All the Little Lights(83)

“From what?”

I pointed to the door. “None of them were here earlier, and now they are. There has to be a reason. They’re up to something. You have to go. It’s not safe here.”

He stood up, holding his hand out to me. “Then you shouldn’t be here, either. C’mon.”

I held my palm to my chest. “I don’t have a choice!”

Elliott held his finger to his lips and then stood, pulling me into a warm, tight hug. I wanted to stay cocooned there forever.

“I’m giving you at least one,” Elliott said quietly against my hair. He wasn’t afraid, and I couldn’t show him how dangerous it was without putting him and the Juniper in jeopardy. “What about Mrs. Mason? Can’t you talk to her?”

I shook my head, pressing my cheek against his chest. It was hard to argue when I wanted nothing more than for him to be in my room.

“We’ll figure something out. But no more talk about breaking up or me leaving you here alone. Look at me. Do I look like I need you to save me?” He tried a grin, but it quickly faded when he saw the sadness in my eyes.

“You’re going to leave me here alone, Elliott. Eventually you’ll go, and I can’t go with you. It’s better if you just—”

A board down the hall creaked. I covered my mouth, stepping away from the door and watching the crack beneath, waiting for a shadow to break the light.

Elliott held me close while the steps passed my door and turned for the stairs, boots stomping down each step, and then the basement door slammed.

“That was Duke,” I whispered. I gazed up at Elliott, begging him with my eyes. “You can’t chance getting caught here. Not with him here. It will make things worse. He won’t come in my room. Mama won’t let him. So please . . . just go.”

“If you’re not afraid he’ll come in, why is your dresser against your door?”

“It’s not for him.”

Elliott rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Catherine, enough. I can’t take one more nonanswer. You’ve gotta trust me enough to tell me what’s going on. Who is the barricade for?”

I swallowed. “Mama.”

His shoulders fell. “She hurts you?”

I shook my head. “No, she just scares me. It gets worse every day. It’s hard to explain, and Elliott . . . I promise you it wouldn’t matter if I did. You can’t fix it.”

“Let me try.”

I bit my lip, thinking. “Okay. Okay, you can stay.”

He sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

The back door closed, and I walked over to the window, peering out into the night, gasping when I saw someone standing below.

Mama was at the center of the Fentons’ dirt plot in her nightgown, staring down the road. The Fentons’ children had just commissioned the ground to be tilled with a tractor, getting it ready to pour the foundation for a new house. Mama’s bare feet were covered in cold mud, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She turned to look up at my bedroom window, but I stepped away before she could see me, standing with my back against the wall. After a few seconds, I peeked again. Mama was still there, staring up at the house; this time her body was angled toward the window of the next room over. Realization that it had been Mama—not the Juniper—I’d been scared of all along made my blood run cold.

Like always, it was my first inclination to ignore the fear and to go out to her, to make her come back in, but she looked angry, and I was too afraid of who else was out there.

I backed away from the window and into Elliott’s arms.

“Is that . . . is that your mom?”

“She’ll come back in and go to bed.”

Elliott leaned forward to see out the window and then righted himself, looking as creeped out as I felt. “What do you think she’s looking for down there? You think she’s looking for me?”

I shook my head, staring down at her, watching her watch the road. “She has no idea you’re here.”

Mama looked down at her feet, sinking her toes into the cold, wet clods of dirt.

“What is she doing?” Elliott asked.

“I don’t think she knows that, either.”

“You’re right. She’s scary.”

“You don’t have to stay,” I said. “Just wait to leave until she comes in.”

He squeezed me to him. “I’m not going anywhere.”





Chapter Twenty-Five

Elliott

We were careful not to let the bed make too much noise as we settled in for the night. Catherine was right about the Juniper being creepy. The sounds the house made happened so often, it sounded like the walls, the pipes, the floors, and the foundation were all communicating.

I imagined over and over what to do if someone came through the door. Still, not one of the worst-case scenarios my mind could come up with was more frightening than what Catherine had said. More than once now, she’d said it aloud, which meant she’d thought it ten times more. She thought we were too different, that what was going on with her was too monstrous for us to overcome, and that she needed me out of her life to protect me. I’d simply refused to acknowledge it, but the closer we came to graduation, the more I worried she was going to tell me goodbye.