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"Can we cancel the masquerade ball?"

"No."

"Gage, there's a hole in the ground under that ballroom and people are going to stand on it in masks I rented them."

"Even if you cancel it, the seam will still be there," I say. "The only difference is the house will be empty and no one will see what they’ll do. And you’ll be wherever they decide to put you instead of where you decide you want to be."

She hates that I’m right but she accepts it anyway.

"Tomorrow night," she says.

"Tomorrow night."

Her phone lights up on the counter and buzzes itself in a half circle.

She's been ignoring two messages since Sunday.

This one she opens.

I can see it from where I'm standing. The last one has a little jack-o'-lantern after it.

Are you at the shop tomorrow?

I made pumpkin bread.

Maren sets the phone face down on the counter, very gently, like it might go off.

Outside, a truck door shuts.

Cass comes up the porch steps without knocking, which she never does, and stops in my kitchen doorway with the cold still coming off her coat.

"Red car," she says. "End of the road. Been sitting there twenty minutes with the engine running."

38

MAREN

STILL ONE DAY UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Lila's been parked at the end of the road since before it got light, and she brought bread.

I can't get past it. Whatever else is true about this morning, at some point last night my best friend stood in her own kitchen and grated nutmeg and baked.

"I'll go," Cass says.

"No."

"Then let me sit in the truck at the top of the drive."

"No."

I look at Gage. "Okay," he says.

"That's it?"

"You've been on that road longer than I have."

"You could argue. A little. For appearances."