Chapter 2
Chapter Two
T he following morning, Scarlet woke up in the bedroom she and Ivy shared when they stayed with their parents. It was painted lilac with soft, fluttery white curtains, which they agreed was far more suitable for ten-year-olds than women their age. Their mother hadn’t yet decided what to paint it, not since they’d purchased it last year, and Ivy and Scarlet both understood that their mother wanted to pretend they were little girls just a while longer.
But Scarlet knew it thrilled Ivy to be home for the summer, and Scarlet adored spending so much time with her little sis—someone far different from Scarlet, who was becoming more and more like an adult every day.
Sometimes it scared Scarlet to think that she and Ivy might one day not see eye to eye. That they might spend twenty-five years apart, the way their father and aunts had. It sounded ludicrous. How had they allowed that to go on?
Ivy was tan and athletic and sporting a romance with an islander that she was keeping a secret from their parents. Ivy often pestered Scarlet about why she wasn’t dating. “That whole Owen thing was years ago,” Ivy liked to say.
“But it wasn’t,” Scarlet insisted. “It was a year and a half ago. I can’t just bounce back like that.”
Owen was Scarlet’s long-term boyfriend who’d not only cheated on her but had also stolen thousands and thousands of dollars in both goods and cash from her. They’d caught him red-handed on the evening news. In one fell swoop, Scarlet’s relationship and faith in men had fallen apart.
The breakup had mended Scarlet’s relationship with her father—a man she hadn’t been able to stand prior to. This had surprised her at the time.
Quentin had been very vocal about his dislike for Owen, but he hadn’t rubbed news of how seedy he was into her face. It was part of the reason they’d been able to move on so well as a family.
But Scarlet had been eager to replace her reliance on men with her love of her career. Immediately, she’d launched herself into the sphere of documentarians, helping her father with everything from building stories to interviewing to holding the camera to sending emails. There were also many parties to attend—evenings in which they “hobnobbed.” Quentin was incredible at it; people fawned over him because they knew his face so well from the evening news. It was almost as though they felt they had ownership over him. Scarlet sometimes had to bite her tongue to keep from saying, You don’t know him at all.
But of course, Scarlet’s mother was always dancing around the idea of: Don’t you want to make your own documentaries? Don’t you want to step outside of your father’s shadow?
The truth was, Scarlet did. But she was too terrified to explain her idea. Her mother was a brilliant researcher and journalist, and her father was Quentin Copperfield, for crying out loud. Scarlet’s first attempt was bound to be bad. And she sort of wanted it like that. She wanted to make mistakes. She wanted to see if she was actually worth anything on her own.
Ivy was still asleep, sprawled over the top of her comforter with her mouth flung open. It wasn’t a good look. Scarlet tiptoed to the bathroom, then hurried downstairs to pour herself a cup of coffee. She heard her mother and father in the next room, talking about the specifics of Catherine and Scarlet’s trip to the city tomorrow. Catherine had already booked a hotel, and Quentin told her she should have booked another one because he knew the owner and could have gotten her a better deal. Scarlet rolled her eyes and retreated upstairs to her notebook.
This was what she liked to do every morning.
She liked sitting in bed with her coffee and researching her documentary on her phone. She made notes to herself, fleshed out more of the concept, and made lists of potential locations to shoot and possible people to interview. The story was barely anything right now, and everything was a crapshoot. But it felt nice to get it out on the page.
She’d learned a great deal over the previous year-plus of working with her father. But she didn’t want her documentaries to have the same tone as his. His were featured on The History Channel; they were sure of themselves and formulaic. Scarlet wanted hers to be more fun and stylish, more from the heart and soul of a twenty-four-year-old girl. She didn’t think that was too much to ask for.
She’d gotten the idea earlier this summer.
Scarlet had been on the fence at the time. Heavy with indecision, she’d considered moving back to the city, or moving across the country, or continuing her strange and uninspiring life in that very room at her parents’ place—helping her mother repaint various rooms and organize the new kitchen.
