Book of Lies

by Teri Terry

  Stomach twisting, I flip the keypad open like I saw Piper do, and push the numbers: 8, 4, 1, 6.

  Nothing happens, and I start to panic. Did it take this long when Piper did it? I’m just about to run when a green light comes on. There’s a click.

  I push the door open and step inside.

  The house is so still, so quiet. Hushed. Again my hand touches the balustrade, strokes it. Now that Piper isn’t watching, I want to go into every room, drink in every beautiful thing with my eyes, touch each of them with my hands. I can’t stop myself from going into what she’d called the sitting room. There’s a massive plush sofa in deep red I’d been aching to try. I climb onto it, tuck my feet up. It’s gorgeous, so comfy, and faces a fireplace. I long to light a fire, but how would they explain that one when they get home?

  Onward, Quinn.

  Upstairs, I pause in her—​our—​dad’s study door. There is the dark wood of a massive desk, bookshelves, filing cabinets. I know Gran didn’t think much of our father. Apart from seeing him across the room at Isobel’s funeral, and Zak’s assessment that he’s not a bad old guy, he’s a complete unknown to me.

  Isobel’s room down the hall is light and bright, with big windows, a window seat. Bookshelves surround the window, and they’re full. There are shelves of children’s books, from picture books on up. Travel guides. Fiction. Nonfiction. My fingers itch to pull them out one by one, and sit here and read them, read them all. Books were in short supply at Gran’s, and many of those that were there were on topics forbidden to me. Until I started working at the hotel with its shelves of books for guests to borrow, my choices were very limited. I glance at the watch Piper lent me: there’s only about an hour before I need to clear out. What next?

  There’s a door at the end—​one Piper hadn’t opened. I go through it and switch on the light.

  It’s part dressing room, part wardrobe. One wall is lined with clothes racks, full of pretty things. The opposite wall has a full-length mirror in the center, with slots for shoes and hats either side—​silly hats, mostly, more like a bit of decoration that would perch on your head than anything else. Where would you wear such a thing? I try one on, then another, and pirouette in front of the mirror, laughing. What will they do with all of this stuff now that Isobel is gone?

  On the wall opposite the door is a beautiful dressing table with a carved chair facing a three-way mirror. I sit down. There’s a switch: the mirror lights up at the top. On one side are combs and brushes and a box full of all sorts of makeup, and on the other, a huge wooden jewelry box with many little drawers. My curious hands open one drawer, then another.

  This stuff is worth something, even I can tell that. There are earrings and necklaces, silver and gold, many with gemstones. They’re too beautiful to be anything but real—​sapphires, rubies, diamonds. And there is one heavy gold bracelet with serious diamonds set in the links, and a chunky matching watch.

  Would anyone miss a few of these? I could sell them, get out of here, go somewhere new. Gran will be all right. She’s strong—​they said so. I could leave Piper, her wanting and her questions, behind.

  But what about Zak? Somehow, leaving him troubles me more than the others. In short hours, I’ve come to trust him.

  Madness, Quinn. He belongs to Piper. Those kisses said so, didn’t they? You wouldn’t kiss somebody like that unless you loved him.

  Not that I’d know.

  No. Forget Zak, too.

  Isobel was my mother; I have just as much right to all of this as anyone else. But it would be best to take just a few things and hope they don’t notice until I’m long gone. Now, which of them are worth the most? I try to judge based on weight of gold, size of stones. Diamonds are the most expensive, aren’t they?

  I open another drawer, and my breath catches when I see what is inside. Isobel always wore this bracelet when she came to visit. I take it out and hold it in my hands. Unlike the other pieces, it feels warm, as if it remembers her pulse against it. It’s not heavy gold or silver like the others, with things that sparkle. It looks old, really old, like an antique.

