“I knew there was something weird about them.”
“That’s what they were doing when we showed up. They stick their feet in the ground and the trees are like, ‘Hey, see any caterpillars today?’ ‘Nah, I saw a beetle, though.’”
Amused, Zadie half smiled. “Is that what you think trees talk about?”
“Sometimes. At least, that’s what Rowan said. Oh, and there’s one more thing…” Finn’s smile faded. “Rowan thinks her mom isinone of them.”
“What? A tree?”
Finn nodded.
“Huh.” The cracks in Zadie’s suspension of disbelief were beginning to show. “Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe…”
Zadie looked through the window again at Myron and his kids. “Myron’s really cool with us staying here another night?”
“That’s what he said.”
Zadie accepted her answer with a nod, and Finn turned to go back inside.
“Finn?”
She withdrew her hand from the door handle and turned to face her sister.
“You’d tell me if something was up, wouldn’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, if all of this was too much? The echoes and everything. It’s just that yesterday, you—”
“I’m fine. I swear.” Finn stepped inside, leaving Zadie alone on the porch.
The second Finn entered the house, she felt a twinge in her chest, a thumbprint of the pain she’d felt the night of her mom’s accident. Rather than rejoin the Van Houtens, she slipped into the hallway that led to the downstairs bathroom. The sound of their laughter trickled away and her ears began to ring as if a bomb had just gone off. She shoved open the bathroom door and quickly locked it behind her just as an echo began to dig its claws in. The twinge in her chest had intensified to a bright spark of pain. She closed her eyes and pressed her back against the wall, fists clenched so tightly they were nothing but veins and bone.
After several excruciating seconds, the pain subsided, leaving behind a faint burn like acid in her throat. When she opened her eyes, a face blinked back at her.
It must have been her reflection. It had to be.
But why didn’t she recognize the person frowning in the mirror?
She lifted a hand to her chin.
There was a bandage there and a plum-colored bruise on her jaw.
She’d been in an accident, that much she remembered.
But everything that came before it was a fog.
A knock at the door.
Ma’am? Are you okay?a voice said.
Amy. That was the woman’s name.
But what about hers? She must have one, too.
Ma’am?