She threw herself at me. We grappled, and I fell to the ground. The
impact winded me. She pushed me down and pressed one knee onto my chest
to keep me there. Her whole face was turning bright red from anger as her
scrabbling hands found my neck.
I tried to speak, but her grip tightened and squeezed my throat shut. I
thrashed, trying to throw her off, but my energy was already low, and she had
the height advantage. Her thumbs dug into my trachea.
Then she blinked, and the anger was replaced by shock. She scrambled
away from me. Her hands were still held out ahead of herself, but they shook.
“Oh-oh no. Jo, I—”I fought to regain my breath and propped myself up against a wall. “You
didn’t mean to. I know.”
“Jo.” Tears welled in her eyes and spilt over her cheeks. “What’s
happening, Jo?”
“It’s Shreya. I think she wants one… or both of us… dead.” I rubbed my
sleeve over my forehead to remove the sweat. “You need to throw up. I
poisoned the cake. Be quick, before any’s absorbed.”
Horror drew over her face, then she scrambled to her feet and dashed to
the sink. I listened to the sound of running water and retching, and the terror
squeezing my chest relaxed.
I looked down at my hands. They were both flesh-coloured. The awful
discoloration that had been growing up my arm had vanished. I hoped it had
only been an illusion .
Oxygen was returning to my limbs. I dragged myself to my feet and
moved around the kitchen table. Ruby leaned over the running sink. She
looked ghastly. One hand held her hair out of the way, and tears rolled down
her cheeks and dripped off her nose freely.
“Is it all out?”
She nodded.
“I’m so, so, so sorry.” I pressed a hand to Ruby’s shoulder. She reached
up her free hand and squeezed mine.
“You said Shreya was doing this. But why? I trusted her—I thought she
was looking out for me—”
“I think she was, in her own strange way.” I reached up to get a glass
from the cupboard and filled it with running water. I handed it to Ruby, and
she downed it. “She was pregnant. I’m almost certain. That was the secret
Henry mentioned, the child she didn’t want her husband to discover. She
threw herself out of the window because she believed it would be safer for
them to be dead.”
“And she thought the same for me.” Ruby’s eyes narrowed. I watched
them closely in case the glassiness returned, but they appeared clear. She
wiped her hand across her mouth. “She wanted me dead. Like her.”
“So you’d never be apart. So she could look after you forever.” I turned
off the tap then leaned my back against the bench. “It’s irrational. Especially
when she already took care of Raul.”
Ruby groaned and bent low over the sink again. “I forgot that happened.
It feels like a dream. Did we really bury—”“She was influencing us. A lot. Just like she influenced everyone else in
our street. I haven’t seen any of our neighbors in days.” I ran my hands
through my hair, which was tangled and overdue for a wash. “We need to
leave. We’re not safe as long as we’re in this house… or even this street.”
“Yes.” She pushed away from the sink. Her hair hung in her face, sticking
to the sweat, and she tried to brush it aside as she glanced around the room.
“I’ll just get my dolls—”
“No. There’s no time. Now that I’d realized what we needed to do, a
desperate urgency propelled me. I grabbed Ruby’s arm and pulled her
through the kitchen. “She’ll try to pull us back under her trance. We need to
get as far away from her as we can, as quickly as we can. We’ll—we’ll stay
with my aunt and Lucky. They’ll let us move in for a couple of days while we
figure out what to do.”