She’d been grateful to Rhea, for her honesty. Relieved by it, that someone as special and smart as Rhea’d had these same feelings. It’s lonely, being a grown-up. It feels like walking through life in a mask.
Looking back, she hadn’t shown that gratitude. Making close friends is scary. Gertie was better at fake smiles and keeping people at a distance. She didn’t like them to know that at home, her family had a foul mouth. That she was messy, had never learned anything domestic until Arlo. She didn’t read novels like the rest of the people on this block; just self-help. She was easy to sneak up on. The kids knew this and made lots of noise when they walked into a room to keep from startling her. She could have confessed all this to Rhea, but she’d confessed so much already. When you let people know things about you, sometimes they use it against you, to hurt you. That’s what Cheerie had always done. Rhea hadn’t been the only one to avoid their friendship after that; Gertie had avoided it, too. Not because she didn’t like her. Because it had all felt too momentous.
In hindsight, Rhea had been asking for help.
If Gertie had asked questions, been as open as Rhea had been, things might have turned out different. It didn’t change her opinion: Rhea was horrible. A hunter. Just this evening, she’d slapped herself in front of her own child.
But it did give clarity to something that before had been opaque.
* * *
Late that night, Larry couldn’t sleep. He cried out. Julia scampered to his room to soothe him. Gertie heard, too. She’d had enough of sitting around, of calling up. Gertie went to him. She climbed into the bed with both of them and held them. They snuggled. It was good and necessary. But after a time, they were all too hot, the bed too small.
Gertie was snoring and no one wanted to disturb her. So Julia and Larry left that room, playing musical beds. Everyone slept in someplace new.
* * *
The night turned to early morning. Rhea didn’t send her son to do this job. She used the spare key. The one Gertie had given her months ago. She wore bitumen over her clothing. Painted her face with it so that she appeared even to herself as something obliterated. Her gait was crooked, her knee undone.
She crept through Gertie’s dark living room. Beheld the slumbering figure huddled beneath pillows and blankets on the couch. So small, all curled up. Almost childlike. She knelt on her good knee, leaving the other straight and sideways. Matched her breath to blanket-covered Gertie’s; deep and slow.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, she’d chased Aileen Bloom into a bathroom. She’d kicked open a door with her knee. Whock! It had hit a girl in the head. The girl had slumped, her forehead streaming blood while Rhea had lain beside her, wanting to cry out in pain but afraid to attract attention. The face had been wrong. It hadn’t belonged to Aileen Bloom.
“It was an accident,” Rhea had explained once people filled the women’s restroom at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. “I slipped.” Except for Aileen Bloom, they’d all believed. Because what kind of maniac would knock a thirteen-year-old child unconscious?
The slumberer in the Wilde house woke. Struggled to sit up; pinned by all those blankets and pillows. The grunting reminded Rhea of an old slapstick movie. Funny and unreal.
The blanket came down. Everything was smeared, her vision just spots. Rhea saw a reflection in this opposite person’s eyes, but it didn’t belong to her. Shining oil and snarling lips, it belonged to the angry murk.
She’d learned from the movie The Black Hole that it’s not magical thinking. It’s not a cancer born of shame. It really is possible to travel through time, and correct your past. Jettison the murk, and come out cleanly on the other side.
I didn’t do it, she thought. Someone else.
Like making a wish, she took the lockbox that bitch had stolen. Slammed it against the side of Larry Wilde’s head.
THE MONSTERS ARRIVE ON MAPLE STREET
August 1–2
Map of Maple Street as of August 1, 2027
*116 Wilde Family
*118 Schroeder Family
INDEX OF MAPLE STREET’S PERMANENT RESIDENTS AS OF AUGUST 1, 2027
100 VACANT
102 VACANT
104 The Singhs-Kaurs—Sai （47）， Nikita （36）， Pranav （16）， Michelle （14）， Sam （13）， Sarah （9）， John （7）
106 VACANT
108 VACANT
110 The Hestias—Rich （51）， Cat （48）， Helen （17）， Lainee （14）
112 VACANT
114 The Walshes—Sally （49）， Margie （46）， Charlie （13）
116 The Wildes—Arlo （39）， Gertie （31）， Julia （12）， Larry （8）