Page 32 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Twenty-Five

An Arrow Alone

“How’d you get out?” Arrow asks, alarmed.

River folds her arms. “I wasn’t aware you were my new jailor. My door wasn’t locked.”

Arrow doesn’t know whether that’s true or not. It’s impossible to say, thanks to Cook’s lack of dependability. She and Birdie share a quick glance. River could have gotten out while the minister was here, then.

“Rabbit’s gone,” Birdie says lightly, watching River for a reaction.

“Gone where?” Either River is genuinely confused, or she’s a phenomenal actress. But by River’s own admission, she’s good at getting people to believe her.

Arrow shrugs. “Her room was cleared out.” A lie, but the only way to say what they know without admitting how they know it. “We’re waiting to ask Cook about it. Sky’s gone, too.”

“Oh.” Something falls in River’s face, and then it hardens. “He must be finished. Has the House Wife come in yet? I want to speak with her about starting my treatments next.”

Arrow’s head fills with rushing, a terrible wind sweeping through and whipping her thoughts right out.

She grabs River’s hand and drags her through the pantry and outside.

River stumbles after her, confused. As soon as they get around the corner of the house where no one can see or hear them, Arrow stops.

“Don’t get the treatment,” she says.

River takes a step back, her face as cold as the blanket of fog sealing the land around them. “What do you care?”

“What do I care? I don’t want to see you emptied out like Sky! You think the treatments improved him?”

River raises an eyebrow. “Actually…”

“Okay, fine, yes. Sky was wretched. But at least he was himself and wretched. Do you really want to change like that?”

River puts on her smile. The one Arrow hates.

The one that renders her face more art than human.

“I know you’re leaving me out. I saw the looks between you and Birdie and Forest at supper, and you didn’t come get me in the middle of the night.

You think I can’t understand or help with whatever it is you’re all secretly plotting. ”

Arrow stumbles back. River knows. Of course she knows.

“It’s all right. Everyone always thinks I’m useless, until it’s too late.

I hoped you’d really see me. But you said it yourself in the pantry.

It’s not me. It was never me. It never is.

I’m tired. I’m so tired, and I’m tired of being tired.

I used to think what happened to me, terrible as it is, was a gift.

The escape I’d longed for. But now—now, it just hurts.

Seeing what I could never have in the real world.

” She turns her head and looks out at the wall of blank white hiding the treachery of the land around them. She takes a half step toward it.

Arrow reaches out and grips her arm.

There’s a dreamy, faraway quality to River’s voice when she talks, eyes still on the fog instead of on Arrow.

“Don’t trust Forest. He spews noxious black poison out of his mouth.

There’s something wrong with him. Birdie, too.

She’s always in the dark. She can’t find her way out.

Whatever she’s looking for, she isn’t going to find it. Don’t let her destroy you, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Arrow demands.

“And you.” River at last turns toward her, lifting a hand and holding it in the air just shy of Arrow’s cheek.

Arrow has the sudden devastating desire to tilt her head, to feel River’s hand against her cheek.

To kiss her like she has so many times in her thoughts and dreams, to hold her, to tell her it doesn’t matter why she’s here, that Arrow’s just glad she is.

To tell River the truth: Arrow wasn’t rejecting her yesterday in the pantry.

Arrow was consoling herself that if she had to kill someone, at least it wasn’t the girl of her dreams.

“What about me?” Arrow whispers.

“Why are you always covered in blood?”

Arrow takes a step back. “What do you mean?”

“When you sit by that infinitely lonely expanse of ocean every night. What are you doing there? What are you waiting for?”

Arrow’s heart picks up. She can’t catch her breath.

How does River know about the ocean? After Arrow’s mother died, Arrow walked to the coast and sat for hours, trying to decide whether towalk into the ocean and keep going until the heavy weight of the water claimed her.

That was when Iron found her and gave her a different target for her despair and rage.

But no. River said every night Arrow sits there.

Oh no . Arrow dreams that so often. But lately her dreams have changed.

And River knows. She knows all the things they’ve done in her dreams. The way Arrow feels about River, the way she’s held her and tasted her and been so desperate to devour her.

River’s known this whole time, because she’s not only infiltrated Arrow’s heart and mind, but she’s also invaded her dreams.

River holds out a hand. “No, listen. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t do it on purpose. I can’t—”

Arrow turns and runs into the fog. The ground is spongy and dew-slick beneath her feet.

She sinks down to it, feeling the give, wondering if the plants are hiding the bodies of countless children.

She could get swallowed, too, and she doesn’t even care.

Because she’s ruined everything. River knows her heart, knows her secrets, knows her .

Arrow can’t be known. Not ever. That’s the one tenet of the termites she understands completely. Being known means death.

But she’s sure about one thing now: River has an ability. She’s here because her parents sent her. Which means Forest is the traitor.

At least Arrow won’t be alone anymore. Birdie’s heart is going to be broken, too.