“Devon?” Hally called, pushing the door open. No one answered, and she rolled her eyes at Addie. “I don’t know why I bother. He never answers anyway.”
I remembered the boy we’d seen at the gate yesterday, standing behind the black bars. Since he was two grades higher, Devon wasn’t as common a topic of gossip as Hally was, but our teachers mentioned him from time to time, and we knew he’d skipped a grade.
Hally slipped off her shoes, so Addie followed suit, undoing the laces and setting our oxfords side by side on the welcome mat. By the time we looked up again, Hally was in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open.
“Soda? Tea? Orange juice?” she called.
“Soda’s fine,” Addie said.
The kitchen was beautiful, with polished dark wood cabinets and granite countertops. A small, lushly colored statuette stood in one corner, a half-burned candle serving sentinel on either side. A tiny clementine lay at the figurine’s feet.
Addie stared, and I was too curious myself to remind her not to. Hally’s looks were one thing—she couldn’t help those. But to broadcast the family’s foreignness like this …
“I was thinking we’d get takeout,” Hally said. Addie turned just in time to catch the soda can she tossed at us. It was so cold we almost dropped it. “Unless you’re a brilliant cook or something.”
“I’m all right,” Addie said.
<Liar. We’re terrible.>
“But takeout sounds good,” she added.
Hally nodded without looking at us. She’d turned her head a little, her eyes focused on some point in the distance. Addie snuck another glance at the small altar. Was it Hally’s mother or father who’d so carefully arranged the candles and the statuette?
“Devon?” Hally called again. But there was still no answer. I thought I saw her mouth tighten.
“I’ve never actually met your brother before,” Addie said, looking away from the altar as Hally’s attention returned to us.
“No?” Hally said. “No, I guess not. You’ll meet him tonight, then. He really ought to be home…. I don’t know why he’d be late.”
Addie set her soda on the counter and pulled at the bottom of our shirt. “Well, while he’s not here, could I …”
“Oh, right,” Hally said. She blinked and brightened, all smiles again. “Come on. You can choose something from my room. That stain shouldn’t be too hard to wash out.”
Addie followed her up the stairs, which were covered with a rich, cream-colored carpet that extended to the upstairs hallway. Our socks, I realized, had been soaked in that water, too. They seemed too dirty for this house, this whiteness. Addie checked behind us to make sure we weren’t leaving marks on the carpet. Hally didn’t seem to care at all. She bounded on ahead, toward what must have been her room at the end of the hall, leaving Addie trailing behind.
<Look> I said, whispering though it wasn’t like anyone else could hear. <They’ve got a computer.>
We could see it in one of the rooms on the way to Hally’s, a large, complicated-looking thing sprawled over a desk. We’d used computers once or twice at school, and Dad had mentioned, a long, long time ago, getting one once they got cheaper, but then we hadn’t settled and Lyle had gotten sick and there was no more talk of computers.
Addie paused to stare at it and, by extension, the rest of the room. A bedroom, I realized. A boy’s room with an unmade bed and … screwdrivers on the desk. Even more strangely, there was a gutted computer in the far corner—at least I thought it was a computer. I’d never seen one with all the wires hanging out, bright silver parts naked and bared. This was Devon’s room. It had to be, unless there was another member of the Mullan family I’d never heard about. But what sixteen-year-old boy had computers in his room?
“Addie?” Hally called, and Addie hurried away.
Hally’s room was ten times messier than her brother’s, but she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed as she invited us inside and closed the door. She threw open her closet and waved a hand at the clothes hanging inside. “Pick whatever you want. I think we’re about the same size.”
Her closet was full of things Addie would never wear. Things that said Look at me—too-big tops that hung off one shoulder, bright colors and flashy patterns and jewelry that might have gone well with Hally’s black-framed glasses and dark curly hair but would have looked like dress-up clothes on us. Addie looked for something plain as Hally perched herself on the edge of her bed, but Hally didn’t seem to own such a thing.
“Can I just, I don’t know … wear your spare uniform blouse or something?” Addie said, turning.
That was when I noticed something was wrong.
Hally looked up at us from her bed, but there was something in her eyes, something dark and solemn in her stare that made me stop, made me say <Addie. Addie> without hardly knowing why.
And then slowly, so slowly it was like something deliberate, there was a shift in Hally’s face. That was the only way I could put it. Something minuscule, something no one would have caught if they weren’t staring straight at her as Addie and I were staring now, something no one would have noticed—would have even thought to notice—if they weren’t—
Addie took a step toward the door.
A shift. A change. Like how Robby changed to Will.
But that was impossible.
Hally stood. Her hair was neat and tidy under her blue headband. The tiny white rhinestones set into her glasses twinkled in the lamplight. She didn’t smile, didn’t tilt her head and say, What are you doing, Addie?
Instead, she said, “We just want to talk with you.” There was something sad in her eyes.
<We?> I echoed.
“You and Devon?” Addie said.
“No,” Hally said. “Me and Hally.”
A shudder passed through our body, so out of either Addie’s or my control it might have been a shared reaction. Another step away from the closet.
Our heart thrummed—not fast, just hard, so hard.
Beat.
Beat.
“What?”
The girl standing in front of us smiled, a twitch of the mouth that never reached her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s start over. My name’s Lissa, and Hally and I want to talk to you.”
Addie ran for the door, so fast our shoulder slammed into the wood. Pain shot through our arm. She ignored it, grabbing at the doorknob with both hands.
It refused to turn. Just rattled and shook. There was a keyhole right above the knob but the key was gone.
Something indescribable was rising inside me, something huge and suffocating and I couldn’t think.
“Hally,” Addie said. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not Hally,” the girl said.
Only one of our hands grabbed the doorknob now. Addie pressed our back against the door, our shoulder blades aching against the wood. Words squeezed from our throat. “You are. You’re settled. You’re—”
“I’m Lissa.”
“No,” Addie said.
“Please.”