The Window Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Amelia Brunskill

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Trevillion Images/Mark Owen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Brunskill, Amelia, author.

  Title: The window / Amelia Brunskill.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2018] | Summary: After her twin sister Anna falls to her death while sneaking out her bedroom window, high school sophomore Jess tries to learn everything she can about the sister she thought she knew and soon discovers that her twin kept many dark secrets.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017013534 | ISBN 978-1-5247-2029-2 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5247-2031-5 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B8124 Wi 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524720315

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.2

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Chapter Seventy-two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Kevin, the heart of my heart

  Sometimes I worry that I’m not a good person.

  I think I used to be.

  But I haven’t been good lately.

  I WAS INSPECTING MY SOCKS when they called my name.

  It was first-period gym class, and I’d just realized that my socks were entirely wrong. They were long and pulled up straight to midcalf, while those of every other girl in the room were short, barely visible above their sneakers.

  There were obviously unwritten sock protocols. They probably weren’t even new—most likely I was only catching up three months into my sophomore year. Good at school, bad at life. That could be my slogan. Anna might get a kick out of that, even if she’d pretend to disagree.

  “Jess?”

  Mrs. Hayes, the school counselor, was standing inside the door of the gym, her hands locked in front of her, her back rigid. The gym teacher, Ms. Turner, stood beside her. Ms. Turner looked strange. It took a second before I realized why—her face lacked its trademark scowl. Its absence worried me, but what worried me more was that she appeared to be indicating that I should leave class and go with Mrs. Hayes.

  “Jess, please come with me,” Mrs. Hayes said.

  I got up slowly, to see if Ms. Turner would object. She did not.

  * * *

  —

  MRS. HAYES AND I LEFT the gym together and walked through the long, cool hallways. The pea-green lockers and yellow linoleum floors contributed to the schoolwide symphony of poor color choices. I felt a little nauseous.

  Mrs. Hayes kept glancing at me as we walked, as though she suspected I might suddenly make a break for it.

  It seemed like she should say something to me, something reassuring, but she said nothing, not even where we were going. I tried to think what this might be about, tried to remember if my parents had mentioned any recent health problems in either set of my grandparents. I didn’t think they had, not beyond the usual. Anna would know, though; Anna paid attention.

  We turned a corner and I saw Principal Stevens standing outside her office, looking toward us. As usual, everything about her seemed intentional: her fitted gray blazer, her crisp white shirt, her dark hair, which fell in a straight, glossy bob. She motioned us inside.

  My dad sat in her office, slumped in a chair. When he saw me, he jerked upright, as if he’d been pulled by invisible strings. His face was taut and his mouth vibrated at the edges.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “Jess,” he said, staring at me. “You should sit down.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I want to stand.”

  He closed his eyes. “Jess. Please sit.”

  There was a gravity to what he said, a gravity that pulled me into a chair.

  “There was an accident, we think, and…” His vo
ice faltered and then he started again.

  “I’m so sorry….”

  More words followed, a stream of them. They didn’t make any sense.

  I heard his words individually. Anna. Fell. Bad. Sorry. They didn’t—couldn’t—connect with each other. It was as if they were part of a riddle I couldn’t decipher. Fell, bad, Anna, sorry. Sorry, Anna, fell, bad.

  Anna.

  Bad.

  Fell.

  Sorry.

  Eventually, they slotted together. And I knew he was wrong. He was wrong because it couldn’t be true. I would have known. I would have known from the moment I woke up, from the second it happened.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, rising from my chair.

  He began to stand up. “Jess…”

  “No,” I said, as calmly as I could. “You’re wrong. I’d know if anything happened to her. She’ll be in class right now. You’ll see.”

  He opened his mouth again, but I didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

  * * *

  —

  THE COOL AIR OF THE hallway felt good on my skin. The office had been way too warm. The thermostat must have been broken or set incorrectly. Such overheating was careless, environmentally irresponsible. It couldn’t be good for the principal either, or for the crispness of her shirts.

  A hum started in my brain: Anna, bad, fell—

  No, everything was fine. We would laugh about this later, and everything would be fine. Completely fine.

  Anna would be in history right now. I’d go there and she’d be at her desk. I walked faster, trying to outpace the hum in my brain.

  I was almost running by the time I reached the classroom. I looked through the window in the door, knowing it had all been some bizarre mistake, knowing I’d see her there, sitting with one hand cupped under her chin, staring at the trees outside.

  I searched for her among the sea of faces in the room.

  I went through them all. Once, twice. Three times.

  She wasn’t there.

  There was only an empty desk.

  Oh.

  There had been no mistake. It was true, true after all.

  Anna, my sister, my twin, was dead.

  Oh.

  I’ve been thinking about how to tell you what I’ve done. I’ve been rehearsing it.

  This time I’m going to pretend you can hear me.

  Maybe this time it will work.

  THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE worst day of your life, the day that changes everything, is you have to live through all of it moment by moment. You have to keep breathing and walking and acting like you’re still a whole person.

