That’s what everyone wanted, in the end: to be a part of something bigger.
Then, in the bare silence, Trenton heard a voice so soft that afterward it seemed like a memory of a memory: Release, it seemed to say. Release.
He stood very still. He held his breath.
Fire. The voice was a flickering impression in his mind, a sense of shadow and heat. Please. Fire.
Trenton felt a finger of cold go down his back, as though someone had reached out and stroked him. He thought of the lightbulb that had exploded above his head, and the sudden push, the force of wind, that had tipped all the candles in the attic.
He thought of how terrible it would be to be trapped forever in a body like a box; to have only the long hours for company, only rooms and walls and divisions, keeping you from the open air.
And he knew what he would do—what he had to do.
Trenton leaned over the sink and closed the window, making sure it was latched tight. He felt surprisingly calm. He felt almost as if there were a force moving through him, controlling his body, as if he were experiencing a kind of possession. It couldn’t look deliberate; he had to be careful.
A burner leaking gas. A spark from a faulty wire, an exploding bulb, an overturned candle. An accident.
He moved to the stove. The burner let out a hiss of escaping gas, like a satisfied sigh.
“Trenton.” He jumped when he heard his name. Minna was leaning into the kitchen, one hand on the doorknob. “Are you ready? We really have to get going.”
“I’m ready.” He was filled with the sudden, desperate urge to stop, to turn off the gas, to go through the house again, memorizing every corner, every curtain, every patch of sunlight. But he forced himself to cross the room toward her.
Minna stopped him before he could get out the door.
“Hey.” Minna frowned. “Do you smell gas?”
Trenton didn’t blink. “Nope,” he said.
They stood there for a second. And it came to him; they could still, after everything, speak without words.
“Let’s go home,” she said, putting an arm around his shoulder.
Trenton made sure the door was closed tightly. At the last second, fitting the key in the lock, he thought he heard a voice—fainter than a whisper, barely louder than a thought. Thank you. But it might have been the wind singing through the grass, the leaves rubbing palm to palm, the far-off hum of the crickets.
He couldn’t bring himself to look back at the house. And what was the point, really, of looking back?
He wanted to be far away by the time the fire trucks came.
Epilogue
The fire begins in the basement.
Does it hurt?
Yes and no. This is, after all, what I wanted.
And I’m beyond hurting now.
The fire grows quickly. Trenton, good Trenton, gave me the chance I needed. A single spark was all it took: a memory of a high yellow sun, of a first kiss, of spinning around in a circle with my sisters, believing that we would always be happy.
The smoke is thick as a dream. In the smoke, they return to me: Maggie and Thomas; Ed; little Penelope and her small, cold hands. Out of the darkness, they come: chanting silently, eyes like holes.
They’ve returned to take me.
And I return now to the great open jaw of the sky.
From the kitchen, to the pantry, to the dining room and the hall; up the stairs, a choking smoke, darkness, soot, and stifling heat.
From the attic to the roof, from the roof to the basement.
Smoke becomes wind becomes sky. Somewhere, the crickets sing of joy.
Excerpt from Vanishing Girls
Read an excerpt from Lauren Oliver’s next young adult novel,
Vanishing Girls
BEFORE
MARCH 27
Nick
“Want to play?”
These are the three words I’ve heard most often in my life. Want to play? As four-year-old Dara bursts through the screen door, arms extended, flying into the green of our front yard without waiting for me to answer. Want to play? As six-year-old Dara slips into my bed in the middle of the night, her eyes wide and touched with moonlight, her damp hair smelling like strawberry shampoo. Want to play? Eight-year-old Dara chiming the bell on her bike; ten-year-old Dara fanning cards across the damp pool deck; twelve-year-old Dara spinning an empty soda bottle by the neck.
Sixteen-year-old Dara doesn’t wait for me to answer, either. “Scoot over,” she says, bumping her best friend Ariana’s thigh with her knee. “My sister wants to play.”
“There’s no room,” Ariana says, squealing when Dara leans into her. “Sorry, Nick.” They’re crammed with a half-dozen other people into an unused stall in Ariana’s parents’ barn, which smells like sawdust and, faintly, manure. There’s a bottle of vodka, half-empty, on the hard-packed ground, as well as a few six-packs of beer and a small pile of miscellaneous items of clothing: a scarf, two mismatched mittens, a puffy jacket, and Dara’s tight pink sweatshirt with Queen B*tch emblazoned across the back in rhinestones. It all looks like some bizarre ritual sacrifice laid out to the gods of strip poker.
