Chapter 11
Two minutes later, Charlie hovered in the hallway outside her brother’s bedroom door, trying to work up the confidence to knock. She stood on the fluffy hallway carpet, tapping one socked foot and making a list of things she would rather do instead.
Agree to pay for Lou’s lunches for the rest of the year.
Spend an entire weekend studying ACT vocabulary with Abigail.
Do four two-hour training sessions with Bjorn and Vidar. Back-to-back.
Fight a draugar—and lose.
Be forced to attend homecoming with Elias again.
Charlie scrubbed the fifth option from her mind as soon as it appeared. No, she wouldn’t prefer to attend homecoming with Elias over this. Not unless the date included slicing off his legs again—his real legs, this time. And perhaps other parts of his body, too.
Henry squawked, running twice around her left ankle.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.
With one last deep breath, she raised her fist and knocked twice.
“Yeah,” Mason called from inside. He probably assumed she was their mom.
He’s in for a surprise, she thought as she turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Mason was sprawled out on his bed, face illuminated by the laptop before him.
Weeks had passed since Charlie had entered his room, but it looked the same as she remembered: a Kendrick poster on the wall, underwear on the floor, a rarely used desk, a closet door hanging open, sweatshirts and T-shirts spilling out, and a small locked cabinet in the corner that she knew from experience held a rotating supply of room-temperature vodka (“In case of emergencies,” Mason always said).
Henry scampered into the room from between her legs, eager to poke around.
“Is this about dinner?” Mason asked, slowly peeling his eyes away from the computer screen. “Because I’m not hungry. I think I have a…” When his gaze landed on Charlie, he snapped his jaw shut.
“Hey,” she said.
Mason dropped his gaze back to the computer, voice flattening. “What do you want?”
“Well.” Charlie shut the door carefully behind herself, then took a tentative step toward Mason. “I don’t know if you recall, but we had a few surprise visitors at school today, and—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t try to make a joke out of seeing Sophie today.”
“I wasn’t—gods, Mason. Of course I wasn’t making a joke out of it. I was trying to … I don’t know.” She rubbed her temples. “Obviously, seeing my dead twin isn’t funny to me. I’m just as rattled as you are. I—”
“No,” Mason interrupted. “You’re not as rattled as I am. And you know why?”
Charlie did, but she said nothing. Over in the corner, Henry found a pair of Mason’s boxer briefs and leaned down to sniff them.
“Because that wasn’t your first time seeing her.” Mason paused. “For all I know, it wasn’t even your second.”
“Well, that is utter bullshit,” Charlie said. “Of course I haven’t seen her since that first time. If she had shown up at my window in the last three weeks, I would have told you. I would have—”
“Would you have, though?” Mason pushed his laptop aside, raising his voice as he slid off the bed. “Would you? Or would you have wanted to keep her all to yourself, because she’s your twin sister, your little secret—”
“Is that seriously what you think?” Charlie asked. “You think I was hoarding her?”
Mason crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow.
Charlie wanted to scream. What was this?
What twisted web had Mason knotted up in his mind?
That his own sister was that selfish? That she had kept the continuing existence of his little sister a secret, just so she could have Sophie all to herself?
It was ridiculous. She had done it to protect him, godsdammit.
She closed her eyes and exhaled. Do not engage, she reminded herself. You came here for a specific purpose. Fulfill that purpose, then get the Hel out of here.
When she opened her eyes again, Mason still had his arms crossed, waiting for Charlie to deny his accusation.
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction; if he wanted to take an act of kindness and twist it into something awful, that was his prerogative.
She would move on. She would do what she came here to do, then they could go back to politely ignoring each other, the way they had since Sophie died.
“Look,” Charlie said, fighting and failing to keep her voice low. “I know you’re upset with me. I’ve tried to talk to you about this so many times, but—”
Behind her, the bedroom door opened.
“What on earth is going on in here?”
When Charlie turned around, she found her mom standing in the doorway, one hand on the knob, looking between her children in bewilderment.
Charlie swallowed, glancing at Mason. He wore the same look of shock and panic that she knew must be on her own face; neither of them realized how loud their argument had been.
Charlie looked back at their mom. “The car,” she said quickly, thinking of their most common fight. “Mason thinks I’ve been monopolizing it, but—”
“You have been monopolizing it,” Mason jumped in, and although she knew he was just going along with her story, there was a little too much authenticity in his voice.
