If I ever told her, I could fill her in later. She’d been through enough.

  My heart was warming, growing. I had a grandmother. I had an uncle. Family. I could still keep them and keep myself a secret.

  I could go back to my life in Charleston. Back home.

  I was beginning to see the light after the tragedy. I was beginning to appreciate all my grandfather had done to make sure we wouldn’t suffer.

  And for the first time, I didn’t regret at all revealing myself to him. I wondered if, from the first moment I arrived, if he knew. He had let me and Gabriel in the house only after I’d said something. He was ready to let us stay after he saw me.

  And maybe just when he died, he was confirming it for himself.

  My grandmother and I were in the back talking when noises came from the other side of the house. A big booming voice, followed by Gabriel shouting, and then Luke. A collection of footsteps across wood floors sounded, coming at us.

  We didn’t have a chance to leave the room before the bedroom door was thrown open.

  London towered in the doorway. He’d stripped off the black shirt he’d worn to the funeral for a white T-shirt. His shoulders were back, his eyes wide. Teeth bared. He glared at his mother.

  And then turned that anger dead onto me.

  “Get out,” he growled.

  Gabriel and Luke stood behind him. “We’ll take her,” Luke said. “But don’t you go near her.”

  Gabriel was ready, glaring at him.

  Bandages on both of his hands.

  His face red. His hair wild. His clothes dirty.

  But he was ready, like he’d tackle London if he got any closer.

  “Back the fuck up,” Gabriel warned him. “I told you we’d leave.”

  Grandmother stood up and went around to the foot of the bed. There wasn’t much space left to stand in the small room so cluttered with stuff, but she placed herself firmly between her son and me. “Don’t you come in here like that yelling at us.”

  “You don’t have any right to talk to me,” London bellowed at her. He pointed a thick finger at her nose. “You told me she was dead.”

  “Your sister...”

  “Not my sister!” London cried out. He redirected his finger directly at my face. “Unless this is a ghost, or she’s lying to us, she’s supposed to be a dead girl. You said she died.”

  “It’s what your father told me to tell you,” my grandmother pleaded. “He wanted me to believe it, too.”

  “For sixteen years?” he bellowed again. London’s shoulders shook and he got louder. “Even after you moved out, and you start doing your own thing, and you stopped giving a shit about him? You still kept to that story?” He waved his hands wildly over his head. His words started to slur a little. “I want everyone out of my house.”

  My grandmother raised herself then, tall and shoulders back. “You have no right.”

  “I do!”

  “It’s my house!” she cried out at him. “It’s not yours. I’m his wife. I am still alive and I get to choose, and if you’re going to be drunk and screaming at everyone, you can leave.”

  London made noises out of his throat, so horrible and so loud, but in a quick turn, he burst out of the room, sideswiping Luke in his hurry to leave. He thundered through the house, and a door slammed in the living room.

  It was quiet for a moment, and everyone stared at everyone else, as if questioning what was going on and what just happened.

  And then suddenly, from outside, there were gunshots. Several of them.

  My heart sunk to my shoes.

  We all hurried in a group to the living room, but Gabriel barked at us, “Take cover! Be careful.”

  We had to edge to the window. Luke went first, and then summoned the rest of us.

  It was London. He had the pistol he had gotten for his father. He had reloaded, and he aimed it over his head, firing all rounds into the sky in quick succession.

  My grandmother’s voice quivered. “I hate it when he gets like this... just like his father.”

  My breath stopped.

  This had to be it. Maybe she was too close to them to see.

  My mother. She lived with this, too. My father was the only way out she’d seen for me. So she pushed, and somehow convinced my grandfather to send me off.

  And when I was safe...

  Suddenly I could understand what happened. If this was life for them, with no help... isolated... She didn’t want me growing up here. Not just at the constant risk of scandal, but at how isolated and also terrifying her family could be sometimes.

  It all made sense. She was trying to save me from this.

  Gabriel and Luke went to the door, but they didn’t dare step outside. “London!” Gabriel called to him. “You can’t do that!”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” London shouted. “It’s my property!”

  “He’s got to run out of bullets,” Luke said. “Right?”

  London didn’t stop. He reloaded and fired. Reloaded and fired again.

  And then suddenly Chica materialized. I don’t know where she had been, running around the property somewhere.

  She barked at him, as wildly as if she didn’t know him at all.

  “Shut up, Chica!” London called to her.

  She clambered onto the porch, her nails digging in to the boards at her feet. She stood her ground, between the door and London, as if to protect us inside, she’d stand there and stop him.

  This caused a shift and London relaxed his shoulders. He threw the gun into the truck, got into it, slamming the driver’s door shut.

  He turned the engine, threw the truck into reverse and pulled around, driving off to who knew where.

  Then we were alone.

  Just for a minute.

  At least until Kota, followed by North, Silas, Nathan and Dr. Green all arrived, some still in funeral outfits and some had changed to casual clothes.

  They all ran up to the porch. Chica barked at them for a moment, but only until she realized who it was. They must have run all the way from the RV to check on what was going on, and only revealed themselves when my uncle left on his own.