“Don’t worry,” I say quickly. “I don’t need to play. I just came to say hi, anyway.”
Dara makes a face. “You just got here.”
Ariana smacks her cards facedown on the ground. “Three of a kind, kings.” She cracks a beer open, and foam bubbles up around her knuckles. “Matt, take off your shirt.”
Matt is a skinny kid with a slightly-too-big nose and the filmy expression of someone who is already on his way to being very drunk. Since he’s already in his T-shirt—black, with a mysterious graphic of a one-eyed beaver on the front—I can only assume the puffy jacket belongs to him. “I’m cold,” he whines.
“It’s either your shirt or your pants. You choose.”
Matt sighs and begins wriggling out of his T-shirt, showing off a thin back, constellated with acne.
“Where’s Parker?” I ask, trying to sound casual, then hating myself for having to try. But ever since Dara started . . . whatever she’s doing with him, it has become impossible to talk about my former best friend without feeling like a Christmas tree ornament has landed in the back of my throat.
Dara freezes in the act of redistributing the cards. But only for a second. She tosses a final card in Ariana’s direction and sweeps up a hand. “No idea.”
“I texted him,” I say. “He told me he was coming.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he left.” Dara’s dark eyes flick to mine, and the message is clear. Let it go. So. They must be fighting again. Or maybe they’re not fighting, and that’s the problem. Maybe he refuses to play along.
“Dara’s got a new boyfriend,” Ariana says in a singsong, and Dara elbows her. “Well, you do, don’t you? A secret boyfriend.”
“Shut up,” Dara says sharply. I can’t tell whether she’s really mad or only pretending to be.
Ari fake-pouts. “Do I know him? Just tell me if I know him.”
“No way,” Dara says. “No hints.” She tosses down her cards and stands up, dusting off the back of her jeans. She’s wearing fur-trimmed wedge boots and a metallic shirt I’ve never seen before, which looks like it has been poured over her body and then left to harden. Her hair—recently dyed black, and blown out perfectly straight—looks like oil poured over her shoulders. As usual, I feel like the Scarecrow next to Dorothy. I’m wearing a bulky jacket Mom bought me four years ago for a ski trip to Vermont, and my hair, the unremarkable brown of mouse poop, is pulled back in its trademark ponytail.
“I’m getting a drink,” Dara says, even though she’s been having beer. “Anyone want?”
“Bring back some mixers,” Ariana says.
Dara gives no indication that she’s heard. She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me out of the horse stall and into the barn, where Ariana—or her mom?—has set up a few folding tables covered with bowls of chips and pretzels, guacamole, packaged cookies. There’s a
cigarette butt stubbed out in a container of guacamole, and cans of beer floating around in an enormous punch bowl full of half-melted ice, like ships trying to navigate the Arctic.
It seems as if most of Dara’s grade has come out tonight, and about half of mine—even if seniors don’t usually deign to crash a junior party, second semester seniors never miss any opportunity to celebrate. Christmas lights are strung between the horse stalls, only three of which contain actual horses: Misty, Luciana, and Mr. Ed. I wonder if any of the horses are bothered by the thudding bass from the music, or by the fact that every five seconds a drunk junior is shoving his hand across the gate, trying to get the horse to nibble Cheetos from his hand.
The other stalls, the ones that aren’t piled with old saddles and muck rakes and rusted farm equipment that has somehow landed and then expired here—even though the only thing Ariana’s mom farms is money from her three ex-husbands—are filled with kids playing drinking games or grinding on each other, or, in the case of Jake Harris and Aubrey O’Brien, full-on making out. The tack room, I’ve been informed, has been unofficially claimed by the stoners.
The big sliding barn doors are open to the night, and frigid air blows in from outside. Down the hill, someone is trying to get a bonfire started in the riding rink, but there’s a light rain tonight, and the wood won’t catch.
At least Aaron isn’t here. I’m not sure I could have handled seeing him tonight—not after what happened last weekend. It would have been better if he’d been mad—if he’d freaked out and yelled, or started rumors around school that I have chlamydia or something. Then I could hate him. Then it would make sense.
But since the breakup he’s been unfailingly, epically polite, like he’s the greeter at a Gap. Like he’s really hoping I’ll buy something but doesn’t want to seem pushy.
