Page 2 of The Snake in the Grass: The Prequel

“God’s grace brought us through this. Mark my words,” he told us, “my father’s hands blessed this place.”

Those same hands once hit him so hard his left eardrum was permanently damaged, but this was left out of the family legacy.

Though the house came through things just fine, my memories of it as a scared four year old stayed stark in my mind forever after. The storm that night felt like a portent of things to come, a promise that my father’s rage would turn from a dark cloud hanging overhead to death itself touching the ground.

Because I was awake, I saw the light in Silas’s room come on. I heard the quiet, tinny sound of music playing through laptop speakers. Thunder doomed, my pulse quickened anxiously, and I knew there would be no sleep for me that night.

Slipping out of bed, I pulled on my faded gym shorts under the old T-shirt I wore as pajamas. Crossing to Silas’s door, I rapped once and walked inside without waiting for an answer. He barely looked up from the screen in front of him, back curved outward from hunching at his desk. “You didn’t wait for me to say ‘come in’ or anything.”

“Sister’s rights.”

“Those aren’t a thing.”

“They are now.” I padded over to his laptop and leaned past his shoulder, peering at the screen. “Is that an orientation video? Wow, you really are the nerdy one of the two of us.”

“Shut up.”

He clicked the window away, face burning, but forgot to hit pause. The voice over started playing:“As a student at Coleridge Academy, you’ll enjoy unparalleled access to technology beyond your wildest dreams. Our three computer labs...”

By the time Silas got the video to stop playing, my eyebrows had climbed all the way to my hairline. “Wow.Threecomputer labs. If you go you’ll die from spending all day and night programming instead of eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom.”

“I’m going to study theviolin,” he reminded me, pointing over to the case sitting on his desk, which was beaten and worn. “Their worst instruments are Knilling, and their best are hand-carved in Italy by master craftsman. The first chair in the New York Symphony Orchestra studied at Coleridge.”

“So you’re quitting programming?” That seemed unlikely to me—Silas spent all his sleepless nights in front of his computer, tapping away in program windows in languages I didn’t understand.

“I’ll still study computer science, I guess.” His fingers drummed against the hard case of his laptop, a hand-me-down from our cousins, whose parents had the temerity to leave Wayborne and make their shaky way to the middle class. “I’ll need a career to fall back on if I don’t make it in music. It takes more than just talent, you know. There’s luck. And... connections.”

I snorted. “Good luck getting those, Stinky.”

Scowling at my old nickname for him, Silas threw an arm around my neck and rubbed his fist in my hair. I yelped, struggling out of his grip and laughing, feeling like a little kid again.

But as we fell apart, sides heaving with laughter and exertion, a sober thought occurred to me. “If you go to Coleridge...”

“When.” He was insistent, a fiery look in his eyes, chin lifted. “WhenI go to Coleridge.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I thought Dad might just break his legs if he tried. “Well, when you go, I’ll be all alone here.”

“No you won’t,” he swiftly corrected me. “You’ll always have Maggie.”

Maggie Reynolds, my best friend—sort of. We’d been the closest of pals in elementary school and middle school, but since starting high school things had changed. I hadn’t even seen her all summer; she was on vacation with her boyfriend, Henry, who floated in from Richmond and swept her off her feet. They were staying at his parents’ beach house in Rhode Island, and our primary communication had faded to my commenting on her social media photos and her “liking” my responses but never bothering to reply.

From the photos, she looked happy: tan, thin, her hair developing bright blonde streaks that I had the feeling were salon-sourced and not natural. Nothing like my pale, curving self or the dark hair that made my sharp face look more severe.

I envied her, but only because she hadn’t taken me along for the ride. I would’ve cut my own fingers off for the chance to leave Wayborne for longer than a sad solitary week at a time. I wanted to see theworld,no matter the cost. I wanted a life of adventures.

But I didn’t think Maggie would be going with me on those adventures.

My sadness must’ve shown on my face, because Silas made that puppy dog expression he always made in times like this, his lips puckering comically, thick dark brows drawn together over shocking blue eyes. “Poor Brenna. You should get some friends before I leave you forever and ever.”

I mock punched him in the shoulder, and he made anoofsound like it really hurt. “I miss Jade,” I confessed. “I haven’t talked to her since...”

“Since you both shoplifted and only she got arrested?” My brother’s wry look only deepened the twisted, guilty shame in my stomach. “She’s probably still serving her community hours. Maybe you can catch up with her picking up trash on the side of the road.”

“Maybe,” I echoed. The truth was, Jade deserved better than me. I wanted our old friendship back, but I didn’t know where to find it beneath the wreckage of the things I’d done—and the things Ihadn’tdone, which were worse in a lot of ways. “I probably have a better chance of getting into that fancy schmancy academy with you than I have of getting Jade to ever look me in the eyes again.”

“Stranger things have happened,” he quipped. “I’m sure if you grovel hard enough Jade will forgive you. It’s not like you turned her in or something. You’re a yellow-bellied coward, not a traitor.”

I wanted to mock punch him again for the insult, but I couldn’t because it was true. So instead I flicked him in the forehead and suggested, “Late night binge watching until we both fall asleep on the floor?”

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