Chapter 2: The Backpack Secret
After the gala, Margaret drove Lily home in silence. The streets of Manhattan were lit up with neon signs, but Lily couldn’t look at them. She kept replaying the moment Arthur had ripped the cake from her hands, the sound of the glass breaking, the look on her mother’s face when Arthur whispered that secret. When they got to their apartment, a tiny studio in a walkup building in the East Village, Margaret didn’t even make them dinner. She just sat Lily down on the couch, poured herself a glass of wine, and stared at her phone.
Lily pulled her stuffed rabbit, Thumper, out of her backpack and held it tight. “Mama?” she said again. “Why was Uncle Arthur mean?” Margaret finally looked up, her eyes red and puffy. “It doesn’t matter, baby,” she said, but her voice was shaking. “Just go get ready for bed.” Lily did as she was told, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay in her bed, listening to the sounds of the city outside, and kept thinking about Arthur’s cold smile.
About an hour later, she heard her mother’s voice coming from the living room, loud and angry. “I won’t let you do this,” Margaret was saying. “You can’t make her do that. She’s just a child.” Lily crept out of her bed and padded down the hallway, her bare feet quiet on the wooden floor. She peeked around the corner of the living room and saw her mother on the phone, pacing back and forth. “I know you’re not asking me to choose,” Margaret said, her voice breaking. “But you’re asking me to let her do something terrible. I can’t do that.”
Lily didn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line, but she saw Margaret glance over at her, her face softening for a split second before she turned back to the phone. “Fine,” she said. “But if anything happens to her, I’m going to tell everyone what you did. I’m going to ruin you.” She hung up the phone and collapsed onto the couch, sobbing now, and Lily ran over and climbed into her lap.
“Mama,” Lily said, “what’s wrong?” Margaret wiped her eyes and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing, baby,” she said. “Just tired.” But Lily knew she was lying. She saw the way her mother’s eyes kept darting to the front door, like she was waiting for someone to come and take her away.
The next morning, Margaret woke Lily up early and told her they were going to the park. They walked to Tompkins Square Park, and Margaret bought Lily a hot dog and a lemonade, but Lily couldn’t eat it. She kept watching her mother, who was staring off into space, her hands clenched into tight fists. When they got home, Margaret told Lily to wait in the living room while she went to her bedroom to get dressed.
Lily’s backpack was sitting on the floor by the couch, the one she’d brought to the gala. She’d forgotten to take it off that night, and she realized now that she’d left the zipper partially unzipped. Curious, she leaned over and peeked inside. At first, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just her coloring books and a pack of crayons. Then her fingers brushed against something hard and cold, tucked down at the bottom of the backpack.
She pulled it out, her hands shaking. It was a small, black wooden box, about the size of a shoebox. There was a tiny lock on the front, but it was open, and the lid popped right off. Inside, there was a single, small, glass vial filled with a clear, colorless liquid. Next to it was a note, written in Arthur’s sharp, looping handwriting: For the little mouse. Don’t tell mama.
Lily’s stomach dropped. She didn’t know what the liquid was, but she’d seen enough crime shows on TV to know that it looked like something dangerous. She quickly put the box back into her backpack and zipped it up, her heart pounding so loud she was sure her mother could hear it. Just then, Margaret walked into the living room, carrying a tote bag. “Ready to go?” she said, but her voice was forced.
Lily didn’t answer. She just stared at her mother, her eyes wide with fear. “Mama,” she said, “what’s in my backpack?” Margaret’s face went white. She rushed over to the backpack and unzipped it, staring inside at the box. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she knelt down in front of Lily and took her hands in hers.
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“Baby,” she said, her voice quiet and steady. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. That box didn’t belong to you. Your uncle put it there last night, and I need you to tell me exactly what happened when he was mean to you at the gala. Did he touch you? Did he say anything else to you?” Lily thought back to that night, to the way Arthur had leaned in close to her mother, to the secret he’d whispered. “He said it wasn’t about the cake,” she said. “And he said he’d hidden something in my backpack.”
Margaret’s face crumpled. She pulled Lily into her arms and sobbed, and Lily held her tight, feeling more scared than she’d ever felt in her life. She didn’t know what was going to happen next, but she knew that Arthur’s “distraction” with the cake had been just that: a way to get her alone, to plant that box in her backpack, to make sure no one would suspect what he’d really done.
