Page 68 of The Family Plot
“Is there a reason you asked me that?” he says. “Are you… concerned about something?”
“No,” I say quickly. I sidestep a clump of seaweed. “Other than the fact that you still won’t tell me where we’re going.”
He smiles a little, almost sheepish. “It’s not much farther,” he promises.
Beside us, the ocean roars, ruthless and wild. I turn my head to watch it, entranced by the violence of its rhythm. In a way, it remindsme of Andy—how he thrashed his ax at the trees, how he, too, had wildness in him, his eyes nearly feral each time he swung. As the ocean pulls back, its roar dulling to a fervent whisper, I swear I can hear Andy’s voice:Unnatural, he says.Our family is unnatural, Dahlia. We have to get out.
“How about your mother?” Elijah asks. “How’s she doing through all this?”
My scoff comes quickly. “Hard to be sure. I just found out she’s a liar.”
I regret the admission as soon as Elijah reacts, the mention of lying propelling him into motion. He reaches toward his inner pocket, ready to grab his notebook, but I put my hand out to stop him.
“I’m talking about her parents,” I explain.
He waits for me to elaborate.
“That they died of cancer instead of murder? I know she told you when you questioned her about her sketches the other night.” I scoff again at a realization. “I can’t believe she told you before she told us.”
Elijah’s forehead wrinkles. “You didn’t know?”
“Not until yesterday.”
A crease deepens between his brows. “How is that possible?”
There’s astonishment in the question. My mind snags on that, slow to comprehend.
“Wait,” I say. We stop walking. “Did you already know… before she told you?”
He looks at me strangely, like I’m missing something obvious.
“Everyone knows,” he says.
I hesitate. “Who’s everyone?”
“The people on this island. That’s why my father was so suspicious of your family.”
I stare at him, jaw slack, until he continues.
“Your mom and her parents only lived here during the summers at first, right?”
I nod.
“But then, your mom moved here permanently, on her own, and started telling people her parents were brutally murdered.”
I nod again, and in a way, it feels like I’m absorbing the story for the very first time. She didn’t just lie to us. She lied to everyone she spoke to.
“She didn’t think anybody would see an obituary?” Elijah says. “Everyone knew. And it freaked them out, that a person would lie about something like that.”
As his words sink in, I waver between shock and embarrassment. I spent years trudging through websites for a single trace of Andy, and all that time, I never thought to check the rest of our family history. I never considered, even for a moment, that our origin story might be a lie.
Tears simmer, hot and sudden, ready to boil over onto my cheeks.
“But I didn’t know!” I say. “None of us did.” A sound ripples through my throat, something between a groan and a whine. “No wonder they call our house Murder Mansion.”
Those gossiping islanders. Like the wind and the ocean, their whispers have been the white noise of Blackburn Island. And yet: the snippets I’d catch—murder,parents,that family—while spinning through Fritz’s leaf piles were never enough for me to hear the whole truth.
I grip my head on either side, squeezing my temples. “Everyone knew!” I say, because of course they did. “Out here, everyone knew. But in there”—I gesture toward the center of the island, the hill on which our house looms, gray and stony as the sky—“we had no idea. And how could we? We were so isolated. Soinsulated. God, it’s so messed up. My family is so messed up.”
