Chapter 69
If the tension between them hadn’t been so bad, Anna might have laughed at the irony when she saw her little sister’s hair.
Mom had gotten it styled into an edgy pixie cut before taking her into school, and, if anything, Callie looked even more beautiful than before and was now twice as excited about the sleepover and the party.
Equally ironic was that Anna was now glad Callie was going away for the weekend.
The party held its own evils, but if Caroline was there, then she wouldn’t be here.
She’d be out of the way. One of them at least would be safe.
Caroline didn’t look at Anna once during dinner, talking solely to Mom and Grandma, and she chattered so much there was no space for Anna in the conversation anyway, and even though it was Bonnie’s anniversary and she was still discreetly wearing her straw bracelet, she didn’t mention the Farmhand once.
Grandma was quiet. She muttered a prayer before they ate, getting several of the words wrong and stumbling over the final lines.
She checked Callie was keeping her elbows off the table, but her eyes were confused, as if she wasn’t quite sure anymore why it was important.
While she ate small mouthfuls in her usual birdlike way, her hand trembled as she raised her fork, as if all the dead Annas inside her had reached her stomach and left no space there for food.
Mom did her best while talking to Caroline but failed to disguise her exhaustion and unhappiness.
In her own corner of the table, Anna felt like a ghost. Invisible.
Ignored. She couldn’t blame them either.
She’d pushed them away. Even Grandma was leaving her.
Was leaving because of her. Anna’s mouth filled with words she couldn’t bring herself to speak, not even now.
It had been so long since she’d said anything of emotional worth, she no longer knew how to.
It was a relief for everyone when dinner was over and Anna escaped up to her room.
She flung open the window, gulping in the hot night air, desperate inhales of breath to combat the fear and hopelessness of her situation.
She was still alive. She was still alive.
Her heart beat in time with the words until she calmed down.
Three years ago it was Bonnie’s last evening alive.
Six years ago it was Lila’s. Tomorrow maybe it would be hers.
Or maybe it wouldn’t happen this time, she thought as she sat on her bed.
But how could she know? Maybe she should run.
Get away. Protect herself. But at what possible cost?
She turned the laptop on and opened her notes for the article she might never get the chance to write and figured that was as good a place to express feelings as any.
She couldn’t talk about them to her family, but maybe she could write something down.
What she thought was happening, at least. What Grandma had done and was doing.
How much Anna loved them, even if she could never be saved.
It felt cathartic, explaining why she’d cut Caroline’s hair, telling her how much she loved her and that her life was going to be amazing and fearless and full of adventure, thanking Mom for all the sacrifices she’d made for them over these years and telling her she was beautiful and deserved the best of men or none at all #girlfriend.
Her message for Grandma was different and would confuse Mom and maybe Grandma wouldn’t even understand it unless she was in one of her moments, and with the way she was deteriorating so fast, maybe not even then.
Grandma had done all she could, more than anyone could imagine, and that if there was a god, then he had no better in his flock than Evelyn Maybourne.
Her eyes filled with tears as she typed, a stream of consciousness rather than any structured thinking.
Would Grandma be able to give them another chance again?
Would Anna be back here typing this again?
Would she remember next time? What about the thing?
If she died without remembering that, then the thing would have won.
Thinking of all the Annas who had gone before, still existing in Grandma’s head, all those different times, different realities, different resets—two stitches forward, one stitch back—constantly running at once, no chance of them becoming the one Anna again until this was over for good, she felt something change inside her.
A small spark of rebellion against the heavy blanket of hopelessness that was a shroud around her.
What about Lila and Bonnie? They’d never had a second chance or a third or a hundredth.
Why should Anna give up now? Would they?
And then there was Grandma. The sacrifices she’d made to save Anna over and over at such a cost to herself.
Was Anna really going to leave Mom and Caroline a lifetime of guilt about things unsaid by giving up?
She wasn’t dead yet. Not this time. And while there was life, there was hope.
She wiped her damp eyes and sat up straighter. There were twenty-four hours or so left before she’d be murdered, if the killer came in the night like with the other two. She looked across at the yearbooks again, suddenly focused.
She had twenty-four hours to solve her own murder.