This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2024 by Lisa Unger

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781662518324 (digital)

Cover design by Faceout Studio, Tim Green

Cover image: © LordRunar, © filip_canik / Getty

Jules

Sinking into the leather upholstery of the town car, I watch the trees rush by in a black-and-evergreen blur. The sky above is a moody gray. It’s only three thirty, yet the afternoon holds a crepuscular gloom.

This should be a joyful moment, the cusp of a new beginning.

Why doesn’t it feel like that?

Nerves, or maybe it’s my seventeen-year-old daughter’s angry tap-tap-tapping on her phone. Scout is telling her friends how miserable she is, how she hates me for taking her away from the only life she’s ever known. I stare at her grim profile and think about how close we used to be. Now she looks at me like I’m a rival gang member.

Kids hate you when you screw up their lives and even when you don’t. It’s not really hate, though. It’s a childish rage mingled with desperate love and a deep disappointment that you’ve turned out to be a human full of flaws and bad decisions. I get it. I’ve been there. We all have, haven’t we?

Scout is half slouching, half lying in her seat, leg stretched out.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hand on her knee. “Who are you texting with?”

Her sea-glass-green gaze turns my way, lidded with practiced indifference. “No one.”

She shifts her leg away from my touch, which hurts more than it should. For a while now, it’s just been us. I guess we both thought that’s the way it would stay.

“Right. Your best friend, No One.”

My joke doesn’t even earn another glance. Just more angry tapping on her phone.

“I know this is hard,” I say. “But I think we’ll be happy.”

“You mean you’ll be happy.”

Something that kids won’t know until they’re parents themselves: a good mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child. There is nothing more painful than when your child is hurting. Scout’s misery is a pall over the choice I’ve made for us. Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a choice I made for myself. But for us too. I wouldn’t have done something good for me if I didn’t think in the long run, it would be best for Scout. There’s so much she doesn’t know. Maybe that’s my fault. I’ve tried to protect her from the worst things.

“You can choose to stay mad at me and be miserable,” I say. “Or you can choose to look ahead to the new opportunities you’re being offered.”

This earns a glare, but it’s better than being ignored.

“Offered? Was there an offer? A choice?”

I nod, accepting that she didn’t have a choice. Children don’t. “I’m sorry. I understand that you’re angry. I love you.”

She huffs, the very sound of teenage disdain.

My own phone pings.

How’s she doing?

Miserable. Hates me.

She loves you. She’s just scared.

I know.

We’re all going to have a beautiful life together. She’ll come around. I promise.

I believe you.

If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have told you with complete certainty that I’d never fall in love again. Widowed at thirty-seven, with a teenage daughter, I’d resigned myself to the idea that I’d already loved enough for one lifetime. All my attention would be devoted to helping Scout through her trauma and grief, even as I metabolized my own.

It was a relief, really, to give myself permission to be alone after we lost Doug and not even try to “get back out there” the way my well-meaning friends encouraged me to. It was just about Scout, helping her find her way after the worst thing that can happen to a kid.

Kirin was not part of the plan.

But that’s life, right? It just happens.

We make a wide turn, and the trees clear.

“There she is,” says Ralph, Kirin’s driver. “Winslow House.”

Scout glances up through the front window and comes out of her impossible teenage slouch. The house—which I’ve seen, but she hasn’t—rises in the clearing ahead.

“That’s where we’re going to live?” she says.

“That’s it.”

I think of our two-bedroom apartment back in the city, which by Manhattan standards seemed palatial. A place Doug and I scraped together everything we had to buy. Newly married, we couldn’t imagine any place more grand or wonderful. That sunlit space is where Doug wrote his first novel, where we conceived Scout, where she took her first steps. And it’s the place where Doug’s ghost still resides, lingering at the table and in our bedroom, or shuffling down the hallway, drinking coffee from the chipped mug he would never get rid of because Scout made it for him.

It was physically painful to sell the place, but for the first time in my life, I have more money in the bank than I have debt. And I know that it’s what he would have wanted for us. I still wear my wedding and engagement rings on a chain around my neck. I hold them in my hand now.

I’m scared, too, Scout, I think but don’t say. I force a smile. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

She slouches back down, stuffs her phone in her pocket, and stares out the side window.

“It’s obscene,” she says, sounding like her father, who disdained ostentatious displays of wealth. “How much does it cost to heat and cool that place? Hello? The planet, anyone? People starving?”

I reach for her hand, expecting her to pull away, but she doesn’t. Instead, she slides over into the crook of my arm. Still a baby in some ways, still needing comfort from the mom she currently hates. It sucks to be seventeen, not really an adult, not truly a kid, on a painful, confusing merry-go-round between both worlds.

“I want to go home,” she whispers.

I stroke her silky, flame-colored hair and relish the closeness I know is temporary. “We are home,” I say, determined to speak only truth to her.

She looks up at me, eyes sad and angry, then slides away again.

Scout

“I want to go home.” But my home doesn’t exist anymore.

“We are home,” my mom answers, looking at the ridiculous house that looms ahead of us.

My mom always complained about our apartment, how small it was, the street noise. There was the rickety elevator that clattered and moaned, the floors that needed replacing, the toilet that backed up. No dishwasher or washing machine. The neighbors upstairs who played their music too loud, too late. But I never cared about any of that. It was home, with all its quirks and oddities.

In my room, the stars on the ceiling, painted by my dad. His office, where he wrote all day until he came to pick me up from school. Sunlight on his desk. His books in a tidy row on the shelf, his awards standing sentry. His drawer of pens. His laptop. Boxes of Moleskines, every page filled with his scrawling handwriting.

Our couch (too old to even be donated, apparently), with a Dad-size dent in it where he sat and watched endless old movies—The Maltese Falcon, Creature from the Black Lagoon, 2001: A Space Odyssey—moody soundtracks filling the apartment. The cups. The plates. The silverware. The shabby runner in the hallway that he always tripped over. All the things he’d touched. All gone.

Before Kirin, Mom never even thought about emptying the closet of Dad’s clothes—his flannel shirts and torn jeans, his collection of dorky graphic T-shirts. I still went there to smell him when I felt really sad, that scent of wood and soap, the tang of cigarettes he’d go up on the roof to smoke, the glass of wine he’d had with dinner.

It’s time to let him go.

That’s what she said when she told me we were leaving, and I gave her all the reasons why we couldn’t go.

Let him go? I raged. He’s my father.

And he’ll always be that. But he’s gone now.

My dad’s service had been packed with family and friends, colleagues and acquaintances, former editors, other authors he’d helped. Everyone had some funny memory of him, sharing their encounters at the mic or just with me. Your dad—he was one of a kind. My mother looked so fragile that day, as if she were made of glass. I clung to her, trying to keep her from shattering, afraid of losing her too. And that night when everyone was gone, we just lay on their bed, her holding on to me, both of us sleepless.

“We’ll get through this,” she whispered, and we both knew it wasn’t true. There was no tomorrow when the person you loved most died.

But the next morning, the indifferent sun rose again.

And slowly, the color returned to her face. She went back to work; I went back to school. I slept with her in their bed for months, until one day I didn’t.

Life will come for you, my dad had scribbled in one of his notebooks. Even when you don’t want it to. One day, it will knock on your door and come in, ask you to go for a walk. And you’ll go. Because what choice do you have?

It is true. Life rushes on, a river carrying us away from him.

The car stops, and Kirin is waiting on the steps leading up to his grand house. I’m surprised there isn’t a line of servants waiting to greet us. Like, where’s Mrs. Danvers?

Texting with DD earlier:

I don’t get it. What’s so bad about him? He’s hot, rich—he loves you. He makes your mom happy.

There’s nothing wrong with him. That’s the problem.

He’s—too perfect?

There’s always a shadow. Isn’t that what you always say?

Lighten up, kitten.

The car pulls to a stop, and Ralph, the grim-faced driver, steps out to open the door for my mother. I stay slouched in my seat.

“You can’t hide in the car forever,” she says, casting me a look as she exits.

I step out into the cold autumn air before Ralph makes it around to open my door too. He has a scar on his face, from the outside corner of his right eye, down his jawline, disappearing into his collar. The edge of a tattoo snakes out of the cuff of his black bomber jacket.

“Miss,” he says. “Welcome home.”

Rage. It’s like there’s a pilot light always burning in my center. It takes almost nothing for the flames to shoot up. This is not my home, I want to scream, but I bite it back, then turn away so he can’t see my cheeks reddening.

I think I hear him laugh a little, but when I turn back, his angular face is blank. Dark, cropped hair. Black eyes. It wouldn’t come as any big surprise to see him donning a balaclava and robbing a bank.

The house looms. My mother is already in Kirin’s arms. They sway like they’re dancing, so in love. My mom’s long black coat and raven hair punch against the riot of autumn color, the cruel, beautiful blue of the sky. Ralph shuts the door, the sound echoing like the closing of a coffin lid. He starts unloading our bags from the trunk. There’s not much; most of it’s back in the city. I wouldn’t let my mom get rid of everything; her concession was to rent a storage space. Clearly there’s room for it here. She obviously doesn’t want any of it in “our” new life.

Kirin approaches me, smiling. He drops an arm around my shoulders, and my mother takes my other hand.

He plants a kiss on my head and whispers, “I’m going to do everything I can to make you both truly happy. I promise.”

I force a smile. My phone pings.

Just try to be happy, kitten. For your mom.

“Hey, Scout,” says Kirin as we approach the towering front door. “Check this out. Stand here.”

He directs me to stand in front of a keypad with a camera and something that looks like a small iPad screen. With just a touch of his finger, it glows to life.

“Initializing face recognition,” says a British-accented female voice. A green circle twirls, then resolves into a check mark. I hear the door mechanism whir, then unlock. “Welcome home, Scout.”

“Oh, wow,” says my mom.

“I set you both up in the smart-house system,” says Kirin. “I’ll explain it all when you get settled.”

He swings the huge wood door open. It’s a dark doorway to a life I didn’t ask for and don’t want. I want to run for no reason I can name, but there’s no place else to go. Home is a time and place that no longer exists.

Jules

Scout stands scowling beside the door of her bedroom for the unveiling of her new space, painstakingly designed by Kirin. He’s trying way too hard; his desperation to please Scout is difficult to watch. And she gives him nothing, not an ounce of warmth.

“I had a little help with this,” he says, hand resting on the doorknob. “Your mom gave me some hints. And Jessie had some great ideas.”

Jessie, Kirin’s assistant, the twentysomething art student who runs his studio and his life. With her shock of pink hair and dark skin and her sleeves of tattoos, she stands off to the side, tapping on her phone with black-polished fingernails. She’s trying for cool and nonchalant, but her hundred phone calls about the room over the last month betray her. She, too, wants Scout to be happy. Everyone wants that. Except, it seems, Scout.

“I think you’re going to like it,” Kirin says. “And we can change anything you don’t.”

“Thank you,” she says politely, with a tight smile. She is polite. She’s also kind and empathetic and funny and bright and caring. She’s not this sullen kid, this angry young woman. I touch her arm; she looks at me and offers a shrug. I’m trying.

“Okay, stand here,” says Kirin.

A screen comes to life with a touch of his finger, that twirling green circle, the red light that indicates the camera is scanning your face. A big switch from the double lock on our door that stuck when it got too hot and humid.

“Welcome, Scout,” says the bright voice of the house. She has a name: Vivi. Apparently she controls everything—the lights, the temperature, the locks on all the doors. There are motion detectors and cameras. It’s a lot.

The door unlocks, and Scout tentatively pushes it open.

“Your mom can override the lock on the door, but when you leave or enter, it will lock behind you. This is your private space.”

As we step inside, I can’t hold back a slight gasp.

The room is sun washed and airy, with a high ceiling and tall, wide windows overlooking the expansive grounds. Dove gray walls, a plush window seat that runs the length of the far wall. Scout walks over to the king platform bed, which is basically a floating cloud of puffy comforter; soft, fuzzy blanket; and a battalion of oversize throw pillows in coordinating whites, blues, and grays.

A small sitting area—crescent-shaped white couch, beanbag chairs, a low white lacquered circle of a table—surrounds a giant television, below which a gaming cabinet holds a variety of machines. I recognize the one Scout asked for that I couldn’t afford last Christmas, still cleaning up the mess Doug left behind. The walls feature posters of Scout’s favorite bands—retro, of course, because she’s her father’s daughter: the Cure, New Order, the Sex Pistols.

By her bed a family photo—Scout, Doug, and me during our last vacation on the Cape, a golden hour shot snapped by a friendly young woman who happened to walk by. I think this one captures us better than some of the professional shots we’ve had taken over the years. I think it shows that Doug and I really loved being together in spite of all the challenges in our marriage, that we were always our best selves when we were with our daughter, together. Scout traces the silver frame with her finger.

