Page 79 of The Unknown

I don’t intend to say it. That’s not the kind of thing you say out loud. But the words simply escaped, and now that they’re out, I’m compelled to keep talking, hoping it will help make sense of what’s, on the surface, a completely nonsensical situation.

“I’ve seen one. Many times.”

Julianne reaches out, takes my hand. “Who?”

“My sister.”

She says nothing after that. None of them do. Violet merely peers at me, with curiosity, yes, but also empathy. Her eyes crinkle at the edges, and she nods, Oprah-like.

“Your audition story,” she finally says. “Itwastrue.”

For the longest time, I believed that it wasn’t. Well, Iwantedto believe, which is different from belief itself. A form of denial instilled in me by my parents. They thought it wasn’t real, so I thought it, too, even as it continued to take place every night.

It became easier to doubt things once it ended. Years passed, I got older, and that time in my life grew hazy, abstract. Like a kindergarten teacher whose name you can no longer recall. Or an imaginary friend, long forgotten. But then came the audition and Ronan assessing me behind his thick-framed glasses and his strange, unexpected request. In that moment, it all returned in a flash. And even then, I refused to believe it had happened.

Not while I confessed the entire ordeal to Ronan, giving the fifteen-minute monologue that got me this job.

Not when I heard about the fates of the original group of women on New Avalon.

Not when I arrived here myself, hesitant and anxious and excited.

I steadfastly refused to believe even when I saw Molly at my window. Staring. Dripping.

All that doubt is now gone. It left the second I saw Heather’s dress inthe tree and heard Violet talk about her father. Now I know that what happened to me twenty years ago was real.

It’s always been real.

“Yes,” I tell Violet, more certain than I’ve been in my entire life. “Every word of it.”

Twenty

“Tell me a story,” Ronan said during my audition, his voice gentle, encouraging. “A ghost story. Something scary. Something…dreadful.”

This is what I said:

“A long time ago, when I was just a little girl, I saw a ghost. But it wasn’t just any ghost. It was my sister.”

Ronan had interjected then. “You told me you were an only child.”

“No,” I said. “I told you I grew up without siblings. Which is true. I did grow up without them. But once upon a time, I had an older sister. She died when I was four.”

“How old was she?” Ronan asked, lightly probing. Like a doctor examining a wound.

“Eleven,” I said. “Quite the age difference, I know. I was…an accident. No one’s ever said as much, but I can do the math.”

I let out a self-effacing chuckle then, hoping it would mask the pain of knowing I was never intended to be here, never wanted.

“I loved having an older sister. I loved having someone to look up to. At that age, my sister was my entire world. Playing with me. Protectingme. It felt like she would always be there for me. Until, all of a sudden, she was gone.

“I don’t really remember her death. Just the aftermath. And even with that, it’s unclear how much is my imagination. I’ve never been able to summon the courage to ask my parents for more details. I think it’s too painful for them. Even now.

“The little I do know is stuff I heard people whispering when they thought I wasn’t listening. That, one day while my father was at work and my mother went to the grocery store, my sister decided to go swimming in our backyard pool. They know it was intentional and that she didn’t fall in because, one, she was wearing her bathing suit. Two, it wasn’t an in-ground pool. Those are easy to fall into. You read about it all the time. Some kid gets curious, drawn to the water. Next thing you know, they’re found dead in the deep end.

“Ours didn’t have a deep end. Only rich people have pools like that and, well, we weren’t rich. This was one of those flimsy aboveground things. The kind you need to climb a ladder to get into—another reason they knew my sister didn’t fall in. It was four feet deep. Not deep at all. Yet it was still enough for her to drown in. No one knows how it happened. She was a good swimmer. Strong. So, for her to drown like that was—and is—a mystery.

“What I remember most about that time is watching my father dismantle the pool. It was right after my sister’s funeral. We’d just gotten home and, still dressed in his black suit, he stalked into the yard with a sledgehammer and swung it right into the side of the pool. The grief, you know? It made him crazy. He wouldn’t stop swinging, even as the pool fell apart and water rushed over him, soaking him until his suit clung to him like a second skin.

“With the pool gone, we tried to move on. That’s all you can do, really. Just muddle through life and try not to spend too much time dwelling on the bad things, even though we do. Then came my fifth birthday. There wasn’t a party, of course. It was too soon. There wasn’t even cake.I pretended there was, though, and while blowing out imaginary candles, I made a wish that my sister would return.