Free Comes the Night by Norah Wilson, Heather Doherty Page A

had grown into an itch. She wanted to do it again.
    She would.
    The three girls placed their candles carefully, strategically, so no flopping bodies would knock them over. Two on the dresser to their left, one on an old trunk to their right. Then they sat down in front of the window. Between the candles and the wide wash of moonlight falling through the window, there was plenty of light. Alex and Brooke sat easily cross-legged, while Maryanne sat with knees drawn up and arms wrapped around her legs.
    Brooke leaned to peer out the window. “Not a cloud in the sky.”
    Alex followed her gaze. Brooke was right.
    The stars shone against the beautiful blackness. The half-moon hung brilliant and unobscured. She knew it was cold out, though. That crisp cold you get with a clear autumn night. She could feel the chill just sitting here so close to the heavy glass. A tiny shudder skated over her skin and she shook it away.
    The single candle to the right flickered, causing their shadows to dance.
    Maryanne had bought three candles—one for each of them—at a local craft shop. They were wide and white and stood on their respective perches without worry of tipping. Brooke had suggested that big, heavy-duty flashlights or Coleman lanterns might have been a better choice when she’d seen Maryanne’s purchases, but Alex and Maryanne had overridden her.
    They both understood. Connie had lived by candlelight as a prisoner in this attic. They could ask for no more. It just wouldn’t feel right.
    And as Alex looked over at Maryanne in this moment of reflection, it struck her again how tired she looked. More lost than usual today. Was it just the revelations of Connie’s diary? The dark secrets of Harvell House? That was a big part of it, no doubt, but it wasn’t the whole story. There’d been something lost about Maryanne from the moment she’d stepped into Harvell House. Something that had come with her.
    “Want me to read tonight?” This from Maryanne, but not asked with any real belief she’d get a positive answer.
    Oh, crap! Alex had been staring at her. No wonder the girl thought something was expected of her. Alex shook her head. “No, I’ll read.”
    She opened the book carefully. She wouldn’t dream of dog-earring a page, and so the tiny slip of paper she’d inserted as a bookmark earlier, now drifted down to the floor as she found the spot she’d chosen to read from tonight.
    The guilt arose the moment she angled the book toward the light and looked down at Connie’s small, compact writing. Just like last time, something deep inside balked at sharing Connie Harvell’s words.
    “Why not start where we left off the last time?” Brooke asked. “September 9, 1962.”
    “That was the night Connie first flew out.” Maryanne wrapped her arms a little tighter around her knees.
    “ Cast out,” Alex corrected. “Connie calls it casting out, which is as good a term as any, I guess. And she called her body on the floor her original. ” She aimed a quelling look at Brooke. “And no, we’re not picking up where we left off because there’s more to understand. There’s more to know about Connie and how... how everything came to be. What was happening to her. Not just how she cast out. Not just the parts—”
    “That serve us,” Maryanne finished for her in a quiet voice.
    “She was being raped,” Brooke said. “By this guy Billy. We know that and—”
    “And there’s more!” Alex snapped. She glared at Brooke, who now wore a defensive expression. “If we’re going to do this—if you want to learn this casting thing—we’re going to do it my way. End of story. That’s it.”
    It was Brooke who was first to avert her glaring eyes. “Fine! You’re the queen of those bloody scribbles. The keeper of the sacred text!”
    “Don’t mock her!” Alex felt her fingers digging into the diary and forced herself to relax them so she wouldn’t damage the delicate binding. “You don’t know what she’d been