This is what I first loved about Kirin. He’s never asked me to choose between him and Doug. I fell in love with my late husband when we were both studying English literature at Sacred Heart College. We married fresh out of college. I worked at an entry-level publishing job while he wrote his first novel. Just as his first bestseller hit the shelves, Scout was born. I am still figuring out who I am without him. Kirin asks about him, talks about what he might have wanted, acts like he’s an old friend. There’s room for memories of him in our new life.

“It’s bigger than our living room back home,” she says. I see a flash of something—joy, delight—but she quickly quashes it, her critical frown returning.

She doesn’t want to feel joy or move forward, because those are the first steps to leaving her father behind. That’s what Scout’s therapist told me. I feel it, too, a longing in my own heart as the tide of our lives takes us further and further away from who we were with Doug.

“I hope you’ll be happy here,” Kirin says in his quiet, easy way. If he’s disappointed in her muted reaction, it doesn’t show.

I wander over to the window, feeling a twinge of something. Guilt? Regret? That Doug and I could never afford to give her anything like this? Silly.

Outside the day is audaciously beautiful, sky bright, leaves bold with color. A back patio leads to a large pool deck, then steps down to a winding stone path through the trees to Kirin’s studio. I’m about to turn away when something catches my eye, a slim figure dressed all in black standing on the path. Long raven hair, skin so pale it almost glows.

“Who’s that?” I ask, turning as Kirin comes to stand behind me.

“Who?”

When I turn back, there’s no one there. “Oh, she’s gone.”

“One of the interns, maybe?” he says with a shrug. “I’ve got a few floating around this week from that Parsons program.”

“Hey, Scout,” says Jessie, nodding over toward the gaming systems. “Check it. The new Xbox.”

They flop on the couch together—Jessie is Scout’s favorite thing about Kirin—and within moments they have a game going. Something loud with the sound of engines.

Scout remembers her manners and turns to Kirin. “Thank you,” she says. “It’s . . . really cool.”

This is the polite version of Scout she puts on for strangers and people she doesn’t like. And she can’t let herself like Kirin.

“You’re welcome, kiddo,” says Kirin, but Scout and Jessie are already laughing about something else. I’m annoyed, but I’m not going to make a scene the first day in the new house. At least she’s not raging. We’ll call that progress.

“Jessie and a new Xbox,” I say to Kirin out in the hall. “A stroke of genius.”

“Hello, Kirin,” says Vivi, apparently having scanned his face. The smart house, I’m not going to lie, is weird. “You do not have access to this room. You cannot override.”

“Talk about allegory,” he says, giving me a sad smile.

“I don’t understand, Kirin,” answers Vivi patiently. He leans against the wall, and I slip into his arms.

“She hates me,” he says.

“She hates the situation,” I say. “Grief—it’s a beast.”

“I know it.”

I look up, and he presses his mouth to mine. For a moment everything sad and worrisome disappears, and it’s just us, this fresh new love that took me completely by surprise.

“Hey, Kirin,” says Jessie from the door, startling us both. She wears an embarrassed grin. “Sorry. Don’t forget your four o’clock call.”

Kirin clears his throat. “Got it.”

Then, turning to me as Jessie retreats, he says, “Now, my love, let me show you our space.”

“I’ve seen your bedroom,” I say.

“Oh, no,” he answers, grinning. He ushers me down to the end of the hall. It’s not far from Scout’s room—which is a comfort. In our old apartment, our rooms were so close I could sometimes hear her breathing at night. “I’ve created a new space for us, for our new life together.”

He swings open the double doors, sweeps me off my feet, and carries me, laughing, inside.

Scout

When I wake up in my new room, the moon shines in my window like a klieg light, casting everything in silver. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, lying in the middle of the giant bed, covers twisted around me. Something still echoes in the air, a sound.

“Hey, Vivi?” Vivi and I have been getting acquainted.

“How can I help, Scout?” The screen over by the door glows.

“What was that noise?”

“I didn’t detect any unusual noise, Scout. All systems are normal.”

I listen to the darkness. The silence is deafening. At home, it was never quiet, the city noise omnipresent—tires on asphalt and raised voices, horns, and the hiss of buses. There was always the light of the streetlamps coming in through the blinds. My parents’ room was right next to mine; I could hear my dad snoring. Here there’s nothing.

Embrace the new. Let the old fall away like a shed skin. Be the new.

Another scribbled thought from one of my dad’s old notebooks. I have three of them in my backpack; the rest are boxed up in the storage unit. My father’s alma mater, a tiny school in Upstate New York called Sacred Heart College, has been asking for them, for their alumni library. My mom won’t let those pieces of him go; at least she’s holding on to something. I noticed she took off her wedding and engagement rings, wears them on a chain around her neck. But how long before she discards those too?

I slip from the bed and pad over the hardwood floor, then pull open the heavy door.

“It’s 1:03 a.m., Scout,” says Vivi. Do I detect a note of judgment?

I pause in my doorway, look up and down the long empty hallway. While the exterior of the house has a castle-slash-country-manor vibe, all wood and stone, mullioned windows, even a turret, the interior is SoHo-gallery modern. I step onto the grayish wood floors. My footfalls are silent. At home, the floor creaked with every step.

I drift past white walls hung with large black-and-white photographs: a voluptuous nude woman lies on a chaise, her face an obscured blur; a view of downtown Manhattan features the twin towers, crumbled to ash before I was born; apples rot in a ceramic bowl.

As I move down the floating staircase, each step lights up with an amber glow. The marble floor of the downstairs landing is icy cold. And then I’m in the gigantic kitchen, where we all sat around the big farm table earlier to eat gooey slices of pepperoni pizza. Jessie stayed for a while before taking off “back to the city” to check on the gallery where Kirin will have a show later this month. I begged to go with her. No such luck. School starts tomorrow. Well, today—in just a few hours, actually. My stomach roils with nerves.

I approach the stainless steel refrigerator, and the screen on the door glows to life.

“Welcome, Scout. We are low on oat milk and vegan cheese. I have ordered these items from Instacart. They will be delivered between ten a.m. and noon tomorrow.”

“Um,” I say. “Great.”

It’s the leftover pizza I’m looking for. I take the box over to the island bar, where I dig into the cold, congealed grease. It’s delicious.

“Stress eater?”

Kirin, in sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, dark hair tousled, wanders into the room. I’m embarrassed, but not enough to stop eating.

“Me too,” he says when I don’t answer.

He grabs a slice and sits on the stool beside me. I don’t hate him. He’s not a bad guy. He’s just not my dad.

“I know this sucks,” he says after a few minutes of silent chewing. Between the two of us, we’ve scarfed down three slices in under five minutes. “I’ve lost people too.”

I know that’s true. I’ve googled him. Obsessively.

“But let’s just try, okay? For your mom?”

There she is, that raging girl rattling the cage I’m keeping her in. But it’s late, and I’m tired. Also, I’ve been beat. I fought the good fight back home. Now the apartment is sold, and we’re here. I give him a nod, and he puts a tentative hand on my shoulder.

“Try to get some sleep,” he says finally, rising. “Big day tomorrow.”

My first day of classes at Blair Academy, the private school where Kirin himself was educated. It has a reputation. Tough teachers. Mean girls. Big money. Lots of drugs. But coming from a public high school in New York City, I think I can handle it. Besides, the one good thing about having the worst thing you can imagine actually happen is that nothing else is ever quite as scary again.

You’re going to slay. Isn’t that what the cool kids say these days?

Yes, DD, that’s what they say.

I realize only after Kirin has gone that I didn’t utter a single word.

When I’ve had my fill, I climb the stairs, and as I’m about to step into my room, I hear something. A voice. Someone singing. It’s faint enough that when it stops, I wonder if I heard it at all. Maybe it was the call of an owl or something outside. Then, as I decide it was nothing, I hear it again.

I follow the sound, away from my mom’s room, to a door at the end of the hallway. The singing, if that’s what I heard, has stopped. I step in front of the camera.

“Good evening, Scout,” says Vivi, glowing green. “You have all-house access. Would you like to enter?”

“What room is this?”

“This is Miss Emma’s room. She’s not in.”

Emma. Kirin’s sister.

“Would you like to enter?” Vivi prompts again.

“Yes.”

The door unlocks, and after a moment of hesitation, I push it open and step inside.

It’s like stepping back in time. A pink carpeted floor, a four-poster bed. A record player on a low table above a shelf of albums. A desk, an ancient Walkman, shelves of books. Posters on the walls, photographs in frames. And something else that catches my attention. On the long window seat just like mine, a doll.

She’s long and lean, in a slim black dress and glittering ruby shoes. I draw closer and lift her from her place looking out over the grounds. Her raven hair is made from silky yarn, her dress a soft cotton. Her eyes are deep-set blue gems, her lips pink satin, smiling just slightly. On her cheeks, two faint hearts of blush. Her body is light and yielding, flops in my hand. I bring her to my chest and give her a gentle hug.

“We meet again.”

I practically jump out of my skin, suppress a scream of fright. Kirin.

“You get around at night, huh?” He leans against the doorframe. If he’s angry, it doesn’t show. He wears a crooked grin. He holds up his smartwatch. “Vivi has a motion detector.”

It feels weird, being watched, having Vivi track my movements.

“I heard something.” My heart is still beating out a disco rhythm in my chest.

“Old houses make lots of strange sounds.” Yeah, but they don’t sing, do they?

“This is Emma’s room. Your sister.”

“That’s right.”

I look down at the doll in my hand. “She died?”

“We presume so, yes,” he says, casting his gaze to the floor. “She was . . . troubled. But we never found her body.”

I don’t say anything.

“You probably know all this from the internet,” he says, and I nod.

He puts out a hand, and I reluctantly give him the doll.

“This was my first,” he says. “I made her after Emma disappeared. I just needed something of her, from her. I made the dress from an old shirt, the shoes from her homecoming dress. The eyes are from a necklace I found in her jewelry box. I made the lips from her pillowcase.”

I see it in him, what I know from my own heart. That terrible longing for the thing you’ve lost. Not just the person, but for everything you were together. My father. His sister.

Kirin is a world-renowned puppet and doll maker. His characters have been in movies and television shows, are on display in art galleries and museums. If this was his first work, his talent already shows. There’s something alive about her.

“She’s beautiful,” I say and mean it.

“She’s yours,” he says, handing her back to me. “Keep her.”

Strangely, I do want her, though I was never much into dolls. My parents were more likely to give me books, or a chemistry set, or occasionally a stuffed animal. I hesitate before taking her. She must be a collector’s item, worth a fortune. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “Everything I have belongs to you and your mom now. Please take her.”

“Thank you.” I hold her to my body and feel unexpectedly comforted.

Kirin looks around the room once more, his expression unreadable. “I never come in here anymore.”

Finally, he moves toward the door and waits until I follow him out.

“I’m sorry,” I say in the hallway. “I didn’t mean to snoop around.”

He smiles, puts a hand on my arm. “This is your home. Roam at will. There’s nothing secret or off limits here. Truly. But—you really do need to get some sleep.”

Back in my room, I put the Emma doll on my window seat, leaning her against one of the plush pillows. I fall asleep watching her eyes shine in the light of the moon.

Jules

Blair Academy. It’s practically a castle with its stone towers and high walls, its gleaming windows and vast grounds. The wrought iron gates are swung open wide for the luxury-car parade that seems to comprise the drop-off line. Bentley and Porsche, Mercedes and Range Rover. It’s a far cry from the concrete-block public school I attended in New Jersey, surrounded by farmland and trailer parks, run-down ranch houses. I walked to school down a winding rural road. Doug, New York City born and raised, went to a rough school on the Lower East Side as a kid, then got into Regis on scholarship. The Jesuits were a different kind of tough. Neither of us came from any kind of wealth. Not like Kirin. Scout went to a public high school on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from our apartment.

She slouches now, her crisp navy blue uniform already looking like she slept in it, her lace-up Doc Martens a statement more than footwear. She has circles under her eyes, and her mouth is pressed into a permanent frown. Will she ever smile at me again? I see her smile all the time on social media with her friends. Yesterday, she was laughing with Jessie. Just not with me.

“I used to drive Mr. Kirin here not so long ago,” says Ralph from the front seat. How old is he anyway? “He wasn’t a morning person either.”

I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror and see a smile there. Only the tapping of her foot betrays Scout’s nerves.

I reach for her hand, and I’m surprised when her fingers close through mine.

“Look at this place,” I say, squeezing tight. “You’re going to love it. You’ll be amazing.”

She nods and looks like she’s about to say something, then doesn’t.