  “What the hell happened here?” North asked, although he had to stop as Chica jumped on him first, and licked at him for attention. He scratched her behind the ears. “Easy girl.”

  “It’s all right!” my grandmother called to them. “Sorry to bother you.”

  She’d switched instantly. Maybe she assumed they were neighbors or friends lingering after the funeral. Everyone else seemed to have left.

  My grandmother was waving them off.

  I went to step ahead of her. “No,” I said. “They’re with me.”

  My grandmother blinked at me in confusion, stopping herself. “With you?”

  “I didn’t come alone,” I said. I stood on the porch, but then took steps down to join the others, who had collected on the grass nearby. I turned to her when I reached them. “They came up with me.”

  My grandmother peered out at them. Kota and the others stood, some with hands on their hips, North crossed his arms, but they all stood by me.

  Taking my lead.

  No need to hide this now.

  “But who are they?” she asked me.

  It was complicated. I swallowed once and said, “It’s a long story, but they’re important to me. And now you might need them. Is London going to say anything?”

  My grandmother’s lips quivered. “I don’t know. He’s drunk now. He might just need to calm down.”

  “I didn’t help,” Gabriel said. He jumped down on the porch to join us in the yard, followed closely by Luke. “I told him. Had to. Or I thought I did. I’m sorry...”

  I didn’t understand his bandaged hands. As worried as I was, I turned again to my grandmother. “You know him the best. You’ll have to talk to him. To tell him to keep it quiet.”

  My grandmother pursed her lips and nodded. “Yes. I’ll tell him. At least everything I know.”

  “And you’ll have to bring me anything you have that identifies me in any way. London, too.”

  “Are you just going to leave?” she asked. “Are you just going to disappear and never come back?”

  I glanced once at Kota, unsure of the answer.

  He met my gaze, those steady green eyes behind the black rimmed glasses. “We’re behind you.”

  It’s all he would say, but it made me feel better about making the decision. That I could do whatever I wanted now.

  “We’ll stay a couple of days,” I said. “But not forever.”

  This wasn’t my home. London was probably right to be upset. Being lied to. And maybe he did just need to calm down.

  But this wasn’t home. Not for us. Still, we needed to secure myself and make sure there were no other secrets left to uncover in the house.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” my grandmother said, waving to all of us standing on the grass. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight of course. But... you shouldn’t have to get in the middle of this. London might try to fight to claim the house. And I don’t blame him. He should be angry. I don’t want to scare you off...”

  “We’ll stay for now and see what happens when he settles down,” I said gently. “Maybe we can start on a different foot...” This was a fight that wasn’t mine.

  I didn’t want the house.

  But it didn’t have to end there.

  My grandmother smiled gently. “I’d like that.”

  ♥♥♥

  We did as we said we would. We didn’t leave the farmhouse.

  Instead, after everyone was gone, and the only ones that were left were us, we cleaned up what we could. Gabriel got his hands re-wrapped, but swore he was fine, especially after he took some medicine.

  When it finally settled that everyone had truly gone for the night and we were unlikely to be interrupted, it was finally time. The guilt of not touching the house due to respect had now faded, especially after my grandmother and my uncle knew about my existence.

  I needed to finish up here. I wouldn’t be staying too much longer.

  Together, we determined it was time to check the safe. Dr. Green and Silas remained downstairs as lookouts in case London or anyone else returned.

  Kota, Luke, Gabriel, North and I climbed the steps to the second story. The locked room with the safe remained undisturbed. When we entered, North and Kota shifted the bed closer to the wall. Gabriel remained by the door, just to listen out for trouble.

  “I bet this is what those thieves came back for,” Kota said as he studied the metal safe that had been built in. “They never opened it. They probably think there’s valuables in it.”

  “The old man said there wasn’t,” Gabriel said. He leaned his body against the doorframe, inspecting his wrapped hands. He had heavy circles under his eyes now. I wondered if the medicine wasn’t making him sleepy.

  Despite us looking at it, no one moved toward the safe yet.

  It was a white painted safe. It didn’t seem like it could hold a lot inside of it anyway. Still, maybe we were putting off learning what might be inside.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t anything at all inside. My grandfather seemed to have put anything of real value into the parlor with him.

  We all waited, as if we expected at any minute my grandfather or someone else would show up and tell us this was wrong.

  “We don’t have to take anything,” Luke said. “But we should check it.”

  I agreed. We couldn’t make a decision on what we didn’t know. And we couldn’t risk London coming back for whatever reason to actually kick us off the property.

  We needed to take our chance while we had it.

  North held flashlights up because the main light upstairs was too dim to get a good view of the safe. Kota and I stood back, waiting.

  “It’s just a simple safe,” Luke said. He’d borrowed tools from the RV. The room soon filled with the sound of metal on metal scraping as he did what he could to open it without doing much visible damage, and in a way that it could be locked again.