“I still think we’re good together,” he’d said out of the blue, even as he was giving me back my sweatshirt (cleaned, of course, and folded) and a variety of miscellaneous crap I’d left in his car: pens and a phone charger and a weird snow globe I’d seen for sale at CVS. School had served pasta marinara for lunch, and there was a tiny bit of Day-Glo sauce at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Maybe,” I’d said. And I really hoped, more than anything in the world, that I would.
Dara grabs a bottle of Southern Comfort and splashes three inches into a plastic cup, topping it off with Coca-Cola. I bite the inside of my lip, as if I can chew back the words I really want to say: This must be at least her third drink; she’s already in the doghouse with Mom and Dad; she’s supposed to be staying out of trouble. She landed us both in therapy, for God’s sake.
Instead I say, “So. A new boyfriend, huh?” I try to keep my voice light.
One corner of Dara’s mouth crooks into a smile. “You know Ariana. She exaggerates.” She mixes another drink and presses it into my hand, jamming our plastic cups together. “Cheers,” she says, and takes a big swig, emptying half her drink.
The drink smells suspiciously like cough syrup. I set it down next to a platter of cold pigs in blankets, which look like shriveled thumbs wrapped up in gauze. “So there’s no mystery man?”
Dara lifts a shoulder. “What can I say?” She’s wearing gold eye shadow tonight, and a dusting of it coats her cheeks; she looks like someone who has accidentally trespassed through fairyland. “I’m irresistible.”
“What about Parker?” I say. “More trouble in paradise?”
Instantly, I regret the question. Dara’s smile vanishes. “Why?” she says, her eyes dull now, hard. “Want to say ‘I told you so’ again?”
“Forget it.” I turn away, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Good night, Dara.”
“Wait.” She grabs my wrist. Just like that, the moment of tension is gone, and she smiles again. “Stay, okay? Stay, Ninpin,” she repeats, when I hesitate.
When Dara gets like this, turns sweet and pleading, like her old self, like the sister who used to climb onto my chest and beg me, wide-eyed, to wake up, wake up, she’s almost impossible to resist. Almost. “I have to get up at seven,” I say, even as she’s leading me outside, into the fizz and pop of the rain. “I promised Mom I’d help straighten up before Aunt Jackie gets here.”
For the first month or so after Dad announced he was leaving, Mom acted like absolutely nothing was different. But recently, she’s been forgetting: to turn on the dishwasher, to set her alarm, to iron her work blouses, to vacuum. It’s like every time he removes another item from the house—his favorite chair, the chess set he inherited from his father, the golf clubs he never uses—it takes a portion of her brain with it.
“Why?” Dara rolls her eyes. “She’ll just bring cleansing crystals with her to do the work. Please,” she adds. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the music; someone has just turned up the volume. “You never come out.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “It’s just that you’re always out.” The words sound harsher than I’d intended. But Dara only laughs.
“Let’s not fight tonight, okay?” she says, and leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips are candy-sticky. “Let’s be happy.”
A group of guys—sophomores, I’m guessing—huddled together in the half-dark of the barn start hooting and clapping. “All right!” one of them shouts, raising a beer. “Lesbian action!”
“Shut up, dick!” Dara says. But she’s laughing. “She’s my sister.”
“That’s definitely my cue,” I say.
But Dara isn’t listening. Her face is flushed, her eyes bright with alcohol. “She’s my sister,” she announces again, to no one and also to everyone, since Dara is the kind of person other people watch, want, follow. “And my best friend.”
More hooting; a scattering of applause. Another guy yells, “Get it on!”
Dara throws an arm around my shoulder, leans up to whisper in my ear, her breath sweet-smelling, sharp with booze. “Best friends for life,” she says, and I’m no longer sure whether she’s hugging me or hanging on me. “Right, Nick? Nothing—nothing—can change that.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© 2014 by Charles Grantham
LAUREN OLIVER is the author of the young adult novels Before I Fall and Panic, as well as the Delirium trilogy—Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem—which have been translated into more than thirty languages and are New York Times and international bestsellers. She is also the author of two novels for middle-grade readers, The Spindlers and Liesl & Po, the latter of which was an E.B. White Read-Aloud Award nominee. A graduate of the University of Chicago and New York University’s MFA program, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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ALSO BY LAUREN OLIVER
Before I Fall
Delirium
Pandemonium
Requiem
Panic
Delirium Stories
The Spindlers
Liesl & Po
CREDITS
Cover design and illustration by Sara Wood
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ROOMS. Copyright © 2014 by Laura Schechter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-222319-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-234447-2 (internati
onal edition)
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 9780062223210
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