The car pulls up, and the waiting assistant dean opens the door. There is no gathering of parents, chatting and clutching coffees, like I’m used to. No students linger on the manicured lawn. They were clear about that when we visited for Scout’s entrance interview. Parents or drivers remain in the cars; students go directly inside and proceed to their homeroom. Tardiness is not tolerated, and with a second offense there is an after-school detention.

“Good morning, Miss Scout,” says Assistant Dean Goodman. She’s younger and much more personable than Dean Frost. Who was a bit frosty. She smiles at Scout, leaning in. “First-day jitters?”

Scout nods. “Maybe a little.”

“Well, I can tell you that everyone is thrilled and can’t wait to meet you. New kids are like celebrities at Blair, where some of our students have been coming since kindergarten. You’re going to be a rock star, guaranteed.”

Assistant Dean Goodman gives me a dimpled smile. “We’re going to take great care of your girl.”

And then with a worried frown tossed back at me, Scout’s gone. Off to her first day in a new school she did not want to attend, in a place she didn’t want to live.

“I love you,” I say.

But the door is closed, and if Ralph wasn’t there, I’d pull over somewhere and have myself a good cry, letting out the pain and grief and anger that have been a kind of storm inside me since Doug died. Turns out even new love, even moving on, doesn’t end the suffering of losing someone. It’s just a distraction.

Back at the house, which still doesn’t quite feel like home even though I’ve spent more time here than Scout has, I unpack clothes in the spacious walk-in closet, which is, no joke, bigger by far than our old kitchen. Then I walk through the house—the library, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves of books collected over generations; the dining room, fit for a king’s feast with a huge oak table, fireplace, and sleek metal chandelier; the living room, with its plush gray sectional, low tables, coffee-table books, and an impossibly large television.

Change anything you want, Kirin said. Make it yours.

It’s stylish yet comfortable, every detail curated and artful, from the crown molding to the dimmable touch lighting. What could I possibly change?

I find my way outside and walk up the path to Kirin’s studio. The door is open, and loud music drifts out—Nine Inch Nails, heavy and dark.

Inside, I’m greeted by a towering leather-clad alien with scythes for claws, obsidian eyes, thorns for teeth. Just down the long hallway, a fairy queen with silken hair and emerald eyes sits peacefully, with hands in prayer at her chest. Her silicone skin gives off an iridescent glow, cheekbones high, robes in jewel-toned velvet.

In the studio, Kirin bends over a long table. All I can see are two slender legs, moving just slightly as he works.

The space is a gallery of puppets and dolls—marionettes, hand operated, animatronic. Some are sweet, made for children—flower people with petals for hair, princesses, angels with elaborate wings, bears in hats. Some are disturbing—monsters and witches, science fiction villains. Disembodied heads, screaming mouths, glittering eyes. All of them seem alive, watching. They’re real to him, each with stories, thoughts, and feelings.

Kirin senses me behind him. He reaches to turn down the music, covers up his current project, and turns to me with a grin.

“Did she love it?”

I smile at his optimism. “Well, she went in. And so far no one’s called to say she made a run for it. So—”

“It’s a great school,” he says, moving toward me. “She’s a great kid. Things are going to work out. You’ll see.”

Kirin is a maker, a creator. Materials yield under his hands, become what he wants them to be. He believes in his ability to make the world what he wants. It was one of the first things I loved about him: this confidence, this idea that he was in control.

A little over a year ago, I wandered into his shop in SoHo, a kind of fantasy bookstore where he sells dolls and replicas of his most famous puppets. It was one of the dark days, when Scout had gone back to school, and I couldn’t focus on work, so I wound up just wandering city streets, a thing I’ve always done. Walk and think, answers embedded in the concrete beneath my feet or hanging in the sky above me or in the buildings around me. The door emitted an electronic jingle as I walked inside to find myself in a dim, peaceful space made to look like a fairy-tale forest.

It was the rare day that Kirin was in town, behind the counter, instead of home in his studio. When I realized he was watching me, I turned to him. He smiled, shy. “Sorry,” he said. “But men probably stare at you all the time.”

Grief makes you invisible, or so it had seemed to me. After the flood of love and support that comes when someone dies, after the service and all the calls, letters, flowers, there’s a long empty time when everyone goes back to their lives—everyone but you. I felt like I was fading, becoming less every day. I’d spent the last few years managing Doug’s career—reading and editing, social media, accounting, schedule management, travel, whatever was needed. I was still the manager of his estate, his extensive backlist of novels. But the engine, the creator, was gone. I knew I needed to find something else to do but had no idea what that might be. I didn’t know who I was without Doug; my own dreams of writing lay fallow in the shadow of his career and my role as full-time mother.

“I wouldn’t be able to capture your face,” he said that day in the store. “There’s too much depth to you. I’d need to hear your story.”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking it wasn’t the worst pickup line I’d ever heard. “I see.”

I lifted a doll—one of Scout’s favorite characters. Belina the Bookworm, a fairy who lives in the library stacks and helps characters get to the happy endings of their stories. There was a book, and then of course a movie, then a play on Broadway. I held her and straightened out her red velvet dress, touched her flowered stockings. She was yielding in my hand, with silver yarn for hair and bright button eyes behind wire-rimmed specs, an embroidered mouth. I almost bought her for Scout, then put her back. She had never been into dolls.

“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said. He seemed familiar, and I was embarrassed a moment later when I realized that he was the artist, not just the shopkeeper. The store manager, he later told me, had been sick, so he’d decided to open the store himself.

“Your work,” I said. “It’s iconic. All those characters.”

He offered a humble shrug. “It’s not me. It’s them,” he said sweeping his arm to indicate all the characters in the shop. “I’m just capturing their essence, telling their stories.”

Doug used to say something similar. The story is already there. I just have to find it. Kirin moved from around the counter, tall and lean, shocking ink black hair and dark eyes. He moved with grace, slow and easy. There was a fresh, clean smell to the room—paper, lemons.

“So,” he said. “Are you going to tell me your story?”

“I don’t have one,” I said. “Nothing special.”

He smiled. “I don’t believe that. Not at all.”

Now, more than a year later, in his studio, he takes me into his arms, plants a kiss on my head. We chat awhile about drop-off, about Blair Academy, about how he and Scout shared some time last night, explaining the dark circles under her eyes. Jessie pops in to ask some questions, remind him of a meeting in the city this afternoon. His work is displayed all around us on floor-to-ceiling shelves, on pedestals, in glass cases. A hulking but sweet-faced, lavender-furred yeti stands tall in the corner, clutching a tattered stuffed bear in his arm. Three angels clad in silk, with wings made from snowy owl feathers—one blond, one dark, one ginger—watch us from a shelf. The yeti’s name is Morton. The angels are Hope, Faith, and Charity. The alien in the foyer is Sheva. They all have names, stories.

On the worktable in the center of the room, his current creation is under wraps. He never shows or talks about what he’s working on until it’s done. I glance at the materials, the skeins of red silk and gossamer strands of multicolored yarn, a pile of black tulle, a box of sea glass.

He hands me a piece of bright-blue sea glass from the box before I leave.

“For luck today,” Kirin says. He has this thing he does, where he looks at me intently, then tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. It’s a tender, caring gesture that made me blush the first time he did it. “Not luck. For inspiration.”

The sea glass is smooth in my palm. Eroded beauty, something common turned to jewel through hardship.

Yes, for luck. Today, I start the thing I put on hold, first to support Doug, then because of Scout. But those were just excuses, weren’t they? We always have a thousand reasons not to do the thing we most want to do. I walk down the path, away from Kirin’s studio, away from the house, and I see it. The first time, it felt like a fairy tale, and it still does. A little cottage by a creek that runs through Kirin’s property. It has a modern vibe, with distressed wood shingles and big windows. I stand before the gray door.

“Welcome, Jules,” says Vivi. “You have all-property access.”

When the door unlocks, I step inside the bright, airy space. A high ceiling, large windows with a view of the woods all around. White oak floors, white walls. In the middle a simple white Parsons desk with a gleaming new desktop computer. It’s so quiet I can hear my own breath. When Kirin showed it to me the first time, I cried.

I sit on the long gray chaise by the window that looks out on the creek. Your dreaming chair, he said. On the far wall, empty white shelves.

A room of one’s own, he said. The space and time to create. He was alluding to Virginia Woolf’s famous essay. I haven’t had either until now.

I slip out of my shoes, put my feet up on the chaise, and stare out onto the blazing green, sunlight dappling through the trees, the creek rambling.

What should I write? I ask Doug, holding the rings that hang from a chain around my neck.

You were always a better writer.

But you were the one who actually did it.

Only because I had your support. You were the only one of us gainfully employed after college.

These conversations with Doug. They need to stop.

You know exactly what you want to write; you always have.

He’s right. I go to the ergonomic chair and start to work.

How many hours pass?

I don’t know, but I come back to reality when a movement outside catches my eye. I stand up and go to the window. There—in the shadows between the trees. A girl—dark hair, torn black jeans, tattered T-shirt. She looks scared; tears of mascara streak her face. I walk outside and hear her running.

“Hey,” I call after her. “Are you okay?”

I chase after her into the woods.

Scout

Good to know that trigonometry sucks no matter where you are. It’s the consistency that I find comforting. Also, school. You can dress it up—at Blair hardwood floors replace worn Formica, Ikea-chic white cubbies (no locks because I guess rich people don’t need to steal) stand in for dented metal lockers. Here the classrooms are high ceilinged, sunlit, and spotless, instead of dank, run down, and badly lit. But it’s still a kind of prison.

And PS, in spite of the assistant dean’s assurances, I am no rock star. The teachers have all been nice enough, especially the English teacher, who is a fan of my father’s. I have received no peer welcome except for blank, incurious looks from some of the hottest girls I have ever seen. It’s like a genetics experiment: What happens when the rich and gorgeous produce offspring? Blair Academy happens. The boys don’t even seem to register my existence. It’s like there’s a level of wealth and beauty you need to even rank as a person, and I am not giving off that vibration.

Give it a chance, answers DD when I text him at lunch. Give people a chance.

At noon, I find a space by myself in the lunchroom, which looks more like a restaurant than a school cafeteria, with round wooden tables and cozy booths. A fireplace, unlit, is surrounded by a big leather couch, tall-backed chairs, a collection of embroidered poufs.

Cliques, it is clear, are set. Jocks rule here as everywhere, and their table is appropriately on a raised platform. The most noise—laughter and conversation, the occasional shout—emanates from there. A quick glance around the large space reveals the usual suspects—geeks, art students, theater kids (someone’s always singing, or standing on a chair).

No one so much as glances in my direction.

But the food, I must say, is exceptional. I take my chicken, lentils, and rice to a cozy corner by a window that looks out onto the grounds. I open my book, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—which is the work assigned in English right now. Poor Frank, as I like to think of him. It’s okay that it’s my third time reading it. I never get tired of his sad, lonely story.

“You know, Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster.”

Seriously?

“Because every woman wants Mary Shelley mansplained to her,” I say, glancing up from the page.

“Ouch.”

Crooked smile, flop of dark hair, anime eyes—so black they’re almost purple. Cheekbones you could dive off. His Blair Academy uniform is worn loose, tie pulled down, jacket crumpled. There’s something on a leather strap around his neck, but whatever it is hides beneath his shirt. He lifts his palms. Paint, all different shades, mottles his hands.

“Just trying to make conversation,” he says, sitting across from me.

I stare at the paperback in my hands and wonder how to dial back my rudeness. Give people a chance. “You’re right,” I say. “Frankenstein’s monster never gets a name.”

“You’re Scout?” he asks.

When I nod, he sticks out his hand. “I’m Racer. I saw you in AP Studio Art.”

How, I wonder, did I not see him?

We shake over the table.

“My friends were wondering if we could join you.”

Over by the fireplace three artsy-looking kids stand holding trays or lunch bags. A tall, slim girl with purple hair in braids gives me a smile and a wave.

“Sure,” I say, even though my instinct is to say I was just leaving and surrender the table to them.

Penelope’s the one with purple hair; she squeezes in beside me like we’re old friends, gives me a cookie from her lunch bag. Harlan—blond hair sheared short, skin dark—nods a greeting but doesn’t say another word. Cooper—lithe and lean, with round gold-framed specs—introduces himself as trans, as in: “I’m Cooper. I’m trans. He-slash-him. Any issue with that?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “All good.”

He gives me a nod, and then we’re all chatting. They already know about me, my dad, how my mom is marrying Kirin.

“I was a fan of your dad’s—am a fan,” says Racer. “And I’ve followed your art account on Instagram forever. Your work is amazing.”

