Chapter 71
Ten days later, Veronica put a bow in my hand.
The walk from my hideaway to the outside world felt like coming up for air. Veronica had led me down a dark hall and through a cement holding cell, then up a spiral staircase. At the top was a trapdoor that opened into a ramshackle barn.
Outside were the poppy fields, bound on all sides by razor wire and brilliant red and gold forest, the flowers dormant, the stalks blooded with fallen leaves. The mid-November upstate sky, the smell of goldenrod and pine—all of it familiar, but after weeks of isolation, also delicious and strange.
The poppy fields were off-limits to kids, but I’d explored this old barn with Sebastian once or twice. We’d never found the secret door, or the skylight somewhere out among the poppies.
Veronica had brought my fencing shoes and Merwin’s old hunting jacket—my favorite archery outfit. My bow and quiver had returned from Helshire.
As we walked, I tested the bowstring—newly braced. The arrows in the quiver weren’t Helshire standard issue, but Morton product, fletched with wild turkey feathers.
The archery range was empty, which was odd on such a perfect day. Our path had been cleared. I wondered how many eyes were watching from the trees.
Dogs, perimeter sensors, dozens of Mortons on call. Few places were more inescapable.
“Let’s see if your nerves are steadying,” Veronica said.
A test of my withdrawal from the pills, my return to the death of care.
I nocked an arrow, curious myself. Maybe all those strings of empathy had made me unsteady.
Drawing the bow hurt my shoulder, the good ache of unused muscles. I sighted the way I was first taught, down the arrow, both eyes open. Like the estate itself, the bow felt familiar and strange.
But my hands were steady.
The arrow flew straight and fast, the release sending a thrill through my body. The gorgeous thwick of metal through paper—in the eight-ring, red like blood.
“Not terrible,” my mentor said. She pulled out her old leather flask. “Care for a drink? Georgia Heartwood, neat.”
“No, thank you.” I was already reaching for my next arrow.
Within five minutes, we could both see that my aim had returned. Not like my old scores—a mix of nines and tens—but respectable, after half a year away from the bow.
“Slow down a little,” Veronica suggested. “You’ve blown the dust out. Give me one clean shot.”
I took a deep breath. With my thumb pressed against my cheek, I held the draw, watching the target flags, feeling the air.
Just before I loosed, she asked, “So Sebastian tapped you?”
“Yes,” I said, and let fly—the arrow settled in the nine-ring, shivering.
“Excellent,” she said.
I chose another arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and drew.
My mind went back to that wonderful day when we arrived at pain resistance class and the sparking lamp had been put away, replaced by a strange new machine—a polygraph.
Instead of fighting the great howl of agony inside ourselves, we focused on the whispers of truth. Uncle Cyrus had made up his own song.
Part of you cares if what you say is true.
Learn to strangle that part of you.
For the first time ever in Cyrus’s class, I was better than Sebastian. Never a tremor on the graph. No matter what lies came from my mouth, my heart rate stayed steady, my blood pressure unchanged.
Here on the archery field, I took my time, waiting until Veronica spoke again before releasing.
“Do you know who tapped the Wolvaardt in your year?”
“No idea,” I said—the arrow drifted a little in the wind, hitting the eight-ring. “We only know the other seniors, and whoever tapped us.”
“A firebreak within each family. Sensible.” Veronica drew her own bow and sent an arrow into the bull’s-eye. “We hoped you could’ve lasted longer, gone deeper, given us more. But even three names will break the chain. One Wolvaardt, one Seth, one Lindqvist.”
“I’m not going to give you anything.”
Veronica grunted, then took a shot. Her arrow drifted right, almost into the eight-ring. She gently swore.
I nocked my next arrow.
From the day Sebastian had arrived at the estate, he’d bragged that he always knew when someone was lying. So we begged Uncle Cyrus to test his instincts against the lie detector. Sebastian proved himself—except with me. Neither he nor the machine could see through my calm.
When my bow was drawn again, Veronica asked her next question.
“Have you and Sebastian told Gertie?”
“No,” I said, letting fly.
My first bull’s-eye.
I almost shivered with relief. Learn to strangle that part of you.
“Okay,” Veronica said. “You’re telling me the truth, or you’re turning back into your old self. Either is good. I hated seeing what those pills did to you.”
I held out my hand—perfectly steady, like the Jessica of old. But I loved Sebastian. I cared for Aaliyah, Frankie, Nura, Bellamy. Even poor Faraday, now missing that dreadful sliver of herself on my coffee table.
That didn’t make me weak.
“Since you’re doing so well,” Veronica said, “I can let you in on a little secret. Two of your senior friends have disappeared.”
I shot—badly. Barely in the seven-ring.
“Taken by their families?”
“It happened too quickly—the same morning you arrived here. They must’ve woken up to rumors of a fight in the library, then saw that you and Sebastian were gone. They packed their bags and vanished.”
“Two of them,” I said. That left only one caretaker in our class.
“Any guesses?”
Leopold Wolvaardt, of course—always nervous about being seen in public with the rest of us. And maybe Kumar Seth, who seemed more intent on escaping his family than fighting it.
I couldn’t see Regina Lindqvist panicking.
“No idea,” I said.
“Just one name,” Veronica said. “So I can inform Elizabeth how quickly you’re improving.”
I turned to her, looking for tells. This could be a trick, to get me to expose one of my fellow scarecrows. But me and Sebastian disappearing on the same night, blood on the library floor, Faraday missing a finger…
Someone must have panicked.
“What’s in it for me?”
“Recovery,” Veronica said. “Giving us a name, even one we already have, is a way of showing yourself that you can heal.”
“I’m not sick.”
“We made you sick—weak and uncertain, cut off from who you really are.” A gentle hand on my shoulder, another offer of the flask. “Give yourself back to us.”
“So I can murder more of the people I love?”
“Just so you know, Jessica, I voted against this whole operation. Starting with Peter.”
I looked away. “You didn’t want to ruin your little pet.”
“I didn’t want to lose another of your generation.”
“What about Sebastian?”
“There hasn’t been a vote yet. But, no, I don’t want him dead either. I think we can bring him back in. You could, anyway.”
“Elizabeth and Cyrus think he’s lost.”
“Cyrus is still in the hospital. Elizabeth can be less than rational on the subject of betrayal. But if you make a deal, we can save Sebastian.”
I brushed her hand from my shoulder, turned to look at her. Her eyes held a spark of light—they always had.
“There were moments I wondered if you were on our side.”
Shock passed over Veronica’s face, replaced at once by a look of quiet pride. “I’m a Morton.”
She tipped the flask back again, and it was empty, dribbling its last drops into her mouth. Had my old mentor always drunk this much? It was early afternoon.
“One name, Jessica,” she said.
I drew another arrow from the quiver.
If I named one of the two who’d disappeared, Grandmother would begin to trust me. This small treachery could be a first step back to Sebastian.
I nocked the arrow. Leopold? Or Kumar?
Surely Leopold had run. His wariness every time we met. His story about kidnapping a homeless man when he was thirteen—too young for that kind of work. His family had broken him, like mine had me.
“One name,” Veronica said. “Prove to yourself that it was just the pills.”
I drew and sighted, waiting for the wind to settle. My breathing slowed; my heart steadied.
Part of you cares if what you say is true.
Learn to strangle that part of you.
As the target flags drooped, I saw what to do.
“Xavier Lindqvist,” I said, and fired.
The metal point tore through paper, rags, and hay.
Another bull’s-eye.