“It was a long time ago,” she says instead. She takes her time drying the dish.
“I was in the tree. She reached out to me. I think I’d lost my balance and she was trying to save me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Holly says. “It was an accident. Eden fell. That’s all.”
“I think we were trying to fly,” he says, as if she hasn’t spoken. “That’s crazy, right? Little-kid stuff. Like the stories Grandma used to tell. But I don’t remember what happened after.”
Holly polishes the dish, concentrating on the gold rim. She doesn’t look up. “There’s really nothing else. After she fell, Eden went to hospital. She never recovered. She never woke up.”
“She was smart. I remember how smart she was,” Jack says. “And her laugh. I remember it was like bubbles. It would rise and rise and rise until it exploded.”
She turns to him, surprised. “Exactly.” She can hear the pleasure in her own voice. It’s been such a long time since she’s had the chance to talk about Eden with someone who knew her before. She longs to recall aloud the stubborn curl that always stood up on the back of Eden’s head. Her funny little baby voice, unexpectedly raspy. The greedy way she ate raspberries straight from the box, popping them in her mouth so quickly the berries were gone before they got home from market. Holly’s heart aches with the weight of all the memories she’s locked away.
She sets the plate down carefully. It’s so fragile it could shatter in her hands. Jack will think she’s a monster if he knows the truth—that she pursued a job that took them away from Eden, all the while using Eden’s blood, experimenting with it. He might freak out, and that’s the last thing he needs. So it’s easier not to encourage the conversation, not to tell the truth.
Unless he asks. She won’t lie directly to him. Not anymore. The risk that he won’t forgive her again is too great.
She crosses the kitchen. Tentatively hugs him. His heartbeat through his shirt is so rapid it frightens her. She wants to ask how he feels, what he’s thinking, but she knows if she does he’ll close down.
“I’m sorry,” she says instead. For everything, she thinks but does not say.
He doesn’t respond. Instead he yawns so widely she almost believes it’s real as he shrugs out of her embrace. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
His face is still pale. She decides it’s because he’s upset, because he’s exhausted. There’s nothing wrong.
“What are your plans for tomorrow? It’s supposed to rain. Typical weekend.”
He shrugs. “I dunno. I might hang with Ed. If the weather’s good, we’re going back to the park.”
The bloody hell you are, she thinks but does not say. Instead she kisses him on the cheek. “Sleep well.”
She wipes down the table and the counters. Checks the clock, surprises herself when she thinks of calling Christopher. She tells herself it’s to see if he has anything to report, but she knows his silence is its own answer and resolves against it. Hands off—in every sense of the word—is the smart path there.
At last she settles by the edge of the nursery window. If Peter truly is an emotional vampire, he’ll sense the uproar in the house and come now. But there’s nothing: no rush of movement through the air, no tiny light that signifies his presence.
The first two nights Peter had visited, he’d shut the window behind him, locking that light out. It has taken Holly years to wonder why. Perhaps his motives had been less than pure from the beginning. The last night, he hadn’t bothered to close the window, but no light had followed him, beating against the glass.
She wonders too if his absence signifies more than a reluctance to return. Perhaps he can no longer fly? That would be ironic. Although it’s true she never actually saw him take to the air—when he arrived, he was suddenly just there. And she never saw him leave. For a time she’d tried to convince herself she’d dreamed the entire thing. A hallucination, brought on by grief and lack of sleep.
Aside from Eden, of course.
One other detail has haunted her—why Peter never came for Jane, why he picked her instead. Now she thinks she knows: It’s because something in Holly was damaged after the crash. Not only her body. Something inside.
She leaves the nursery to check on Jack. He’s asleep, or faking it well, his arm stretched over his head as if to ward off a blow. She doesn’t like his color; it’s too pale. She tells herself it’s because of the dim light from the hall, ignores the finger of fear on her heart, the little voice that whispers it’s all starting again—the endless vigils by his bedside, the midnight checks to make sure he’s still breathing. He’s just tired. He’s just asleep.