It’s weird to be the kid of a famous writer. People you don’t know, know things about you. Especially someone like my dad, who wrote strange, otherworldly books—horror mostly, but some fantasy and science fiction. He has a rabid cult following. There’s a whole group of fans who think he’s not dead, just in hiding, writing the biggest book of his life. This makes my mom so mad. It’s like they don’t think he was a real person with a grieving, heartbroken family. Just a character in their story of who he was.

Also, my art account. I’m a digital artist, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve kept a graphic diary of my life, capturing funny moments or confusing ones; times I wanted to relive, explore, understand better; things that made me sad or angry or really happy. With my tablet and pencil, I have logged the important moments of my life. But I haven’t created a single thing since my dad died, and I’ve been thinking about taking down my art page. I don’t feel like an artist anymore. I’m blocked in the extreme.

“Yeah,” says Penelope. She puts a warm hand on my arm. “I’m sorry about your dad. My mom died when I was five. And my step is queen bitch. So—I feel you.”

I find myself smiling for the first time in a while. When I look over at Racer, he’s staring, and I feel heat flush my cheeks. I quickly look away.

“Okay,” says Cooper, leaning across the table toward me. “I’m going to give you a hack for every single teacher. Write this down, and thank me later.”

By the time he’s done, complete with impersonations, we’re all laughing. When the bell rings, we all walk toward the door together.

“It’s not so bad here,” Racer says, walking beside me. “Not if you find your peeps.”

Then with a quick salute, he takes off.

Penelope and I have biology together, so we head that way.

“You know Kirin and his sister went here, right?” she asks, stopping at a big trophy case by the principal’s office. The plaque above it reads 2000. I look inside to see shelves of awards for soccer, lacrosse, football, swim team, and more. “They were like royalty.”

There’s Kirin, captain of the lacrosse team, young and—yeah—superhot. There he is again, setting the county record for track, an action shot where, long and lean, he seems to fly. There he is winning the state championship for swimming. An all-star.

On the bottom shelf, a glass trophy in the shape of a flame, with skeins of blue, orange, green, and red blown inside. The National Arts Society award for the country’s most promising young artist. This time not Kirin, but Emma. Next to the trophy is a photo from the award ceremony. I almost gasp, thinking of the doll in my room. How he captured something about her—not just her features, but her essence.

Emma seems to stare back at me from the photo. Her eyes, a stunning blue contrast to her raven hair, are mesmerizing. She looks sad, thoughtful, not like someone who just received one of the world’s most prestigious awards for her art.

The warning bell rings (a gentle tinkling of chimes, not the siren of my old school), and Penelope takes my hand and tugs me down the emptying hallway. “If we’re late, Ms. Howe will give us a hard time all period.”

Penelope drags me to her table and announces that I’m her lab partner, earning a nod from Ms. Howe and barely a glance from anyone else.

“Welcome, Miss Cranor. I hear you’re a star student.” Ms. Howe wears a lab coat, and her rows of long thin braids are pulled back into a ponytail.

Her comment earns a couple of frowns in my direction.

“Thank you,” I say, awkward. “I . . . work hard.”

“Good,” she says, regarding me a moment longer than is comfortable.

But as she begins to lecture, I drift away, thinking about Emma, the doll, the sad picture in the trophy case. Why would someone so talented and beautiful kill herself? And why, how, did they never find her body?

Jules

She’s gone. I’ve been walking down the path that leads to the woods for a while.

The sky above is growing dimmer, a storm approaching. I can’t be sure, but it looked like the same girl I saw yesterday.

One of the interns, maybe? Kirin had said. I’ve got a few floating around this week from that Parsons program. But I haven’t seen anyone except for Jessie. It’s so quiet here that my footfalls seem loud on the rocky path.

It’s time to turn around and get to work. But like Doug always said, the writer’s brain seizes on any distraction. Any excuse not to write, even though that’s the thing you want to do most.

Who is that girl?

There’s a sound. A bird? No, someone singing. Voice sweet, high and light. So I keep walking, leaves falling all around me as the wind shakes the branches.

“Hello?” I call. “Who’s there?”

When I turn the corner, the path opens onto a small clearing and comes to an end against a high stone wall. A wooden door with a metal ring for a knob is partially covered by vines. The air grows a bit cooler. The sky has gone even darker. Rain is coming. Whoever she is, she’ll be caught in the storm.

Kirin has said that everything in the house and on the property is mine to explore, but I feel like I’m trespassing. Something in me says, Go back.

Instead, I push away the vines and pull hard on the door until I feel it start to move. With the hinges squealing in protest, it slowly opens. When there’s enough space, I squeeze through.

A walled garden—or what once was—with a circular path through the dead branches and fallen leaves. On the other side, an identical door stands open. I expect to see the girl, but the garden is empty except for a fountain and a sculpture in the center. There’s no place to hide inside the four stone walls. The wind dances black branches and dead leaves around, and the first drop of rain hits my forehead.

I move inside, kicking aside debris, and walk toward the dry fountain, wanting a closer look at the sculpture beside it. I follow the path, recognizing it as a meditation labyrinth, the path winding back on itself, providing a space for healing, contemplation, prayer. I walk carefully along what looks like bluestone, until I’m standing beneath the statue of a girl.

She wears a simple shift dress and holds a bouquet of flowers. Her smile is wide, hair spilling around slender shoulders. Every detail from her collarbone to the fingers of her hand is delicately sculpted in the stone. She has movement and energy; I can almost hear her laughing.

“That’s me.”

A small voice on the other side of the fountain. I cautiously circle and find her sitting there, arms around her skinny knees.

Rain is falling now, just lightly.

She’s young, a teenager, mascara tears and torn jeans, dark hair tangled. Older than the girl depicted by the statue. Her black shirt is ripped. There’s a purple bruise on her neck.

“Who are you?” I ask. “Can I help you?”

“That’s how she liked to remember me.”

She rises suddenly, and I take a step back.

“What are you doing here?” she asks angrily. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I hold up my palms to calm her. She’s obviously not well, eyes wild now. She’s shaking, afraid.

Then she’s screaming. “Run! Get out of here before he hurts you too.”

I back away from her and trip over a stone in the path, fall, hit my head hard on the ground.

The world stutters, goes silent.

And then all I see are the raindrops falling like silver beads from the sky against the black of the clouds. Then nothing.

Scout

“Where’s my mom?”

Ralph is standing at the car door as I climb inside. He shrugs, offers a frown.

“She was supposed to meet me out front at three. When she didn’t come, I left. I didn’t want to be late on your first day.”

This is so unlike my mother that I’m not even sure how to process it. She’s never been late, or failed to pick me up, or not been where she said she would be.

I guess this is going to change now too. There’s a weird mingling of anger and a tickle of fear, little-kid tears threatening. Then anger at myself for being such a baby.

“Whatever,” I manage.

He gives me one of those unreadable looks and shuts the door, goes around to the driver’s seat. “It’s a big property. Maybe she misjudged how long it would take to get back from her office.”

That’s right. Her little writing shed out in the woods. All of a sudden she’s a writer.

“It’s fine,” I say, the wobble in my voice betraying me.

I just wanted to surprise her with the fact that Blair Academy wasn’t as bad as I expected.

Ralph pulls the car around the drive, and I see Racer climbing into a big black SUV with Penelope. Are they together? I wonder. Not that I like him or anything. He watches our car drive by, though I’m not sure he can see me through the tinted windows. As I wave, my phone pings.

Welcome to Blair! Lunch again tomorrow?

Racer. There’s a little flutter in my stomach. We exchanged numbers during PE, where he revealed himself to be as physically tragic as I am. He got hit in the head with a volleyball, just after I tripped over my own feet. Special. Penelope, Racer, and I are all following each other on PopTalk now too. I click on the app and see their animated avatars crowded next to mine on the PopMap, which tracks all our locations. The friends I still Pop with from the city seem far away on the colorful map, all of them together at my old school.

Definitely, I text back.

“So how was it?” asks Ralph, who I’m starting to like a little in spite of his generally sinister appearance.

“Not horrible,” I admit.

He nods. “Good to hear.”

The car winds through the rural roads toward Kirin’s. I start thinking about Emma, how she must have taken this same ride every day. In fact, I haven’t been able to think of much else since the trophy case. I did a little digging online and didn’t come up with much.

“Hey, Ralph?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you drive Emma every day too?”

A quick glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Most days. Unless she stayed after school or went home with a friend. Toward the end, not as much.”

“The end.”

“Before she . . . disappeared.” Now his voice betrays him, growing softer.

“What do you think happened to her?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I think maybe he’s not going to answer me, that I’ve stepped over some invisible boundary. “Miss Emma was angry. Troubled. She fell in with some people who weren’t good for her. They led her astray.”

That’s not an answer, I think but don’t say.

“I don’t know what happened to Miss Emma,” he says finally. The house rises up ahead. It was raining earlier, but now the sky has cleared to a milky blue. “No one does.”

Right. That seems to be the conclusion. I spent my study hall googling the news coverage of her disappearance. It started off predictably urgent—beautiful rich girl missing, coverage national and continuous for days. Searches and candlelight vigils, exhaustive police investigation, suspects questioned.

With no body found, no evidence of foul play, leads drying up one by one, the investigation went cold. Finally, after years, a memorial service. A yearly remembrance. Money donated in her honor. A garden built in her memory. Every year less, until both her parents passed, one after the other. A quote from Kirin’s eulogy for his mother: “My mother died of a broken heart.”

“Nothing was ever the same for the family after Emma left us,” says Ralph.

I glance in the rearview mirror, but his eyes are on the road ahead.

As we pull into the drive, I expect to see my mother at the door, worried, explaining what happened. But she’s not there. Instead, Kirin meets the car, pale, brow furrowed.

He opens the door for me.

“Scout,” he says, taking my backpack. The look on his face fills me with dread. “There was an accident.”

Jules

And then there’s Kirin, kneeling beside me, hand on my forehead.

“Jules,” he says. “What happened? There’s so much blood. I thought—”

He trails off, choked up. I struggle to sit, the world tilting, trying to piece it together.

“A girl,” I say. “There was a girl. I followed her in here.”

Kirin’s eyes are wide with fright, brow furrowed with concern. He looks around for the girl, who is obviously gone.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

His biggest fear, after having lost his whole family one by one, is losing the people he loves. I put a hand to the back of my head and draw away bloodied fingers.

“Let’s get you to the emergency room. You might need stitches.”

He helps me up, and we walk back to the house, me leaning on him, dizzy and sick; then we’re in his car.

The road winds, and I feel so tired, but I struggle to stay awake. Kirin keeps tossing worried looks my way as he takes the curving roads too fast.

“What was that place?” I ask, trying to keep myself focused.

“My mother had it built after Emma left us. A garden she designed so she’d have a place to go, to heal and reflect.”

The energy there, so sad, so despairing. It makes sense now.

“She spent a lot of time there,” says Kirin. “Especially at the end of her life.”

It doesn’t take long to get to the hospital, and the emergency room is empty. Not like the city, where you might wait for hours while the knife and gunshot wounds, overdoses, and broken bones had the doctors running ragged.

We wait only a few minutes before being ushered in.

The ER doctor seems too young to be so serious and efficient, to be a doctor at all. She has a high brow and thick glasses, dark skin, long highlighted curls tamed into a loose ponytail. Kirin paces outside; I see him through the door.

The whiteness of the room is blinding, and the antiseptic smell is turning my stomach.

“Sorry,” says the doctor, giving me a wince. “I’m going to have to shave a little of your hair in the back where you hit your head.”

“Great.”

The razor buzzes. Locks of my hair fall to the ground. I keep flashing on the girl, her mascara tears, her screaming. It doesn’t seem real, more like a nightmare.

Then, the doctor has a syringe. “Big pinch here.” I feel the needle, then the seeping numbness.

As she’s stitching me up, she starts asking questions gently.

Do you remember what happened? Did you lose consciousness? Did you vomit? What day is it? What time approximately?

When she’s done, the doctor shines a light in each eye.

“Slight concussion,” says the doctor. “Five stitches. You’re lucky it’s not worse. A fall like that can be fatal, even for a youngish woman.”

Youngish? Nice.

“Are you safe in your place of residence?” she asks. A routine question, surely. But there’s something about the way she’s looking at me.

“Yes, of course.” I bristle a little. First the whole youngish thing, now this.

She looks at the door. “It’s just that you’re not the first person he’s brought in here.”

A little jolt of surprise; I close my arms around my middle and shift away from her.

“He was here last year,” she continues. “Another woman, a sprained arm and injured jaw from a fall down a flight of stairs.”

She’s cool and calm, her hazel eyes on me. I don’t doubt her recall, or her intent. Professional concern based on evidence.

“I don’t know anything about that,” I say, sounding a little defensive even to my own ears. “But I assure you we’re perfectly safe.”

“We?”

