The Twin They Erased novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Card Table

I climbed the loft ladder with my hands still wrapped and the stitches pulling over my eye.

Eamon came up behind me and said, low, "You don't have to do this."

"I know."

"She'll know you."

"She's known me for seven years."

The loft ran the length of the barn, hung with a single lamp.

Six men and one woman sat around a long table covered in green felt.

Five of the men were farmers.

The sixth was a deputy in a plain jacket, with his badge in his pocket, which everyone at the table pretended not to see.

The woman sat at the far end in a grey wig and a man's tweed coat, with her glasses pushed up on her nose.

She had a pile of chips in front of her, and she was talking in her sweet, thin, reasonable voice.

"Call," she said. "I'm feeling lucky tonight, gentlemen."

I walked down the length of the table and stopped beside the empty chair across from her.

"Evening, Principal Ansel," I said.

Nobody breathed.

The wig tilted as she looked up.

For a second there was nothing in her face at all.

Then her eyes went from my face to the tape on my hands to the thread over my eyebrow, and her mouth went small and tight.

"I think you're mistaken," she said.

"I don't think she is," said the deputy.

One of the farmers cleared his throat.

"That's my girl's principal," he said slowly. "From Marrow Hill."

"I'm only visiting," Principal Ansel said.

I pulled out the empty chair and sat.

"Deal me in," I said to Eamon.

He had followed me up and was standing at the end of the table with the cards in his hands.

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