The Children's Secret

by Nina Monroe

  “I love you.”

  There’s another beat of silence between them.

  “I love you too.”

  She switches off the phone and puts it down on her lap and, through eyes blurred with tears, she looks out through the window of the departure lounge at the planes taking off into the blue September sky.

  CHAPTER

  40

  8 a.m.

  LILY AND BRYAR wheel their bikes down Main Street toward school.

  She can tell from Bryar’s stooped shoulders, and from the fact that he won’t look at her, that he must have seen the TV interview too.

  She wishes she could erase all those things that Dr. Carver said about him. About all of them.

  And then those pictures from Astrid’s phone—like she’d planned it out. At least they didn’t show the video.

  Part of Lily wishes she could erase the whole of that Sunday afternoon. But then she keeps getting a feeling that maybe, if it hadn’t been for the party, she and Bryar would never have got so close. And maybe she wouldn’t feel like she does about the other children either—even Astrid: that they’re bound up together in this thing that’s bigger than any of them.

  She remembers how they’d stood on the dock during the prayer meeting. It was the first time they’d all been together again, just them, since Sunday afternoon.

  Lily had suggested that they have their own prayer meeting, like the grown-ups.

  Skye had gathered a bunch of leaves from a maple whose branches hung over the dock. She’d handed them out to the children and they’d taken a moment to look across the pond and then, one by one, they’d thrown their red leaves into the water.

  Lily remembers standing there, watching her leaf floating away—how it had felt good, whatever it was they were doing. Better than anything had felt for days.

  She’d reached out her hand to Bryar and curled her fingers around his and then he’d reached out his hand to Laila. Soon, they were standing in a circle. Even Phoenix joined in.

  As they stood there, holding each other, Lily knows that they’d all felt it: that she was missing; the girl who was never meant to be at the party but who was one of them now.

  Lily remembers how a picture flickered behind her eyelids:

  Astrid running down the dock toward them, a red leaf in her hand.

  Astrid placing her leaf in the water.

  The leaf floating out along the current to join the other leaves.

  And then Astrid coming back to the circle of children, her hand outstretched, her fingers reaching for theirs.

  For a few seconds, standing on that dock, holding hands, imagining Astrid joining them, it had felt as though maybe everything might be okay after all.

  “What Dr. Carver said, it’s not true, you know that, right?” Lily says to Bryar.

  He shrugs.

  “She’s mad at us for what’s happened, that’s all.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “And she blames herself. Because she wasn’t there when Astrid ran away.”

  Lily had overheard Mum saying this to Dad. That she thought the reason Dr. Carver was acting so crazy was because she felt like she’d messed up and it was easier to blame other people than to blame herself.

  “We’re going to make this right, Bryar, I promise,” Lily says.

  Bryar looks up at her. “How are you going to do that?” he asks.

  “We’re going to tell the truth.”

  His eyes go wide.

  “What? But we agreed—we said—”

  “We have to, Bryar.”

  “What about the others?”

  “We’re going to get everyone to agree. And when they do, we’re going to find a way to say it.” She squeezes his hand. “We don’t have a choice, Bryar. But it will be okay. It has to be okay.”

  Bryar hangs his head again and starts wheeling his bike up the road. She can’t tell whether it’s because he’s scared or sad or because he’s thinking hard about what she just said. But he must know that she’s right: they don’t have a choice any more. Mum’s right: it’s gone too far.

  * * *

  When the twins spot Lily and Bryar, they walk straight to them. After Dad went off to work and Mom went to do the breakfast dishes in the kitchen, they’d gone to sit on the sofa and Hanif had gotten out his laptop and they’d watched a rerun of the interview on YouTube.

  It had made them feel sick to their stomachs.

  And then Laila had thought about Mom snooping around in their room. The box was locked but, sooner or later, Mom was going to find something out. They had to tell people first.

  When they reach Bryar and Lily, Laila says, “We should get everyone together.”

  “I was thinking the same.” Lily looks across the playground. “Have you guys seen Abi and Cal?”

  The twins shake their heads.

  “Okay. Let’s see if we can find them. Then we’ll go to the woods.”

  They know what going to the woods means: it means finding Skye and her brothers and getting them on board.

  “I don’t know about this,” Bryar starts. “Maybe we should wait.”

  “Yeah,” Hanif says.

  Lily and Laila exchange a look.

  “It’s going to come out,” Lily says. “We have to have a plan. And now that they have Astrid’s phone, it’s not like we can keep things a secret any more.”

  The boys look at each other.

  “Lily’s right,” Laila says.

  Slowly, the boys nod.

  “Okay,” Bryar says.

  Laila turns to her twin. “Hanif?”

  He stares at her. She tries to tap into what he’s thinking but lately, they haven’t been as in sync as usual.

  “Okay,” he says at last.

  * * *

  Abi walks out of the school building onto the playground and notices Lily, Bryar and the twins standing by the gates.

  Lily waves her over.

  “Where’s Cal?” Lily asks when she gets to them.

  “He’s in the art room with Avery and Mrs. Tillman. He was called in early for a meeting.”

  The kids exchange a look.

