We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(14)

He played the eldest of five kids being raised by three adult uncles. The uncles were clueless macho jerks, and Brock and his four television sisters ran those jerks absolutely ragged for many seasons.

“People think they know me sometimes,” Brock says, hitching himself up to sit on the kitchen counter. “But they only know Sammy. Which isn’t me. Which is a very, very long way from me.”

I have an impulse to apologize, but my mother always says that many women apologize when they’ve done nothing wrong, like they’re apologizing simply for existing. She never wanted me to be one of them. So I swallow my sorry and say, “Of course I don’t know you. But I’ve seen you be very funny on TV. Good to meet you, Paul-David Brock.”

“We’re in the indigo,” says June. “Are you in or out?”

“I’m in,” says Brock. She hands him an apron and a bucket of damp cloth. “I left Sammy behind a long time ago,” he tells me as he begins wringing out the fabric over the sink. “I used to carry him around. Y’know? He was this younger, better version of me that everybody recognized. He always had funny things to say. He had his picture on billboards. I felt like the real me was just a worn-out, uglier Sammy. No idea where he ended and I started.” He stops working for a second and looks directly at me. “Well, the answer was to say goodbye to Sammy completely. And not ever think about him.”

“And how’s that going for you?” I ask.

“Well, it’s not actually possible. But it’s an idea. Kingsley and June, those guys effing saved me. I’m so ever-loving grateful.”

“Aw, shush,” says June. “We’re lucky to have you here.”

“Matilda, do you want to do your shirt?” Meer asks.

I have been stirring the pot, but now I collect my henley from the back of a chair. Using twine, we work together to tie strips that will remain white up and down the arms while leaving the body of the shirt to become completely blue. Meer is meticulous, measuring the distance between each piece of twine. “Is symmetry important to you?” he asks. “I have two inches between each.”

“Not at all.”

“It’s important to my mother,” says Meer.

“Symmetry is calming and centering,” says June. “It gives us a sense of balance. You’ll find Hidden Beach is symmetrical—four towers. And it has many symmetries within it. They contain and balance the chaos that lives in your father. That’s why we built it.”

I lower my henley into the vat of dye. Meer comes to look over my shoulder. “When this dries—I mean, when you wear it—you’ll look like one of us,” he says.

It’s true. I have come deep into Hidden Beach already, almost without realizing it.

I haven’t eaten or unpacked. I haven’t toured the castle or slept a night here. But my arms are indigo, up to my elbows. Like Meer’s. Like June’s. Like Brock’s. My henley will dry into the same family of blues as theirs, all born of the same pot.

My head begins to spin, the walls close in, and I pass out.





16


I open my eyes to find myself lying on a soft couch covered in worn velvet. I’m in a small room adjacent to the kitchen, a kind of breakfast nook. A round table is surrounded by built-in benches. A cutting board holds what looks like home-baked bread, partly sliced and gone gray with mold in the summer humidity.

June touches my forehead with a blue hand. Then she touches behind my ears, briefly. “You okay?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll make you a tincture.” Above me on the couch is one of Kingsley’s paintings. June notices me staring at it. “It’s called Cliffside Gothic,” she tells me. “Don’t let it depress you.”

The painting looms over the room, framed in black wood.



* * *



—

Cliffside Gothic shows a family of five: a man, a woman, and three teenage girls.

Together, they stand at the edge of a cliff.

The wind is gusting, catching clothes and hair.

The girls are white and blond, all looking like old money and lilacs, their

jaws strong and their

figures willowy.

They have serious eyes and are dressed in white cotton.

They’re in front of their parents with their feet at the edge of the cliff, so close that if any one of them takes a step, she will plummet.

Look a little closer, and you notice that while two of them wear dainty ballet flats, the eldest girl is

barefoot.

Her feet are black with

ash.

Her fingernails are black with it, too.

Cinderella.



* * *



—

Meer comes in from the kitchen. “Too much indigo can be very intense,” he says solemnly. It takes me a beat to realize this is a joke.

“That and red-eye flights,” I answer, grabbing the arm of the sofa and pulling myself up. “Did you move me in here?”

“You were dead out,” says Meer. “Like a fainting lady in a movie or something.”

“Do you want to sleep?” asks Brock, peeking into the breakfast nook. And then to Meer: “She should probably sleep.”

June returns from the kitchen carrying a wooden tray on which are five dark brown bottles with eyedroppers and a tall glass of water. She sets the tray down and bends over it, squeezing two droppers of one thing, just a drop of another, and so on, until the water is a golden hue. “These will heal you.”