Chapter 2

2:

Chester Morton and Emily Johnson were nearly beside themselves with fury.

They couldn't understand how I, always so obedient and easy to handle, had turned into a lunatic tonight. But by the time they thought to clap a hand over my mouth or drag the truth out of me, it was too late, because the villagers out searching had already heard me shouting and were closing in from every side.

The moment they got close, though, the alarm on their faces melted into the grin of people who've come to watch a show.

They'd all been through this before. They knew Madge Roy hadn't been killed by Godfrey Cobb at all. The two of them had met here for a date, gotten drunk, and simply fallen asleep.

Sure, Madge and Godfrey were fully dressed and looked like they hadn't done anything shameful. But in a situation like that, whether something had happened or not made no difference to anyone.

Seeing me still standing there like a fool, hunting for a rock to smash the murderer Godfrey's head in, the neighbor auntie hurried over and grabbed my hand.

"Evie, Madge is fine, honey."

"The two of them are courting. Your family's about to have a happy occasion."

At that moment Chester and Emily could have killed me, but I played it so innocent there was nothing for them to pin on me.

So one of them shook Madge awake, while the other set to kicking and pounding on Godfrey, who was still asleep on the ground, shouting that he was a filthy sex offender the whole time.

Godfrey got "woken up" by the beating.

For a second after his eyes opened, he looked dazed.

But he recovered fast, pulling the ashen-faced Madge behind him, his voice rising.

"Whatever you've got, take it out on me. You don't touch Madge!"

"I'll take responsibility. I'll marry her."

Hearing that only made Chester and Emily angrier. The two of them went wild, demanding that everyone call the police.

"Who wants a filthy pervert like you taking responsibility? Who'd marry a pervert like you?"

"We're calling the police, we're taking her to the hospital to be examined. That's the only way to clear our Madge's name!"

But right then, Madge spoke up.

"Mom, Dad, stop making a scene. I... I came here on my own."

3:

All Chester and Emily could do was say, faces black as thunder, that we should head home first.

The five of us walked home step by step through the crowd's laughter.

It wasn't until I was lying in bed that I came down from the joy of being reborn and started thinking through everything that had happened tonight.

In my last life, Godfrey had been drunk.

All he remembered was looking at the stars and the moon with some girl, but he could never recall exactly who. So when Madge knocked me out and left me there, and Chester and Emily, who knew full well what had really happened, refused to let me explain, just cursed me for being shameless while they beat me black and blue.

Godfrey could only assume the girl who'd watched the stars with him was me. Unwilling as he was, he married me anyway...

But just now he'd called out Madge's name the instant he woke.

He'd pulled her behind him, frantic to protect her, and Madge hadn't denied a word of it. Instead she'd said, dead serious, that she'd come of her own free will.

It wasn't until we walked through the front door that I was sure of it. The two of them had been reborn too...

I drifted off somewhere in the middle of remembering.

I don't know how much time passed before Emily's slap jolted me awake. When I opened my eyes, I found she and Chester had been standing by the bed for who knew how long.

Seeing me all bleary and half-asleep, Emily nearly burst a vein.

"Do you have any idea what people in the village are saying about Madge right now?"

"You've all but driven Madge to her death, and you can still sleep?"

I felt wronged.

I covered my face and let the tears pour down.

"Mom, Dad, how can you blame me?"

"Yesterday Madge went to see a movie. I said I wanted to go too, so we'd have each other to lean on, and you two wouldn't let me."

"Then when Madge didn't come home, I said we should all go look for her together, and you two wouldn't have that either. You insisted I go alone."

"But how was I supposed to know where Madge was? All I could do was beg everyone to help me search."

"You two were the ones who found her. You clapped a hand over me and said something I couldn't even make out. If you'd just spoken plainly, why would I ever have called everyone over?"