The Love That Split the World(70)

“I do.”

“No you don’t,” Coco says, shaking her red-gold waves. She looks back at the hallway then lowers her voice. “Did you burn her house down or something?”

“Coco,” I say sharply. “I didn’t burn her house down. It’s nothing like that, okay?”

“Then what?”

I sigh and close the bedroom door. Mom would hate it if she knew I told Coco this stuff. She’d hate it, and she wouldn’t even admit that to me, because she’d be too worried about making me uncomfortable or ashamed. She’s like a silverware divider with a conscience, trying to keep us all separate and safe without making the forks feel bad about not being spoons or the spoons feel worried that the forks shouldn’t be so poky. “Grandmother told me,” I admit, and Coco’s eyes go even wider.

“Told you . . . what, exactly?”

“She told me Dr. Langdon’s house was going to burn down.”

“No way.”

I nod.

“And you’re sure you didn’t do it?” she says.

“What the hell, Coco!”

She holds up her hands. “I don’t know—maybe you sleepwalk or something!”

“I didn’t do it.”

She raises one eyebrow and digs her hand into her hip. “Do you have an alibi?” She looks down at Gus and ruffles his ears. “Did you see Nat leave, Gus?”

“Actually, I was out with someone last night.”

Coco claps her hands together and plops down on my bed. “Who? Derek Dillhorn?”

“Ew, no,” I say. “He’s not from Union.”

“Has Megan met him? Did Matt know?”

“Sort of, and yes.” The guilt is crushing me now, squeezing every ounce of breath from my body. “We fought that night. He saw me with Beau, and he left. I tried to get him to stay. I knew he shouldn’t be driving. I tried.”

Coco chews on her bottom lip and picks at my quilt. Then she reaches over and grabs my hand. “You know that wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, I do.”

“It feels like you’re wrong.”

Coco rolls her eyes. “You’re just like Mom and Dad. All the feelings in this house could sink the Titanic.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Coco. Nothing could sink the Titanic.”



My car’s in the shop until tonight, so Beau gets someone to cover his shift and takes me to my appointment with Alice.

“I can’t keep losing shifts,” Beau says on the drive over. “Now that I’m done with school, Mason needs me to get half of the rent.”

“It’s the last time.” Alice will be furious when she finds out Beau’s not joining us for our last two weeks of sessions, but I can’t keep asking for every spare moment of his time.

Dr. Wolfgang is in the office again today, smoking a cigarette out the window behind Alice’s desk while she listens to the recordings I gave her on Tuesday. She beckons us in, but when Beau follows me, she holds up a hand, stops the recording, and pulls out her earbuds. “Not for the hypnotherapy, Beau,” she says. “You wait out in the lobby.”

I look at him apologetically, then he nods and leaves.

“Sit, sit,” Alice says impatiently.

An hour later, I emerge from hypnosis as though waking from a nap. I see Dr. Wolfgang looking unimpressed as usual, but Alice is smiling and nodding to herself.

“Get something?” I ask her.

“Dance,” she says. “You started dancing when you were tiny, and you quit right before Grandmother disappeared, and you didn’t think to mention this?”

“Should I have?” I say. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

She rolls her eyes and opens the door sharply. “Thank you, Dr. Wolfgang. Would you send Beau back in on your way out?”

Dr. Wolfgang and Alice have a quick exchange in German. When he leaves the room, she rolls her eyes again. “Miserable old man.”

“I thought you guys were friends.”

“He was one of my professors. He’s a genius, but I hate his guts. He’s old, cranky, and impossible to impress. But you should see the size of his—”

“Oh my God, please don’t.”

“I was going to say memory palace,” Alice says.

“And that is . . . ?”

“It’s a trick for remembering things. You build a house inside your mind. Whenever you want to store information, you focus on where you’re putting it. You keep things utterly organized, so you know where to find them.” She pretends to gag. “It’s not how I’ve ever worked. It’s led to some . . . disagreements while we’ve been interviewing you under hypnosis.”

“Such as?

“He wants to follow the hallways of your little memory hut,” she says. “He wants to sort carefully through every room, every drawer, every cabinet, every shelf, in order. I prefer to follow the trails.”

“Trails?”

“Of light,” she says. “I’ve seen them since I was a child. They’re connections that my intuition shows me. Think of it like this: You mention something about your recurring nightmares. You describe them to me, and one detail sort of . . . illuminates. So say it’s the orb of darkness that swallows you. That jumps out at me, like it’s all lit up, and I start to follow that to everything it’s connected to: the nighttime, a growing sense of dread, your Opening, feelings of powerlessness. It can be specific or vague. Either way, I wait until something else jumps out at me before I keep moving.”