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“And I’m supposed to be endlessly grateful?” she asks. “You lifted me up, and I’m supposed to look the other way now?”

“No, that’s not—Shit, I missed her road. You made me miss the turn.”

“Of course, you made a mistake . . . but it’s my fault.”

“Can you just shut up for one goddamn second?” Lee yells for the first time, his patience exhausted.

She falls silent, and I feel the car turn. I slide across the leather back seat, the fabric of my nightgown slick and sweaty. It rolls up, and I grab it, pushing it back down to cover my knees. I think I push down, but I might have pulled up. Directions are wrong, and time is thin, and I left Tress’s house ten years ago and I’m still there. I’m slipping. I’m slipping. I’m . . .

“Lee, remember that bridge is out—”

This time Annabelle cuts herself short, and Lee slams on the brakes. I roll off the seat, land in the footwell, unable to catch myself. Warmth rushes down the side of my head, and blood trickles into my mouth, my lip already swelling where I bit it, too hard. Too much. Too fast. It’s all here now, circling, getting ready to descend.

“Lee?” Now there’s something new in Annabelle’s voice—fear. And something new in the air, too. Lights. Bright lights, bouncing off the seats, into my eyes, into my head.

“Stay in the car,” Lee says, and I hear his door open.

But Annabelle Montor (Usher) is not the kind of woman who stays in the car. Her door opens, too.

Words. Flashing. Like the lights.

papers

thief

stole

mine

yours

sister

don’t

please

money

listen

But no one is listening, and I can’t, either, because everything is fading and the door is opening and someone has grabbed me and I smell grass and earth and green things growing and Annabelle UsherMontor and different now I’m falling and the smell is wet and fish and river and dead leaves and—

I’m falling.

I’m falling.

I’m gone.

Chapter 72

Cat

I am very quiet

and very still.

Stone and silence.