The Book of Lies

by Teri Terry

  Contents

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  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Quinn

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  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Clarion Books

  3 Park Avenue

  New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 2016 by Teri Terry

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Orchard Books, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Group, part of The Watts Publishing Group Limited, Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DZ.

  Published in the U.S. in 2017.

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhco.com

  Cover images © 2017 by Danill Kontorovich/Trevillion images

  Cover design by Christine Kettner

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Names: Terry, Teri, author.

  Title: The Book of Lies / Teri Terry.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. | “First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Orchard Books, an imprint of Hachette”—​Title page verso. | Summary: “Twin teen girls with very different upbringings meet for the first time at their mother’s funeral. As they get to know each other, it becomes clear that one of the sisters is driven by a secret destructive power—​or is it both?”—​Provided by publisher

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016035570 | ISBN 9780544900486 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters—​Fiction. | Twins—​Fiction. | Good and evil—​Fiction. | Supernatural—​Fiction. | Blessing and cursing—​Fiction. | Families—​Fiction. | Dartmoor (England) | England—​Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.T2815 Bo 2017 | DDC [Fic]—​dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035570

  eISBN 978-1-328-82896-5

  v1.0917

  For my big sis, Sandy

  A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

  —Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Quinn

  There are things you know you shouldn’t do. Like standing on the tracks when the train is getting close. Or holding your hand over an open flame—​I can wave it across fast and be fine, but something inside makes me hold it there a second longer, then another, and another. Train tracks and mothers are much the same as flames: too close, too long, risk pain.

  If I sat and made a list of all the things I shouldn’t do and put them in order, starting with the worst, being here today would be near the top. But I’m drawn to things I shouldn’t do. Is it just to see what happens, who it will hurt? Maybe.

  So, no matter how much that inner voice of caution, of reason, said stay away; no matter how I tried to convince myself or lose my bus ticket and deliberately didn’t wear anything even vaguely acceptable, I was never going to be anywhere else, was I?

  I’m shivering under leafless trees on a hill above the crematorium, my coat a splash of red in a colorless dark day. Considering my options.

  It starts to rain, and I’m glad. She hated the rain. Not just how most people grumble if they’re caught in a shower or their garden party is ruined—​she properly hated it. Almost like she was made of something that would wash away, not sinew, muscle, and bone.

  Maybe she was afraid rain would wash away her mask—​the one she’s wearing in the newspapers, smiling, with a man I’ve never seen before. Smiling? I wonder if she smiles in her coffin, if they arranged her features into a pleasant lie for the afterlife. If they hoped it’d persuade whoever’s in charge to open the pearly gates, instead of giving that final push for the long slide down. Or maybe there wasn’t enough left of her face.

  Cars start winding up the road. The first is long and black, a coffin in the back. When it pulls in front of the crematorium, it seems right that the rain goes from steady to more. It thunders down in sheets, and lightning splits the sky.

  Even as I hang back and think about the things I should and shouldn’t do, about how close to get to the flame, it’s almost like the storm has made the decision for me. It says, Quinn, you must step forward. You must seek shelter.

  But that’s just the excuse. The truth is that I’m here to make sure she’s really dead.

  Piper

  The wind howls, rips the umbrella inside out as soon as I step out of the car. Cold raindrops pelt my face, my hands. In seconds, the wind whips my carefully arranged hair to a wild mess. Hard and furious drops sting my skin, and I focus on that pain, to avoid all the others.

  Another umbrella is rushed over both of us as Dad emerges, but all I can think about is how the rain must pound on her coffin lid. Does it echo inside? Will she bang in protest, yell, Oi, make it stop? She who lived for sunny days shouldn’t have her last outing like this.

  The pallbearers take short, measured steps despite the freezing onslaught, and I want to yell, to shriek at them to hurry, to get her out of the rain. Dad’s cold hand seeks mine, and I grip it a little too tight. Dad and I follow the coffin—​follow her, follow Mum—​inside.

  One of Dad’s aunts clucks and smooths my hair, and I’m pulled toward the row at the front, but like the rest of this, it doesn’t really register.

  I try the words on again inside my head. My mother is dead. My world is different; everything is different. I know it, but I don’t know it in my guts. The coffin has been placed to one side at the front—​dry now. Did somebody dry it? She’s inside it, but it’s not really her: just what is left.

  Knowing all these things didn’t prepare me for any of this. Something is shaking deep inside me; panic is building.