  It took several minutes. Kota and I eventually drifted off to look out the windows around the room. It was dark out, with just a couple of stars along the edges above the tree line, and some clouds drifting in, promising more snow.

  “I can still clear the bees out of the chimney,” North said. “And fix it up.”

  I wasn’t totally sure if we should. It meant staying longer. It could be that we had to leave tomorrow. “Let’s wait it out.”

  Part of me wondered if I might change my mind and wish to stay once we were away and I had a chance to think it over. It felt too cursed of a place to stay at the moment. Let someone else bring in a different energy.

  North was about to say something else when the safe popped open.

  Luke backed up a step, with triumph in his face and presenting us with open hands up toward the now cracked open safe’s door. “I’ve done it. Not bad for a first attempt.”

  Gabriel angled his head to be able to see from the doorway. He beamed with approval at Luke’s accomplishment. “Moving up, aren’t you? From pickpocket to safecracker?”

  “Someone on the team has to learn,” Luke said. “We can’t all be science nerds.”

  “Hey!” North and Kota said at the same time, each one sounding offended.

  I grinned, realizing North was actually defending Kota on that one.

  “That’s a compliment!” Luke said and chuckled. He stepped away from the safe. “Someone else look. I can’t.”

  Still, everyone paused and looked to me. I don’t know why we hesitated so much. Doing things delicately seemed to have taken a priority, especially after the events of the last two weeks, but we couldn’t keep it up forever.

  With a hand wave, I urged Kota to check the safe. “Will you?”

  I thought it would be better if I didn’t physically touch it. I don’t know why. Someone else looking first to discover what was inside felt like I was a step removed from it.

  Kota touched the corner of the door of the safe, slowly swinging open the door. He blocked the view so we couldn’t see yet, and he stiffened in place.

  And then stepped aside.

  There was a collection of papers to one edge, but in the majority of the space that was left, there was an old Polaroid camera, some film, and pictures.

  I held my breath, stepping close enough to look.

  They were of me, and my mother. The ones in the safe were blurry, one with a finger in the way. None of the others were written on.

  “He’d taken the photos,” Kota whispered. “Your grandfather.”

  My lip trembled, as the realization of what they had done finally hit home.

  “North!” Gabriel cried out suddenly across the room.

  Before I had a second thought, North secured me by my back and then forced me to turn to him, with a hand pressed to my face as he kept me secure.

  “Breathe, baby,” he said. When I started to drift my eyes back to look around, he shook me gently and redirected my attention to his face.

  “Just give her air,” Gabriel said, though he’d come closer. “North, just give her a second.”

  “Focus on me, Sang,” North said. He counted then, up to five, and breathed with me.

  I was breathing normally now, and wholly embarrassed that Gabriel realized I might have a panic attack and pass out on him again. I hadn’t thought I would. “Sorry,” I said.

  “You went pale like last time,” Gabriel said. “I’m starting to pick up on it.”

  “I heard you stop breathing, but it didn’t sink in,” North said. “We all did the same thing, but...” He released me slowly. “You okay?”

  I nodded, feeling my cheeks burning. I needed to get control of myself. How could I be a ghost bird, let alone an Academy member, if I fainted at any sudden shock?

  It made me determined to be better.

  It took me a moment to remember why I’d stopped breathing.

  Until I gazed back at the safe, seeing the blurry photos of me and my mother.

  They’d sent me one chance. One chance I’d almost missed. To let me know where I had come from. A message to maybe come find them one day.

  I hadn’t realized until that moment someone had to have been holding the camera. My grandfather, most likely.

  And he’d locked it away as a secret. He’d guarded the house ever since.

  Waiting for me to come back.

  Every Day, I Realized How

  They locked the safe again and sent me back to the room to sleep.

  I woke up in the back bedroom to the scent of bacon.

  How strange the house had become overnight? Even the air had changed around us. Lighter. More fresh.

  Gabriel didn’t come to bed until very late, after he’d gotten his hands rebandaged and been given some medicine.

  He’d fallen asleep with me in the bed, and I thought he was with me still.

  I loved him. I really did.

  He saved my mother’s notebooks. For me.

  There weren’t that many, and the covers and edges were a little charred. I put them away with the Bible and Gabriel’s notebook.

  They were now mine.

  I wouldn’t read them yet. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to wait. There had been too much pain already. Too much tragedy. I needed some distance for a little while.

  Nothing in there could change what happened. Nothing inside it could change me, or the future I had chosen. But I still loved that I had them. I loved that I might be able to go through her things and collect stuff I wanted to bring back with me. I wondered if Charlotte had any more notebooks. Now I could ask freely, and I was lighter than air for that reason.

  I might have been a secret, but not to those who were important to me.

  I turned over in the bed, surprised to find Luke instead of Gabriel next to me. Still asleep, his lips open, his mouth hanging in a strange way.

  At my back, was Kota. His glasses off. But he was doing that thing where he wasn’t asleep, he was just quiet, with his eyes closed and not moving. I could tell the difference now. It was the way he breathed. It was much deeper when he was really asleep.

  I shifted in his direction, since he was awake anyway.