Page 67 of If Anything Happens To Me

“Like the feather you left with Eloise?”

He nodded. “Yes, I collected Eloise’s that morning when we birded in the Braided Woods. I took it from the warbler that you and Matt were holding. It seemed symbolic to me. Flight . . . from one state of being to another. Eloise, transforming from a regular girl to a hero to the goddess.” He paused. “I wanted that for Iris, too.”

I forced myself to keep my breathing steady, to not scream.

“What is that book?” I asked, but I already knew. He gave me a skewed smile and held the book close to my face, so I could see. The cover was black leather, cracked with age, and embossed with words in a language I couldn’t read.

Daphne’s magic book, Minerva had said.It’s the Sibylline version ofMalleus Maleficarum—theHammer of Witches.

I tried to remain expressionless as I stared straight into Fitch’s eyes and remembered what else Minerva had said:It’s written in the Hammer of Witches that the dust of silver and gold is for anointing the dead . . .

That’s okay, I told myself. I’m not dead yet.

When I went back into the main attic room and lay down on my mattress, my defiance began to fade. Fitch’s tests had left me with a headache and the awfulness of knowing the truth about Matt: that what I’d felt between us had been nothing but a lie. Those two things made me feel so devastated, I nearly stopped believing in myself, in my ability to escape.

Hayley tended to me while Abigail sat across the room, watching. There was a microwave and a cupboard full of canned food; Hayley zapped some instant ramen. I didn’t feel hungry, but she pushed the mug into my hands.

“You need to keep up your strength,” she said. “Don’t let him win.”

“Hayley, look at us,” I said. “He’s already winning.”

“This doesn’t sound like you,” she said. “You’re an upbeat, we-can-do-this, we’re-outta-here person.”

“That’s nice, but you hardly know me,” I said.

“Sometimes you just know—you know the most important things about a person right away.”

Her words should have made me feel good, but they were a kick in the stomach. I had thought I’d known Matt. I stared at the rope bracelet on my wrist. If I’d had a knife at that moment, I would have cut it off.

“Are you hearing me?” Hayley asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“So come on, Oli. Pull it together. Eat that soup.”

I obliged her.

Even though it was just instant, made from powdered chicken broth, I had to admit it tasted delicious. I felt the warmth when I swallowed, and it went all through my body. I ate the whole mugful quickly. It helped me think. To make sure my brain was okay, uninjured by his stupid machine, I kept challenging myself. I tried to mentally run through my life list—all the birds I had seen over my lifetime so far. Starting with the most common—our Connecticut state bird, the American robin—all the way through my most recent, the merlin at Ocean House.

After listing about fifty more, I felt my feistiness returning. I stood up, did a couple of squats, and punched the air.

“She’s back!” Hayley said, and that made me laugh. I glanced at Abigail. She was lying down again, reading a book. She seemed not to be listening to us.

“I’ve been thinking about Fitch watching us,” I whispered to Hayley. “Whether there’s another person spying or not, we need to find the cameras.”

“I think you were right. There are two, in the taxidermy birds. The snowy owl and the kestrel.”

I looked at the stuffed raptors again. I couldn’t see any wires or other evidence of equipment.

“How can we be sure?” I asked.

“One time after Iris and I first got here, he took those two birds down, and I heard Abigail ask him why. He said they ‘weren’t working.’?” Hayley glanced at Abigail again to make sure she still wasn’t paying attention to us.

“I’m pretty sure he wasn’t referring to dead birds not working,” I said.

“Exactly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but guess he thought the cameras were broken. It turned out we’d had a power outage—just for a few minutes, but enough to interrupt the signal and send them offline,” Hayley said.

“That’s what we have to do,” I said. “To get ahead of him. Break the cameras for real.”

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