Page 8 of The Narrow

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GOING TO ATWOODwas my idea. Luke had always been difficult, but the way he was difficult was changing. Temper tantrums and breaking things and minor acts of theft had turned into running away and drugs and vandalism.

The thing about being the good kid with the troubled sibling is that it’s easy to disappear. My parents didn’t have time for me because all their time was spent trying to keep Luke from destroying his life. There wasn’t a lot left over for the daughter who did her homework and stayed out of the way.

They knew what they were doing, of course, and they felt just guilty enough about it to be pissed off if you pointed it out. So when I showed my parents the online brochure for Atwood and begged them to send me to boarding school, they jumped at the chance, so eager they were to have me gone, to outsource the task of raising me. It sounds like I hate them for it, but I don’t. They had to send one of us away, and if it was Luke, it would mean theywere giving up on him. I, on the other hand, could go away and come back whole.

More or less.

I arrived a day too early. The dorms weren’t even open yet. Mom argued with Oster to let me stay the extra night—she had an important meeting in the morning and needed to fly back—but it was an insurance thing. Unbendable. That’s when Veronica’s parents stepped in. They’d come for a tour and to talk to Dean Oster—they were overly protective, still are, and wanted to scout everything out ahead of time. They had a room in town for the night, and they offered to let me stay with them.

Veronica and I stayed up whispering to each other, sitting on the hotel room floor between our two beds, talking about all the things we were going to do.

For a week, Veronica and I had belonged entirely to each other, fated best friends. Then Delphine arrived, wearing a painfully pretentious little tweed capelet, skirt, and red beret. Her black stockings had a run in them, splitting open at the back of her calf. Delphine had started following us around, trying to join our little duo. I wanted it to be just the two of us, forever. So I’d studiously ignored my prim and proper roommate, and when Veronica suggested we sneak out to jump the Narrow, I didn’t tell Delphine. I thought the jump would be something for just the two of us, to bond us together forever. I was right, in a way.

We sneaked out together, leaving Delphine asleep in her bed. Or so we thought.

We stood on the banks together and held hands. We counted to three, and then, as one, we jumped—and Atwood caught us. Icould feel every inch of Veronica’s skin as if it was my own. And I could feelherfeeling the threads of Atwood’s magic wrapping themselves around us. We turned to each other with wonder in our eyes.

“Did you feel that?” Veronica whispered.

“I felt it. What was it?” I asked.

She shivered. “Something wonderful,” she said.

That was when we saw her.

Delphine was standing at the very edge of the water, at a place where a boulder jutted out a bit more than the others. She wore flannel pajamas that were a touch too long, the sleeves engulfing her hands.

She must have followed us.

“Oh shit. She’s going to jump,” Veronica said.

“That’s not even the right spot. It’s too far,” I said, moving on instinct to intercept her.

But Delphine backed up two steps and set her feet. She launched herself forward. One step, two, and then she braced her foot against the rocks and pushed off.

It was obvious from the moment she left the ground that she wasn’t going to make it. Veronica screamed. I charged forward, as if I could cover the distance fast enough to stop what was happening.

Her jump almost took her across the gap. She landed half on the rock on the other side, her chest on dry land, her legs in the water. I threw myself toward her, splaying across the ground. My hand closed over the ends of her fingers. Her pale face looked straight into mine, and I saw the panic in her eyes in the split second before the current seized her.

Her fingers slid out from under mine. She was gone. No slow slip beneath the waves but a sudden vanishing. The dark water folded over her as if she had never been.

I would have screamed if my throat hadn’t closed up. Veronica pulled me away from the edge, sobbing, and we sat there huddled together in helpless, terrified paralysis. Maybe we should have run for help, but I’m not sure if it was the fear or the horrible knowledge that she was already dead that kept us rooted in place.

Once the Narrow had you, it was too late. There was nothing we could do.

I don’t know how much later it was when Veronica pulled me to my feet. Maybe a minute. Maybe twenty.

“We need to tell someone,” she said.

“We can’t. We’ll get in trouble,” I said. I was thinking of being kicked out, of being sent home, my newly claimed refuge snatched away as suddenly and thoroughly as Delphine had been stolen by the river. I was young and afraid, and maybe I should be forgiven for those words, but I won’t be the one to do it. Then shame flooded me. “We should find Mrs.Wheeler,” I said. Our housemother.

We half stumbled to the bridge, too weary to run.

“Her mother is Madelyn Fournier. The actress,” Veronica said after a while as we trudged through the woods. “She’s not even really French. It’s a stage name.” She said it like it meant something, but we were just talking to fill the silence.

“Do you think they’ll find her?” I asked. “What’s going to happen?”

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