Inside the elevator, I look at the flowers. We talked about the language of flowers in one of our lit classes because of Hamlet, so I know that Eva will figure it out. The flowers I picked are yellow roses (for apology and a broken heart), white roses (for silence and purity), red carnations (for passion), and white daisies (for innocence). The daisies were in Hamlet too, so I know she’ll see them as a clue. She’ll figure it out.
I’ve already removed the grocery price tag from Harris Teeter, but I check again to be sure there are no other identifying marks that will ruin my disguise. I keep my eyes downcast in case there’s a camera in here, too. By the time I reach the fourth floor, where Eva is, my hands are trembling a little, not noticeably enough that strangers would see, but I feel it. Intentionally, I step on the long piece of my shoelace as I walk, untying it as I approach the desk. I tied and retied it repeatedly to get the length right. I’d practiced as I walked around at home too. Today, I’m doing everything right. Today, I’m not going to get impatient. It’s hard though. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again—aside from her funeral. I knew what I’d say there. I’d planned it. The words, the pauses, I practiced. I may change it some now that I have more time.
Maybe I won’t have to say them at all.
When I saw the article, when I found out she was alive, I knew it was a sign. God doesn’t want her to die yet. I understand that now. I was hasty. I have spent the past three days thinking about the right path, praying for clarity and considering my options. He’s giving me another chance, giving her another chance. Maybe I can make her see, and she can be redeemed. If I save her, she can live, and she’ll be so grateful for all that I’ve done to save her.
I stop at the desk and tell the receptionist, “Delivery for”—I glance at the clipboard as if I don’t know her name, as if I could ever forget her name, and read it—“Eva Tilling.”
“That girl gets more flowers than the rest of the floor combined!” the woman says as she signs on the clipboard where I silently indicate. The sheet is very convincing. I ordered my own flowers so I could have a good model for mine.
Once she walks away, I glance at my shoe as if I am just now seeing that it’s untied. No one seems to be watching, but you never know. I crouch, my posture allowing me to use my hat to hide my face as I watch her carry the flowers to a room. She taps on a door, and I finish tying the shoe as I watch her go inside.
Straightening, I glance around. No one pays much mind to delivery people. So many flowers arrive at the hospital. Why would they look at us?
I force myself not to hurry. We wouldn’t be in this situation if I had practiced patience in the first place. Hurrying is dangerous. Slow and steady wins the race, especially in the South. My grandmother told me that so often that I’m sure she’d take a switch to me if she knew that I’d messed everything up by being impatient.
I glance inside Eva’s room as I pass it. It’s only a moment, a split second, but she’s there. She’s awake and speaking softly. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was an angel. She’s not though. She’s one of Them. If I can’t save her, she’ll have to die. She’s been spared for now, but I need her to understand. If she doesn’t, she’ll be a sacrifice at the altar of venality.
Like the rest of them.
My mouth is dry at the thought of how close I am to her now. I could walk straight into her room and visit her, but I’m not ready to talk to her. Still, I needed to see her.
I wonder if she’ll notice my name on the card. I listed several names—the editor, a few staff writers, and then I added my own in the middle. Judge. It’s not the name I was born with but it’s my true name, my soul name. I’m not really an executioner yet, and without Eva, I’m not a jury. Together, we could be a judge, jury, and executioner.
I’d despaired when I realized that she was one of Them. On the night I tried to kill her, I thought I would be always solitary. Now that she survived, I have hope again.
Outside, I pause to breathe the already thick air. Early summer in North Carolina isn’t as humid as the heat of July and August, but the air is heavy already. The sweet taste of wisteria fills my mouth, and I wonder if Eva likes the flowers. They’re not as sweet as the pale purple clusters of wisteria clinging to the trees. For her, I brought common flowers—like her, not truly special. That was my mistake before: I raised her up like a false idol. I know better now.
I cross the parking lot to the car I have today and slip on my gloves before I touch the handle. Like my uniform, it’s not memorable, a dark blue, four-door sedan. I’ll park it beside the one that has Eva’s blood on it.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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DAY 5: “THE DETECTIVE”
Eva
I’M ALONE. SO FAR, my friends are respecting my “no visitors” stance, and my parents are still stuck in Europe. Apparently, there was another volcanic eruption in Iceland that pretty much shut down all the flights in and out of Europe. It was nothing but smoke, ash, and gas, but Dad explained that when that same thing happened back in 2010, flights were cancelled or disrupted for over a week. I’m not counting on them getting here any time soon. I don’t need them to rush home anyhow. I’ve told them that several times. I told Grandfather Cooper the same thing when he called from somewhere in Alaska on one of his cruise-tour things.
Grandfather Tilling came by the hospital to sit with me, and of course, he had his congregation pray for me. It didn’t occur to me to ask him or Mrs. Yeung to be here for the police visit I’m about to have.
Right now, I wish it had.
“Are you sure you’re ready to talk to the detective, Eva?” my nurse asks again.
“Yeah.” I offer the nurse a smile, but I’m not sure if it’s encouraging with the way my cuts and bruises must still look.