  I’d been fascinated by it as a child. Once when I reached out to touch it, she jumped like she was stung and smacked my hand away. Now I study it closely. It’s made of metal rings of what looks like burnished bronze, looped together in an intricate pattern, with beads here and there in the loops. A stone pendant, like a charm, hangs from it. It’s seriously heavy. The pendant’s surface looks smooth as glass, but when I run a fingertip across it, it feels uneven. When I close my eyes and touch it, I’d swear there were symbols of some sort carved on the stone.

  Holding the pendant in my hand, I have more of a sense of Isobel in this one bracelet than in all the rest of her trinkets. They were mere decoration. Somehow I know: this one had substance. It meant something to her.

  More than I ever did.

  Then I want to throw it across the room, smash it into a million pieces . . . and hold it close at the same time. I clutch it to my chest.

  One tear, two—​angry tears or sad tears, I don’t know. Two tears are all I dare allow myself. Any more than two can become a flood, and this thin edge of control will be gone.

  As I sit, fighting to stop myself from giving in to the darkness, focusing on my breathing—​deep and even, in and out—​something nags for attention. Did something disturb the silence? I hold still, and listen.

  A faint sound, another. Footsteps? And they’re getting closer. There is a creak—​a door? Is it the door to the room that leads to this one? I should have turned off the lights. It’s too late now—​can whoever it is see there is light under the door?

  I should hide, dive behind some clothes. But I’m frozen in place.

  Click.

  The door behind me?

  I spin round and jump out of the chair, heart thudding. Piper’s dad stands in the doorway. Fear rushes through my veins.

  “Don’t stand there with a scared look, like I caught you at something, daft girl. Any of this you want is yours.”

  “I . . .” The apology for trespass on my lips dies away. He thinks I’m Piper? Of course he does. I try to take the panic from my face. “Sorry. You startled me, that’s all.”

  He walks close. He’s tall, almost as tall as Zak, and smells of mints, and aftershave, and the pub.

  “Petal. You don’t seem yourself. Is there anything I can do?” I shake my head, afraid: can he tell I’m not Piper? Is it the way I speak? Stay silent as much as possible. His hand gently brushes a tear from my cheek. “What do you have there?” He’s looking at my hand, still clutched to my chest holding Isobel’s bracelet.

  I hold it out, dangling from my fingers.

  He takes it from me. “She loved wearing this, didn’t she? I had trouble getting it off her when I gave her that diamond watch and bracelet set for Christmas. Do you remember?”

  He’s waiting for an answer, and I panic. I can’t lie. But if he’s asking, maybe he doesn’t expect me to remember. I shake my head no.

  “I suppose not. You were very young. Anyhow, she eventually worked out she could wear this one on the top of her arm, above her elbow, and have the diamond bracelet on one wrist, and the watch on the other. She did that now and then to make me happy, but always seemed uncomfortable about it. I learned my lesson and never got her a bracelet again. She seemed to be almost afraid to ever be without this favorite one. She made me promise if anything ever happened to her, to give it to you.”

  “To . . . me? Are you sure?”

  “Of course. She wanted her daughter to have it.” He hesitates. “Do you want to wear it? It’s all right if you don’t.”

  I pause, part of me scared that something will happen to me if I wear Isobel’s favorite bracelet, that she’ll be so annoyed she’ll make a special visit to the living just to take it off me. But the rest of me wants this bracelet around my wrist, more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. I nod.

  “Here. I’ll put it on you.”

>   I hold out my right wrist; he does up the clasp. It slips warm against my skin, not as heavy as I expected it to feel.

  “Thank you,” I say, and hold out my hand, touch the bracelet with wondering fingers. It’s a bit big, but not so big that it can slip off. Isobel’s bracelet. I shouldn’t take it; he means to give it to Piper. But what was it he said? She wanted her daughter to have it.

  I am her daughter. Although a moment ago I couldn’t decide whether to smash it or hold it close, now wearing it feels right. As soon as it went around my wrist, I felt calmer, more centered in myself.

  My fingers close around the pendant.

  “Come on. Downstairs for a cup of tea?”

