He had laughed then, too.
“Can you go away now, please?” Alana said.
“Shut up, Alana,” Melanie snapped. “I’m just talking to our new friend.”
“Jane is not your—”
“You do realize I could go to the cops, right?” Jane interrupted.
Melanie’s smirk grew wider. “Are you threatening me?”
“What are you talking about?” Alana asked. “Mel, what is she talking about? Go to the cops for what?”
Melanie turned toward Alana. “How about you tell your new friend that if she threatens me again—”
“I’m not threatening you,” Jane said, her voice rising, her blood starting to pump faster. “I’m telling you: If you come to my house again, if you throw another rock through one of my fucking windows, I will call the police.”
“You did what?” Alana screeched.
“Stay out of it, Alana,” Melanie snapped.
“Babe, let’s go,” the boyfriend said, tugging Melanie’s arm. “Mr. Foster just came out of his classroom.”
Melanie let him pull her a step away from Jane. Jane’s eyes were burning; she could feel her cheeks getting hot.
“Look,” Alana said, her voice quiet. “You don’t have to worry about Jane telling the cops. Because if you do anything to Jane or that house again, you or Jeff, I’ll tell your mom, okay?”
“You were always such a little tattletale,” Melanie said.
“And you were always such a little bitch,” Alana shot back.
They stared at each other for a moment and Jane realized they had the exact same color eyes. And the way Alana had said your mom.
The boyfriend—Jeff—kept pulling at Melanie’s arm until she finally broke eye contact with Alana. Jeff practically dragged Melanie down the hallway. Jane watched Mr. Foster nod to himself and go back into his classroom.
Jane was losing it. Breathing heavily, she turned and faced her still-open locker, putting one hand on the door. The metal felt cool underneath her fingertips. You can’t lose it here. You can’t lose it in front of Alana.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe she came to your house,” Alana said.
Jane made herself reply, struggling to keep her voice even. “All the windows in the house were smashed when we moved in. She threw a rock through one on Friday night.”
“What an asshole,” Alana said.
Calm down calm down calm down.
Jane took a long, shaky breath. She could feel Alana lean a little closer to her.
“Are you okay, Jane?”
“Sorry, just… She just made me a little mad.”
“I totally get it. She’s been making me mad my whole life.”
Jane turned to her, curious, letting the curiosity replace the anger, letting anything replace the anger.
“You guys are…?”
“Cousins, unfortunately,” Alana confirmed.
“Is everyone in this town related?”
“Pretty much.”
“Has she always been like that?”
“Not this bad. She’s always been a little… off, I guess. But it’s gotten worse.”
“Did something happen?” Jane asked, because Alana was whispering now, and something had changed in her face. She looked almost sad, almost wary.
Alana took a deep breath. “Melanie’s older sister is very… ill. Because of something that happened when she was younger.”
“What happened when she was younger?”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Alana said quickly. “But recently, her sister has gotten worse. A few years ago, she took a bunch of pills and… She’s been in the hospital ever since. Mel kind of… broke. After that. At first, I tried to be there for her. I really did. I mean, she’s my cousin, too. But Melanie’s made it clear that she doesn’t want my help. She doesn’t want anyone’s help.” She paused. “Now that you’re here… I think you should just try to stay away from her.”
“Now that I’m here? What do you mean?”
Alana’s expression darkened. She opened her mouth, but it was a moment before she spoke. Like she was deciding what to say. “I just mean… you have nothing to do with her issues. So just… stay away from her. I’m sorry she did that to your house.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t come back.” Jane paused. “You weren’t… doing her homework for her, were you?”
“Just every now and then. An essay or two,” Alana said. “I don’t know why. It’s guilt, maybe. She spends a lot of time at the hospital. With her sister. I just… I want her to be able to do that. I want to be able to do something. So here we are.”
“You’re a good person,” Jane said. Her breathing was returning to normal, her skin was cooling down.
Alana shrugged. “Part of me hates her. Part of me just feels really, really bad for her.”
Jane closed her locker. “That sounds fair to me.”
“I’m glad it sounds fair to someone.” Alana smiled sadly. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
Ruth wasn’t home when Susie dropped Jane off after school. North Manor was quiet and still, the emptiness a palpable, alive thing. Jane went up to her bedroom and changed into pajamas and sat on the floor in front of her bookcase.
She hadn’t written in her journal in such a long time. She pulled it out of the bookshelf now and held it. The last entry was from just a few days before Greer had died. So maybe she didn’t want to use it now, because in its pages, Greer was still alive. If she never wrote another word, Greer would always be alive. Whatever happened to this journal after Jane died, if anyone ever picked it up and read it, they would never know he had died.
She put it back on the shelf.
She dug around in her backpack for her homework and spent the next hour or so working on it, then she pulled out the copy of Destination Unknown she’d bought at the little mystery bookshop and held it on her lap.
You be careful up there, Paula had said. In Bells Hollow. These old towns all have histories. Some of them are darker than others.
Some of them are darker than others.
What the hell had that meant?
Jane thought back on earlier, on meeting Melanie, and Alana saying something had happened to her sister when she was younger.
Was that a dark history? Alana had seemed slightly evasive about details, and Jane hadn’t pressed her—she knew firsthand how it was better to sometimes keep the past in the past. It was less painful that way.
Jane shook her head. Whatever had happened to Melanie’s sister wasn’t any of her business. She opened Destination Unknown and read it until she heard the front door open and close.
“Janie, I’m home!” Ruth called from downstairs.
“Be down in a sec!”
Jane finished up the chapter she’d been reading; when she went downstairs a few minutes later she found Ruth working on paperwork at the kitchen table.
“Mom, it smells amazing in here,” Jane said, collapsing into a kitchen chair. “You already started dinner?”
“Oh, I just put a lasagna in the oven, honey. I had it ready to go in the fridge; I’m starving. Didn’t get a chance to eat lunch.”