Read Online Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers - Free Book Online Page B

declaring loudly, “If that creepy little-girl zombie in the white bonnet shows up again, I swear I’ll—”
    But my words and my feet both stopped short as I was hit by a wall of sound: wailing coming from upstairs, loud and feral. My heart thudded hard against my chest, but I was struck immobile by the sound of wild despair. Laurel?
    Questions unspooled in my mind. Is this a real-life horror movie? Is someone in trouble? Are the Harts witches? Is this how a banshee sounds before somebody dies? What the hell is wrong?
    But I landed on only one answer: I don’t want to know.
    I started to retreat back down the stairs, eager to escape without notice. Despite how badly I had wanted to know theHart family’s secrets, in this moment my insides were begging to be kept in the dark.
    Then—quite suddenly—Laurel was at the top of the staircase, her face spotty and wet from tears, her cry spiraling upward into alarming pitches. Silas was behind her, clutching her elbow and shouting, “Laurel! Listen! ” They both looked at me for a second—a second that felt like a slow-motion minute—then she wrestled her arm away from him and disappeared back down the hallway.
    Silas looked at me, frowning hard, and I swallowed in fear of having seen something I shouldn’t have. “I—I’m sorry. I—” But my tongue felt too thick for my mouth, so I just turned around and bolted for the front door, my hand gripping the smooth banister.
    â€œWest,” Silas said, angry or annoyed, I couldn’t tell. When I reached for the doorknob, he called louder. “ West! ” And then he was right behind me, a strong hand on my shoulder, turning me roughly to face him. But when I looked at him, he didn’t look mad at all—just regretful. “I can explain,” he insisted, leading me out the door to the porch.
    He sat me down on the swing that hung from the rafters, standing in front of me as if I was about to be in trouble. Laurel’s banshee cries still ricocheted off the walls of my skull, but I finally found my voice. “What is going on?” I panted. “Did—did something—are your parents okay?”
    Silas’s mouth tightened into a bow, but he nodded. “Yes,they’re fine. Everyone’s fine. Everyone’s fine except for Laurel.” He breathed out a long sigh that made him seem older than seventeen.
    â€œI’m sorry you had to hear that,” Silas said, nodding toward the house. “It still gets under my skin. . . . I know it’s not . . .” I nodded a little, as if prodding him toward his promised explanation. “Look, Laurel has a . . . well, I guess it’s like a depersonalization disorder. This . . . this . . . it’s called solipsism syndrome. It’s not really that easy to explain.”
    â€œSolip- what ?” I asked, not understanding him.
    â€œSolipsism syndrome.” He sat down beside me on the swing, then looked out across his yard while he scratched the back of his head, leaving his hair there standing up. “I didn’t really want anyone to know,” he said, almost to himself. Then he laughed without humor. “Two weeks. We didn’t even make it two weeks.”
    He looked so grief-stricken that I almost wanted to lean over and put my hand on top of his. “I’m sorry,” I said to him, even as I blushed a little at the thought of touching him.
    Silas shrugged. “It’s not your fault.” He struggled to find words.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me,” I said quietly.
    He shook his head. “No. No, it’s okay. Laurel . . . she got it into her head that she’s living in a dream.” When Silas saw my look of incredulity, he explained, “She’s only sure that she exists—but not that anyone else does. It’s a mental state. Adetachment from reality. Basically, it either makes you lonely and depressed or an