The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh Read Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t be in there long. The carpet had been torn out, and the exposed plywood floor was blotched with stains. There wasn’t much trash to pick up, just a few candy wrappers and cigarette butts, and then I moved on to the closet. It looked like it had already been cleared, but when I swept my hand across the top shelf, I felt something crammed into the corner. I pulled down a wad of twisted bedding and heard the clink of metal against the bare floor. I knelt to find a thin silver chain with a charm attached. My spine prickled as I held up the necklace for a better look. A blue butterfly dangled from the chain, a familiar chip missing from its left wing. I recognized the necklace because it was mine. I’d given it to Cheri a couple years back when I cleaned out my jewelry box. It was nothing special, a trinket I’d won at the school carnival, but Cheri had loved it. She wore it every day, up until she disappeared.
    I clutched the necklace in my palm and sank to the floor, my heart thudding. Had she been here, in this trailer, in this room? Or was it merely a coincidence? She could have lost the necklace or given it away. Maybe I was wrong and the necklace wasn’t even mine. Surely there were others; the butterfly charm was cheap—maybe they all had chipped wings. “Tell me,” I whispered to the dark room. I knew Cheri’s bones lay sealed in the earth, that weeds covered her grave, but I was quiet, and I listened. Tell me what happened to you . If she persisted somehow, in some form, within the membrane of this world or the next, she gave no sign. My head throbbed, pressure building inside my skull. I waited until I could no longer stare at the stains on the floor, and I retreated to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.
    â€œHey,” Daniel said, tapping on the bathroom door. “You’ve been in there a while. You do know that’s not a working bathroom, right?”
    He was trying to be funny. “I’m fine,” I lied, rubbing my eyes and sliding down from the counter. “Just finishing up.”
    He pushed the door open a crack. “Need some help? I’m about done out here. Except for the kitchen, I mean. Still saving that for you.”
    â€œI’m good,” I said, turning my back to the door and shoving it closed with my foot. I pulled out the vanity drawers and dumped their meager contents—Band-Aid wrappers, cotton swabs, crumpled toothpaste tubes. Things Cheri might or might not have used. I peeled a stiff towel from the tub, a pair of socks. Had she showered in here? Changed clothes? In the year she was missing, she’d been living somewhere, doing those everyday things. An entire year, hundreds of days, and on any one of those days I could have found her alive and brought her home. I hadn’t looked hard enough. No one had.
    I didn’t want to talk to Daniel, but I couldn’t hide out in the bathroom all day, so I dragged my trash bag past him to the kitchen and started clearing the cabinets.
    â€œWhoa,” he said. “You okay? You get something in your eyes?”
    I looked away from him. “I’m allergic to mold.”
    â€œMaybe you should go outside for a minute, take a break.”
    I ignored him, brushing mouse droppings from the shelves. I couldn’t take a break. If I left the trailer, I wouldn’t want to come back. It would be better to finish early and start walking, meet Judd partway. After a minute, Daniel gave up on waiting for a response and unscrewed the lid from a bottle of bleach. He doused the sink and counters and started to scrub.
    Dad called after dinner to ask how work was going, and I kept my answers as vague as possible. I’d promised to tell him if anything at my new job made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell him about the necklace any more than I could tell him I’d spent the day alone with Daniel. I didn’t want him to get worried and make me quit.
    I