From the bestselling author of A Beautiful Poison comes a spellbinding historical mystery about hidden identities, wartime paranoia, and the tantalizing power of deceit. Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Lydia Kang’s The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding, which is out now.
Brooklyn, 1942. War rages overseas as brother and sister Will and Maggie Scripps contribute to the war effort stateside. Ambitious Will secretly scouts for the Manhattan Project while grief-stricken Maggie works at the Navy Yard, writing letters to her dead mother between shifts.
But the siblings’ quiet lives change when they discover a beautiful woman hiding under their back stairs. This stranger harbors an obsession with poisons, an affection for fine things, and a singular talent for killing small creatures. As she draws Will and Maggie deeper into her mysterious past, they both begin to suspect she’s quite dangerous―all while falling helplessly under her spell.
With whispers of spies in dark corners and the world’s first atomic bomb in the works, the visitor’s sudden presence in Maggie’s and Will’s lives raises questions about who she is and what she wants. Is this mysterious woman someone they can trust―or a threat to everything they hold dear?
Will leaned over, then scooped the woman up beneath her shoulders and knees. Her head sagged back listlessly, exposing a creamy white neck, an invitation of sorts. Inviting . . . what? He shook his head and looked away, willing his body from continuing in that direction. Maggie ran to prop open the kitchen door. As he carried the woman carefully up the stairs, he stole a quick glance down at her unconscious face—a mere flick of his eyes down and up—as if anything longer would risk him becoming more than passively involved.
Her hair was carefully waved. She was pale, and a sickly sweet scent wove through her perfume. Spirits. Drunk, as he’d thought. Was she beautiful? Yes. No. Something in between. Despite his efforts, Will had a vague inclination to kiss her, and he immediately reeled back that ridiculous thought.
Get rid of her, was his second thought. She could ruin everything. There was a reason why Will had no friends, and no guests were ever invited over to dinner. Casual conversation meant asking about work and discussing the war. Giving away answers of any kind—be they subtle truths or outright lies—might ruin everything he’d been planning for months.
“In here. Bring her in my bedroom.” But Will had already started lowering her to the kitchen floor. “Oh, Will!” Maggie moaned. “Not the floor! She isn’t a dog!”
“Fine. If she vomits, I don’t want to hear a complaint about the mess. And I’m not cleaning it up.” He straightened, then carried the woman through the narrow hallway, with its peeling wallpaper and absence of photographs. There were only two bedrooms in the small house. One was uninhabitable, crammed with pieces of broken furniture yet to be fixed and relics belonging to their childhood that Maggie refused to discard. The other bedroom was hers. Will slept on the sofa.
Maggie’s bedroom reminded Will of their mother, which was why he never went in if he didn’t have to. Fix a splintered floorboard, oil the creaking door. Otherwise, he pretended the room wasn’t even part of the apartment. It smelled of cloves, Mother’s favorite spice, and trinkets of her existence haunted the corners. A stained doily here, beneath two new books recently purchased with precious spare dollars: How to Dress in Wartime and Army Guide for Women. A scarf hanging over the lampshade. A striped blanket at the foot of the bed. Usually a glass jar or box with some ailing animal Maggie was nursing. An image flashed in his mind, of flesh that looked like sodden gray clay. Brackish water in an open mouth that would never speak again. Will had had to identify his mother at the morgue, and the images were permanent acid burns in his memory. He felt queasy, and forced the images away.
“On my bed. Careful!” Maggie pulled the coverlet down and clasped her hands together as Will laid the woman down. His sister smoothed the woman’s skirt down to her calves and pulled her shoes off. “Oh! Such pretty shoes,” she murmured, setting them on the floor as gingerly as if they were fine crystal. They moved to the doorway.
Will could still smell the woman’s lavender fragrance on himself. He waved his hand and brushed off his biceps, but the scent remained irritatingly intact. Maggie looked expectantly up at her brother. He knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to keep the woman, like a trinket. Like a kitten.
Little Mags. So sweet. But her naivete would only get her in trouble. It was good he was back.
“Maggie. Call the police. It’s time.”
“But Will, she’s so cold! Maybe we could just watch her—”
“Maggie.”
“I could make a little tea, and perhaps in the morning she could tell us what happened.”
“Mags!”
Maggie went silent. He rarely raised his voice at her, and guilt immediately flooded him. She tugged at a braid that was pinned to the back of her head, freed the rope of hair, and began chewing on the end instead. Sometimes it seemed she was still twelve. That was the age she’d been when their mother had killed herself at Brighton Beach. And a year ago, Maggie had nearly followed.
He sighed. He was a generous brother, but there were limits. In a firm but gentle voice, he said, “Mags. It’s time to call the police.”
Her eyes went glassy, the way they did whenever he asked her to do something she disliked but knew was inevitable. She sighed.
As they turned away from the bedroom, a tiny voice issued from beyond the closing door. Tinier, even, than Maggie’s.
The woman’s voice.
“Please. I beg you. Don’t call the police.”
