The Broken Girls(43)

No answer. No acknowledgment that the girl knew Fiona was there. Fiona had just lifted her hand to touch her—what the hell? It was a dream—when she heard her voice being called. A deep male voice shouting her name in the wind.

She turned. A man in a black coat was striding over the field toward her. Anthony Eden.

“Fiona!” he shouted.

Did he see the girl? Fiona glanced back over her shoulder and froze. The girl was gone. She looked down; the wreaths and cards were gone, too. Gloria Gaynor was silent.

“Are you trespassing?” he asked as he came closer. He was out of breath, flustered, his thinning hair blowing in the cold wind. “That is not a good idea. Security is just coming on shift. If they’d seen you, they would have called the police.”

“I—” Fiona couldn’t speak. She was still in shock from what she’d just seen—whatever it was. Am I losing my mind? “I was just—”

“For God’s sake, let’s get out of here.” He took her arm and tugged her gently, pulling her across the field toward the main building. “It’s a good thing I came by this morning to check on the progress and saw your car, or you would have been in trouble. I can’t think of why you came. I hate this place, myself.”

“Anthony,” Fiona managed as they crossed the field. “I think I saw—”

But he tugged her, nearly unbalancing her, and suddenly she was so close her shoulder touched his. “Shh,” he said, his voice lowered. “Please don’t say it. I think she listens.”

The words were so unexpected it took a moment for her to process them. By the time she did, he had let her go and was walking normally again without glancing in her direction, as if he’d never said a thing.

Numbly she followed his gaze to the dead, empty windows of Idlewild. It was watching them, watching her, laughing with its broken teeth. For a second her fear turned to defiance at the sight. I see you, she said to it. I hate you.

But Idlewild still grinned. I hate you, too.

When they reached the muddy drive, Anthony said, “I’ll have security open the gates so you can leave. If you want to see the grounds again, Fiona, please call me so you don’t end up in the back of a police car.”

He motioned to a uniformed man who was getting out of a car marked with the logo of a private security company. The man nodded and pressed a button inside his car, and the gates began to swing open. Waiting for her to leave.

She wanted to run down the rutted drive and through the gates. She wanted out. She wanted to be gone from here forever.

Instead she turned to Anthony and said, in a voice both quiet and clear, “Who is she?”

He shook his head. “That’s my mother’s specialty, I’m afraid. You’ll have to ask her.”

“Except I don’t have an interview with her,” Fiona returned, frustrated.

“You should have returned my calls,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Mother has changed her mind. She’s agreed to talk to you.” He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be getting up now, having her morning tea. I’ll call ahead and tell her you’re coming, shall I?”

It didn’t matter that she was scared, cold, shabbily dressed, and worried about her own mental state. She was finally getting the chance to talk to Margaret Eden. “Yes, thank you,” she said as politely as she could. “I’m on my way.”

He gave her the address. “Let’s not tell her about this incident,” he finished, waving vaguely behind them, “or we’ll both be in trouble.”

“Will she be angry?”

To her surprise, that made Anthony laugh, a sound that was brief and polite, but still genuinely amused. “If you ever find that you can predict Mother, then you know her better than I do. And I’ve known her all my life.”

That should have made her uneasy. Yet it didn’t.

Fiona turned and walked down the muddy drive, preparing to take on Margaret Eden.





Chapter 14


CeCe


Barrons, Vermont

October 1950

The last Sunday of every month was Family Visit Day at Idlewild, when families could come see the girls. The visits took place in the dining hall, with each girl getting a table to sit with her visitor. There were over a hundred girls in the school, but barely six or seven families showed up each Family Visit Day. The rest either didn’t know about it or didn’t care.

CeCe had put on a clean uniform and carefully brushed her hair. It was too much to expect that Mother would come; she lived in Boston, where she worked as a housekeeper, and to come back here on her Sunday off was impossible. Her father would not come, of course—she hadn’t seen him since he’d dropped her off here. But she’d had a letter from someone else instead.

She watched, scanning each face as visitors came into the room. A set of parents. A mother with two children. It was nearly Halloween, and the two children had brought candy for their sister at school, which they were obviously reluctant to part with. Finally, a young man appeared, neatly groomed and wearing a navy blue seersucker suit. He was directed to her table. CeCe stood up and smiled.

He smiled back as he approached her. He had dark brown hair slicked back with pomade, and the white shirt beneath his suit jacket was starched and clean, his tie straight. He had gray eyes beneath bold, level brows and a thin face with high cheekbones. He was handsome, CeCe thought, except that his front teeth were just a little crooked. But otherwise he was decent-looking, classy. He looked to be about twenty.