Page 7 of A Twisted Gift

“Ow!”

“Shh.” He grins at me. “You gotta stay quiet, or they’ll find us.”

Peering through the leaves, I check the backyard. Whoever came outside is probably one of the maids smoking a cigarette, but it could be Father. “Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Good.” Turning back to the fence, I plop into the dirt. “Now, are you safe from the bears out there?”

Erik’s eyes widen. “There are bears around here?”

“That’s what Father told me.”

“Oh. I… I think I’m safe.”

I glance at the top of the fence. It’s at least twice as tall as Erik is. Too tall for him to climb, I think. “I’ll watch your back,” I tell him. “If I see any come out of the woods behind you, I’ll let you know.”

He relaxes. “Thank you. You’re really nice.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. You wanna be friends?”

That makes my stomach flip. “I’d like that. But we have to keep it a secret. Father can’t know I talk to anyone on the other side of the fence.”

“Secret friends, then?”

I nod, smiling. “Secret friends.”

Chapter three

Erik

My uncle warned me about obsession once. Many times, I’ve wondered if I should’ve listened to him.

I think he saw it in my eyes—how haunted I was, and not just from what happened when I was a child. He knew something had overtaken my mind—something I couldn’t let go.

To this day, I haven’t. My Rose has filled my dreams ever since I first saw her over thirteen years ago. Her memory never faded, although my confidence in her existence did. During some of my darkest nights, I swear I could hear her whispering to me.

I’m not real. You know that.

I don’t exist.

My parents were bewildered when I mentioned her. There was only one Montgomery daughter, they said, and she wasn’t the girl who met me at the fence. Her hair was blonde instead of honey-brown, her eyes hazel instead of blue.

An imaginary friend.That’s what they assumed she was, and as life put more and more distance between me and Rose, I began to wonder if they were right. If Rose truly was a figment of my imagination. A ghost I made up on a particularly lonely dayso I could have a playmate. There was no little girl I secretly met in the afternoons, but still, my mind clung to the idea of her.

To the way the late summer sunlight cast a halo around her head.

To her soft touch when she handed me that rose, so careful not to damage the petals.

To the way she looked back at me right before her father threw her into the house like a rag doll.

Even when I doubted my mind the most, I could never forget her. I tried everything I could to figure out if she was more than a fake memory—a coming-of-age fever dream. But all I got were rumors that I could never verify and eventually realized I had started.

But then I heard about the auction.

His dirty little secret.That’s what Charles Montgomery called his own fucking daughter. A sick way to build interest and amp up the price on Rose’s head.

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