This Lie Will Kill You

by Chelsea Pitcher

  And suddenly, the balcony was empty.

  Mr. Carmichael was putting on a show for his guests, reenacting his first victory in the ring. The performance was elaborate. It required a volunteer from the crowd. If Brett and his mother were very stealthy, they could slip off to the balcony before the final punch.

  So they did.

  Like spies on a mission, they kept to the back walls, stifling their giggles. Mrs. Carmichael was tipsy on wine. She always drank a little too much at parties, to calm her nerves, and Brett took her hand as they neared the balcony. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He would protect her from the wrought-iron railing, and the drop-off below.

  They started off slowly, doing a little waltz in a little square. But over time, the dance grew more frantic. The louder the crowd became inside the house, the wilder Brett’s mother became outside. Soon, she was spinning him in circles, and his feet were lifting off the ground. Brett shrieked in delight. His curls fell into his eyes, the world becoming a blur of laughter and light.

  He didn’t realize it, at first, when his mother’s grip loosened. Everything was moving too fast. The feeling didn’t register. It wasn’t until he caught sight of his father, glaring at him through the balcony doors, that he felt himself slip out of his mother’s hands.

  For a second, he wanted to go over the edge of the balcony.

  It was a desperate thought. He knew, in the depths of his bones, that his punishment was going to be fierce for ruining his father’s performance. They could lose the house because of him. They could lose everything. But if he went careening over the railing and landed on the rocks below, his father would be too worried to be furious.

  Brett didn’t go over the edge. Instead he slammed into the wrought-iron railing, and one of the spires slid into his stomach. His vision blurred. His mouth tasted like copper. Then Mr. Carmichael was swooping in, lifting Brett into his arms. He was oddly gentle, and as Brett looked into his father’s eyes, he honestly believed everything was going to be all right.

  He wouldn’t think that for long.

  He was coming back from the hospital when the screaming started. He’d spent two hours in the emergency room, gotten twenty-three stitches, and had been in too much pain to ask where his mother was.

  Now he felt a little drugged. He felt a little delirious as his father led him up to the house. When the front door burst open, and Brett heard his mother screaming, he thought he must be asleep. He must be having a nightmare. Then two men in white were dragging his mother out of the house, and she was sobbing that Brett was her baby and nobody could take her away from him. At that moment, a cold dread settled over Brett’s skin. He wrestled out of his father’s grip, scrambling toward the door. If he could reach his mother in time, her arms would encircle him and she’d tell him that everything was fine. She wasn’t going away. She was always going to be in his life.

  Brett never reached his mother’s side, because his father wrapped him up in a bear hug. “You’ll hurt yourself. Stay still.” Brett didn’t listen. The men in white were guiding his mother into a car, and Brett was screaming and clawing, just like she had. And, just like she had, he failed to break free from the arms that held him, and eventually, his snarling gave way to exhausted sobs.

  His father carried him into the house.

  All through the night, he listened for the click of the front door opening, and the sound of his mother’s voice. The soft hands and the bright eyes. But she didn’t come for him. Instead his father swept into his bedroom at the first light of dawn, kneeling before his son’s bed. “Your mother is sick.”

  “No, she isn’t.”

  Mr. Carmichael rubbed his eyes. “You must’ve seen the signs. The woman is determined to disappear into nothing, and the alcohol doesn’t help. If I hadn’t installed cameras on the balcony, I never would’ve been able to prove—”

  “Cameras?” Heat flooded Brett’s cheeks, fierce and hot. “You were watching us?”

  “I needed to prove how dangerous she was,” his father said gently. “To herself. To you. Now she can get the help she needs.”

  “Help?” Brett whispered, trying to make sense of his father’s words. Yes, his mother was constantly restricting her diet, and yes, she drank a lot at parties, but Brett would’ve done the same if he were a grown-up. Those parties were horrible. And Mrs. Carmichael was bored. Unfulfilled. A ballerina trapped in a snow globe, trying to make the best of the situation.

