don’t understand what she meant by that. Right now, I feel utterly powerless. But if Mrs. Semple sees great power in the Gift, I must assume it to be true.

“I’m not judging you,” Katrina said. “I’d be doing the same thing if I were you. We’re more alike than you think, Daisy. Just two peas in a pod.”

I was nothing like Katrina, and was on the verge of saying as much, when Mrs. Minafer suddenly snapped, “Stop it! Both of you!”

Katrina and I both fell silent, startled by her outburst. Until then, she’d been as quiet as a church mouse.

“You’re scared. I can sense that,” Mrs. Minafer continued. “But it makes no sense to argue and blame each other. Not when we know who untied the boat.”

“We do?” Katrina said.

“Who did it?” I asked, holding my breath, anxious to hear the answer.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mrs. Minafer said, looking at each and every one of us. “This was the work of Azra.”

Ten

Julianne’s unspoken worry that Azra somehow had something to do with Brad’s illness stays with me all through breakfast and beyond. So, when she and Heather banish me from the kitchen, insisting they’ll wash the dishes, I find myself drifting into the scene of last night’s séance—the parlor.

No one seems to have been inside since then. If they were, they certainly didn’t tidy up the place. It looks exactly as we left it, with chairs pushed away from the table and letters strewn all over the floor. Seeing them now produces an uneasy shiver.

I still can’t figure out how everything that happened last night was possible. I would assume it was more trickery from Brad and Ronan if I hadn’t already busted them before things really got weird. The fishing line used to move the chair is still tied around its leg, glaringly obvious in the morning light pouring through the greenhouse-like windows. The end that had been attached to Brad’s leg currently curls across the floor.

I go to the frame that fell off the wall. It now sits face down in a pile of glass shards and shredded butterfly wings. Poor things. Like the women of New Avalon, they deserved a better fate.

The nail from which the frame hung remains embedded in the wall.The wire in back of the frame, though, is snapped, leading me to conclude it really did fall on its own in a display of spectacularly effective timing.

After scooping up the glass and butterfly bits and dropping them into a nearby trash can, I move on to the sideboard, where the candles that mysteriously went out all at once still sit. There’s nothing unusual about them. Just real wax, partly melted, and real wicks, their tips charred.

Next I examine the mahogany box between the candles. About two feet high and equally as wide, it strikes me as the most suspicious thing in the room. Especially considering there’s a door in its front covered by a grid of wicker. Maybe something was hidden inside to make the candles go out. Or a speaker that produced the whispers only Susie and I seemed to hear. Yet when I yank the door open, there’s nothing inside but a small coating of dust that makes me think it’s been empty for a long, long time.

I scan the rest of the room, looking for other tricks Brad could have played that not even Ronan knew about. Since he freaked out at the mention of the name Elise, I doubt he had anything to do with what happened after I noticed the fishing line. And I know none of the others were behind it because they were just as shocked as I was. Which leaves…no one.

Or does it?

I look to the corner where Loretta had sat. After deciding the séance should continue, she remained conspicuously quiet, all but invisible in the shadows. Maybe she wasn’t there the whole time. At some point, she might have slipped away, crawled under the table unnoticed, and made it shudder like that.

I drop to the floor, where most of the letters from last night fell. TheGsticks to my palm as I crawl under the table and feel around its underside. It’s your basic round table, perched on a pedestal base steadied by three curved legs. Other than some deep scratch marks where the legs meet the floor, mostly caused by years of being moved around, there’snothing suspicious. I even give the pedestal base a push to see if it’s off balance. There’s nary a wobble.

For this table to move like it did, someone needed to have lifted it. A tall order for Loretta. Also, that wouldn’t explain the spelling of names no one else knew. Yes, she of course knows the name of her and Violet’s father. But the others? Including Molly? There’s no way.

Even if Loretta did know all those names, it would have been impossible to make us spell them out. Our fingers were on that glass, not hers. And while I’ll concede there was likely some minuscule nudging here and there, none of us were purposefully moving it around.

I stand and examine the tabletop itself, which also contains no evidence of trickery. The only things on it are nine letters that didn’t hit the floor during last night’s rattling. They now sit willy-nilly, an alphabet soup that at first seems to spell nothing.

But as I draw closer, the letters suddenly seem not so random. Like they’ve been placed there for a specific reason. I start to arrange them, sliding the letters into two distinct lines. When I’m done, a hiccup forms in my chest as I stare at two very clear, very unnerving words.

YOURE

LAST

This is a coincidence. Even though it doesn’t look that way and dread now sticks to my skin like sweat, it has to be. There’s no other rationalreason that, after last night’s jostling, these letters would be the only ones still there, sitting in a manner that spells out the same message I’d heard whispered in the darkness.

I’m still staring at the letters when Susie’s voice rises from the doorway, her disappointed tone sudden enough to startle me.

“Oh,” she says.

I immediately scramble the letters again, although I have no idea why. I guess I don’t want anyone to know what was spelled out on the table. More likely, I don’t want to know anymore, either. When I’m done, I spin around to face Susie, who remains just outside the parlor, also in her period-appropriate clothes but clutching her vape.