  He holds the door open. No choice but to comply. I step through, leaving the rest of Isobel’s jewelry behind.

  Luckily the phone rings almost as soon as the tea is ready. Piper’s dad—​my dad, but I can’t seem to think of him that way—​spends most of the time making apologetic faces to me, and talking about some legal case. It’s an hour before I manage to get away, scared the whole time that Piper will walk through the door.

  Once I’m out of sight of the house, I pause and study the bracelet. Piper may have said to take anything I liked when we were at the house together, but I’m sure her words wouldn’t extend to this. I should take it off, hide it in a pocket, but somehow I don’t want to. Shall I try Isobel’s trick?

  I push the bracelet up my arm, under the blue sweater. I can just ease it past my elbow without undoing the clasp. I slide it far enough to make it tight, so it won’t slip down or move around and make clinking noises. There is kind of a bump under the sleeve, but the wool is thick enough that no one should notice.

  I hope.

  Piper

  When we get back to Zak’s house, Quinn isn’t there.

  Cold panic spreads through me. She couldn’t have left me, could she? I run upstairs to check her room again, and breathe easier when I see her things still in place. Surely she wouldn’t have left without them. And then one worry replaces another as I walk back down the stairs.

  “Where could she be?”

  “Don’t panic,” Zak says. “She was probably bored and went for a walk or something. It’s a nice evening, and we were ages later than we said we’d be.”

  “But what if someone sees her and thinks she’s me?”

  “What if they do?”

  “Well, what if they talk to her, and she says something barmy, and then they think I’m crazy? Or worse, what if she says, ‘I’m not Piper, I’m her secret twin’?”

  Zak laughs. “You don’t really think she’d do that, do you? Anyhow, if she did, no one would believe her. They’d go back to thinking you were crazy.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t think she’d do anything to expose who she is on purpose, when she seems very careful not to show anything of herself. But it’s the unknown I don’t like—​having something so important not under my control.

  I sigh and flop onto the sofa. Zak sits next to me, and I snuggle in against him. “She could be doing anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “What do we really know about her? Apart from the obvious fact that she and I are twins. We don’t know anything about where she’s lived, or who with.”

  “Her grandmother. Quinn was raised by her grandmother—​I guess she’s your grandmother, too.”

  “Oh. So even you know more about my sister than I do. Do you also happen to know where they lived?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you could try to find out for me?”

  “No way. I’m not getting between the two of you. If you want to know something, ask her, ask her nicely, and if you take her feelings into account, she might just answer. Anyhow, one redhead on my case is bad enough.”

  I pinch him, hard, on the arm.

  “Ouch.” He rubs the place. “That’s exactly what I mean.” He jumps back before I can get him again, and looks out the front window. “And guess who is walking up the path right now.”

  The gate rattles. The door opens. Quinn walks through the entrance hall and into the front room. “Hello,” she says.

  I get up and face her. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Out.” She raises an eyebrow in a way that says, None of your business, but it so is my business.

  “Tea?” Zak says, smiling. He stands and puts himself between the two of us.

  Quinn hesitates. “Uh . . . all right.”

  Zak draws both of us into the kitchen, and sits us down at opposite ends of the table. He fills the kettle while I study Quinn. She’s sitting awkwardly, not quite meeting my eye. Why? This isn’t how I want us to be.

  I sigh, and try a hesitant smile. “I’m sorry if I sounded cross. I was really worried about you.”

  Zak puts cookies on the table, gives me an approving glance.

  “As you can see, I’m perfectly fine,” Quinn says.

  “So, where were you?” I say, still smiling.

  She stares back at me. A muscle twitches in her jaw, and there is no trace of a smile of her own. “I can’t think of one good reason why I should tell you what I do every minute of the day.”