“My daughter and I.” Speaking of which, I glance at the clock. Still a couple of hours before pickup.

The doctor’s eyes drift back to the door. Kirin’s there now, looking in—handsome, loving. I give him a thumbs-up, and he smiles, moves away.

The doctor cleans up the supplies, puts the needles in a biohazard bin. Before she leaves, she hands me a card. A domestic-abuse counselor.

Seriously?

“Look out for increased dizziness, light sensitivity, vomiting, confusion, loss of consciousness. Stay away from screens for a few days. Rest.”

At the door, she turns back to me. Her name tag reads DR. AMELIA CONNELLY. “Just—be careful out there,” she says. And then she’s gone through the door, shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor.

Be careful out where? She must have seen the address on the intake form. Locally, the house is pretty well known. Kirin is a bit of a rock star, too, a big benefactor of the library, the town historical society, the food bank, the free clinic. There have been a number of glittery fundraisers since we started dating where people fawned on him, as people do with those who have big sums to donate to causes.

And still, this young doctor felt the need to question my safety, took the professional risk of telling me he brought someone to the emergency room last year. The room seems very cold suddenly.

Kirin pokes his head in.

“Can I come in?”

“Actually,” I say, rising carefully, “let’s get out of here.”

Scout

My mom looks pale and small in the big bed.

Her new bedroom is huge, with french doors opening onto a long balcony, a fireplace and mounted television, a sitting area—all white walls and big gray velvet throw pillows. More romantic, less minimalist than the rest of the house, as if Kirin designed it with her in mind. He probably did. He really thought about what we might like and need.

As I lie beside her, it’s like it used to be, just us talking about the day, making jokes. I tell her about school, leaving out the stuff about Emma. How I made friends, how it seems like less work than my old school.

She tells me about the garden, the girl she saw there, her fall, her trip to the emergency room.

“Well, anyway,” she says. “I’m glad you had a better day than I did.” She seems worried, tired.

“Who was she?” I ask, trying to imagine it. The rainy garden, the strange girl. The details tell the story, my father would surely say. The sky, the smell of the air, the feel of the rain, the girl’s voice. Employ your senses.

My mom shakes her head. “I have no idea.”

There’s something odd about it. A strange girl on the property?

“What did Kirin say?”

“He didn’t know either. Just the two of us here today, he said. Even Jessie left for the city.”

“What did she look like?”

“A kid—dark hair, skinny, ripped jeans. She was in distress, crying. Maybe someone from town? She was angry, afraid. It came off of her in waves.”

I look up at her, and our eyes meet. She guides a strand of hair away from its flop in front of my eyes.

“Did she push you?” I ask.

“No, no,” she says. “I slipped. It started to rain. The path was slick.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

My mom does that thing she does, like this microhesitation, which tells me she’s about to tell a white lie or sugarcoat an upsetting truth. “No,” she says.

“Nothing? She just sat there, crying?”

“My memory is foggy,” she says. “The whole thing was just . . . weird. Hey, I’m sorry I missed picking you up on your first day.”

“It’s fine, Mom. Don’t worry.”

She reaches for my hand. Milky light washes in between the pulled drapes. I remember those days after my dad died, how I didn’t want her out of my sight, terrified to lose her too. I feel it now, that urge to cling. My heart is thudding, anxiety welling.

“I know this is hard,” she says. “I don’t want to make it harder.”

Give your mom a break, DD had answered when I texted him to say that she hadn’t gotten me from school. This is more difficult for her than you might imagine.

“And look,” she says. As if she’s picked up on my anxiety, she sits up, forces a smile. “I’m fine. Just a silly accident.”

I return her totally fake smile, because we both need that. We both need to make things okay. This is just a rocky start, nothing more.

“Let’s go downstairs and get a snack,” she says, brightening. “I’m supposed to move around some. And no screens for a few days.”

She gets up from the bed a little wobbly. There’s a big bandage on her head, and the sight of it makes my mouth go a little dry, reminding me of my dad in the hospital, when I still thought maybe he could pull through. One of those upsetting truths my mom kept from me. He was never going to recover from his injuries. I breathe through the waves of anxiety the way my therapist taught me and follow her out of the room.

In the doorway, she turns to look at me. “You know, I can’t stop thinking about her eyes. They were this glittering jewel blue. And she looked so, so sad.”

At dinner, Mom is fine. Giddy, almost, in the aftermath of a frightening event. The more she retells it, the more funny and less scary it sounds.

“Sometimes kids sneak up here,” says Kirin, after a big mouthful of pad thai. In spite of the huge gleaming kitchen with restaurant-quality appliances, there’s not much cooking so far. “They climb the fence, run around the property. I found some beer bottles down by the old barn a couple of months ago. I really do need to tear that thing down.”

“But enough about this,” my mom says, finally. She’s just picking at her food. “Scout says—and I quote—that her first day at Blair ‘was not horrible.’”

“Wow,” says Kirin. “That’s like an unequivocal rave.”

I tell them about my classes, about my new friends. I think I see a shadow cross Kirin’s face when I mention Racer, but it passes quickly.

“I saw the pictures,” I say. “The trophy case that’s basically a shrine to you and Emma.”

Kirin nods, looks a little embarrassed. “They still have that up?”

“The auditorium is named after you. Kirin Winslow Hall.”

He snorts. “That’s what they do when you give them a heap of money—they name things after you. I tried to stop them.”

“Emma—she was so beautiful,” I say. “So talented. Why was she so sad?”

“Scout.” My mom reaches for my hand with a frown.

“No,” says Kirin. “It’s okay.”

He takes a big swallow of water. “Depression and other mental illnesses run in our family, mainly on my mother’s side. Our uncle took his life when we were little; our maternal grandmother was in and out of institutions most of her life. Honestly, I think Emma just had that gene.”

I saw it in that photo, the shadow. I saw it in my dad, too, even though I could never name it, didn’t understand it. It was just a part of him.

Eventually that shadow came and took him away from us.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you have that gene?”

My mother flashes me another look, but Kirin lifts a palm.

“You know,” he says, looking straight at me. “I got therapy young. I use diet and exercise to manage my issues. I have a mindfulness and meditation practice. I can’t say I don’t feel the pull to that dark place sometimes, but my art keeps me sane. So—that’s the truth. Your mom and I have talked about it. No secrets here.”

Depression, the thief of light, and love, and life. Another scribble from my dad’s notebook, one of his last. It breaks and enters, leaves you bleeding out as it takes off with everything you love.

We all sit silent a moment, the air heavy between us.

Jessie bursts in then, all wild pink hair, tattoos, and big energy. “Woah, why so grim in here? Oh my god, what happened to your head?”

Kirin gets up to set a place for her, and we fill her in on all the details. In this retelling, everything has a higher energy, seems way less serious and strange. Some girl from town must have climbed over the wall. My mom underplays it. Just an accident. I’m not even sure what or who I saw.

And then Jessie laughs at my recounting of school and offers all the right comments and questions. Was Racer hot? Did you see the Kirin and Emma Winslow shrine? How bad was the mean-girl situation? I heard it was off the charts at Blair!

For a while, I almost forget about my mom’s accident, the strange girl in the garden, Emma’s haunting photo in the case.

I almost forget I’ve decided that I’m going to find out what happened to Kirin’s sister.

She was a messed-up girl who ended her life, wrote DD when I told him my plan to get to the bottom of the mystery. I know he’d do the same; he never met a question he didn’t try to answer. Don’t dig up the past. It rarely goes well.

Too late, DD. I’ve already started investigating.

“Welcome back, Scout,” says Vivi as she unlocks my door.

I step inside, still disbelieving this space is mine. If I ever had a dream room, this would basically be it. I know I should show more gratitude, tell Kirin how much I appreciate it. But somehow it doesn’t feel like mine—just a nice place where I’ll be staying for a while.

I flip on the lights, and that’s when I notice that she’s gone. Before dinner, I left her on the window seat. Feeling a flutter of panic, I look around the room—behind the curtain, on the floor, under the bed. Where is she? Maybe Kirin changed his mind and took her back.

“Hey, Vivi.”

“How can I help you, Scout?”

“Has there been anyone in here?”

“You entered the room at 3:34 p.m. this afternoon and left at 5:44. You returned at 7:30. No one else has entered.”

“What happened to her?” I ask the empty room.

“I don’t know what you mean, Scout,” answers Vivi.

Then, the glitter of blue catches my eye. How did I not see her before? Propped up on the pillows, on my bed.

I walk over and sit beside her, finally picking her up. Did I move her and forget? She seems to look back at me, eyes pleading the way they did in that photograph, like she wants something from me. My heart is thudding out a nervous beat.

Beneath the back of her dress, I feel something hard that I hadn’t noticed before. I flip her over and lift her skirt. She wears a frilly pair of underpants. And there’s a zipper up her back.

It feels like a violation, but I open her up, slip my fingers inside.

In the stuffing, I find a key, small, metal, with a heart-shaped bow. It gleams when I hold it up. I reach inside again to see if there’s anything else.

There is. A piece of paper, folded in quarters. I glance at the door. This feels wrong, like I’m snooping.

I open the page and stare at the squiggles and lines for a moment before I understand what it is.

It’s a map.

I hold the two objects, staring. Where does the map lead? And what does the key unlock? And who put them inside the doll? I look at Emma, but her satin lips are sealed.

Jules

I slip from bed and pull on my robe. Kirin sleeps soundly and doesn’t stir. I make my way out the door and down the hallway, then glance into Scout’s room. She, too, is sound asleep, wrapped up in her covers, peaceful.

I move silently down the stairs. Vivi clocks me at the door. “Good evening, Jules. Would you like me to disable the alarm and unlock the door?”

“Yes, please.”

“It’s 3:33 a.m.”

It sounds like a rebuke, but I ignore it. A moment later the door unlocks, and I slide into Scout’s sneakers waiting in the foyer. I step out into the cool night. There’s a bright full moon, and the sky is alive with stars. I move quickly down the path.

I can’t shake the feeling that I need to go back to the garden, that she’s waiting and needs some kind of help. That she’s alone and afraid. I pass Kirin’s studio and my writing room. Then I’m at the wooden door again, pulling on the iron ring.

I feel as if I’ve been here a hundred times.

A garden built to grieve—that’s essentially what Kirin said. A place where a mother could come and be alone with the memories of her child. Moonlight falls on the statue of a girl much younger than Emma was when she disappeared. Is that how Emma’s mother liked to remember her—a child, laughing and innocent? Not the depressed and angry teen Kirin said she became, troubled and always in trouble. Running off, sleeping around, doing drugs, finally deciding to end her life.

Like Doug. Did Kirin’s mother wonder, like I did about Doug, why her love wasn’t enough to make Emma happy, to keep her rooted in this world? Did it haunt her? It must have. Of course it did. It haunts me. Why weren’t we enough, Doug?

“You came back.”

The girl. She’s standing by the statue, bathed in moonlight.

“Can I help you?” I ask. “Come inside. Let me call someone.”

“You should leave here,” she says, looking behind me. “Leave before he doesn’t let you leave. Ever.”

I remember what she said to me that afternoon. She told me to run. To go before he hurts me too.

“Who?” I ask. “Who hurt you?”

But then her eyes go wide, and she dips behind the statue. I follow, circling the fountain. She’s gone.

“Jules?”

I jump at the sound of my name. Kirin, in the doorway.

Except it’s not Kirin; it’s Sheva, the clawed, robed alien from his studio. He opens his mouth and starts to roar.

I wake, sweating and terrified, a scream lodged in my throat.

I reach for Kirin, but the bed is empty.

Scout

Kirin, not my mom, joins me in the kitchen for a breakfast of cold oats and juice.

“Is it okay if I let your mom sleep?” he asks as he enters. “She had a rough night.”

I feel a jangle of alarm. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, with a worried frown. “She’s just sleeping now. I put in a call to our family doctor. I’m sure he can get us in today if she doesn’t feel better when she wakes up.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever left for school without my mom at least saying goodbye. There’s the now-familiar mingling of sadness and anger. And then that anger at myself because I shouldn’t need my mom to take me to school.

“Your mom,” he says, looking at his coffee cup. “Does she have a lot of nightmares usually?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“She had a couple last night. They really rattled her.”

“I’ll go see her,” I say, rising.

He puts a hand on my arm. His grip is just a little too firm, and I feel the urge to pull my arm away.

“Maybe let her rest?” he says. But it doesn’t sound like a suggestion.

I’m about to argue, but then Ralph is in the foyer, and it’s time to go. I glance up the stairs, a sinking feeling in my stomach. This place is so big; it feels like it could swallow her.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Kirin says, following me out. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you right away if anything changes.”

