My stomach muscles tie in knots.
Does he . . . know?
Sunday. Wash day.
As I stand in front of the mirror, detangling my coils, my thoughts drift back to the secret garden. Could I be imagining things? The room felt . . . off, disturbed. Didn’t seem like anyone broke in there; the door was exactly as I left it. So how could the furniture be moved around yet the door never be open? And if someone was snooping around . . . why didn’t they mess with the plants? Maybe they’re waiting for the right time to blackmail me.
“Mari! Mari!” Sammy calls from downstairs.
In the beginning, this whole plan seemed so foolproof. Now I’m exhausted living this double life and, what’s worse, not even close to the type of high I want. Scratch that, need.
“Mari! Mari!”
“What?! I’m doing my hair!” I shout through the door, hands covered in deep conditioner.
“Come here! Quick!”
“Dude,” I groan, and stuff my wet curls in a plastic cap.
“Mari, are you coming?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Hang on,” I say from the steps, water already leaking down my neck, soaking the collar of my T-shirt.
“Hurry up!” Sammy excitedly waves me on, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the family room.
“What is it?”
“Come here! Look at Buddy!”
Buddy is sitting back on his hind legs, paws in the air. For a silly slobber dog, he’s completely stoic, motionless.
“He’s been like that for, like, five whole minutes,” Sammy laughs. “He hasn’t moved. Even when I offer him treats!”
Sammy snaps his fingers, but Buddy doesn’t blink. Tail erect, eyes focused, he’s a tense living statue. The same way he looks when he spots a squirrel; his wolf instinct returns and he’s nothing but a predator glaring at his prey.
I follow Buddy’s eyeline to the basement door.
“Buddy?” I say slowly.
A low growl seeps through his teeth, transfixed on one spot. Hairs prickle on my neck like hundreds of tiny knives.
There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there!
With two quick strides, I bolt across the room, pushing Buddy sideways, and he yelps.
“Dude!” Sammy yells. “What’d you do that for?”
Stunned, Buddy shakes his head, looking up at me with a happy pant, tail wagging.
“It’s . . . uh, it isn’t good for his joints, sitting like that,” I say, plopping on the sofa, trying to keep it cool. “You want him to get arthritis?”
“He’s seven,” Sammy scoffs before his voice trails off, and he turns, staring at the basement door. I lean forward.
“What is it?” I gasp.
For a moment, he stands staring just like Buddy, entranced, unmoving, but exhales, turning back to me.
“Oh. Nothing,” he quips with a shrug. “Thought I heard something,”
“Something . . . like what?” I ask, inching forward, prepared to catch his secret.
“I don’t know,” he laughs, blowing me off, and gives Buddy a good scratch behind the ears. “It’s nothing.”
I bite my tongue to keep from pushing further. I want him to hear something. To see something. I want him to jump on the crazy train with me, so I don’t feel so alone.
“Where’s Piper?” he asks, rubbing Bud’s belly.
“In her room, I guess.”
“You guess? Some babysitter you are.”
“Believe me, this is one job I did not sign up for and quit regularly,” I moan and flop on the sofa, leaning my head on the sofa arm with a yawn. Insomnia and early morning gardening has me wiped out.
“She was just sitting down here in the dark, doing nothing. No TV or anything. Weird little kid.”
Considering my talk with Yusef, I try to see things from Piper’s perspective. Through the eyes of a little girl living with cold strangers who doesn’t have a friend her age in the world. I glance at the freshly carved Sweets on the counter and smile.
“Hey, did you have fun apple picking? I mean, after you rode your pony?”
He narrows his eyes. “She was a retired racehorse. And yeah, I did. Yusef’s really cool.”
A memory flashes of David and Sammy playing video games in our living room while I did homework. Sammy loved David. He took the breakup pretty hard, enough to find David’s number in Mom’s phone and secretly call him sometimes. It made our breakup complicated.
“Well. Don’t get too attached,” I blurt out.
He snorts. “I could say the same thing to you.”
“Touché . . . ,” I chuckle. “Ugh. It’s so annoying having a younger twin.”
He points at my head. “You’re getting your hair mayo on the sofa.”
“Shit,” I mutter, jumping up. Last time I tried to do a hot oil treatment, I fell asleep watching The Great American Baking Show and oil leaked out my shower cap, staining the cushion. I flipped it over and it’s been my little secret ever since.
“Hey, what’s that?” Sammy points behind me, frowning.
“What?”
“On your pants.”
I slide a hand down my side before looking, expecting to touch something wet, but instead come across something dry, minuscule . . . and hard.
Sammy’s eyes grow wide, shooting his hand out. “Wait, Mari . . .”
But it’s too late. I glance down and see a sprinkle of black dots on my pants and pinch one in between my nails.
“Oh God,” I whisper before snatching the cushion up, exposing my oil stain . . . as well as black spots in the sofa lining.
The scream that bubbles up is agonizing. The scream of a siren. Sammy covers his ears as I back away, tripping over Buddy, my arm in flames.
Bedbugs. We have bedbugs. Bedbugs bedbugs bedbugs . . .
Sammy moves closer to investigate.
“NO, SAM! Don’t!” I sob, reaching out to grab him. Buddy, unnerved by my screams, starts to whimper.
Sam bends, grabbing a black dot, examining it before he sniffs.
“It’s coffee,” he mutters, standing. “It’s not bugs, it’s just coffee. Here, smell!”
“DON’T BRING THEM TO MY FACE!”
Sammy jumps back. “Dude, calm down!”
I fly into the kitchen, diving under the sink for the cleaning supplies.
We need soap, bleach. I think the steam cleaner is in the linen closet. Boil the water, Sammy. It has to be superhot. Where’s my hair dryer? Can’t sit on your bed, rip the sheets. I’ll start the first load. We have some of those big black garbage bags, right? Let’s put the furniture on the deck, I’ll start scrubbing. Is it gonna rain? I don’t think it’s gonna rain. It can air out. Maybe save a mattress, seal off the room. What about Bud? I don’t want him messing with the glue traps. We have to lay traps at each foot of the bed. Four traps, four beds, four times four is eight but we should double that to sixteen so we can do two rounds. Oh God, is that a bite? That’s a bite!
“Mari? Mari, calm down. It’s not bedbugs.”
But it’s too late. I’m sprinting up the stairs, yanking my clothes off as I go. Heart thumping, I strip the bed, checking for bloodstains.
FACT: Stains from blood or feces left behind by bedbugs usually appear on sheets and bedding as a rust color.