The New One

ALSO BY EVIE GREENWe Hear Voices BERKLEYAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2023 by Emily BarrReaders Guide copyright © 2023 by Emily BarrPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Green, Evie, author.Title: The new one / Evie Green.Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley, 2023.Identifiers: LCCN 2022037536 (print) | LCCN 2022037537 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593439234 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593439241 (ebook)Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.Classification: LCC PR6102.A77 N49 2023 (print) | LCC PR6102.A77 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92--dc23/eng/20220812LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037536LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037537First Edition: March 2023Cover design by Lindy Martin / Faceout StudioBook design by Daniel Brount, adapted for ebook by Kelly BrennanThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_142978087_c0_r0 Contents CoverAlso by Evie GreenTitle PageCopyrightDedicationChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Chapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57Chapter 58Chapter 59Chapter 60Chapter 61AcknowledgmentsReaders GuideQuestions for DiscussionBehind the BookReading ListAbout the Author For Lottie, my real teenage daughter PROLOGUE I listen for a long time before any of the words make sense. When they do, I can grab only a word here or there. Soleil. Le weekend.I try to hold on to the other words but I can’t reach them. Everything comes and goes. I am floating.■ ■ ■ ■ ■After a while I realize I am not floating. I have a body.I am in a body.I am a body.My eyes are closed, and after a long time I think that since I am back in my body, I might try to open them. After some more time, I try. It doesn’t work.■ ■ ■ ■ ■I know there is noise, but I can’t make sense of it. My sense of smell seems as if someone switched it on, and it is unbearable. The smells crowd into my head and I want them to go away. It smells like medicine, clean things, chemicals. Not home.■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Things hurt. People do things to me. They poke me and move me, and sometimes it hurts and sometimes I don’t feel anything. I sense light outside my eyelids. It goes away and comes back. It gets darker and then lighter. I drift back to my dark place, and I come up again.■ ■ ■ ■ ■One day the sounds start to form shapes and I find that I know a word. I know that it is the word for the person I need, the person who will pull me out of here.■ ■ ■ ■ ■I try to make my mouth say it: “Mum.” 1 Five months beforeNovemberShe had been daydreaming. The water had evaporated and the cauliflower was sticking to the bottom of the pan and the potatoes were burning, because she’d forgotten all of it. It was salvageable, but she didn’t want it.“Oh, shut up,” she told it nonsensically, and turned off the gas ring. Everything annoyed her.She tried to focus on the television. It was a reality show, one that usually distracted her just enough. Tonight, though, it wasn’t working.Scarlett wasn’t missing. She was out. If she hadn’t overdone the cover story by throwing in Leanne, it wouldn’t have been worrying yet. It was still all right.She messaged her. Please just send a text. Nothing happened. She messaged again and called her phone and she didn’t answer.She turned the TV off and messaged Ed, hating the fact that she was admitting defeat again. He replied at ten forty-five.Fuck’s sake honey! Again?!???? Yeah, I’ll find her.At least he replied to her when it was about Scarlett. Since he worked late nights and she worked early mornings, they hardly saw each other. That was why they were still together.She looked at the photo on the wall. They had been happy once.It was a picture of the three of them taken when Scarlett was about four. They had been on the beach at Perranporth, standing in front of the Atlantic Ocean, the beach wide and sandy around them. Their hair was blowing around and they were laughing. Scarlett stood between them, holding their hands.They had been happy because Scarlett had been a dreamy child. They had been happy because their relationship was newer, and they weren’t ground down by life. Scarlett had been an adorable little girl, always asking questions about everything. They had kept her supplied with books from the library, had tried to find the answers she needed, had done everything they could to help her have a better life than they did.She had learned to read before she went to school, and together they had all learned a bit of French from an app. Her parents agreed (as all parents probably did) that their daughter was exceptionally bright and brilliant, and as the years went by, they encouraged her to do her homework, to be top of the class, to excel at everything and keep her options wide open.She was exactly average-sized for her age, which seemed like a good thing: she could never be teased for being too big or too small. She had curly dark hair and intense brown eyes, and she would climb into bed with them