  He opened his mouth to defend her. But his father cut him off, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Brett couldn’t remember the last time they’d touched when there weren’t people around. “If your mother’s going to get stronger, you need to get stronger too. All this giggling and dancing together . . . it was cute when you were a baby. But it’s not healthy for a boy of your age.”

  Brett narrowed his eyes. Never, in a million years, had he suspected that he’d been hurting himself by dancing with his mother. Their time spent together was the only thing that made his home life bearable. But now, with his father peering down at him, his stomach twisted and his chest felt tight. “I can be stronger,” he promised. “I can be the strongest, and then she’ll come back.”

  “You can try,” his father said, brushing the curls from his eyes. “Maybe we can train together. I can teach you to fight, and when she sees how hard you’re trying, she’ll want to try hard too.”

  “And then she’ll come home,” Brett said, already planning how to get big and strong, like his father wanted. Like his mother needed. He would be unstoppable, and his mother would come back.

  Now, sitting on a bed in the Cherry Street Mansion, he thought of all the sacrifices he’d made to bring his mother home. He’d given up dancing. He’d given up joy. He’d weeded out all the sweet, elegant parts of himself, and still, she hadn’t come home.

  Even after she got better. Even after she left the facility. Instead she met another man and started another family. She moved on.

  And now, it seemed that Parker had moved on too. Brett could hear him, one wall away, murmuring to the only person he’d ever cared about. Ruby Valentine. For a minute, he just sat there, listening to their voices. When silence fell, Brett didn’t have to search his imagination to know what was happening. Would they tear off each other’s clothes right there and devour each other on Parker’s bed? Would Brett have to listen to it?

  A pang shot through his stomach, and he lifted a box from the floor. A single sheet of paper sat inside of it, and he pulled it out, reading with resignation.

  It would be quick. Painless. Exactly how you want it.

  Brett took the pair of brass knuckles from his pocket, passing them from hand to hand. Left to right. Right to left. Was he really doing this? He could hear Parker murmuring again, could hear Ruby’s voice softening, and he came to a decision.

  The brass knuckles slid out of his hands, and his heartbeat calmed. He returned the lid to the box. The sheet of paper was still lying on the bed, and he left it there as he pushed the box under the mattress, where his classmates wouldn’t find it.

  Then he set to work destroying the evidence.

  11.

  PICTURE PERFECT

  The way Juniper saw it, she had two options. She could pound on Parker’s door until her hands went numb or she could get help. Brett Carmichael was the only other person in the world who knew how dangerous the Ruby/Parker partnership could be. Those two were either all over each other, drooling and pawing and letting the rest of their lives fall to ruin, or Parker was chasing after Ruby like a stalker.

  Like, seriously. Multiple times, Juniper had seen him stationed outside of Ruby’s car, making sure she went straight home after school. Once, he’d snuck into the auditorium during play practice, only to start a fight when Ruby’s scene partner got “too handsy.”

  The dude was unstable.

  Juniper kicked his door. But she wasn’t used to wearing heels, and she ended up hopping backward on one foot, knocking into a portrait on the
opposite wall. Funny, she hadn’t really examined it before.

  But she did now.

  It featured a family of four, all with black hair and blue eyes. Startling blue eyes, the kind that people called “magical” if they liked you and “creepy” if they saw you as a threat. One year ago, a boy with eyes like that had walked the halls of Fallen Oaks High, and Parker Addison had seen him as a threat.

  Three weeks later, that boy was dead.

  Juniper turned away from the painting, telling herself she was making an unfair connection. Tons of families had a little girl and a little boy with piercing blue eyes. Dark, disheveled hair. Things may have been getting weird in this mansion, but she wasn’t ready to go there yet.

  She’d rather go out the front door. But she couldn’t leave without Ruby, so she picked up her feet and walked toward Brett’s room. Just as her knuckles hit the wood, the door flung open and Brett pushed past her. In that moment, Juniper’s mind went to the worst possible place. Brett was being attacked.