I almost ask him about the key and the map before I climb into the car, but something keeps me quiet. As the car pulls away, I peer out the back window. Kirin stands by the door, and I think I see my mother in the window of their upstairs bedroom, ghostly behind the curtains.

I text her. Are you okay?

No shift from Delivered to Read. No dots to say she’s replying. Then I remember she’s supposed to be off screens for a few days.

She’s fine, I tell myself. She just needs to rest. But I have an uneasy feeling.

I text DD to tell him what’s going on.

Hmm, he texts back. That seems odd. But try not to worry. Your mom’s a tough nut.

Is she? Last night she seemed so fragile, like she could shatter.

She’s stronger than you know, Scout.

I hope he’s right.

I gaze outside at the blur of trees whipping past; the day is overcast and dim. I text DD about the map and the key, wondering where the map leads, why she drew it, and for whom.

Good questions, he answers. Who do you think might have answers?

I catch Ralph’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Did she have a boyfriend?” I ask.

Last night, I stopped searching through newspapers.com for information about Emma’s disappearance and started looking for more about her life. There wasn’t social media then, not really. So the pictures of her online are few and far between. There was mention in the newspaper about her art award. The year before that she was homecoming queen, which also made the paper.

In the black-and-white photograph, she stood smiling in a strapless gown, a bouquet of roses in her arms, beside an all-American-jock type with a big jaw and a head of curls. Captain of the football team, class president Ross McKee. Was there something familiar about him? Where had I seen him before? Or maybe it’s just that he was a type, the stock homecoming-king character.

“Miss Emma?” says Ralph. “She had a few boyfriends over the years.”

“Anyone special?” I ask. It’s a good distraction, keeping my mind off my mom. “What about Ross McKee?”

Ralph’s eyes meet mine again in the rearview mirror.

“She dated him,” he says carefully. “The Winslow family did not approve. One of the things they fought about most. That last year, I’m afraid, was characterized by a great deal of family strife.”

“Why didn’t they like him?”

“Maybe no one would have been good enough for Miss Emma. Her parents doted on her. Why don’t you ask your new friend Racer about him?”

“Racer?” I say, surprised. Did I mention Racer to him, or did gossip reach him through Kirin or Jessie? Maybe he just saw him waving yesterday? “Why would I ask him?”

“Because Racer is Ross McKee’s son,” he says as we pull up to the school.

“Oh,” I say, feeling a little tingle down my spine. “That’s—wow.”

We inch toward the entrance as the cars ahead of us release their students.

“A word of warning, Scout,” says Ralph, turning around. There’s a hardness to him, something steely in the eyes, but he’s not unkind. “Tread carefully here.”

Before I can say Wtf is that supposed to mean? he’s coming around to open the door for me. Stepping out, I’m about to press him when Penelope runs over.

“Hey, you came back,” she says brightly, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. “It’s not so bad here, right?”

When I look back, Ralph’s already pulling away. I watch the black car disappear through the gates.

Penelope has her purple hair up in high pigtails, eyes shadowed with glitter. Long and lean, she makes the uniform look good. On me, it’s boxy and awkward.

“We have English together too,” she says, looping her arm in mine and dragging me toward class.

“Did you know?” I ask her as we take desks next to each other. “That Racer’s dad used to date Kirin’s sister?”

She rolls her eyes, then leans in close. “Oh my gawd, it’s like his obsession. Racer’s dad never got over it. He’s a private investigator now, and I think that’s why.”

Then the bell is ringing, and everyone’s taking their seats, chairs scraping, voices lowering to whispers. Back home, everyone would be horsing around until the teacher called for order at least twice. But when Mr. Watson, the English teacher, comes in, everyone is silent, notebooks open. Maybe because he’s over six feet tall, as thick and muscled as any linebacker. He has long dark hair and a heavy brow. Cooper’s lunch-table advice about the intimidating English teacher: Watson wants to know you’re thinking deep. Don’t be afraid to take risks in his classes.

“Rejection,” he says at the board. “It’s a big theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

Everyone starts scribbling.

“Miss Cranor,” he says, startling me out of my thoughts about Emma and Racer’s dad. “Can you offer me an instance of rejection in the book and its consequences?”

Someone snickers behind me.

“In many ways it’s the central driver of the plot,” I offer. “If Dr. Frankenstein hadn’t been so horrified by his own creation, hadn’t cast his creature out, there would be no story at all.”

Mr. Watson stares at me a moment, giving a slow nod.

“Very nice, Miss Cranor.”

Penelope smacks me across the aisle.

“Very nice, Miss Cranor,” she whispers, batting her glittery eyes.

That’s the kind of moment I might try to capture in my graphic diary—all Penelope’s colors, Mr. Watson’s twitch of a smile, me sweaty in my scratchy uniform, clutching my copy of Frankenstein.

I turn to look out the window, and the trees are bending in the wind, leaves swirling. I stop listening to the lecture, which I could probably give myself. Instead, my head is swirling with worry for my mom, the key and the map, Emma and her boyfriend turned PI. When the bell rings, I head straight to the library for study hall.

I find the Blair Academy yearbooks for the three years that Emma was here. At a table near the back, I start flipping through the thick leather-bound volumes.

A shadow falling over the pages causes me to look up. Racer is standing there. There’s something about him that makes me want to draw. How the shadows in the room hide half his face, how his hair falls over his eyes.

“Hey,” he says. “I heard you had some questions about Emma and my dad. Want some help with that?”

I look down at a picture of Emma and Ross, give him a nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Jules

I am so tired. The room is dim, and my limbs feel so heavy. My head pounds.

Maybe I should call the doctor?

Kirin said Ralph took Scout to school, and I shouldn’t worry. I’ve never missed a morning seeing her off at least, though often Doug took her and picked her up when she was little. He said it grounded his day, that he wrote when she was at school, and it helped to set a kind of routine.

I force myself from bed. The room wobbles and pitches. Something’s not right.

I call for Kirin, but he doesn’t answer. I try the door and find it locked.

“Hey, Vivi,” I say. “Unlock the door.”

“Hello, Jules,” she says. “You do not have all-house access today.”

“Override.”

“You do not have override privileges today.”

A pulse of panic. Is this a system malfunction, or am I locked in? I look for my phone, but it’s gone. Did Kirin lock me in here without my phone? I try the knob again, then the balcony door. Still the room spins and tilts. What was that ER doctor’s name? Where is the card she gave me?

Doug sits in one of the plush chairs by the fireplace, feet up on the coffee table. I used to rail at him when he did that at home.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he says, looking tousled and unkempt as ever. Jeans frayed, brown hair floppy. He wears his favorite T-shirt, black, ripped, with a cartoon mad scientist holding a beaker: FORGET ABOUT LAB SAFETY! I WANT SUPERPOWERS!

God, I miss him so much. Doug, it must be said, was not a great husband. An A-plus father, but just barely clinging to a passing grade as a spouse. He was bad with money, left us with more debt than I was aware of. He was periodically unfaithful—once a publicist, once a superfan who followed him on tour. He battled depression most of his life and finally took his life in a Los Angeles hotel room on the road for his last novel.

But, wow, did I love him. Against all reason and good sense, I loved him deeply. I tried to shield Scout from the worst of it. She doesn’t know we had to sell the apartment, that I needed the money to pay off Doug’s debts. I didn’t want her to know that he left us in such a mess, without even a note of explanation or a goodbye.

I sit across from him, staring. This is not right. He’s not here.

“Rich, handsome, successful, devoted,” he says. “You’ve leveled up, Jules. Good for you.”

I am not going to answer him, because that would mean that I’m not aware I’m hallucinating. I’m just going to pretend this isn’t happening.

“It’s picture perfect, just like you always wanted. Except for the grief garden, the scared mystery girl warning you away, and the whole locked-in-your-room thing,” he says. “That’s a little sus, as the kids say.”

I can’t stop staring at him. He could be flesh and bone; I could crawl into his arms.

“Meanwhile,” he continues. “Those puppets? They’re creepy as fuck.”

He laughs in that throaty chuckle that always made me laugh, too, like the world and all its madness was just this big joke.

Nausea grips me. I will myself not to throw up.

“Remember that short story I wrote about the puppet maker?” he goes on.

I look up at him. Now there’s a neat bullet hole in the side of his head oozing blood down the side of his face. Where did he even get a gun? He’d been antigun his entire life. No answer ever came.

Other things I never told Scout: As much as I loved him and missed him, after he was gone, I could finally breathe again. That his depressions, his failings as a husband, were suffocating me. That he used the money we’d saved for her to go to college to invest in land that turned out to be worthless. That I never felt that our life was stable or safe, even though I made sure it felt that way to Scout.

“You know the one. About the doll maker who resurrected the souls of the dead and put them into puppets for the grieving?”

I am not having this conversation with my dead husband. I’m not.

Dr. Amelia Connelly. That was her name. If I had a phone, I’d call her. Is it a problem if I’m seeing my dead husband as clearly as if he was alive in front of me? Is that one of the things I should be looking out for?

“What’s your point, Doug?”

“She speaks,” he says, eyes widening. “My point is—”

Just then the door opens, and Kirin walks in quietly.

“You’re up,” he says, seeing me in the chair.

A lash of anger. “You locked me in here.”

“You were sleepwalking last night,” he says. “I found you in the garden. I was afraid to leave you alone. I had a meeting, and Ralph and Jessie are out.”

I’m confused. Did that happen? Didn’t I wake up to find him gone? There were other nightmares too. Me chasing Scout through the halls of Blair Academy. Doug’s funeral attended only by clowns. I grapple for what was real, what was dream.

I rise, feeling steadier. “Where’s Scout? Where’s my phone, Kirin?”

He takes it out of his pocket and hands it to me. “No screens, right? Isn’t that what the doctor said?”

There’s a string of texts from Scout.

Are you okay?

Mom? I’m worried.

Mom?

I text her back quickly. I’m so sorry, sweetie. Don’t worry. I’m fine. See you this afternoon.

Kirin is watching me, brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Or make you feel controlled. I was just worried.” He moves in front of me and takes my hands in his. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” I lie, wanting it to be true.

Doug is gone, so that’s something.

“Let’s go down and get some food? Then if you’re up to it, I want to show you something in the studio.”

He’s kind, caring. He didn’t lock me in the room and take my phone for any reason other than to protect me. That’s not who he is. He just didn’t want me to sleepwalk. He was following doctor’s orders about the screens.

“Okay, yeah. I am hungry.”

He puts his hand on my cheek, kisses me long and deep. He’s stable, steady, secure. Everything Doug wasn’t.

Doug stands over by the window. Younger, like when we first met.

“My point is—watch your back.”

Scout

I text my mom and Ralph: I’m going to stay after school for Art Honors Society, then go for ice cream with some of my friends. I’ll get a ride home and be back by dinner.

Okay! comes the quick response from my mom. Have fun!

Ralph: Text me if you need a pick-up.

To be honest, I’m a little surprised it was so easy. I expected twenty questions, like who the friends were, who was driving, what time I planned to be home. I’m surprised, but I’m mostly just glad she’s feeling better enough to be on her phone.

In the back lot I didn’t even know was there, Racer, Penelope, and I pile into her shiny black Bronco. It rumbles to life, and we head out a back gate; then we’re going too fast up a twisting rural road.

“They were like the it couple,” Penelope is saying. “Homecoming king and queen. She was brilliant, a talented artist, and the prettiest girl in school. He was the captain of the football team and a National Merit Scholar. Beauty and brains.”

I ride next to her in the passenger seat, with Racer in the back. He’s been quiet since the library, where we went through all the old pictures. He knows everything about them, how they met, how Ross made a huge banner to ask Emma to homecoming. How they planned to run away and get married.

“And then she just disappeared,” says Penelope.

“For a while, my dad was a suspect,” says Racer from behind me. “The theory was that he wanted her to run away with him, she rejected him, and he killed her.”

“But there was no evidence to prove it,” says Penelope.

“And he’s been looking for answers all these years,” says Racer.

“That’s so sad,” I say, catching his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” he says. “And a little pointless. Drove my mom away with his obsession. They’ve been divorced since I was a kid. She said he’d never love her as much as he loved the idea of Emma.”

The air in the car gets heavy. Penelope takes a turn onto a rural road too fast, then speeds up to compensate. Gravel spits; tires squeal. I grip the door. A city kid, I’m not used to cars.

“How long have you two been together?” I ask, just to lighten the energy.

Penelope shoots me a horrified look. “Ew. Since never.”

“Okay, wow, thanks.” Racer is mock offended.

“I mean, Racer is like my brother or something. We’ve known each other since—”

“We’ve never not known each other. It’s annoying, actually.”

“Preschool, or even before. Our moms are friends. We, like, have no choice but to hang out.”