“If it gets too much, you can stop the interview,” the nurse says kindly.
My nurse helps me to sit up, and maybe’s it’s silly, but I have her get my brush so I can combat some of the snarls. I don’t use a mirror because I can’t stand seeing my own reflection. I’m not sure I ever want to see my face again. I certainly don’t want my friends to see it. I’d like to cling to the image in my memory, not replace it with this one. Without a mirror, I can’t put on even the little bit of makeup I might be allowed, so there’s nothing to be done for my face.
When the police officer comes into the room, she looks at me the same way she looks at everything else: like she’s taking mental notes. I realize that she’s the first person other than Grace, Mrs. Yeung, and the hospital staff to see my face. I’m glad the detective isn’t gawking at me.
“Hi,” I say because I’m not sure what else to say. I’ve never been interviewed by a police officer before. I’d rather deal with the doctors than talk to the police.
“I’m Detective Grant,” she replies. Her hair is pulled tightly back in a knot, but it only makes her features more noticeable. She wears no makeup, but her skin is enviably perfect. I realize that I wouldn’t have envied it before the accident, but now I’m looking at her and can’t help thinking that no one will ever again look at me the way I’m studying her right now.
She holds out a business card as she introduces herself, and then drops it on the stand beside my bed between my lip balm and iPhone. “I’m going to record our talk so I don’t miss anything,” she starts. Once I nod, she turns on the recorder and continues, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t remember much,” I admit, feeling embarrassed at not knowing the details of what is probably the most significant thing that’s ever happened to me.
She sits in the chair beside my bed. “Tell me what you do remember.”
“I was walking home right after sunset, so it was still sort of light out.” I feel idiotic as I try to explain what little I know. “My boyfriend wasn’t answering, and I didn’t want to bother my friends, and my
parents were away, and really, I’ve walked home plenty of times.”
“Did you see the vehicle?”
I think about it again. Dr. Klosky says it’s normal for there to be memory issues with head trauma, but that doesn’t do much to make me feel okay with it.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
She nods. “Were you walking on the side of the road? Were you wearing something visible?”
I try again to think back to that day, but the details aren’t there. “I always walk on the shoulder,” I say, sounding slightly desperate even to myself. “I don’t remember, but I can’t think of any reason I wouldn’t do the same things I always do. . . . Did they find me on the side of the road?”
“Yes. The driver who found you didn’t see a car at the scene, but you were visible from the road.”
I swallow. I was visible. It was light out. Someone hit me and left me. As the facts and her tone register, it finally occurs to me that this might not have been an accident. The monitor that keeps track of my heart rate and blood pressure beeps. We both glance at it. I’m not sure what the numbers are supposed to be, but I know that the nurses watch it carefully.
My nurse today, whose name I can’t remember, pops into the room and glares at Detective Grant. She does something with the monitor, and the beeping stops. “Do you need to rest, Eva?”
I suspect Detective Grant and I both hear the real question: does this police officer need to go away? It’s not the detective’s fault I’m upset, so I shake my head. “I’m okay.”
“Do you want me to stay?” she offers.
“No. I’m okay.” It’s funny how we lie to be polite even when the evidence is present to contradict us. The monitor’s recent beeping makes it very apparent that I’m not fine.
“I’ll be back to check on you shortly,” the nurse says, sounding a lot like she’s warning us.
Once she’s gone, I look back at Detective Grant. “I get where you’re going, but no one would want to hurt me. I’m not bullied or a bully. It just doesn’t make sense. This had to be an accident.”
“What about your social life? Has anything happened recently to cause waves? Any rivalries?”
I shake my head. “I don’t do sports or clubs or anything. My boyfriend’s on the basketball team, and my best friend does track. No enemies or dramas related to either of them . . . or anyone else really. My life is pretty routine.”
“What about your family? Are you aware of your parents having any unusual upheavals or strange events? Threats? Anything at all that’s stood out to you.” She has one of the least readable faces I’ve seen, and her tone is level.
The questions still unnerve me, and the monitor starts beeping again. I don’t need to look at it to know that my pulse is speeding. “Do you have a reason to think it wasn’t an accident?” I ask.
My nurse comes back in. She folds her arms over her chest and levels a stern gaze at Detective Grant, who stands but doesn’t answer me.
I look up at her. “I wish I could be more helpful. I just don’t know anything. I remember walking, and I remember being here. Things in between are just fuzzy.”
The detective nods. “Dr. Klosky spoke to me about your condition. He also said you’re improving, so as you heal, you may remember more.”
“I want to,” I stress. “If I knew who did this to me . . . I’d tell you. I swear I would. They left me there. I could’ve—” I cut myself off before saying the d-word and shove that thought in a box. I didn’t die, and I’m not going to die. My brain is healing, and my body is healing. Everything is going to be fine.
Detective Grant slides her hands down her already wrinkle-free trousers as if to straighten them. “If you remember anything before then, tell the nurses. They know how to reach me.” She points at her business card. “So do you.”