  They were all going to be captured, toyed with, and killed.

  One glance into Brett’s room confirmed that she was being irrational. No other person was in there. No discernible thing was in there, except a bed with messy gray sheets and a floor that was covered—literally covered—with some kind of confetti.

  “You okay?” Juniper asked, studying Brett’s face. His cheeks were a dangerous magenta, as if he’d exerted himself almost to the point of passing out. That was saying something, for someone in Brett’s physical condition.

  “I’m fine,” he said, leaning against a wall. His teeth were clenched. Still, his face had an incongruous sweetness to it, and Juniper found herself thinking of the boy he’d been before his life had fallen apart. First his mother had been taken from him. Then he’d lost his family home. For the past ten years, he and his father had been crammed into a one-bedroom apartment in the worst part of town.

  What would he give to change all of that?

  “Can I?” she asked, gesturing to his bedroom. The door was wide open. When he nodded, practically dismissing her with a wave of his hand, she stepped into the room and realized why. Much like the previous two bedrooms, this room had been covered with photographs. And Brett had torn every single one of them to shreds.

  “Clearly, the Ringmaster offered you something,” she said, and Brett’s breathing quickened. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you what it was. I only care about what he wanted—”

  Brett started to move. Right in the middle of her sentence, he turned away from her. Normally, this wouldn’t have been surprising—they weren’t exactly friends—but the movement had been deliberate. He’d seen something, and he was following it.

  Juniper stepped out of his room. Her eyes were drawn, inevitably, to the family portrait. But Brett hadn’t turned to face the wall. He was staring, completely frozen, at the door at the end of the hallway.

  The door that was open.

  “What the hell?” She was certain the door had been closed when she’d entered Brett’s bedroom. “Did you . . .”

  “What, with my wizard magic? You’ve seen me standing here this entire time.”

  She swallowed. “Maybe Gavin, then? Could he have snuck up here while we were in our bedrooms?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. The room was locked.” Brett brushed past her, toward the open door. “Whoever’s in there has probably been there the entire time. Stay here while I find out—”

  “No, you . . . you can’t go alone,” Juniper managed, creeping after him. From Parker’s bedroom, she could hear snippets of hushed conversation. No crying. No screams. She reminded herself to remember the actual threat while she was investigating the invisible one.

  She knew Parker was dangerous.

  As she neared the open doorway, she noticed the portraits on the wall were changing. Not that the portraits were different, exactly. The same portrait had been hung over and over again, with changes made to each one. The first, which Juniper had already seen, contained four people: a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. In the second portrait, on the opposite wall, the mother was missing. Like, photoshopped out. Except these weren’t photos, and the eeriness of her absence reminded Juniper of dead things, of ghosts. The mother had vanished from a painting.

  “How the . . . ?” she whispered.

  Just ahead of her, Brett looked back. “What?”

  “Eyes on the road,” she said, fists tightening. If she was going to be studying every detail of the house, she needed him to pay attention to the task at hand. The mysterious door that had opened of its own accord. Juniper wouldn’t entertain the possibility that the house was haunted, but she was starting to wonder if her theory about the portraits was correct. She was starting to wonder, while at the same time bending over backwards to convince herself it was impossible. Ruby didn’t go to the party last year, she reminded herself. Gavin went, but he didn’t hurt anyone.

  Then she saw the third portrait. There, an arm’s length from the open doorway, which now seemed to be emitting the faintest of music. It was soft and tinkling, like something you’d hear when you opened a music box. Juniper tried to envision a ballerina dancing on one foot. She tried to envision a pretty porcelain unicorn. Anything, really, to distract from the reality of what was in front of her.

  In the third portrait, the little boy was missing.

  “Hey.” A voice called from inside the room. Brett’s voice, but Juniper could barely see him. She reached for a light switch before entering. Her fingers flipped the switch, but nothing happened.

  “I’m right here,” Juniper said, placing a hand on his back.

