“Okay,” she said. “My feet hurt.”
“I bet.” Myron pushed his glasses further up his nose. An awkward pause followed as if he was waiting for her to ask him a question he didn’t want to answer.
Finn pointed to the piece of wood on his workbench. “What are you working on?”
“Oh, this?” Myron glanced down at the wood like it was the first time he was seeing it. “Just taking some measurements for a bookshelf I’m building.”
“To sell?”
“Hopefully.”
Finn nodded. She wasn’t really interested in the bookshelf. She was more interested in the man building it. “My mom built a chair once.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It was really wobbly.”
“Chairs are hard to build.”
“I used to sit in it so she wouldn’t feel bad.”
“That was nice of you.”
Finn shrugged and took the last few tentative steps down the staircase. Thankfully, no echoes were waiting for her at the bottom. “It was the least I could do. She was always complimenting every ugly piece of pottery I made in art class.”
Myron chuckled. “I have three homemade ashtrays, and I don’t even smoke. If only my wife had let me homeschool them…”
“Why did you want to homeschool?” It was a prying question, but Finn was genuinely curious.
Myron avoided eye contact by resuming measuring the lumber in front of him. “I didn’t want them getting made fun of because of their… you know. Especially Juniper. She doesn’t know how to turn it off sometimes.”
Finn understood. She remembered her mom worrying the same thing about her when the echoes had started. “Are they picked on?”
“Sometimes,” he said, marking the wood with his pencil. “But fornormal kid reasons. Honestly, I think they’re better adjusted than I was at that age.” He paused. “I still worry about them, though.”
Based on what Zadie had told her about Myron and Rowan’s fight, he was still not ready to take his daughters at their word. There was no reason, then, that he should trust a stranger, but Finn decided to try anyway. “I was the one who found your wife.”
Myron’s ruler slipped and the pencil veered off course, scoring the wood at a strange angle. He paused for a moment, eyes downcast, then said tersely, “My wife is dead.”
“I know.” Finn pictured him in his black suit and lavender tie. “But maybe… she’s not totallygone,either.”
Myron kept his head bowed. His glasses had begun to slip back down his nose. Sensing that she’d crossed a line, Finn excused herself and began hobbling gingerly back up the stairs.
“Hold on.”
She turned back around. Myron set down his pencil and locked eyes with her. “You really saw her?” His voice was quiet, uncertain.
“Yes.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was watching the kids play.”
Myron nodded thoughtfully, then resumed his work as if they’d never spoken.
Zadie expected Finn to be gone when she awoke, but there she was, peacefully lying next to her, bandaged feet poking out of the bottom of the comforter. The amount of relief she felt at seeing her there was as palpable as if her sister had returned from the dead. She was safe now. But for how long? Could Zadie really keep track of her every move?I’ll handcuff us together if I have to, she thought.
Of course the other option would be to turn back, to come clean to Steve and Kathy so they could lock Finn in her room until shebroke free of whatever force had taken hold of her. It would have been the responsible thing to do. But every time she contemplated this, she pictured the look on her sister’s face—her mom’s face—as they stood facing each other in the rain. She wanted,neededto see that face again. And she could only do it with Finn’s help.