  “I can,” I say, trying to keep the anger rushing through me from showing on my face. “I think while you’re staying here, we should establish some house rules. And include a discussion of where you can go, and when.” I try to use my best reasonable tone, but my usual powers of persuasion don’t appear to be working.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Come on, Piper,” Zak says. “You’re not her keeper. Don’t be ridiculous.” I glare at Zak, but he doesn’t back down. “It’s my house, and it’s pretty much a rule-free zone. Apart from the put-the-toilet-seat-down one that you imposed and I accept. When I remember.” He grins, but the tension is like a living, squirming thing in the room, filling it, and I start to panic. What if Quinn is so annoyed that she leaves?

  My head drops on my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m just so stressed out that I’m not making sense. Please forgive me?” I look up, pleading.

  She seems off balance—​is she confused by my changes in mood? When I say forgive me, people do—​Dad, Zak, everybody. No matter what I may have done. Yet suddenly I’m less sure of Quinn than I’ve ever been of anyone.

  Except Mum.

  She shakes her head. “Piper, just calm down a little, and everything will be fine.”

  Everything will be fine. A generality, right up there with have a nice day. Yet somehow when she says it, I believe her. I shake my head, bemused. That is the sort of effect I usually have on people. It’s almost like she’s me, and I’m her.

  “How about we start again?” Zak says.

  I walk back late, Zak with me this time. He holds my hand. Before we go round the corner to my house, he draws me into shadows—​our goodbye place, under some trees and away from streetlights. He puts his arms around me, but doesn’t draw me in for a kiss. His hand strokes my hair.

  “Is everything all right, Piper?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You don’t seem yourself. I know, how can you, with your mum and everything, but I don’t mean it like that. I know this twin situation is beyond weird, but it’s how you’re handling it. You have to get to know Quinn as her own person; she’s not some sort of extension of you.”

  I stiffen. “Well, the next time an identical twin walks into your life, maybe you’ll know how it feels.”

  “Tell me. I’m listening.”

  But there are things I can’t tell Zak, things he’d rather not know. I reach up instead, pull his head down, and kiss him until he forgets.

  Quinn

  I ease the bracelet carefully down my arm, over my elbow, and back to my wrist. It was too tight up there; it left a painful imprint in my skin.

  Piper could tell I was hiding something, I’m sure of it. But instead of homing in and asking more questions until I was trapped, she backed off, and I got the very definite impression that this isn’t something she usuall
y does. She is obviously a girl who is used to getting her way. Even Zak seemed surprised. It’s almost like there’s something she’s afraid of, but what could it possibly be? She’s the one who has everything. I have nothing.

  Except this bracelet. I run my fingers over the links, spin the beads, and examine the stone. That’s odd: the marks I could feel before with my fingertips but not see—​now they’re visible. Maybe the light is better in here; they are still quite faint. They’re interlocking symbols. I don’t know what they mean, but they remind me of something, and I search my memory, trying to work out what.

  Goose bumps run down my back when it hits me. Gran had a book with symbols like this on the cover; I’m sure of it. It was high on a shelf in her room downstairs, the one where she did readings. I wasn’t allowed in there, and she kept it locked. But once, when I was about ten, she forgot to lock it after a client left, and I snuck in.

  I remember I stood there and drank it all in: the strange cards laid out on the table, the markings on the walls, the pretty crystals placed around the room and dangling from the ceiling. The books, including one that was clearly very old. My hands were drawn to pull it from the shelf, to stroke the faded red cover—​and it had the very same symbols drawn across it as are carved on this stone pendant.

  She found me standing there with the book in my hands. Her face went white. She took it away and dragged me out by the ear. The punishment was severe: I was locked in darkness, with no food and only a little water, for two days.

  She never forgot to lock her reading room again. But I remembered every bit of it—​a place that seemed magical.

  Going into Gran’s room was crazy. Keeping this bracelet is crazy, too, but sometimes crazy things must be done, and hang the consequences.

  But our dad—​I make myself try the word on in my mind—​is bound to mention it to Piper, to ask why she’s not wearing it. I should come clean. I should give it to Piper. Failing that, I should get the hell away from here.