Page 105 of The Only One Left

“And I’m certain it’s something.” I stop halfway down the steps. “What aren’t you telling me? When I told all of you Lenora said her sister—herdeadsister—was in her room typing, you didn’t seem surprised. Why is that?”

“Because it was outlandish,” Archie says.

“Or maybe because something like that has happened before over the years.”

Archie attempts to descend another step, but I block his way, standing with my arms outstretched and both palms against the stairwell’s cracked walls.

“Was Lenora telling the truth?”

I should feel ridiculous for even thinking it, let alone saying it aloud. But Archie’s reaction—a flinch, followed by a deliberate masking of his features—tells me I’m on to something.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about this place,” he says as he gently removes one of my hands from the wall and sidesteps past me. “Things you’re better off not knowing.”

“So it’s true?” I say. “Virginia’s ghost is really haunting Hope’s End?”

Archie makes a point of not looking at me as he continues down the steps. “Haunting’s not the right word. But, yes, her presence can be felt here. At Hope’s End, the past is always present.”

I follow him to the bottom of the stairwell and into the kitchen, which appears mostly unharmed. Just a few fallen pots and pans and a broken jar on the floor. In the dining room, a large fissure has appeared above the fireplace mantel, zigging toward the ceiling. Both sets of French doors are open, letting in brisk night air and the hushed voices of everyone else already outside.

Archie and I step onto the terrace, where Mrs. Baker, Carter, and Jessie all press against the side of the house. At first, I don’t understand why.

Then I see it.

Littering the terrace are more tiles from the roof plus a pile of bricks that I assume is the remains of a toppled chimney. Running through it all, about five feet from the house, is a fault line that stretches from one side of the terrace to the other.

One step over that line could send the cliff, the terrace, and, perhaps, all of Hope’s End tumbling into the sea.

THIRTY-THREE

The full extent of the damage can’t be assessed until morning, when all of us gather on the terrace not long after dawn. If anyone else paid a visit to Lenora’s room during the night, I didn’t hear it. I was too focused on the sound of the waves pounding the base of the cliff, eating away at it inch by inch. Lying in the darkness, listening to that steady churn, I wondered how long we had left until the whole thing fell. To judge from the state of the terrace, not very long at all.

The damage appears even worse in daylight, with the rising sun shedding full light upon the fissure slicing across the terrace. About two inches wide and unfathomably deep, it runs down the steps on the left all the way into the empty swimming pool. Following its path is a line of broken marble tiles, many of which now jut from the terrace at jagged angles.

Mrs. Baker peers at it all through her glasses, her eyes weary and sad. “Is there someone we could call?” she says.

Carter, who’d been on his stomach studying the crevasse, climbs to his feet and brushes dirt from his jeans. “To do what?”

“Fix it. Or support it. Or something.”

“There’s no fixing this,” Carter says. “This cliff is going to go eventually. And when it does, Hope’s End is going to go with it.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Mrs. Baker says, as if she has any say in the matter. “I’ll go make some calls.”

She hurries back into the house, leaving the rest of us to stare anxiously at the cracked terrace.

“She’s delusional,” Carter says.

“Totally,” Jessie echoes.

I turn to Archie, hoping our trust pact is still intact. “Do you think there’s a way to convince her to abandon this place?”

“Leave Hope’s End?” he says. “She’ll never do it.”

“I’m more concerned about Lenora. If something like this happens again—”

“When it happens again,” Jessie says. “Come on, guys, you know it will. And next time it’ll probably be worse.”

I sigh, because I agree with her. “Whenit happens, the rest of us can escape if we need to. But Lenora can’t.”

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