“Tell us how you really feel, Penelope,” Racer says, and I hold back a smile.

“Like I got my first period when I was sleeping over at his house.”

“Oh. My. God. She gets it, okay?”

Penelope flashes me a knowing look. “So yeah, if you like him, it’s cool. Like way cool.”

“Hello,” he says. “I’m right here.”

She nudges me, and I try to hide that I’ve turned bright red. The ginger’s curse, my dad used to call it. Kitten, you can hide nothing.

Mercifully, the car comes to a stop, and Racer jumps out before Penelope even cuts the engine. Penelope’s laughing to herself like she’s the funniest person in the world and her own best audience. I find myself giggling too.

When we came here, the last thing I expected was to make friends. Most of my old friends kind of shifted away from me when my dad died, like it was contagious or something, or they didn’t know how to be around me anymore. For a while, I’ve only had DD. It’s nice not to be alone with this.

Racer’s place is a simple modern house with big windows, nestled beneath towering trees. A creek babbles nearby, and the path up to the house is comprised of irregular stepping stones and white pebbles. There’s a Buddha on the porch and a set of chimes tinkling. Racer opens the door for me, and I walk inside, unable to look at him.

“My dad’s not home,” Racer says. “He’s working.”

In the kitchen, we raid the pantry—chips and sodas, a box of Oreos—then follow Racer down a wooden flight of stairs to the basement. Past a workbench and a makeshift gym with a dusty treadmill and some weights, there’s a door. He flips a light, and we walk inside.

It takes a few moments for me to make sense of what I’m seeing—a wall of newspaper articles, a whiteboard timeline tracking Emma’s known movements on the last day anyone saw her, photographs of Emma, of Kirin, of the Winslows, who I recognize from pictures in Kirin’s house. In the corner there is a stack of boxes labeled with scrawled black handwriting: TIP LINE CALLS, WITNESS STATEMENTS, LEADS.

When Racer closes the door, I see what we’ve come here to look at. There’s a city map and land survey of the Winslow estate, over twenty acres. The house, Kirin’s studio, the shed. The old barn Kirin mentioned.

I reach into my backpack and take out the doll. I’ve been carrying her around all day.

“Oh my god,” says Racer. “It looks just like her.”

They both lean in close. I open the zipper in her back and take out the map and the key. Racer takes the paper gently from me, turns, and walks over to the map on the wall. After a moment he holds it up, lining it up with a trail past the garden.

No one says a word, but it’s an exact match, like a missing puzzle piece.

Just then my phone pings. Ralph.

Scout, I’m outside. Time to go home.

Jules

Kirin makes pastina, an Italian chicken soup with pasta shaped like tiny stars. He ladles the soup into big white bowls and sets the table. It’s rich and heavenly, and I instantly feel better. I haven’t had a real meal since breakfast the day before, so maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling so bad. Kirin likes taking care of me; I can feel that.

“Better, right?” he asks when I’m done.

“So much better,” I answer.

He smiles, pleased. “My mother used to call this Italian penicillin. It was her grandmother’s recipe, and I swear it cures all ills.”

“I believe you.” I do feel remarkably better, more energetic and stable. More like myself. I’ll go with Ralph this afternoon to get Scout.

“You got some of the color back in your cheeks.”

I put my hand to the cut on the back of my head, and it feels less sore. The rain that’s been tapping at the windows all day seems to have cleared, and the sky outside is blue.

“Feel up to a walk to the studio?”

“I do,” I say, rising. “Let’s go.”

Outside we wind down the path, the air crisp and cool. I feel so light, like everything that happened yesterday and even this morning is a distant dream. There’s a bird singing, a sweet, low whistle. And even when Doug is waiting by the door, I barely register him.

“Jules,” he says, lifting a palm. “Do not go in there.” We walk inside, and Sheva looms over us, beady eyes watching.

“Did I ever tell you that I based Sheva on a crow?” Kirin asks. He never did, but I see it now. Sheva’s mouth is a beak, his skin an iridescent blue black like feathers. His cape looks like wings.

Inside the lights are dim, except for the bright spotlight on the worktable in the center of the room. All the rest of his creations are cast in shadows, but I sense them—an audience watching a performance.

He moves away, stands over his table.

“I’m proud of this,” he says, looking down. “I think it’s my finest work. Of course, I’m only capturing the beauty that was already there.”

I’m excited to see it, glad that he’s ready to share it with me. He’s been working on it so long, almost as long as we’ve been together.

“Is it for the new George Lucas movie?” I ask, coming up behind him.

“No,” he says softly. “This one is just for me.”

The room starts to stutter a little, and a wave of nausea creeps up. Maybe I overdid it, the walk here. I steady myself, but I suddenly feel too tired to stand.

He sweeps back the sheet that covered the table.

It takes a moment for it to register. The woman there, so lifelike, so peaceful—with raven hair and bright-blue eyes.

It’s me.

He’s created a doll of me. The girl in the garden, her words ring back. Leave before he doesn’t let you leave. Ever. I move away from him, the table, the eyes of all his dolls and puppets.

“That’s—me.”

“You don’t like it?” he asks, looking wounded.

The way he’s looking at me. The doll prone on the table. Fear is a drumbeat, suddenly, drowning out all other sounds.

I turn and move unsteadily for the door, the room tipping, but when I reach it, it’s locked.

“I’m sorry, Jules,” says Vivi. “You no longer have all-property access.”

Through the glass, I see Jessie walking up the path. I start pounding on the door, and she looks up from her phone with a concerned frown.

“Jules,” says Kirin, coming up behind me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Then Jessie’s opening the door. The panic on my face must be communicating itself to her, because she looks afraid.

Then I am between them, Kirin pressed tight behind me, Jessie still moving forward. Her eyes dart between me and Kirin.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“I thought you liked it here,” says Kirin, hot in my ear, tightening his hold on me. I fall against him, too weak to fight.

“Don’t worry,” says Jessie, moving in close. What’s that in her hand? Oh, god. “This will only hurt for a second.”

The flash of needle, then a sharp prick in my arm. As the blackness takes me, my last thought is of my beautiful, angry daughter and how she didn’t want to come here.

Scout. I’m so sorry.

Scout

We’re all staring at my phone glowing bright in the dim room. Racer climbs up on the desk to look out the high, narrow basement window. “Oh, shit,” he says, looking back at us. “He’s out there.”

“How does he even know you’re here?” asks Penelope, eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“Lemme see your backpack,” says Racer, jumping off the desk with ease.

I hand it to him, and he digs through it while I pray he doesn’t find my tampons or something else embarrassing. Finally, he draws his hand back, holding a small white plastic square. He passes it to me.

It’s light, insubstantial, embossed across one side with a single word in a simple font: Vivi.

“It’s a tracking tile,” says Racer. “My dad has a ton of these, uses them for work.”

My mom has tracked me all my life, but it wasn’t her who put it in my pack. She just uses our phones. It was Kirin, had to be.

I glance at the texts my mom sent today, and suddenly they seem suspicious. No emoji. No I love you, little bunny. No million questions about where I’m going, who I’m with. Worry, which I’ve been able to push away, comes back in a rush. I have to get back to her.

Upstairs, a door opens and closes.

We all freeze, listening. The sound of heavy footfalls carries through the ceiling.

Racer picks up a baseball bat from behind one of the bookshelves and puts himself between us and the door. He opens it quietly and steps outside. We follow close behind.

The door at the top of the stairs swings open slowly. Then: “Racer?” A deep male voice. “Racer! What the hell is going on?”

Penelope sags with relief, and Racer puts down the bat. “It’s my dad.”

Upstairs Ross McKee is waiting, hands on hips, brow wrinkled with angry inquiry.

I can’t stop staring at him. Ross McKee, high school superstar, voted most popular, hottest, most likely to succeed, has morphed into a haggard, big-bellied, middle-aged man. His suit is rumpled, his hair and beard shaggy and gray.

“What the hell is that guy doing here?” Ross points out the window.

In the dimming light, Ralph leans against the hood of the town car, arms folded, eyes obscured by sunglasses. He’s not coming in. But he’s not going anywhere either.

The three of us are all talking at once, and Ross is just shaking his head, rubbing his jaw. Racer shows him the doll, the key, and the map. As Ross holds them in his hands, a sadness softens his features.

“It’s a map, Dad,” says Racer. “It matches up exactly with the one downstairs.”

Ross holds up the key. “I bet this opens her journal. She always kept a diary and never let anyone read it, not even me. She used to say that everyone deserves a place to keep her private self, the one that belongs only to you. I remember being a little mad about it then. But I get it now.”

“Do you think the map leads to the journal?” I ask. “And maybe the journal has the answer to what happened to her?”

He looks at me. “You’re Scout Cranor. You and your mom just moved into Winslow House.”

“Yes,” I say, offering my hand. He shakes it and keeps his eyes on me, sizing me up. Whatever he sees causes him to nod, release my hand.

“I have a friend at the hospital, an emergency room doctor,” he says. “She said your mom was in yesterday after a nasty fall.”

“That’s right,” I say.

I pick up my bag then, thinking again that I need to get back to her, that persistent worry nagging at me. I hold out my hand again, and Ross reluctantly gives me the doll, map, and key. I tuck them in my pack.

Ross goes on. “Amelia told her that Kirin brought another woman into the ER last year, an intern. Another fall.”

Another woman. Another fall. My mom left that part out.

“She didn’t tell me that.”

“That woman—Rebecca Summer—is missing. After a text saying she was heading off to travel the world, her family hasn’t heard from her. She posts on Instagram randomly, but her family suspects it’s not her.”

I think of the texts from my mother, minus her pet names, emoji, and questions about my plans. Not like her. Voice is everything, my dad used to say. It’s as identifiable as a fingerprint.

“I have to go,” I say, my low-grade worry turning to fear. “My mom’s out there alone.”

“No,” says Racer, reaching for my wrist. “It’s not safe.”

Penelope takes my other hand. “Stay here with us. Let’s just call the police.”

“And tell them what? That we found a doll and a map? That my mom fell?”

Outside, it’s growing darker.

“Then we’ll go with you,” says Racer, looking at his dad. But Ross shakes his head.

“I can’t go out there,” he says. “Kirin has a restraining order out on me. Too many times sneaking onto the property looking for answers. I’ll get arrested.”

The temptation to stay is strong. But my mom is all I have, and I’m all she has.

“I’m going back there.”

Ross looks uncertain, but then he nods and gives me his number. “Call me if you need help.”

“We all follow each other on PopTalk now,” says Penelope. “I have you on my PopMap.”

She holds up her phone. All our cartoon icons are together on the animated map.

Penelope hugs me tight, and then Racer walks me to the door, stepping outside with me. Ralph stands up and opens the door to the car.

“Just be careful,” says Racer, looking at me intently.

“I will,” I say. “I’ll call you.”

There’s a pull to him, a tug from the heart. I like the paint on his hands, the intensity of his focus, his willingness to help me. I see the younger version of his dad in him.

Then I’m climbing into the car. I look at Racer out the back window, and he gets smaller and smaller.

Ralph is silent as he drives. My fear is a siren, high pitched in the back of my head. But it doesn’t matter; I have to get back to my mom.

“What’s happening?” I ask Ralph. “Were you tracking me? What’s going on at the house?”

Ralph doesn’t answer me. The afternoon has grown dark. And this time when we pass through the gate to Winslow House, it clangs shut behind us.

Jules

“Do you know the secret to capturing character?” asks Kirin. “It’s empathy. It’s understanding what makes people who they are.”

The room spins, and all around me, they watch. The bear. The witch. The fairies. Sheva, the crow monster. There’s a princess and a warlock. The floor is hard beneath me. I can’t move.

“Everyone has a story.” Kirin goes on like he’s giving a TED Talk. “Everyone wants something or has a secret. Everyone is the main character of their own movie. The artist doesn’t so much create as capture.”

His gallery of creatures seem to nod in agreement.

“I think that’s why people respond so deeply to the dolls.” He sweeps his hand. “I’m just showing people what they already know is there. It’s within them too. Fear, longing, love, joy, desire. The whole hurricane of human experience.”

“Kirin,” I manage. “Please.”

“I thought you liked it here, Jules,” he says. He’s at his worktable, sewing, putting the needle through the doll on the table, drawing up the black thread. Then he picks up a pair of gleaming shears and cuts. “When I saw you in the shop that first day, you looked so lost. I knew right away what you wanted. A home. Security. A safe place. I’ve provided that.”

With effort I move my arm. What did they give me?

“Easy now,” he says with a concerned frown. “Not much longer. I’ve sent Ralph for Scout. Quite the little detective, that one. Didn’t take her long at all to find Ross McKee. You know he tried to take Emma away from us?”

