The Girl in the Mirror(24)

“He still looks shy when he kisses me,” she says, “and yet his kisses are so masterful. He does things no other man would dare to do, but they’re amazing. I can’t even begin to describe what he does. Let’s just say he loves to give me pleasure. His control is extraordinary He drives me wild.”

Tonight, though, things are different. I have to interrupt Summer’s chatter because the wind is changing. Bathsheba is sluggish, as though finally tired out, and her sails flap.

“We’ve outrun the monsoon,” I tell Summer. “This wind is only going to get lighter, and soon it’ll change and we’ll be beating into it. We need to cross the equator now.”

Summer tries not to look surprised. She fetches the paper chart from the pilothouse and spreads it across the cockpit seat, weighing it down with her dinner plate. “Adam drew a course,” she says. “Where are we now?”

“This isn’t a straight east-to-west passage,” I say, leaning over the chart dismissively, but Adam’s penciled line is in fact similar to my own passage plan. Not bad for a novice. About halfway across the Indian Ocean, the line zigzags south for about three hundred nautical miles before resuming a westward course.

But it’s not surprising that we’ve made the same plan; this is the only logical route. In the Northern Hemisphere, the monsoon has taken us as far as it can, but luckily for us, as it dies, the southeast trades spring into life in the Southern Hemisphere. They’ll be strengthening as March turns to April. Wind and waves will be more boisterous than here in the north, and we’ll bounce all the way to Africa.

The problem is getting to the trade winds. The equatorial zone is only three hundred miles north to south, but it’s a hard three hundred miles, where the wind comes in crazy squalls between long windless stretches, and the swells roll in all directions at once. Paradoxically, yachts lurch and wallow more without wind to steady their sails, and our family’s previous equator crossing, back in Indonesia, is the only time I remember being seasick. Most sailors motor straight across the zone, and I plan to do the same, although it will use up most of Bathsheba’s fuel.

“I wish we could stop somewhere for a while,” says Summer. “I feel more tired each day.”

I feel the same. But we’re a long way from civilization. The Maldives, the nearest country on the chart, would be a long slog upwind from here. They’re already far behind us.

“I’m tired, too,” I say. My skin prickles at the thought that Summer is overexerting herself in early pregnancy. What if she were to miscarry? It would be awful for her, and it’s not like it would help me. She would be pregnant again in no time. But what was it she said about Francine?

It’s strange being a twin. Neither of us has mentioned our stepmother since the day Summer told me she was pregnant, over a week ago, but Summer’s next words are “I still need to tell you about Francine.”

While I set Bathsheba on her new southerly course, Summer takes our dishes and the chart belowdecks and comes back with her iPad.

“You’re friends with Virginia on Facebook, right?” she asks. “So what was the last update you saw from her?”

My half sister’s Facebook posts are an endless series of boring schoolgirl memes, but I can’t remember seeing any news from her in a while. “I guess she’s gone off Facebook,” I suggest.

This comment earns Summer’s tinkling laugh. “No,” she says. “She’s put us on restricted. It looks like we’re still friends, but we can’t see her posts. Francine’s done the same, and the younger girls. I’ve looked them all up, and all I can see is their profile pics. We’re not getting any of their news.”

“I don’t see how you can know that for sure,” I say. “If you can’t see their posts, how do you know they’re posting?”

“Because of Adam,” Summer replies, flourishing the iPad. “Adam doesn’t really use Facebook. He doesn’t even have a profile pic. So I guess when Francine told Virginia to put us all on restricted, she forgot about Adam. She couldn’t have known that I occasionally check Facebook when I’m using Adam’s iPad, which is logged into his account.”

“What do you mean by ‘us all’?”

“You, me, probably Ben and Mum,” says Summer. “We’re all on restricted so we don’t know what’s going on.”

“And you think Francine told our half sisters to do this?”

“That’s my theory.”

“So what’s going on?” I ask. “Uncle Colton said the girls are all well, and Virginia’s doing great at school . . .”

“Well, I’m sorry to have to say this, but Adam reckons Uncle Colton’s in on it,” says Summer. “Tell me, have you never wondered why our uncle, a wealthy, handsome man like our father, hasn’t married and has no children of his own?”

I remember Uncle Colton standing beside my mother when he came to drive me to the airport, and how good they looked together, both well-groomed, trim, and fit. What’s it like for him to spend time with his dead brother’s beautiful ex-wife? For Annabeth to spend time with her dead ex-husband’s brother? Is it awkward? Or better than awkward?

But Summer’s next question is a surprise. “And what about Francine? Not a single boyfriend since Dad died. Why not? She’s attractive, still in her thirties, affluent enough—although she’d be much better off if Virginia were to inherit the money, and you know some people always want more money—so has she really been single all these years?”