Chapter 4 THE STEPMOTHER'S SHADOW

The bus ride home took forty-one minutes. Elara knew this because she had counted. Counting helped her focus. It kept her mind busy, away from the school hallway, Chloe's smile, or Julian Reed's words when he said he understood, as if he'd grasped her completely from just forty-three pages of notes.

The bus smelled of exhaust and someone's takeout. A kid two rows ahead kept kicking the seat in front of him. The woman next to Elara talked loudly on the phone, saying, "But I told him, I specifically told him."

Elara pressed her forehead against the window and watched the city pass by.

Her phone buzzed. She checked it.

Dad: Working late. Sorry, sweetheart. Beatrice is home.

Those last three words hurt more than anything Chloe Sterling had said all day.

Beatrice is home.

Elara put her phone away.

She got off two stops early and walked the rest of the way, taking the longer route through the side street. This added twelve minutes but helped her avoid the moment she had to prepare herself for on the front steps. She welcomed twelve extra minutes of fresh air and silence, anything but stepping inside those walls yet.

Their house was nice. It was detached with three bedrooms and a garden her mother had planted eleven years ago, but Beatrice had ripped it out two years ago because the hydrangeas "attracted insects." It had a blue door her father painted the summer before her mother left. He stood on a ladder in old jeans, singing out of tune, and dripped paint on the path.

Now, the blue door was white. Beatrice had repainted it during her first month there.

Elara put her key in the lock.

"You're late."

Beatrice sat at the kitchen island with a glass of wine and a magazine, as if someone had posed her there. She was beautiful in a calculated way, sharp cheekbones, always dressed, never a hair out of place. People at her father's office events would say, "Your wife is stunning, Thomas," while Elara stood beside him in her school uniform and went unnoticed.

"The bus," Elara tried to say. But the word got stuck, as it often did around Beatrice, and what came out was broken and incomplete.

Beatrice looked at her over the rim of her glass.

"What?"

Elara took out her phone.

Bus was delayed.

"Put that phone away. We're not texting in our own house." Beatrice set her glass down and looked Elara over, inspecting her like a faulty appliance. "What happened to your blazer?"

Elara looked down. The stain from Mila's water had dried into a tide mark across the front. She had forgotten about it.

"Someone spilled something at school."

Her voice was choppy, fractured, wrong in the middle. When she spoke clearly, her voice was low and careful. When it broke, it was embarrassing.

Beatrice's mouth curved, not unkindly, this was the thing about Beatrice; she was almost never outright unkind. She was precise, honing in on Elara's weaknesses and applying pressure there, just enough to call it honesty.

"Of course they did. You probably didn't move fast enough. You have a habit of just standing there, Elara. Like a traffic cone."

Elara walked to the stairs.

"I didn't say you could go up. Dinner needs to be started. Your father will be home by eight."

Elara paused on the bottom step.

She turned around.

Beatrice had already picked up her magazine again.

"Rice and the chicken from the fridge. And clean up whatever mess you make." She turned a page. "You left your science textbook on the dining table this morning. I put it in the recycling because we don't leave clutter in common areas. You know that."

Elara stared at her.

"Was it important?" Beatrice looked up, mildly curious, as if asking about a piece of furniture.

Her chemistry textbook. The one she'd had since year ten, filled with three years' worth of notes.

Elara breathed through her nose.

"I'll take that as a yes. Well," Beatrice said, turning another page. "Now you have a reason to pay better attention to your things."

Elara went to the kitchen. She took the rice from the cupboard and the chicken from the fridge, starting to cook because that was what she needed to do, and she would not cry. She had a rule about crying. She hadn't cried since the morning her mother's car disappeared down their old road, when she was eight and stood at the window in her pajamas, thinking her mother would come back, that she had just forgotten something.

Her mother hadn't forgotten anything.

She had just left.

Elara stirred the rice.

From the sitting room, her father's key turned in the lock at 8:23. She recognized the rhythm of his entry-keys on the hook, briefcase on the floor, shoes off, and then heard his tired voice doing the automatic-husband thing.

"Busy day. Something smells good."

"Elara cooked," Beatrice's voice carried through. "I was working on the accounts all afternoon."

A pause.

"Good girl," her father said generally toward the kitchen.

Elara plated the food.

She heard them settle in the sitting room, the low murmur of their conversation and Beatrice laughing at something. She made three plates, left two on the counter for them, and took hers upstairs.

Her room was small yet exactly how she wanted it, books shelved by subject, her desk facing the window, a corkboard above it with three index cards.

One card read: You are not what they say.

Another card: Two semesters.

The last card, older than the others, with child-like handwriting: The answer is always in the work.

That card was her mother's handwriting.

She sat at her desk and opened her notebook to a fresh page.

She resumed the quantum mechanics section, continuing from where she had left off. The equations were clear and satisfying, unlike anything else in her day. Numbers didn't scrutinize her. Variables didn't wait for her to fail.

Her phone screen lit up.

Unknown number.

She stared at it but didn't answer calls from numbers she didn't recognize. Instead, she typed a text.

Who is this?

A reply came quickly.

Kobe. Julian's friend. From school. Got your number from the class list, the teacher's assistant shares it in the group chat. Don't panic.

Elara looked at her phone.

Why are you texting me?

Julian wanted to check if you have another copy of the chemistry textbook. After what Chloe said today about someone's things.

Her jaw tightened.

He doesn't need to check anything. I'm fine.

A pause.

He also asked me to tell you: there's a spare textbook in the library issue room. Room 4, ask for Mr. williams. He keeps extras for students who lose theirs. You can borrow it for the term.

Elara read the message twice.

How does he know I lost mine?

Kobe's reply took a moment.

He doesn't. But I think he guessed.

Elara set her phone face down on the desk.

She looked at her corkboard.

You are not what they say.

She picked up her phone again.

Tell him thank you.

She sent it. Then immediately typed:

And tell him to stop guessing things about me.

She put the phone down again and tried to focus on her notebook.

From downstairs, she heard Beatrice laugh again, clear and bright, and her father's voice joining in, the two of them caught up in their perfectly ordered life.

Elara glanced at the index card in her mother's handwriting.

She turned back to her equations.

Outside her window, the street was settling into night, and all she could think was the exact thought she couldn't afford to have, was the sound of Julian's voice saying he understood doing more than required.

Like he meant it.

Like he saw her.

She pressed her pen hard against the paper.

She could not afford to be seen.