The estate had never been this loud.
Every light in the house was on, and half the ones in the garden besides — paper lanterns strung between the oaks, the terrace doors thrown wide so the noise could pour out across the lawn and lose itself in the dark. Eleven years old today, both of them. Somewhere under the music a caterer was losing an argument with a chafing dish, and no one cared.
Lily and Leo held the long table, taller every time Arianne looked away and back, with Kyle on one side and Nicholas on the other. The four of them moved as one thing now, finishing each other's sentences, peeling off in a pack and reassembling somewhere across the lawn. Leo talked. Not much, never much, but he talked, and the other boys leaned in when he did because he made them wait for it.
She had them all counted without meaning to. Old habit. It did not mean what it used to.
The scream came from the dessert table.
