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Vaughn The cause for all the suffering my sister wives and I endured Of course I knew that he had so it out loud, getting actual confiret out the word "How?"

Gabriel says, "She snuck into the basement just to find me" That was the afternoon she disappeared, and later, e talked in the library, she would say only that she had been to the basement, would answer none ofto prod her

"What--" My voice catches "What did she say?"

"She knew that ere planning to escape, and she orried She said that you were always trying so hard to take care of everyone, to be in control, that you didn’t pay any attention when you were in danger And that place was full of dangers She asked me to take care of you even when you didn’t let on that you needed it The rest of it, she asked me never to tell you But--and this is the truth--I would if I thought it would help you But for your own sake, Rhine, let it go"

Let it go Let Jenna’s secrets die with her

I say nothing more, but I reach behind me and turn out the la her strange, wordless dreams

Just when I think Gabriel has drifted off to sleep, he says, "I don’t trust these people" I don’t either Elsa is lost in the wistful wasteland of her ownseems to terrify Maddie I’ve tried to reason this out by considering that Maddie, after spending her young life watching the custoh Madame’s carnival, has come to fear men But no, that doesn’t make sense She showed affection to Jared, and Gabriel has never ed to upset her

"I’ll keep watch," I say "I’ll wake you if I get tired"

His shoulders shake with a soft laugh "Liar," he says But there’s no one

Gabriel’s sleep is a fitful one Through the night I grip his clenched fists to stop the thrashing, sop up the perspiration with s in his semiconsciousness that htensto Sohost of Elsa’s son pulsing in the walls, because at one point he opens his eyes and looks right pastover the bed

I turn on the light, both to show him there’s no one there and to prove it to s his blue eyes have become, the pallid skin, the white lips that h he’s surprised I’h whatever trip his ht while I’ve tried to console him

"Hi," I say, and push the sweaty hair fro?"

My voice see over hiers unclench He watcheswhile, bewildered and weary, and then he says, "Were we just talking about flying back to theI shake my head "No"

"Oh," he says "I could have sworn And then your hair turned into bees"

I dangle a piece oflike tangled, coiled wires "No bees," I say "Are you thirsty?"

"A little," he says, and his eyes roll back as they close He will be okay, I tell myself This will pass

This will pass

This will pass

"Be right back," I whisper

I make ht-lights Elsa has plugged into its sockets Perhaps she thinks it will keep her son’s ghost at bay, or guide hiht and the glow of the fridge when I open the door and find a plastic bottle of water Plastic, my brother says, is the most brilliant chemical invention because it never deteriorates; once it has served its purpose, it can beelse, or left to rot forever in a landfill

Scientists could make bottles, he says, but not hu says

I start, and the refrigerator door slips out of ’s form hunched over the kitchen table "Didn’t mean to scare you," he says