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Frances suddenly feels as if they’re all fairy-tale characters. And in fairy tales, when a witch tells you your fate, you listen.
Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.
But if anything is unlucky for them, it’s the number three. Because in a year’s time, they won’t be three friends any longer. One of the girls will disappear, and it won’t be Frances Adams.
A small silver chain, with a tiny bird clinging to
Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.”
but daughters are the key to justice.
“The second part of the line,” I muse. “Find the right one and keep her close.” Mum nods. “It looks like Frances has decided that I’m not the right daughter anymore.”
Because someone’s been threatening me even before we saw the fortune-teller.
found a piece of paper in my skirt pocket that read “I’ll put your bones in a box.”
The words sound old-fashioned coming out of my mouth, as if I’m a character in a Jane Austen novel where people are sent for.
how all the napkin embossing and wineglass engravings meant she might hold the queen in the palm of one hand all night.
don’t like riddles. Outside of myth, they’re just an excuse for people to broadcast false cleverness.”
But there was the pull now—it felt like gravity. Something so subtle and constant that it lives in your bones and your body can do nothing but obey its rules. Ford had become that for me. And I told myself that the more time I spent there, the greater the chance I might have to pull back the veil. He was just a man, wasn’t he? As broken and as flawed as anyone. I’d uncover all those messy pieces, and the spell would be broken.
was silly enough to believe that hearts can work that way. I didn’t know yet how much stronger gravity gets when you see the messy pieces of a person and breathe them in, make them yours.
I got
the impression that I had just been a piece in a game he’d played—a game that was over.
“You’re far too decent for the twisted world I inhabit.”
After they died, I tried to follow their rules.” He let out a bitter laugh and drained his glass. “Their rules for winning were the only ones I’d ever known.
Do you know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who won’t be led into my games.
You break all my rules by simply refusing to play, all while showing me how the framework of my life isn’t formidable after all.
“This isn’t a game, Annie,”
Because I suspect something else about Walt: that he learned to play
games from a master.”
be careful this doesn’t eat up your ability to have faith in people.”
the anchor of a fortune that I was determined to outsmart.
“You mean if you win this game Frances created, you’ll keep things running as they are? Let us keep the farm?”
I don’t think he’s done playing games with me
