Page 30 of If Anything Happens To Me

“I don’t know,” I said. “She sounded convinced. That blue van scared her.”

“But, a blue van?” Matt asked. “You know how many of those there are around? Just think of all the blue minivans you see at after-school pickup. And that we’ve even gotten rides in.”

I glanced at Iris to see how she was doing, and she looked even paler. I noticed that she was looking at the inside of her left arm. She held it out toward me, and I saw a dark but yellowing bruise in the crook of her left elbow. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I just remembered,” she said. “He did a blood test and told me and Hayley we both have AB negative.”

I felt a jolt. Eloise and I had that same blood type, too. I had it on my license. AB negative is the rarest of the eight main blood types. Only 1 percent of people in the entire world has it.

“Who ishe?” Matt asked.

“The person who kidnapped us. Who kept us there,” Iris said. She stared at the inside of her arm. She closed her eyes and shivered. “He stared right at me and told me that if I was lucky, I would be chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” Matt asked.

“To be a hero to the goddess.”

“Goddess?” I repeated. “Like those women in the paintings?”

“I think he meant the girl,” Iris said. “The one in the bed.”

I was certain that Iris remembering who that girl was could be the key to everything.

“What was the girl like?” I asked.

“She was nice. Kind of shy, but friendly.”

“Can you remember her name?”

“Almost—I almost have it. Something about a storm. . . . I know for sure she dressed in white,” she said. “A white nightgown. It looked old-fashioned.”

“Anything else about her?” I asked.

“She had a bandage on her forearm.”

“Like a cast? Or a brace for a sprain?” I asked.

“No, she’d been embroidering something onto her sleeve, the needle had pricked her. Pretty deep, and it had gotten infected. The guy was really freaked out about that. He gave her a shot of antibiotics and kept checking the bandage.”

“What was she embroidering?” Matt asked.

“Just one word:Sibyl.” She looked up at me with wild eyes. “It’s coming back! I remember her name!”

“Tell me,” I said.

And she did.

“Gale, like a storm blowing off the sea,” Iris said. “She guarded me and Hayley in the attic.” She let out a breath. “He hardly ever called her by name, as if he didn’t want us to know too much.”

“What did she call him?” Matt asked.

“I don’t remember ever hearing her call him anything.”

“Okay,” I said quickly, not wanting to break the stream of whatever memories were trickling back. “Just keep going. You said she guarded you.”

Iris closed her eyes, and I didn’t know if it was because she was trying to bring Gale’s face to mind, or to block it out.

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