Scarlet had met her dear friend Alyssa Potter for coffee one morning in June. Scarlet and Alyssa grew up together in the city—both with arguably difficult fathers and too much money and privilege, but now, they lived in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, respectively, after heaps of changes in their respective lives. A big difference between them was that Alyssa’s father had cheated on her mother and left her for her mother’s best friend. Another big difference was that Alyssa’s father had died of a heart attack not long after that—and left the entire family reeling. How do you forgive someone who’s already dead? Scarlet had often wondered.
Alyssa now had a baby and a husband—a funny thing for a young woman who’d been so much of a wild vagabond during her twenties. In her white dress with her baby asleep against her chest, she looked beautiful and innocent. Scarlet struggled to know what to say. She was thrilled for her, of course. But they were also on two very different roads of life. Scarlet wondered if Alyssa thought Scarlet didn’t have her life together anymore. She wondered if Alyssa was secretly judgmental.
I’m only twenty-four! Scarlet had wanted to scream.
But that was when three young women entered the coffee shop. They were a little bit younger than Alyssa and Scarlet, wearing long dresses that hid their feet. They had big sleeves and long hair that went past their waists. The only thing different about them was their facial features and hair color—proof they weren’t related, or only very distantly.
They purchased tea and sat directly on the floor in a circle, cross-legged. Scarlet had never seen anything like it. Her heart had thumped. They’d taken each other’s hands, closed their eyes, and said a prayer that Scarlet couldn’t quite hear.
Scarlet and Alyssa ignored them for a while after that. Scarlet dismissed them as very religious people; maybe they didn’t believe in chairs or something. What did she know?
She would have forgotten the entire thing were it not for what happened next.
The girls got up and headed for the door. But one of them caught Scarlet’s eye, and she looked harder.
“Melanie?” Scarlet stood with surprise. The girl with the darkest hair was her sister Ivy’s friend from high school. Scarlet was one hundred percent sure of it because Ivy had had her over what felt like thousands of times, and they’d always stolen Scarlet’s makeup.
Melanie stopped short and gaped at Scarlet. All the color drained from her face. It was like she didn’t want to be caught.
Does Melanie’s family have a place around here? Didn’t she go to university? What is happening? Scarlet thought.
Another girl grabbed Melanie’s hand and dragged her out before Melanie had a chance to speak. But Scarlet had had the sense that Melanie didn’t want to admit her name.
It was eerie.
Scarlet had asked Ivy about Melanie immediately via text. Ivy had said she hadn’t heard from Melanie, and she hadn’t updated her social media in a while. When Scarlet had mentioned seeing Melanie in “a super long skirt and no makeup, almost like she was in a cult,” Ivy had said, “Melanie went to Princeton. She was a perfectionist. There’s just no way it was her.”
But Scarlet had been sure.
Now, she was on a quest. Who were those girls? What were they up to? Why were they wearing that?
She’d been hard at work on this research for months, but she still hadn’t gotten far. Her only “clues” involved a rumor she’d heard—that another girl around Ivy’s age had “left college under mysterious circumstances.” That, and she’d seen two other girls in town wearing similar clothing. But she’d gone through endless social media posts. She’d read Reddit till she was blue in the face.
But this morning was different.
Yesterday before the party at The Copperfield House, Scarlet had left a post on a Reddit thread, asking if anyone had any information about the “girls in conservative hippie clothing.” She’d expected it to be ignored like everything else.
This morning, there was a comment.
Scarlet’s heart stopped beating.
A user named alfieomalie17 had written: I’ve seen them doing something weird on Miacomet Beach a few nights this summer. It’s creepy that the girls dress like that, but the guys dress weird, too.
Scarlet gaped at it. Her thoughts whirred. Before she could stop herself, she responded.
Scarjar12: Is there a pattern for when they’re there? Can you describe what the men wear? Do you get the sense they’re dangerous?
But a few seconds later, her comment, the user’s comment, and the entire thread were deleted. Scarlet got out of bed and stared at her phone. Her notebook sat sadly on her sheets.
Somebody doesn’t want me to read that, she thought. But why?