Chapter Seven #3
There were two girls in the room with her, one kneeling next to her bed, though the girl wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was half turned toward the other girl, who was sitting on the bed across from them, absently swinging her legs.
Florence knew the girl kneeling next to her was Verity, even though she couldn’t see her face.
She recognized the girl’s dark mop of hair from the pillowcase the night before.
And the girl across the room from them, who was a couple of years older, was Astrid—the one with beautiful raven waves flowing down her shoulders, and violet eyes, and a perfectly symmetrical face.
Florence had seen her in the Towers family portrait hanging above the fireplace in Doris’s parlor.
“I know that,” Verity said. “I’m just saying. And she gets to stay here in my room with me. In your old bed.”
“Good,” Astrid said. “Maybe now that you don’t have to sleep alone again, you’ll stop wetting the bed every night.”
“Not every night,” Verity said sheepishly. “It was just the one time.”
“Twice, at least,” Astrid said.
“Well, it’s scary, being in here all alone at night,” Verity said. “I hear strange noises. The house is haunted—I told you that.”
“You’re such a baby,” Astrid said, rolling her eyes.
“Am not,” Verity said.
“Look,” Astrid said. “She’s awake.”
Verity’s face swung back toward Florence, her eyes alight with excitement. “Hello!” Verity sang. She gave a little wave. “I’m Verity. You’re Florence, I know. Mother told us all about you. I’m sorry that your mom is dead.”
“Verity!” Astrid reprimanded her. “You’re not supposed to talk about her mom, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Verity said. “Sorry. Would you like to see my toys?”
“You can show her your toys later,” Astrid said, sliding off the bed. “We’re supposed to meet Charles at the pool, remember? For Marco Polo?”
“Right,” Verity said. She looked back at Florence. “You should come too.”
Florence’s mind was still a little foggy from her sleep. She blinked, trying to clear it. She glanced back at the foot of her bed and saw the cloth sack that held all her belongings lying there on the floor.
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” Florence said.
“You can borrow one of mine,” Verity said, already heading across the room to her dresser. “We’re about the same size.” Verity dug through the top left drawer and tossed her a purple one-piece. “The bathroom is over there, if you want to change,” Verity said, giving a little nod of her head.
Florence clutched the purple bathing suit in her hands and looked over at Astrid, unsure, as if she were waiting for permission.
“Yeah, all right,” Astrid said, clearly irritated. “But hurry up. We’re already late.”
As Florence headed toward the bathroom, she overheard Verity whisper to her sister, “Astrid, you’re supposed to introduce yourself, remember?”
“She already knows who I am,” Astrid said, not even trying to keep her voice down.
“How?” Verity asked.
“Because,” Astrid said. “They all know who we are.”
“Who knows who we are?”
“The help,” Astrid said.
“That’s my room,” Astrid said a few minutes later as they passed a large bedroom painted pink with a big canopy bed in the middle. “You can’t go in unless I’m in there, and even then, I need to invite you first.”
Verity gave Florence a commiserating look. “She tells me the same thing,” Verity said.
Only a few moments later they were outside, crossing the terrace and then descending the steps to the tiled patio and the giant pool.
Florence had seen the pool a million times from a distance, but it was something completely different to be standing this close to it now with the intention of actually going in.
It felt ginormous—a wide, unsettling sea of blue.
A boy stood up from his lounge chair, a striped towel thrown over his shoulder. He was almost a teenager, tall and sinewy.
“Hello,” he said, sticking out his hand with a friendly smile. “I’m Charles.”
Florence reached out and took his hand. It was dry and warm and steady. “Florence,” she said.
“Florence,” he repeated. “It’s nice to officially meet you. Will you be joining us?” He inclined his head, indicating the pool.
“I, um, I don’t know how to swim,” Florence said sheepishly.
“How do you not know how to swim?” Astrid asked, as if Florence were stupid.
“It’s fine,” Charles said, giving Florence an encouraging smile. “We’ll stay in the shallow end, where you can touch.”
Behind him, Astrid sighed heavily, as if this were a huge inconvenience.
“And later, I can teach you, if you want,” Charles said, his voice lower so only she could hear.
Florence beamed and nodded.
The days passed quickly, one day blurring into the next, until it all felt completely natural to Florence—crawling into the twin feather bed in her and Verity’s room at night, swimming lessons with Charles in the early morning before the girls woke up, games of Marco Polo in the afternoon.
Packing a pail of tuna sandwiches and cold Coca-Colas and trudging down to the beach to eat their picnic in the sand.
In the evenings, they’d lie side by side on the sofa in the playroom, their feet propped up on the ottoman, an afghan thrown over their legs, as they listened to episodes of Murder at Midnight on the radio.
Verity would bury her face in Florence’s shoulder during the really scary parts, and Astrid would tease her for being afraid.
Verity, Astrid, Charles, and Florence. Florence, Charles, Astrid, and Verity.
They were the four musketeers, one inseparable entity as they shuffled into church on Sunday mornings and sat side by side in their pew.
One lockstep unit as they came down to breakfast in the morning or went upstairs to brush their teeth before bed.
So it came as a cold shock to Florence when Christmastime came and Verity, Astrid, and Charles went to visit their grandparents on the East Coast, and Florence was left behind.
She sat at the long dining table all by herself on Christmas Day, the honey ham glistening on the platter before her, looking intimidating with its girth, and making her feel all the more small and alone.
“Why the long face?” Mrs. Wilson asked as she set a basket of rolls down next to Florence’s plate. “You’ve been touched by an angel’s wing, child. They’ve opened the door to you; they’ve let you in. But you must remember this—they haven’t made you one of them.”
The words swirled in Florence’s head; they made her dizzy.
She tried to push them away, tried to keep them from seeping into her, but she realized that no matter how much she didn’t want Mrs. Wilson to be right, she was: Florence may sleep in their beds and eat their food, she may laugh at their jokes and guard their secrets, but she was not, and never would be, a Towers.
No matter how much time passed, it would never stop feeling strange to Florence, being both on the inside and outside of something at the same time.