  “A meeting about what?” Lily asks.

  Abi shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  At first, Abi had thought the meeting was a good sign. Maybe Mrs. Tillman wanted to tell Avery about the amazing art Cal had been doing. Good reports from school might help convince Bill to let them stay with Avery. But when Mrs. Tillman had told Abi to go and wait outside on the playground, that she wanted to talk to her brother and her foster mom alone, Abi’s heart had sunk into her stomach. When her brother was in trouble, she could feel it in the air.

  “Did you see the interview?” Lily asks Abi.

  “A bit of it.”

  They’d had the show on over breakfast. Avery had shut it off as soon as she came into the kitchen, but they’d seen enough to know it was bad.

  “We’re going to the woods,” Laila says. “To talk to Skye and the boys.”

  The school bell goes.

  Children start leaving the playground and heading inside.

  “We have to go now,” Lily says. “Before the teachers notice us.”

  “What about Cal?” Abi says. “He’s still inside.”

  “You can tell him what we decided later,” Laila says.

  Abi looks back toward the school buildings. She and Cal don’t do things apart, especially stuff like this. But she knows that the others are right. They’ve got to make a plan. And anyway, things are so awkward between Cal and Skye—maybe it will be easier without him there.

  “Okay,” she says.

  * * *

  Skye sits on the steps of the cabin, writing the story about the mother bear and her cubs on Wynn’s cast.

  “The mama bear would really do anything to protect her babies?” Wynn asks.

  Skye nods.

  “Even eat people?”

  “Well, maybe not eat them—but she’d try to scare them off.”

  �
��Would she kill them?”

  “If they got too close, yeah, she might.”

  They’re so focused that they don’t hear the children walking toward them.

  Or Phoenix dropping out of the tree beside them.

  “What are you all doing here?” Phoenix asks, standing in front of the cabin, like he’s guarding it. Lumen comes and stands at his feet.

  “We need to talk,” Lily says.

  Skye puts the pen away and looks at the children. “Aren’t you guys meant to be at school?” she asks.

  “Have you seen the TV interview?” Lily.

  “We don’t have a TV,” Skye says.

  Lily, Bryar and the twins exchange a look.

  “What is it?” Skye says.

  “Dr. Carver’s been saying bad stuff about us,” Lily says.

  Skye shrugs. “As if that’s news.”

  “She did it on national TV,” Laila adds.

  Skye rolls her eyes. “Of course she did.”

  “And the police got hold of Astrid’s phone. So now they’ve got real evidence.”

  “What did you say?” Phoenix asks.

  “They showed screenshots of her phone. Not the video, thank God, but evidence that she was looking stuff up about guns,” Lily says.

  Phoenix goes off to a corner of the deck and stares out into the dark woods.

  Lily turns back to Skye. “I think they should hear the truth from us—before they come up with their own theories.”

  “They’ve already come up with their own theories,” Abi says.

  “Well, it’s only going to get worse if we don’t say something,” Lily says.

  Skye scans the children again. “Where’s Cal?”

  “He and Avery had to stay back and talk to the art teacher,” Abi says. “I think he’s in trouble about something. School stuff—not our stuff.”

  Our stuff, Lily thinks. Abi’s too scared to actually say it, even when it’s just them.

  There’s a gust of wind. The wind chimes play a tune above their heads and a bunch of small yellow leaves fall from the birch trees.

  Lily remembers how they stood on the dock during the prayer meeting, watching their leaves floating away across the pond. How it had felt like they were doing something important. Something good. And they’d wanted her to wake up, hadn’t they? To get better? Only, now that she has, everything’s just got worse.

  Skye stands up and brushes down her jeans and says, “You know that once we say it, there’s no going back?”

  The kids look at each other.

  Lily steps forward. “Yeah, we know that. But we don’t have a choice any more, do we?”

  Skye stares at her. “I guess we don’t.”

  She takes Wynn’s hand and walks down the porch steps. One by one, the other kids follow her along the path, through the woods, back to town.

  CHAPTER

  41

  10 a.m.

  IF SHE HADN’T ignored what Laila had told her and gone back to the twins’ bedroom; if she hadn’t kept tidying their things; if she hadn’t pulled the trunk out from under Laila’s bed and smashed the lock—maybe Yasmin could have kept up the pretence that her kids weren’t involved in the shooting. But pretending is no longer an option.

  As soon as she found it, she knew she had to bring the parents together, those whose children were involved in the shooting of Astrid Carver. She couldn’t make a decision about this without them.

  “Priscilla made it sound like we wanted this to happen …” True says, shaking his head.

  “She’s angry,” Kaitlin says gently. “And scared.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what she’s doing,” True says.

  “No, no it doesn’t. But she’s been through so much … more than any of us could ever imagine,” Kaitlin says.

  Yasmin wishes that Priscilla could hear Kaitlin now: defending her despite all the things she’s said about her and Ben and her son.

  Eva stands up. “True’s right: Priscilla’s gone too far.”

  She pours herself a glass of water from the sink. Yasmin notices that Eva’s fingers are shaking.