  Brett jumped. The ass-kicking, unstoppable force of nature leapt at the feel of her. Wheeled around. For a minute, they stared at each other, eyes wide. Then Brett muttered, “Prepare yourself.”

  Juniper couldn’t. She was already freaked out. But as she peered around him, she told herself to take in the room in little pieces, analyzing everything. She told herself, and immediately forgot.

  “It’s a playroom,” she said. A playroom fit for a giant. A ridiculously large train set looped in circles in a corner. Stuffed animals the size of lions littered the floor. French doors were opened on the opposite side of the room, leading to an empty balcony, and moonlight filtered in, revealing glimpses of a table.

  That table was huge, of course. Not quite as long as the one in the dining room, but large enough to seat eight, and positioned in the center of what was obviously the master bedroom. Oversize teddy bears were stuffed into chairs, and on the table was the most elaborate tea set Juniper had ever seen. Something Ruby would kill for, she thought, and felt a pang as she looked in the direction of Parker’s room. She needed to get Ruby out of there. Brett could break down the door if he needed to. Then they’d escape from this weird, creepy tea party where animals drank from little cups and humans weren’t invited.

  Oh wait, there they were, down at the far end of the table. Two dolls, the size of people, sitting side-by-side. A boy and a girl. His hair was dark as midnight, and hers was a startling white. Juniper couldn’t make out the color of their eyes. In fact, their eyes seemed to be closed, and she took a step closer, wondering if she could get them to open.

  Plenty of dolls could open and close their eyes.

  She wasn’t sure why she was fixated on that now. The girl at the end of the table didn’t have black hair. That threw off her entire theory, but she wanted to know. She needed to know. She stepped closer.

  “What are you doing?” Brett asked.

  This time, Juniper jumped. His voice seemed to shake her out of a spell. The house isn’t haunted. This party isn’t about revenge. Get a grip.

  “I just need to check something,” she said, glancing around the room. There was a door to the left, likely leading to a bathroom, but someone had pulled a bookshelf in front of it, and the closet to the right stood empty and open. Juniper and Brett were the only ones in here, except for the toys.

&n
bsp; They were safe.

  And so, she crept up to the life-size doll on the right. The girl. The boy’s face was shadowed by a large top hat, but the girl’s was perfectly visible. Juniper saw white skin, cheeks dusted with rouge, and a mouth that looked . . . strange. Almost like darker lipstick had been drawn over the painted doll’s mouth, to give the impression of a stain. Juniper half expected her to smile. It would start out slowly, with the tiniest twitch in the corner of her mouth, and then bleed across her face like blood in the snow.

  Juniper swallowed, listening for the sound of Brett’s breathing. He was behind her. She could hear him. Reaching out a hand, like Sleeping Beauty drawn in by a spindle, she touched the pale shoulder. The doll was wearing a white lace dress, and Juniper was heartened by the fact that she hadn’t touched its skin. She’d never seen a porcelain doll of this size before, and the sight was unnerving. She gave it a shake and leapt back.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed out a laugh, turning to Brett. But Brett wasn’t laughing. He was staring behind her back, his arm rising, as if pulled by a string. Right back at the doll, he pointed.

  Right back at the doll, Juniper looked.

  Suddenly she was falling into cerulean pools. The doll’s eyes were a startling blue, made out of realistic glass. Juniper’s heart started to pound, and she took a step back. She should’ve looked away. But every time the shadows shifted, she thought she caught sight of the girl’s lips moving. A trick of the eye, she knew, but she couldn’t turn around.

  The scream hit her back. It was raw and jagged, like the knife a killer would use to carve out a doll’s mouth on a person.

  It was also familiar.

  “Ruby.” Juniper spun around. Then she was bolting across the room, but her leg caught on a chair and she stumbled. She envisioned herself hitting the floor. Envisioned that girl rising from the chair, slowly, like a reanimated corpse. Her hand would lift, and there would be a knife clutched in her fingers, and then—