“If it weren’t for our tr—” He cut himself off.
“Our mornings at the nursing home, I would never even see the inside of that car. You’ve driven your friends to school in it every day since you got your license, while I was forced to ask the guys to pick me up. ”
Narrowing her eyes, Charlie turned to her brother. Definitely too authentic for her liking. “An arrangement that you suggested,” she reminded. “You said, and I quote, ‘What could be worse for my rep than showing up to senior year in a car full of girls?’”
“Yeah, well.” Mason uncrossed his arms. “I meant it. But that doesn’t mean you get free rein over the car twenty-four seven. I have places to go, too, you know.”
“Oh, really? Where? To one of your two hundred ex-girlfriends’ houses to pick up one of the two hundred identical black hoodies you leave behind?
That’s your signature move, isn’t it? Oops.
Silly me, so forgetful. Thanks, Rebecca, and while we’re at it, we might as well just take our shirts off and fool around a bit, don’t you think? ”
“I don’t sound like that,” Mason snapped. “And I haven’t been to any girl’s house lately. You would know that if you weren’t living so damn far up your own—”
“Enough!”
The yell sliced through their argument. Charlie and Mason jumped, and Charlie whirled around to look at their mother.
Her hands were clenched at her sides, face red in a way Charlie hadn’t seen in years.
It was the red of peak fury, a red that appeared only when her children were at their most incorrigible, like when Mason put fake centipedes in his kindergarten teacher’s desk or when Charlie and Lou got detention for leading the entire second grade in “guess the dirty hand gesture” out on the school lawn.
Since Sophie’s funeral, Charlie couldn’t recall seeing it even once.
“What the hell is going on with you two?” her mom asked.
Charlie and Mason flinched at the appearance of a rare curse word.
“Look. I don’t know what this fight is really about, but I can tell it’s about more than the car.
You’ve both been acting completely bizarre lately.
And then I get calls from Mason’s coach about his behavior in practice, and from teachers about Charlie skipping class, and—”
“Wait,” Charlie said. “What? They called you?”
Their mom threw up her hands. “Of course they did! I’m your mother! And while I’ve always respected your privacy, there’s a limit to everything. Especially when you’re putting yourselves in harm’s way.”
“Who says we’re putting ourselves in harm’s way?” Mason asked.
Placing her hands on her hips, their mom looked between them. “You really think I don’t know what’s going on here?”
Alarm bells sounded in Charlie’s mind. She and Mason glanced at each other, a message passing between them: What does she know?
“I remember what happened with the disappearances last month,” their mom said. “You two became so secretive and spent so much time away from the house. I know you were going into that forest. Sheriff Carpenter told me he saw you there at least once. And now, with the Morris kids last night…”
“Oh,” Charlie said. “Oh. You think we’re investigating their murder?”
“I don’t think so. I know so.”
“Mom.” Mason exhaled. “We aren’t trying to figure out who murdered the Morris kids. Okay? We don’t have nearly enough time on our hands.”
Their mom looked at him disbelievingly.
“I promise,” Mason said.
Finally, their mom seemed to give in. Her face relaxed, her shoulders slumping. “Fine,” she said, tiredness seeping into her voice. “You better keep it that way. And Charlie?”
Charlie held her breath.
“Share the car with your brother, okay?”
Charlie could almost cry with relief. Their mom knew nothing about Asgard. Nothing. She was still safe.
With one last weary look, their mom stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. Charlie and Mason stood silently in place, listening to her footsteps pad away and back down to the first floor.
As soon as they heard her enter the kitchen, Charlie looked at her brother. “You lied.”
“I didn’t,” he said, still staring at his door. “We aren’t trying to figure out who killed Maddie and Milo. We already know who did it.”
Charlie snorted. “That’s a pretty thin difference.”
“Get out of my room.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said, turning to face her at last. “I have no interest in hearing whatever nonsense you came here to tell me.”
Charlie’s temper flared. Why couldn’t Mason just listen? She’d come here to ask how he was after today’s encounter with Sophie. To apologize for not telling him about her right away. To listen to whatever he needed to say. But now …
“Fine,” she said, her voice trembling. “If you hate me so much, then fine. Wallow in your own anger. Freeze me out. Leave me to fulfill Sophie’s mission alone. See if I care.”
With that, she turned and left, Henry waddling close behind. Tears stung her eyes the whole way back to her room.