Once I’m alone again, my nurse satisfied that I’m calm and going to be resting, I think about what Detective Grant said. I can’t think of anyone who wants to hurt me—or any reason why someone would want to hurt me. What seems far more likely is that someone wasn’t paying attention, hit me, panicked, and fled. Making a stupid decision in the moment seems infinitely more probable than murder. Maybe the driver is even out there feeling guilty.
It had to have been an accident. The alternative is too overwhelming to consider.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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DAY 6: “THE PIPER-ETTES”
Grace
“HOW IS SHE?”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
The questions start the moment I walk into Jessup High School the next day. It’s not that they’re unexpected. Jessup has about twenty thousand people, which means that there are only two hundred or so students in my grade, which means they all have known one another since they were in preschool. Eva’s family is the biggest employer in Jessup. Although the Cooper Winery itself doesn’t have a huge staff, many of the businesses here are partially owned by the Coopers. They’re the modern equivalents of aristocracy. Added to that, Eva’s father is a minister’s son, so the combination of Cooper wealth and Tilling modesty makes Eva a veritable princess here.
“How is she?” Piper Kennelly follows me through the hall. Behind her are three of the “Piper-ettes,” the seemingly interchangeable girls who are vying for her attention or Eva’s. They stand silent but attentive. Much like Eva, Piper’s opinion matters.
“Awake. She’s awake and through surgery. She’s doing much, much better.”
“I’m so glad!” Piper hugs me then, which is unexpected. I realize, though, that this is about Eva too. I’m the only one allowed to visit her right now, so my status with Piper and her ilk just increased.
The bulk of the day goes a lot like that. It seems like everyone who sees me asks about Eva. People who are typically nice but not friendly to me are suddenly at my side like we’re old friends. I almost hate them for their transparency.
“Tell Eva we asked after her,” another girl calls out as I walk into my second-to-last-period course. I debate pointing out that I’m not Eva’s servant, governess, or any other Southern cliché. I’ve learned though that such remarks tend to be the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard here, so I wave over my shoulder, hoping to keep a smile in place, and head into lit class.
In Jessup, American Lit focuses most of the attention on only one part of the county, and as much as I can appreciate Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, I’m pretty sure that there are giants in the field we’re skipping—giants whose works would probably be useful to know before college. Thankfully, I can order critical editions online and study up on those. I’m not sure that Mr. Ellsworth would be much use with non-Southern lit anyhow.
I shake my head and glance at reason number two that I dread this class. Slouching in the back row is Robert Baucom. Eva’s boyfriend of the past year is the epitome of everything I think is wrong with Jessup. His family, much like Eva’s, is one of the first families of Jessup. He wears the clothes that speak of money and status, and he’ll only date the kind of girls who can trace their pedigrees back to The War. If you told me—before I came here—that there were still places where social class and ancestry mattered this much, I probably would’ve laughed. Heritage, however, is no laughing matter in Jessup.
Despite my general loathing of Robert, I walk to the back of the room to try to talk to him. He’s watching me approach with a flicker of nervousness on his face. He does that a lot, as if I’m a bug and he’d like to study me, but only once I’m safely under a jar. It stopped being creepy a while ago, but it’s still irritating as hell.
He knows I’ve been opposed to Eva dating him, and although we’ve reached an uneasy truce, we’re both very aware of the other’s disdain.
“Robert.”
He nods in lieu of replying. It’s going to be one of those conversations apparently. Without Eva here to
remind him that I’m not “the help,” he tends to act like a dismissive jerk when he has an audience. At Jessup High, Robert always has an audience.
I ignore the curious gazes of the people on either side of him. Reid Benson and Jamie Hall exchange one of the looks that passes for conversation among this crowd, and Grayson Lane simply stares at me. Reid and Jamie are about the most vulgar boys I’ve met in Jessup. Around here, it passes for charm with half the school, or maybe it’s their names that pass as charm, and the vulgarity is just overlooked because of it.
I smother a sigh and try again to talk to Robert. “I don’t know when you plan to see Eva, but I thought we could check our schedules to make sure we don’t overlap.”
Robert shrugs. “I’m not sure. I have exams and things, and she isn’t allowed visitors.” He knows as well as I do that if he wanted to go Eva would see him.
“Seriously?”
He doesn’t reply or look at me, instead busying himself flipping the pages in his book as if he’s searching for a passage.
Reid coughs like he’s hiding a laugh. I flip him off but don’t look away from Robert. I force a smile and step closer. “Robert?”
He looks up.
“She could’ve died.”
For a moment, he’s silent. He seems to be weighing his thoughts, and I hope that he’ll do the right thing. His friends, Eva’s friends, are watching. No one is laughing now. The thought of the Tilling-Cooper scion dying is never going to be funny in Jessup, not even for a moment while a bunch of boys try to prove they’re smart-asses.
“How is she? Really?” he asks.
“She’s recovering, but she’s lonely and upset. You visiting would help.” I want to believe there’s some good in Robert. I hope he’ll show me that now.
Instead, he looks down at his book again and says, “I’ll text her tonight.”