  I want to scream, Stop this, it isn’t real! Stop pretending that it is!

  I
t can’t be.

  Focus on breathing: in, out, in, out.

  They all think it’s real. It’s in their eyes—​those that meet mine, those that shy away.

  Breathe, Piper: in, out, in, out. I can’t lose it. Not here, not now.

  Focus on something else.

  I turn and search the faces behind us, skipping over most of them. Dad’s family, his work colleagues, his and Mum’s mutual friends. Not many. No one from Mum’s family. No one from her past, from before I was born seventeen years ago.

  There is a good-size contingent of friends from my school. Apart from but near to them is Zak. His steady gaze echoes his words last night: I’m here for you. Anything I can do, anything, just ask and I’ll do it. No matter what. And the touch of his eyes soothes me now, as it did then. The panic eases, just a little. But it’s enough.

  The service is about to begin when the doors at the back open, and the rent-a-vicar pauses to wait. A latecomer? I hear a disapproving tch under the breath from one of Dad’s aunts behind us. I hazard a glance backwards. A slight figure, a girl in a red coat and muddy boots. She’s moving toward the empty row at the back. A rainbow scarf covers her head, pulled low over her face.

  Who could it be? Could it . . .

  No. No way. Not here, not now. My pulse quickens.

  Quinn

  Rivulets of water run down my coat and my boots, and drip on the floor. The scarf wrapped over my hair is soaked, and I’m shivering.

  I catch a movement as I sit down, a head turning away—​a girl in the front row. Her hair is long, half pinned up and half escaping after the wind and rain, but that isn’t what makes me stare: it’s the color. A deep, fiery red.

  Deep, fiery red hair—​like mine.

  Everything goes still inside; everything stops. Dizziness starts to overtake me, and I have to remind myself to breathe, to take air into my lungs in a gasp.

  I didn’t think of that. Could she actually have had another daughter? Never once did it occur to me that someone who was sort of the antimother, the embodiment of what a mother shouldn’t be, who left me at the mercy of her own antimother and just came by occasionally to poke through my bars with a stick, could possibly have had another child.

  The man the girl is sitting next to could be the one from the newspaper. I reach into my pocket. The newsprint is wet, the words running a little, but they’re well memorized:

  Woman Dies in Tragic Dog Attack

  Isobel Hughes, 36, of Winchester was walking the family dog late Friday evening when she was attacked by a pack of dogs. She died later in hospital. The pack of four was identified as guard dogs that had escaped from nearby training kennels. The dogs have been seized, and investigations are continuing.

  Without the photo, I wouldn’t have known it was her. Her first name, Isobel, is the same, but she’s always been a Blackwood like me, like my grandmother.

  It was a horrible enough end to be picked up by national press and to kick off a whole debate about guard dogs and control of dangerous dogs, or I wouldn’t even have known my own mother had died. She didn’t visit often enough to give me any sense of regularity or time. I assumed she couldn’t be bothered, and I wasn’t bothered about it.

  The man in the photograph is identified as her husband. The image is blurred by water, but I study it, compare it to the man in front. He finally turns his head a little: it’s definitely him. Her husband? He looks at least twenty years older than Isobel. But there was nothing in this article about her, this girl sitting next to him with hair like mine.

  Finally the unheard words of the service are over. I will her to turn around so I can see her, but there are quickly too many taller heads in the way for me to catch any more than a glimpse of red hair.

  I keep my own scarf, saturated as it is, in place. This is crazy. I’m getting out of here and far away as fast as I can get.

  But she and the man with her—​I’m guessing he’s her father; at least she has one—​have gone to stand by the door. They’re facing away from where I’m sitting. There is a procession going by them—​everyone stopping to shake his hand, to hug her. So many kind looks and words. So many people who care for them. The first ones appear to be family or family friends, then there is a long line of teenagers about my age, boys and girls both. There are so many of them, and they must all be the girl’s friends—​each with a word to say, a gesture, a touch. Then there is an older, dark-haired boy, tall, who’d hung back, waited for the others to go first. His arms go round her. He kisses her quickly and takes her dad’s hand, leans forward to say something. Her dad is wiping his eyes. Someone gives him a handkerchief.

  Wondering what would happen and who it would hurt if I came here today, I never thought that it could hurt me. Inside I’m clenched tight, twisting into knots of pain, pain tangled with wanting—​what, exactly? Labels for things I’ve never had are out of my reach.

