Silent Echo Read Online Free

into her life, especially since Jacqueline loved nothing better than to dominate a conversation.
    Portia smiled as she sat down next to Jacqueline, eliciting a torrent of compliments from her friend about her brace-free mouth.
    While the gushing continued, the O’Reillys made themselves comfortable next to Felix. Portia had only just come to tell the twins apart, as they really were identical in every way. Luckily she had spotted a tiny freckle on Lance’s left thumb last year and now she never mistook one for the other. She used to resist the twins, finding their brusque maleness a bit overwhelming, until she saw what loyal friends they had become to Felix. And if Felix was willing to put up with Jacqueline’s constant references to fashion and shopping, then the least she could do was loosen up around the twins.
    She was feeling quite content, sitting together in the dining hall and buttering her second crusty roll, when suddenly the heat came back with a vengeance. An intense ache between her shoulder blades also popped up out of nowhere and had her wondering if maybe she was developing some kind of flu.
    I sound like my mother , she reprimanded herself. Stop worrying .
    She stretched her neck from side to side to try to relieve the tension in her back and spotted Charlotte Trotter on the periphery. Her neighbor was snaking her way quietly past Portia’s table.
    “Charlotte might as well get homeschooled. I mean, if I lived in that mansion, I’d probably never want to leave, and it’s not like she ever bothers talking to anyone anyway—”
    Luke elbowed his brother and told him to shut up.
    The stabbing pain in Portia’s upper back worsened as she watched Charlotte find a quiet corner where she settled herself down to a paltry-looking pear and a bottle of water. As always, the shirt of the skeletal girl’s uniform was buttoned all the way up to her collarbone and her legs were encased in thick opaque tights despite the heat wave.
    Portia struggled to remember when it had all gone so sour with Charlotte. When they were little, she and Charlotte used to have playdates all the time. Portia could remember toddling over with her mom or dad to her next-door neighbor’s house, which was then a charming stone farmhouse with a multitude of nooks and crannies, perfect for hide and seek. Back then, Charlotte was still Charlotte Avery. Her father had been such a nice man, always helping the girls devise new games that would not oblige Portia to speak—silent tea parties, exotic scavenger hunts.
    And then Michael Avery went to sleep one night and never woke up. He was thirty-four.
    Portia had tried being there for her friend when her father died, but her four-and-a-half-year-old arms were simply too small to wrap around such a senseless tragedy. The girls began to slowly drift and then six months later Janie Avery announced that she was remarrying.
    “…that famous architect, Harold Trotter,” Portia remembered her parents discussing. “It’s so soon, but maybe she’s just terrified of being alone…”
    Over the years the once-charming farmhouse transformed into a cavernous mansion. With each new wing added, Charlotte retreated further and further away from her friends, from Portia. And then one day Portia was forced to admit that Charlotte had become unrecognizable—hair cut to the quick, dyed jet black, heavy streaks of eyeliner angrily applied. She had even abandoned her own father’s last name, legally changing it to Trotter.
    The only thing that remained from the house of her youth was the old stone well at the edge of the footpath. Portia had often spotted Charlotte standing outside, peering down into the stone well. She wondered what thoughts were going through the girl’s mind while she glared down into the darkness. But after several attempts to break the ice, Charlotte had made it clear to Portia that whatever thoughts she had were for private consumption only.
    Still, Portia felt an allegiance to her