  And that was what I’d done. Gone with my dad through the doors of the school, out to the car. Sat upright in the passenger seat as he’d driven us to the hospital. Hospital. I’d felt a brief flicker of hope when he’d said that word, but he’d seen it in my face and responded with a shake of his head. “No,” he’d said gently. “She’s not— She wasn’t…They just had to move her. I told Mom we’d meet her there.”

  And now I found myself on a hospital bench with a policewoman leaning toward me, her eyebrows drawn together, her face serious. It seemed like she might have something important to tell me, so I concentrated hard in order not to miss it.

  “Would you like some hot chocolate?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Hot chocolate. I could get you some. It’s a bit chilly in here.”

  Did I want hot chocolate? Was hot chocolate something I should want right now? I looked at my dad, who sat beside me on the bench, his back upright against the wall, his gaze unfocused.

  I looked back at her, still unsure of how to respond.

  She patted the arm of the bench. “You know what, I’ll get you a cup. That way you’ll have it if you want it.”

  By the time I managed to nod, she’d already left.

  I took a breath, inhaling the faint scent of hand sanitizer.

  The policewoman returned several minutes later, cradling a large paper cup. The heat of the cup against my hands made me realize that I was cold, that I was still wearing gym shorts.

  Back when we’d first arrived, we’d been met not by doctors, but by the policewoman and another police officer, a man. She’d remained quiet as he expressed his condolences and then explained that Mom had found Anna lying outside, underneath her window: eyes closed, not moving. Officers were at our house now, looking through her room, examining the backyard. The police chief was at a conference in Boise, but they’d contacted him and he was on his way back. The officer mentioned that twice, as though it should provide reassurance that this matter was being taken seriously—their fearless leader abandoning the delights of Boise.

  I’d stared at him, trying to remain calm, collected. It felt important to be seen as taking the news well somehow, as if this might in some way affect the outcome. As if the outcome were still a work in progress.

  He asked us some questions and we answered them mechanically, with short, clean sentences. It was hard not to feel that our responses disappointed him.

  No, Anna did not have a boyfriend.

  No, she had not seemed upset recently.

  No, nothing noteworthy had happened last night.

  After the officer stopped speaking, he’d stood, feet apart, arms folded. He bowed his head for a moment and then abruptly turned and left. The policewoman had followed close behind.

  * * *

  —

  HOLDING THE CUP, I THOUGHT about what he hadn’t asked—perhaps because he was being kind or because he simply hadn’t thought to—which was why we hadn’t noticed she was missing that morning. Because we hadn’t. At breakfast, I hadn’t even been worried that she wasn’t there. None of us had. She was on cross-country, and even in the cold, dark mornings of late autumn, she’d often get up early to run with some of the other girls on the team, catching a ride to school with them afterward.

  So she’d been gone and none of us had thought twice about it. Mom had talked about how she was going to assist with three root canals later that day, and what she wouldn’t give for people to stop lying already about how much they flossed. Dad had read the paper and made cryptic comments about the news. I’d eaten toast and ignored both of them as best I could as I read my book.

  I tried again to think back to the night before, to see if there was anything strange about it that hadn’t occurred to me. Had Anna seemed upset? I didn’t think so. If anything, she’d seemed calmer than she’d been in a while, more peaceful. Happy, almost shining with it, like she had a secret. A good one.

  * * *

  —

  MY HOT CHOCOLATE WAS COLD by the time Mom joined us in the waiting room, her eyes red and wild. She didn’t sit. Instead, she paced in front of us, and soon she was crying so hard that she began to hyperventilate. The policewoman reappeared and led Mom away again, murmuring to her about taking deep breaths.

  Dad had also cried—briefly, silently—but my own eyes remained dry. It was like a nerve had been severed, the wound too deep to process how badly it was going to hurt.

  Dad walked to the window, which overlooked the hospital’s parking lot. He leaned his forehead against the glass.

  A few minutes later, a man in a long white coat came and stood by his elbow.

  “Your wife’s ID is all we officially need,” he told my dad, his voice deep and rough. “But if you’d like to view the body, I can show it to you.”

  “Show my daughter to me, you mean.” Dad didn’t look at the man as he said it.

  The man flushed and then nodded. “Sorry, yes. Show your daughter to you. Did you want to see her?”

  Dad blinked fast. Then he moved his shoulders back and straightened his spine.

  “Yes, I’d like to see her.” As he turned, he saw me and paused, as if he’
d forgotten I was there. “Stay here, Jess,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”

  The man in the white coat shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I repeated.

  * * *

  —

  THE ELEVATOR DOORS SHUDDERED SLIGHTLY when they opened, revealing the harshly lit halls of the hospital basement. The path to Anna was long, taking the three of us past many open doors and little side hallways.

  The room we eventually entered contained several long gurneys. Only one was occupied, the body covered with a pale blue sheet.

  The man walked in and stood by the gurney.

  Dad took the first step forward and I followed. Every step was harder than the last.

  When we stopped, the man pulled back the sheet.

  And there she was.

  Very still.

  The man’s gaze flickered between me and her, matching our faces, comparing features. Dad crossed his arms tightly around himself. I stood quietly, even as the room began gently swaying around me and the edges started to blur.