The Most Mauve There Is Read online

  She must have agreed, because I heard the music change. I patted Secret and watched from my window as Mark walked out into the field.

  “That sneaky geek,” I whispered in admiration, because now I understood that Mark had been doing me a favor, not Val or himself, by getting a certain wedding present for his bride. “He may be even smarter than you, huh, Secret?” I ruffled the curls on the little dog’s head.

  The groomsmen followed Mark like ducks in tuxes, all of them taking their places in a line by the preacher, who had been standing there waiting. I watched while the ushers escorted my mother and Mark’s mom and dad to front-row seats. Then the music changed again, for the bridesmaids to sail down the aisle like more ducks, mauve, in a row. Next, the flower girl was supposed to go, strewing rose petals for the bride—the main event—who would then walk down the aisle on her father’s arm.

  The ring bearer was supposed to be with the flower girl.

  I waited until the bridesmaids got started, then patted Secret, picked her up in one hand and her basket in the other, and ran downstairs and out to the screen porch. Julie, Val and Dad all heard me coming and turned to tell me what they thought of me, but when they saw where my cummerbund and bow tie had got to, their mouths opened and just stayed that way. With a big grin, I bowed like a magician.

  “Go ahead, Julie,” I told my sister as I crouched to put Secret on the floor, giving her the little ring basket to carry in her mouth.

  Julie did, she followed the bridesmaids down the aisle the way she was supposed to, but she was so flummoxed that she forgot to strew her rose petals until she got to the end, when she turned her basket over and dumped the petals all in a pile in front of the stage.

  Behind me, Valerie was making funny little noises. I couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. And I couldn’t look, because I had a dog to handle.

  I told Secret. “Go to Mark,” and opened the screen porch door. She bounced out with her basket in her mouth, and Mark snapped his fingers so she spotted him, and just the way we’d trained her, she trotted right up the aisle, incidentally scattering rose petals with her paws before she sat down beside Mark’s shiny patent-leather heel, still holding her basket in her mouth.

  While everybody out there in the chairs was oohing at pretty pink Julie and aahing at too-cute-to-shoot Victorian Secret, my sister finally got her voice back and said, “Avery Alexander Holsopple.” She sounded like she didn’t know whether to smack me or hug me. “What is that dog doing in my wedding?”

  “Ask Mark,” I told her as I turned around, but then I just stood there staring at her and Dad. Valerie looked so different, tears on her face but also a glow it’s hard to describe. Kind of like she was all sunrise inside. And Dad—well, for the first time in weeks, Dad didn’t look tired. Or helpless. He was smiling. He wouldn’t look at me, but he was grinning like his team had just scored a touchdown.

  The string quartet started to play that “Here Comes the Bride” music.

  “I’ll wait here till you get up front,” I told Val. “Go ahead. Get married.”

  “I will. Thank you ever so much for your permission.” She gave me the funniest smile. Then she looked at Dad, got all serious again, and off they went. Everybody stood up and craned their necks to watch as he walked her down the aisle and handed her over to Mark.

  “Dearly beloved,” the preacher started, “we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”

  I sneaked to a seat in the back, feeling kind of weird—not because of my stupid outfit; I didn’t care anymore what I looked like. It was that “holy matrimony” thing making me kind of dizzy, a little bit off balance, like my sister was going away into a different dimension of life. When she went up on the stage with Mark, and turned so I could see her face, she looked so, like, beautiful in a way I never saw before, so kind of uplifted, that she seemed like a stranger to me, like she was leaving the farm behind and nothing was ever going to be the same again—

  Just then, Secret stood up, set the ring basket down beside Mark, trotted down the steps of the stage and ran off toward a vacant part of the field. Where the grass was taller.

  And the whole wedding stopped while everybody watched, not sure what to do, as the little white dog—

  Picked a spot to squat.

  Oh, no. Oh, man, Val was never going to forgive me. I wished I could just disappear into the earth like dog pee. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my fault my crazy sister got married in a dog’s bathroom, and Secret was a good girl, excusing herself. After she finished her business, she ran right back to Mark, like, okay, let’s get on with it. Smart little dog. I heard people chuckling while I cringed, I covered my eyes, afraid to look at my sister’s face—

  But, talk about utmost lunacy, Valerie started laughing! Really laughing, warm and happy. When I looked, Val was picking up her new, furry ring bearer and hugging her. She didn’t put Secret down again until it was time to do the vows and the rings. Then, when the wedding was over, Val came up the aisle and back to the house with a husband in one hand and her bouquet plus a little white dog in the other.

  “Avery,” she said the minute she saw me, “would you for gosh sake get out of that ridiculous outfit? Go put on your church clothes or something.”

  So finally, no more mauve melodrama; things were back to normal. Except better, because Mark gave me a high five.

  Edgar Award–winning author Nancy Springer,

  well known for her science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels,

  has written a gripping psychological thriller—smart, chilling, and unrelenting…

  DARK LIE

  available in paperback and e-book in November 2012

  from New American Library

  Dorrie and Sam White are not the ordinary Midwestern couple they seem. For plain, hard-working Sam hides a deep passion for his wife. And Dorrie is secretly following the sixteen-year-old daughter, Juliet, she gave up for adoption long ago. Then one day at the mall, Dorrie watches horror-stricken as Juliet is forced into a van that drives away. Instinctively, Dorrie sends her own car speeding after it—an act of reckless courage that puts her on a collision course with a depraved killer…and draws Sam into a desperate search to save his wife. And as mother and daughter unite in a terrifying struggle to survive, Dorrie must confront her own dark, tormented past.

  “A darkly riveting read...compelling.”

  —Wendy Corsi Staub, national bestselling author of Nightwatcher and Sleepwalker

  “A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller that will have you reading late into the night and cheering for the novel's unlikely but steadfast heroine.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden

  Learn more about all of Nancy’s titles at her website, www.nancyspringer.com.