“Hush, little princess …”
“Grace, are you okay?” Megan asks from beside me.
I shake my head slowly. “My mother used to sing this song.”
“Everybody in Adria sings this song.”
The firecrackers erupt again, their sparks flying up and filling the small side street that stretches up the hill. The gaslights are brighter now in the darkness; the street almost glows with an eerie, smoky haze.
This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here. Dominic was right, but now Dominic is gone. In my head, my mother sings and I smell smoke, and I’m afraid I’m going to be sick all over Megan and her pretty white dress.
Something is wrong, I know it.
When I see the dark figure striding through the smoke, backlit by the glow of the torches, I can’t help myself. I start to shake.
“Spence,” I say. I could swear I’m talking to a ghost.
Even when the smoke fades and the figure becomes clear, the words on his jacket support the lie. “Spence.” I read the name and struggle to breathe.
“Gracie!” It’s Jamie’s voice, but I’m still shaking as my brother draws closer and pulls off his mask. “You’re here,” he says, but I’m grabbing him, clawing, as he asks, “What’s wrong?”
“I thought you were Spence. I thought … Spence,” I mutter. My gaze goes to the words embroidered on the jacket my brother wears.
“It’s his.” Jamie’s voice is solemn, and he doesn’t look me in the eye. “They got swapped and —”
“He was wearing your jacket.”
Suddenly it all makes sense, but I’d give anything for it to go back to being a mystery. Sometimes the answer is far worse than the question.
“They thought it was you,” I say, the words lost amid the firecrackers and the singing, the roar of the flames and the people dancing in the streets.
“Grace!” Jamie grabs my arms and shakes me. He makes me look into his eyes. But all I can remember are Dominic’s words.
You’re not safe.
There is no one on earth who knows all of my secrets. I’ve dug too deep, hidden them too well. But Jamie comes the closest. He knew the girl who jumped from the wall and the monster that lay strapped to a bed, out of her head with grief and guilt and terror. My brother has seen my demons and he knows my ghosts, but the specter that is after me now haunts us both.
“Jamie, listen to me!” I yell, but my brother has a death grip on my arm; he’s trying to drag me away from the crowds. I’m happy to let him steer me, but I also have to make him see.
“Jamie, listen to me! Spence was wearing your coat.”
Noah and Megan are fading away. People push between us. They must know this is sibling stuff — family drama. They don’t even try to follow.
“Jamie, stop!” I yell, and pull free of his grasp. “Listen to me!” I grab his arms then, hold him still and make him look into my eyes.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asks.
“Jamie,” I say again. “Spence was in your coat when he died. What if they thought they were killing you?”
But Jamie doesn’t see. Of course he doesn’t.
My brother scoffs and looks away. He can’t face me. But then he turns back, and the look in his eyes is even worse than his scorn or my shame. It is worry. My brother is so worried about me that even James Blakely Jr. of West Point is about to cry.
“Gracie,” he says, reaching for my face.
A part of me wants to sink into his touch, to be a little girl again, safe within the reach of my big brother. But I can’t be Gracie the screwup right now, not the daredevil and not the freak. I can’t be the girl who got strapped to the bed. I have to be the one who was brave enough to jump from the wall. I have to make him notice.
“The man wasn’t a burglar!” I snap, and push his hand away.
“What man?” Jamie asks, and I can tell he honestly doesn’t know.
“The intruder, the one in Mom’s shop. When she died, he wasn’t there to rob her; he was there to kill her. I thought he had killed her.”
“Don’t think about that, Gracie —”
“Someone wanted our mother dead, Jamie! They sent a man to murder her, and I —”
I killed her.
I killed her.
I killed her.
“Someone wanted her dead!” I shout, because I have to do something besides remember the truth — that she wouldn’t actually be dead if it weren’t for me.
“Gracie, let’s get you back to the embassy.”
“Don’t.” I push away from my brother’s grasp. “Jamie, you have to listen to me. Will you listen? When Mom was a girl, she got involved in something. She found out something. Someone tried to have her killed, but the Scarred Man came, and —”
They’re the wrong words.
For too long, Jamie heard me rant and scream about the Scarred Man. For years, Dominic was the thing that went bump in the night, the monster under my bed. My brother can’t possibly know that he’s my friend now.
“Don’t look at me that way.”
“What way?” Jamie asks. “Come on, Gracie. Let’s just go home. I want to go home. Don’t you?”
I don’t have a home.
“They tried to kill her, Jamie! And then … What if they tried to kill you?”
I say it as clearly, as plainly, as I can. I don’t rush, and I look him squarely in the eye.