  “I just don’t understand how they got hold of those images,” Kaitlin says.

  True takes a breath. “I found Astrid’s phone,” he says. “I didn’t know it was hers. It had run out of battery.”

  They turn to him.

  “Where did you find it?” Kaitlin asks.

  “It was under Phoenix’s mattress.”

  “Phoenix? But why—?” Kaitlin starts.

  “You know how Phoenix is. God knows why the kid took the phone—or why he was hiding it. Anyway, I saw a reporter walking around with a similar-looking phone and asked if he could charge it for me. That’s when we worked out it was Astrid’s. It had a picture of her and her dad as a screensaver.”

  “And you thought that letting a reporter look through Astrid’s phone was a good idea?” Kaitlin asks.

  “Look, I wasn’t really thinking. He helped me. And he seemed like a decent guy. He promised he’d hand the phone in to the police after he was done looking at it—and that’s what he did.”

  “After he released the images, True,” Kaitlin says. “I don’t believe any of them are decent, not any more.”

  “They’re just doing their job. And you know what? With all the stuff that Priscilla has been feeding the press about our kids, it didn’t feel like the worst thing in the world for someone to take a look at what Astrid might have been hiding. She wasn’t even meant to be at the party. We all know that there was something off about her being in the stable with our kids.”

  “But Astrid’s the one who got hurt, True,” Kaitlin says. “Nothing changes that.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t make her innocent, does it?”

  Kaitlin looks at him, her eyes wide, clearly trying to take in what he’s saying. “I guess not.”

  Yasmin thinks about what she has to share with them too. And how it’s much worse than a cell phone. She notices Eva bending over and pressing her hand to her side. She goes over to her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Eva gives her a weak smile. “Just feeling a bit wobbly today.” She takes her glass of water back to the table and sits down. Yasmin joins her.

  “That presenter said there was more on the phone—things they couldn’t share on TV. What do you think he meant?” Kaitlin asks.

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” True says.

  For a while, the parents sit there in silence, drinking their tea. Then True asks, “So, why did you get us all to come over, Yasmin?”

  Yasmin thinks, again, about Laila’s trunk. Her little girl who loved to store up memories. The lupines she’d pressed during their holiday in Maine. Birthday cards. Letters from her grandparents in Pakistan. A soccer certificate.

  It hadn’t taken much for the lock to snap open; it was small and flimsy.

  “I called you over because there is more,” she says quietly.

  “More? More than what?” True asks.

  “More than all those things that Priscilla said in the interview.”

  “How can there be any more?” True says. “She’s attacked us all. There’s nothing left.”

  “You’re not the only one who found something, True,” Yasmin says.

  “You found something—where?” Kaitlin looks worried. She’s waiting for another bomb to drop. For something else to be her or her family’s fault.

  “I found the gun,” Yasmin says.

  She can feel her words hitting each of the parents in turn. How the air changes in the room. It’s what they’ve been waiting for—and dreading. Along with the phone, it’s a real piece of evidence: something that will tell them what happened on Sunday.

  “You found the gun?” True shakes his head. “Christ.”

  “Yes. The one that was used to shoot Astrid. Or I think it is. It must be.” She looks round at the parents, trying to hold her nerve. “I found it under Laila’s bed. It matches the one
from the police reports. The one from your house, Kaitlin.”

  “Oh, God,” Kaitlin says.

  True stands up. “What have you done with it?”

  “I wrapped it in a towel and put it in the laundry room. I didn’t know what else to do with it, not before I’d talked to you.”

  Nothing could have prepared Yasmin to share information like this. Before this morning, she’d never even seen a gun in real life.

  “Why do you think Laila had the gun?” Eva asks. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I—I don’t know … I think she wanted to hide it. Like Phoenix—” Yasmin’s voice cracks.

  “Christ, those kids—what the hell are they hiding from us?” True says, shaking his head. Then he turns to Yasmin. “Show me where you put it.”

  Yasmin stands up. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  She takes him to the laundry room behind the kitchen and, a few moments later, they’re back.

  True unravels the towel and places it on the table.

  They stare at it in silence. The small black pistol that their kids played with. That one of their kids used to shoot Astrid Carver.

  “It’s Ben’s,” Kaitlin says. “It’s the one that’s missing from the safe in the stable.”

  None of this feels real, thinks Yasmin. But then nothing’s felt real since that Sunday afternoon when they heard a gunshot ringing out from the stable.

  “We have to prepare ourselves,” True says. “Once we hand the gun in, they’re going to look for fingerprints …”

  Yasmin knows that Kaitlin is right: they have to brace themselves for what the police are going to find. She’s going to have to brace herself for what the police are going to say about why her dear, sweet Laila was hiding a gun under her bed.

  They stand in silence. Then Eva says, “Have any of your children said anything to you—anything at all that might clarify what happened in the stable?” Eva juts her chin out toward the gun. “Something that might explain why Yasmin found this under Laila’s bed?”

  One by one they shake their heads.

  “Lieutenant Mesenberg thought one of them would have caved by now. She said she and her officers are experts at getting people to talk. But the kids have stayed quiet. Every one of them,” Eva says.