And she ducks into a hallway that becomes the twisted passageways of Hayes’ mansion. And then Louise is gone and Emily is there, putting a single finger up to her lips and whispering, “Shhhhhhh.”
So I stop and open my mouth to ask her where Louise went, but I don’t think I have a mouth anymore. Because I can’t talk.
Before I can freak out about this dream turning into a nightmare, Emily says, “I didn’t do it. You know I didn’t do it.”
And then Louise is there in her dancing-shadows gold dress, saying, “She did do it, Connor. And you need to believe that or bad things will start happening.”
I wake up to a phone buzzing. Sweaty. So hot. And tangled up in the covers. Wondering where the fuck I am when I look outside and see the wrong view though the glass.
The phone buzzes again.
I sit up, remembering. “Kiera?” I whisper. Because the other side of the bed is empty and last night is coming back to me now. I glance at the phone and see Camille’s name and a short message. I need to talk to you. Now.
I’m at Sofia’s. I’m in bed with Kiera and she’s gone.
I don’t feel panic at this, more curious about where she went.
The bathroom, I decide. But the bathroom door is open and she’s clearly not in there. So I get up, pull on my pants, and go out into the hallway.
I can still smell the faint scent of dinner as I walk down the hallway and stop, peering into the living room.
I’m about to go check that way when I hear the tell-tale sound of a page being turned coming from the office at the other end of this hallway.
I find her there, belly-down on a couch facing a large window, notebook positioned in a beam of light coming in from the twinkling city outside, writing furiously.
“Hey,” I say, walking into the room.
She looks over her shoulder, then gets up on her knees, and turns to me. “Sorry. I just wanted to write some things down about the last few days so I don’t forget. Did I wake you up?”
“No, I had a weird fucking dream.”
“Want a piece of paper so you can write it down?”
This makes me happy. Kiera, late-night journaler. Always ready to take on the world with her pen.
She always had a notebook in her hand back in school. I can remember seeing her around campus in the years that came before that year, sitting under a tree writing furiously, like she is now.
Other people did that too. Camille and Sofia did. But they did it in a group. There was always a posse around them. Kiera was a loner before we became friends in senior year.
And she always had weird journals too. Handmade ones from old book covers. The one I remember most vividly was The Great Gatsby. She left it unattended once and I picked it up, so interested in what she felt the need to scribble down so furiously. Like she was gonna forget some detail that makes all the difference.
Like she was doing just before I interrupted her.
“Can I see it?” I ask, walking over to the couch. She scoots over, making room for me, so I crawl onto the large square sectional and join her in the middle.
“You mean, can you read it?”
“No. I mean, sure. I’d be thrilled to read it. But I just want to look at that book. You make these, right?”
She looks down at the notebook in her hand, then back up at me. “Yeah. You like it?”
“They’re beautiful. I remember you always had these handmade notebooks in school. I’ve always wanted to just… sit down with one and study it.”
“My words?”
“Those too,” I say, feeling like I just said this. She laughs. “But the books, Kiera. You make really beautiful books.”
She looks at the journal again, trying to see my perspective, I think. Then she shrugs. “My mom was always making these. We have this library—well, we had.” And then she looks up, like she’s thinking. “I don’t even know if it’s still there.”
I have a lot of things to say about what’s happening with her mother’s estate and that house, but this is not the time.
“But anyway,” she continues, “I’ve been making these notebooks my whole life. You can look at it.”
She hands it to me and I hold it. Reverently. The hardback cover has been altered. Hell, everything has been altered. But the cover is some old edition of some romance book, I think. There’s a flowery woman on the front in muted, faded colors, which is original. But the title is clearly a small piece of printed paper glued above it. “Things I Thought I Saw,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s not a story. It’s just… you know. A diary, I guess. Just scraps of days. Things I might want to remember later.”