Page 29 of We Were Liars

DEEP IN THE night, the house rattles—just the thing Taft was scared of over at Cuddledown. All the houses here do it. They’re old, and the island is buffeted by winds off the sea.

I try to go back to sleep.

No.

I go downstairs and onto the porch. My head feels okay now.

Aunt Carrie is on the walkway, heading away from me in her nightgown and a pair of shearling boots. She looks skinny, with the bones of her chest exposed and her cheekbones hollow.

She turns onto the wooden walkway that leads to Red Gate.

I sit, staring after her. Breathing the night air and listening to the waves. A few minutes later she comes up the path from Cuddledown again.

“Cady,” she says, stopping and crossing her arms over her chest. “You feeling better?”

“Sorry I missed supper,” I say. “I had a headache.”

“There will be suppers every night, all summer.”

“Can’t you sleep?”

“Oh, you know.” Carrie scratches her neck. “I can’t sleep without Ed. Isn’t that silly?”

“No.”

“I start wandering. It’s good exercise. Have you seen Johnny?”

“Not in the middle of the night.”

“He’s up when I’m up, sometimes. Do you see him?”

“You could look if his light is on.”

“Will has such bad nightmares,” Carrie says. “He wakes up screaming and then I can’t go back to sleep.”

I shiver in my sweatshirt. “Do you want a flashlight?” I ask. “There’s one inside the door.”

“Oh, no. I like the dark.”

She trudges once again up the hill.