Page 7 - My FlipBook

Disturbed, Lacy looks at Raven, who shifts slightly
as if trying to decide whether to explain. Lacy can see in
his eyes that it’s true. She has been dead longer than she
thought. How long, she doesn’t know. She recalls Effie say-
ing that it took Edgar weeks to rise. Perhaps it’s different
for every person. She turns her attention back to her sister,
determined not to miss the chance to hear more.
As it happens, that slight movement of Raven has made
Olivia turn to look at him. She and the bird lock eyes.
Breathlessly, Lacy watches her sister stare at the bird,
not wanting to blink, wishing she could open the door to
her sister’s mind and hear what she’s thinking.

[Unlike her, dear Reader, you have the benefit of an
omniscient narrator, so you can lean forward now and hear what
Lacy cannot.]

A thought occurs to Olivia, the way thoughts do: sud-
denly, mysteriously. She’d like to change places with the
bird. Be some emotionless, solitary creature, accountable
for and to no one.
Raven remains silent.
Olivia turns away, looks up at the moon. The painkiller
she took about half an hour ago, the second to last one from
the prescription bottle she stole out of the medicine cabinet
at Zane’s dad’s house, is starting to kick in. It will melt one
area inside her—a zone that runs from the base of her skull
all the way down the back of her legs—but, mixed with the
vodka, it will make her stomach ache; and she knows that
neither the drug nor the booze will be able to soften the cold,
hard shell that now defines her. Ever since Lacy’s death, it

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