course of the night Maddison had been up worrying the whole night because she liked most of those people It really just figured Maddison thought that she had managed to get mixed up in some sort of secret if it was a conspiracy or a society or just one of those secrets people kill to keep quiet Maddison wasn’t sure within one week of moving to a new neighborhood neighborhood Back in Fredericksburg she had been the co-founder and only sane member of a paranormal research club and had been locked in a battle of wills with an ex best friend from kindergarten and yet most of the time she had been bored The club had been nothing but lunch meetings and it had taken Maddison an embarrassingly long time to figure out that half the members just wanted an excuse to kiss in dark corners and Katie had just been generally mean In Archer’s Grove Maddison had volunteered to help the school secretary with data entry and stumbled into a massive secret that seemed to involve the archives her father half the Kingsolver family and a couple of ghosts Maddison was scowling darkly at her book while 6
trying not to upset the bowl of cereal on her quilt so she didn’t register the sound of a car in the drive until a door slammed even though she was listening for her dad Immediately after the door slammed the screen on the front door made a sound like a cat caught in a rocking chair then there was a murmured conversation between her parents a heavy sigh from her mom and the stairs creaked All the way up to Maddison’s attic room and her open doorway Mads her dad said leaning against the doorframe doorframe cereal on the bed He looked rumpled and as though he’d been running his hands through his hair but he didn’t look injured or you know dead and a lot of the worry Maddison had been refusing to admit she was feeling disappeared It was promptly replaced by the guilty realization that she’d just been caught misbehaving and when she took a large mouthful mouthful of chocolate crispies it was a gesture of defiance Her dad just smiled at her Maddison had once seen a character in a book described as having a wry smile and she finally had a name to put to what her dad did 7
whenever he caught Maddison doing something she wasn’t supposed to and thought she was adorable It drove Maddison nuts It’s so that you’d have to come home to yell at me Maddison offered when she’d finished the mouthful of cereal She was allowed to eat in her bedroom but she was not supposed to eat things that could spill and ruin upholstery in her room and cereal with milk was the worst culprit Uh huh Dr Kevin McRae said coming all the way into the room and holding a hand out Maddison passed him the bowl and he took a large spoonful then winced I put chocolate milk on them Maddison admitted admitted guiltily I can see that her dad gasped fanning at his mouth as if he’d eaten something hot Gaaah that’s sweet He cleared his throat and swallowed a couple of times Okay then now that I’ve given myself a sugar rush to take the edge off the adrenaline crash Maddison had opened her mouth to ask what he 8
meant by adrenaline crash when he added We need to talk Okay so her dad didn’t want his explanation of what happened at the Kingsolver’s house to turn into twenty questions Maddison was still teetering between worried and mad so all she said was You took my cereal so I can’t pretend to have my mouth full Her dad studied the bowl of soggy cereal for a second took another spoonful and then handed it back to Maddison Well I certainly didn’t do it for my health he said and then he softened a little bit and added Everyone’s fine Mads Your young man is going to have a magnificently bruised tailbone and his sister is frankly quite terrifying but nobody died He’s not my young man Maddison protested a half second before she realized this was exactly the right way to convince her father that Chris was and added and Chris and Carrie are cousins not siblings Well they certainly act like siblings her dad said And that’s not actually what I wanted to talk to 9
