Page 69 of The Fall of Iris Henley
For a moment I don’t see anything. I pull my hand away. “Careful, I’ve got scissors.”
Then I notice that she has gone white as chalk.
I look back at the box. And I see what she’s seen.
The bottom of the box is dark and wet, like it’s been sitting in a dirty puddle.
Or like something inside is seeping through the cardboard.
Something red and thick and sticky.
And then I am screaming, the scissors falling out of my hands with a clatter, and my sister tries to pull me away from the kitchen, tries with all the strength of her body, and I’m frozen there, staring at the box that someone sent, special delivery, just for me.
CHAPTER 37
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 7:13PM
HENLEY HOUSE
It was a squirrel.
Deputy Mays was the one who opened it. He said it’d been shot.
I wasn’t there when he opened it, of course. That was after Noelle called our mom, and after Mom sped home from the realty office, and after Mom called the sheriff. Detective Mays showed up not long after. He was going to open it right there on the kitchen island, but when Mom realized that was his intention she screamed so loud everyone in the neighborhood heard. By the time he took the box out to the curb, there was an audience.
“No! No return address,” Mom is saying into the phone now. She’s been on the phone all evening long, calling every neighbor, every friend, every acquaintance. Normally I’d be annoyed that she’s taken something so awful and made it about herself, but she actually looks shaken. She’s so pale her makeup looks lurid, and she keeps touching her lips in a gesture I recognize as a tic from a long-kicked smoking habit. “Someone is terrorizing our family.”
I’m sitting on the sofa next to Noelle, supposedly watching a movie on Netflix but mostly just staring out in space. Somehow the news has made Sekrit, of course; I’m guessing the news has made the whole town, since Mays unpacked a crime scene on our front porch. I keep glancing at my phone, seeing the comments trickle in.
coffeecutie:calling it now she mailed it to herself
sriracha6969:she talked about death all the time when we were in girl scouts together—always a spooky girl
gemstone_3:Everyone’s joking about this but I honestly don’t feel safe with her in school now. How long is it going to take until she gets kicked out for this shit/
I know I should feel something. Outraged, scared, shocked. I should at least be mad that “sriracha6969” is spreading bullshit, because I was never eveninthe Girl Scouts. But everything around me is muffled and muted. I don’t feel much of anything.
Suddenly my phone vibrates. It’s Jonah. Real Jonah.
Hey, are you around?
Give me one second,I write.
“Gotta go upstairs for a second,” I say. I look at Noelle. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She waves me off. “Go talk to whatever weirdo still wants to talk to you.”
I flip her off as I head to the staircase.
Upstairs I shut my bedroom door and pace back and forth. I try to pull myself together. If Jonah’s trying to get in touch, it’s because he’s got news. It’s because he’s learned something.
It doesn’t take him long to pick up.
“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, it’s been kind of—”
His expression makes me come up short. His jaw is tight.There’s an awful flatness to his expression that I’ve never seen there before.
“I found out what IP address the Sekrit post was made from,” he says before I can say anything else.