  I can’t do this; I can’t shake their hands and look in their eyes, knowing what I know. I slide down in my seat and will myself invisible in the shadows.

  Voices fade. There is the click of a door closing. Could they really be leaving me here, unchallenged?

  Then there is the click-click, click-click of footsteps coming toward me. They stop.

  “Hello? Have we met?” A girl’s voice. It is a musical note to a dark day, warm and eager.

  I turn toward her, somehow knowing who it will be.

  The light from high windows catches the fire in her hair. Her eyes are wide, curious—​a clear blue-gray, the sort of eyes that change color with the light, with her mood, with what she’s wearing. And I know this because they are my eyes. Her skin is pale, light freckles dusted across high cheekbones. My freckles; my cheekbones. It’s like looking in a mirror.

  Cryptic comments and overheard words—​not understood then, but finding meaning now—​are tumbling through my brain, crashing into each other. My head feels light, and I’m gasping, struggling to breathe.

  “Are you all right?” she says. “Do you need a doctor or something?”

  I stand up, shake the scarf off my hair, and step into the light.

  Piper

  It’s like looking in a mirror. Even the way her hair is tucked behind her left ear and falls across her face on the other side, damp and wavy from the rain, is the same as mine would normally be. The shock in her eyes is absolute. She didn’t know?

  “We’re twins,” I whisper, and can hear the wonder in my voice.

  She swallows, licks her lips. “I don’t . . . I mean . . . how . . .”

  I hold out my hand. “I’m Piper.” She stares at my hand. “And you are?”

  She jumps a little. “Quinn. My name is Quinn.” She gives me her hand; it is cold, ice-cold, and quickly withdrawn.

  I look back at the door. “Dad’ll be looking for me in a sec. We can’t spring this on him here, not now.”

  “Not ever. Don’t worry, I’m getting out of here,” Quinn says, and she’s half poised on the balls of her feet. She looks frightened, freaked out, but I can’t let her bolt—​not after everything that’s happened.

  “No! No, you can’t do that. Please. Promise me you’ll wait a minute. I’ll get Zak to take you, and—”

  “No. I don’t belong here.” She’s backing away.

  My eyes fill with tears. I want to reach out and touch her, hold her, but I’m afraid she’ll pull away. “You can’t. Please. I don’t want to lose you, too. Not again.”

  Quinn hesitates. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. All we share is a face.”

  A tear trickles down my cheek. “And a mother. One we’ve just lost. Please don’t go.”

  “A mother I barely knew.” Her eyes flick to the coffin. “Is it . . . Is she really . . .”

  And it’s as if the disbelief in her eyes makes me finally able to admit it out loud. “Is our mum really dead? Yes. Do you want to see her?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll arrange it if you want me to. Promise me you’l
l wait, right here. Don’t move.” My eyes are pleading.

  There is a struggle behind hers. She glances at the door, and then she sighs. She finally nods. “All right.”

  Relief swells through me.

  Quinn

  The door shuts behind her.

  Do you want to see her? Did she really just say that? I force myself to turn, to stare at the coffin on display at the front. Now that everyone is gone, now that I’m alone in the empty room, the coffin seems bigger, dominating the space in a way it didn’t before. My eyes are fixed on the gleaming wood, and the more I stare, the more it seems to pull me in—​to grow, to take over my senses, almost like it is moving closer. Then I realize that my feet have started taking hesitant steps up the aisle toward it.

  Toward her.

  Do I want to see her?

  It would be the ultimate way to make sure she’s really dead. My mouth is dry; I try to swallow.

  Any moment now, she might come back—​this Piper. We’re twins? Piper said the word, but despite seeing her and registering how alike we are, I still can’t believe it. How can I have a twin and not have known about her? We’re identical, on the outside at least. Could even Isobel tell us apart?

  Maybe that’s why we were separated. I feel as though I’ve woken up and seen truth for the first time—​a truth so unbelievable, so unexpected, and so all-encompassing that it will change me forever. But I’m afraid to focus on it too closely, on what it might mean.

  Or why it is so.

  I should leave now. Anyone could open the door, rush in, and find me here. They’d probably call the police if they saw me touching the coffin. Or worse, they’d look at me, realize whose face I share, and sell the story to one of those tabloid newspapers guests sometimes leave behind in the hotel where I work: Twins Meet for First Time at Mother’s Funeral! Well, it’s not the very first time, obviously. We must have had at least a first gasp of air moments apart when we were born. Before that we must have shared a womb for nine months, cuddled close together.