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Simon lowers himself beside the beanbag and reaches underneath. His shoulders barely fit in the gap, and pain catches him when he stretches his bruised side.

“Keep looking,” Heather says. She turns a pink bead between her fingers while Simon pushes his arm deeper beneath the beanbag.

Oliver checks beneath the shelves and inside the folds of the fallen tablecloth.

Simon straightens beside the dollhouse and goes still. Above it, the little Simon sits alone on the shelf in his white jacket. He looks at it for a long time. Then he gets back on his knees.

I search around the place where my feet were when the bracelet snapped. The translucent purple bead circled my shoe. I watched it spin before it fell onto its side. It isn’t there.

I run my hands over the floor, then check beneath the edge of the white cloth. Simon lifts the beanbag while Oliver searches beneath it but only finds dust.

Heather arranges the recovered beads on the bracelet board. The empty place waits between yellow and green.

Her eyes move from the gap to me. “Where is the purple one?”

Fuck if I know.

I look again at the floor beside my shoe. Upstairs, Simon’s white jacket is still hanging in the wardrobe.

CHAPTER 40

Simon

Heather makes us search until my ribs hurt worse from crawling than they did from the baton. I check beneath the table, and empty the folds of the cloth. Oliver checks behind the shelves while Jamie reaches under the dollhouse.

The purple bead stays in my fist.

I found it beneath the beanbag while Oliver searched the shelves. I closed my hand before I decided whether I meant to keep it. By the time I pulled my arm free, Heather was looking at Jamie instead of me.

I could have dropped the bead among the others. I didn’t.

Heather sets the bracelet board on the dollhouse roof, directly beneath the little Simon in his white jacket. “Jamie has until breakfast.”

Then she sends us upstairs. Oliver goes into the green room first, moving carefully around whatever the shock did to his muscles. Jamie follows Heather to his room without looking at me.

Heather puts me inside the red room last. Every night, she’s made me strip for inspection. Tonight, she shuts the door in my face and locks it without touching me.

I sit on the edge of the bed with one hand around my ribs and the other still closed around the bead. My throat hurts when I swallow. There will be a bruise tomorrow where she held the baton against me.

I stare at my closed door until Oliver speaks through the wall.

“What did she do in your room?”

“Pulled a chef’s jacket out of the wardrobe. Laid it on my bed.” I roll the bead under my thumb. “Put it back when the rat started begging.”

The wall stays quiet long enough that I think he’s gone to sleep.

“Do you know what she was choosing for you?”

I turn toward his voice. “The fucking jacket?”

Oliver shifts on the other side, and his bed gives a quiet creak. “She wasn’t deciding what you should wear tomorrow.”

The bead presses deeper into my palm. I adjust my grip and feel its little ridges bite back. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“There are six hydrangeas along the back fence,” he says. “Heather told us those are the Jamies. Three rose bushes grow beside them. Those are the Olivers.”

I look at the red wall. There isn’t enough air in the room anymore, although my throat is open now.