Feeling is returning to my legs, but I stay still now, grappling with my situation and how to get out of it before Scout comes back.

“I’d like to show you something.”

He walks over and hauls me to my feet. I feel my strength returning, but I stay limp. As we pass the table, I grab the metal shears, slip them in my pocket.

We walk through the studio and down a long hallway to another locked door.

“Welcome back, Kirin,” says Vivi.

Inside, the large room is empty except for something on a raised platform in the center. When he flips on the light, I see that it’s a replica of Winslow House.

Every detail is perfectly and exquisitely made, from the stone facade to the circular drive, from each tree and shrub to each mullioned window. He spins it around. Each room in the house has been intricately copied down to bed linens and throw rugs.

He reaches in and picks up a little doll.

“She was never happy. Never.” He stares at the tiny Emma in his hand. “That’s what I never understood about my little sister. When she first came home, all she did was cry. As a toddler it was tantrum after tantrum. Then as a teen, nothing but trouble. It was like she didn’t belong here—or didn’t think she did.”

He puts her carefully back in her pink bedroom.

“But she did.” He pauses, keeps his gaze on the doll a moment.

“My parents died,” he continues. “Dad had a heart attack. Mom got cancer. But that’s not what killed them. It was grief. Emma killed them.”

He picks up the two dolls from the master suite, still holding me up with his other arm. Then he puts them back, tucks them into their bed.

“There’s Scout’s room,” he says, pointing. It’s empty. “And there’s our room. The one I made just for you. It’s your dream bedroom, isn’t it?”

“What did you do to her?” I whisper.

“Emma?” he asks. “I saved her from a life out there, with a man like Ross McKee. He was never going to be able to give her what she needed. You know, Jules, what it’s like to be with a man who can’t take care of you. It’s a constant struggle. That would never do for Emma.”

I start to cry then, and he takes me into his arms.

“I saved her just like I’m going to save you. I’m going to give you what you’ve always wanted. Safety, security. A home.”

That’s when the feeling comes back to my arms.

I grab the shears and jab them hard into his side, pull them out as he roars and doubles over with pain.

Blood, warm and viscous, travels down my arm. I grab him by the hair. Holding the shears to his throat, I drag him to the front door of the studio.

“Have a nice night, Kirin,” says Vivi as she unlocks the door. I push him to the ground as hard as I can. With Kirin wailing behind me, I use all my strength to run.

Scout

As soon as Ralph brings the car to a stop, I burst out the door and run into the house.

“Welcome home, Scout,” says Vivi, her mechanical voice echoing as I tear up the stairs.

I head straight for my mother’s bedroom, move through the open door, and find it empty.

“Hey, Vivi,” I say. “Where’s Jules?”

“Hello, Scout. Jules is not in.”

I try her phone, but it goes straight to voicemail. Then, I’m moving down the stairs and out the front door. Ralph and the car are gone. I head down the path to Kirin’s studio. There’s just a little light clinging to the sky, and the air smells like snow.

At the studio door, I start pounding.

“I’m sorry, Scout. You do not have all-property access.”

I keep pounding, but no one comes.

Breathless, panic constricting my breathing, I stop pounding and sit, spent, on the stone step in front of the studio.

Where is everyone? I try to calm myself the way my therapist taught me, with that box-breathing thing. In four, hold four, out four, hold four.

Mom, where are you? I tap out on my phone.

Then I text DD, tell him everything. That’s a lot, kitten. Try to calm down. Are you sure you’re not overreacting?

I let out a roar of frustration, and then I’m sobbing. I’ve never felt so alone in my life.

DD, I am reminded by the inadequate text message, is not a real person. He’s just an AI-generated version of my father. A website called Ouija AI lets you enter information about your lost loved one and give them access to social media accounts, and they create an account that you can write to that will always write back immediately, forever. DD for dead dad. It’s pretty uncanny how much DD sounds like my dad. Usually, it almost makes me feel better. Almost.

But am I overreacting? Did I just get caught up in what might have happened to Emma, and now I can’t find my mother? Got freaked out because Kirin and Ralph were tracking me?

Why did you kill yourself? I ask DD now, tapping angrily.

There’s no good answer for that, kitten. Depression is a dark doorway. When you walk through, sometimes you don’t get back out. I’m sorry.

I hate you for leaving us.

I don’t blame you. I hate me for leaving you, too.

Another wail, another sobbing jag. I throw my phone, and it skitters down the path. I regret it as soon as it leaves my hand, but I don’t go after it. The night expands, grows darker.

“Mom!” I yell into the sky. “Where are you?”

I listen, straining to hear, but there’s no answer.

I’m still wearing my backpack. I shift it off and take the Emma doll out. Her eyes blaze in the dimming light. I slip the key and map out of her back zipper.

You only get fifteen minutes to feel sorry for yourself, my dad used to tell me. Then you have to shake it off and get back in the game.

He didn’t shake it off. Or maybe he did. He shook everything off, leaving us to pick up all the broken pieces, scrambling to put it all back together.

I stick the key in my pocket and retrieve my phone from where I tossed it. The screen is a spiderweb of tiny lines, but it still works.

I use the light to look at the map and make my way up the path.

The phone pings in my hand. It’s Racer. Hey, we’re worried. What’s going on there?

I try to answer it, but the screen doesn’t respond.

I think about going back toward the gate, but what if she’s still here? What if she needs me?

Another text from Racer: I see your Pop icon moving.

Are you following the map? Scout, answer me.

It’s dark now, but I keep moving, clutching the Emma doll, following the map. I pass my mother’s writing shed, the walled grief garden. The temperature is dropping, and the path is rocky. I stumble twice.

Past the garden, it looks like a dead end.

But I follow Emma’s map and find another trail hidden by the trees. I look ahead and behind, my heart thudding, throat so dry it aches.

Somewhere behind me, I hear someone calling my name. A man. Ralph? Kirin?

“Scout! Scout, where are you?”

Finally, I keep going down the shadowy path toward I don’t know what.

Jules

I can’t run anymore, not sure how far I’ve come or where I am. But the path ends, and there’s a moonlit clearing. In the middle of the clearing is a stone well. Breathless, exhausted, head still spinning, I fall to my knees.

Do I hear him coming? And is there something else? A voice on the air, light and so sad. Scout? Oh, god. Scout. Where is Kirin?

I stumble across the wet grass, bare feet, bare legs, still clinging to those shears.

There she is, sitting on the edge of the well.

“I tried to warn you,” she says.

It’s not a girl from town, or a wandering intern. It’s Emma. Maybe on some level, I knew that already, impossible as it is.

“He’s a thief, you know. That’s how he does what he does. He takes the secret piece of you and makes it his.”

On the worktable in his office, the doll version of me lies still and waiting. He knows my secret; maybe he saw it that very first day. That I wanted a home, a safe place, something different than I had with Doug. Something, someone, solid.

“That night, I was supposed to meet Ross. Just past the well here, the wall is lower than it is around the rest of the property. Ross had a car, and we were going to leave town, leave my family, who always wanted me to be something I wasn’t. My parents wanted me to be their little girl forever, their dress-up doll.”

I lean against the stones of the well.

“But Kirin caught me. He tried to stop me.”

Just then, he moves into the clearing, clutching at his bleeding side.

“Stay away from me,” I say, holding up the shears.

I see them then, Emma standing by the well. A young Kirin approaching.

Stay away from me, Kirin, she yells.

Don’t do this, he says. Don’t throw away your life with that loser.

You don’t know him. This place is suffocating me. I want to be free.

Emma, please. I need you to stay with me. Don’t leave me here.

Emma turns to run, and Kirin gives chase. He catches her by the well, and they struggle. It happens fast. She lashes at him with her nails; he rears back, bleeding. Then in anger, in pain, he strikes her so hard that she falls and hits her head on the edge of the stone well, falls limp to the ground.

His wail fills the night: Noooo. He falls on her, weeping. Noooo.

“It was an accident,” I say. Emma nods sadly.

“Jules,” he says now. “I need you to stay here with me. Don’t leave me here.”

He’s on me then, his hands at my throat. I flail against him, but he’s so strong, and the world is slowly fading. I hear Scout’s voice; I try to answer her, but I can’t.

I watch as Kirin lifts Emma’s body, so small, and tosses her into the well. He shuffles through her bag and takes out her journal and a key; then he throws the bag in the well too.

“He knew all my secrets,” says Emma, fading in the moonrise. “He knows yours too.”

Scout

Voices carry on the night air, and I start running. Up ahead on the path, there’s a slim form.

“Jessie!” I call, so relieved to see her.

“Scout,” she says, her voice grim. “Stop. I can’t let you go any further. Something’s happened. A terrible accident.”

My stomach bottoms out. “What do you mean?”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, blocking my way. “Your mother was sleepwalking. We didn’t get to her in time.”

Then I hear my mother’s voice, clear as day, calling my name.

Jessie turns in the direction of the sound. When she does, I push past her.

“Scout!” she calls after me, giving chase.

In the dark, I see two forms locked in some kind of struggle on the ground. Kirin is on top of my mother, her legs flailing, her arms beating at him helplessly. He’s hurting her, killing her.

I race over to them and throw myself at him, knocking him hard to the ground. My mother starts coughing, gasping for air. And then I’m pounding on Kirin, his face, his neck, his shoulders.

“Stay away from her!” I’m screaming. “Stay away from my mom.”

I channel everything, all my rage and fear, into those blows. His head, his neck, his chest. I feel possessed, even though he’s not moving. I can’t stop, even though my mom is calling my name.

And then there are strong arms on me, gently pulling me away.

I look up, and for a second it’s my dad. Easy now, tiger. The fight’s over.

But it’s not my dad; it’s Ross. Then he’s holding me tight from behind, and I stop struggling.

“It’s done,” he says. “You’re okay. Your mom’s okay.”

Kirin lies on the ground, groaning.

The night comes alive with lights and sirens, voices.

I’m in Racer’s and Penelope’s embrace; they’re holding me tight, and I’m still wailing. Paramedics surround my mother; then they’re taking her away on a stretcher. The three of us follow as the police take Kirin, bleeding and stumbling, into custody. I look around for Jessie, but she’s gone.

It all seems like a dream, but it isn’t. It’s real.

The girl, the one my mother must have seen, sits cross-legged on the well, hugging her backpack. Torn jeans, mascara tears down her face. She shimmers in the moonlight, her eyes a startling jewel blue. Emma. Ross stands beside her, staring, though I don’t think he sees her. He is looking at the well, touches the stone slab that covers the opening. He dips his head in his hands and starts to cry.

She reaches for him.

Then she’s gone.

Jules

And then she’s gone, I type, the keyboard clattering in the sparsely decorated space. I release a breath.

I know it’s done when I can breathe again. That’s what Doug used to say about his novels. There’s a release of tension I didn’t know I was carrying. Even though I always knew how this story was going to end, I understand what he means.

I lift Emma’s journal, which I’ve had on my desk as I wrote her story—and mine. Scout and I found it in a carved wooden box near the dollhouse in Kirin’s studio. We used the key to unlock it. It’s yellowed with age, the binding loose. But the pages, her words, are intact. Now, her story will be told.

“Are you done?” asks Scout, peering in the doorway.

“I think so,” I say, looking up. She wanders in to sit in the chair across from my desk. I see her differently than I did before that night at the well. When I was in trouble, she came running. If it wasn’t for her, I might not be alive right now. There’s a moment when you realize your child is her own person, full of power. I’m not sure anyone has ever defended me so fiercely.

We both bear the scars of our very short time at Winslow House. There are nightmares and bouts of anxiety. Scout still has the Emma doll in her new room and won’t let me take her away.

She needs a home. With us. I think that’s why we went there, to help her and set her free.

Maybe she’s right. I can’t think of another reason.

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring what drew me to Kirin, thinking back on our courtship and what I felt for him. Thinking about what he said that final night, that he could see I was a person craving security, that I wanted the kind of home I’d never had with Doug.

Predators and abusers, my shrink has said, can sense your pain and weakness. It’s their gift.

The well on Kirin’s property was filled with bones.

It took months before a positive identification was made of Emma’s remains, of the intern who went missing last year. Some of the bones belonged to animals. There were other objects as well—a locket, clothes, a statue of a crow, discarded projects from his workshop, dolls and puppets he rejected.

“Why do you think he put the key and the map inside the doll?” Scout asks now.

“Maybe on some level, he wanted you to find her.”

“Or maybe he was trying to lure me to the well.”

I shudder at the suggestion, thinking about how much peril I put us in, how we barely escaped with our lives.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking over the last couple of months. I’ve finally given Scout the truth about her father and our marriage. And she’s come clean about Ouija AI and how she still sometimes “talks” to Doug. She also shared how she blamed herself for not being enough for him. There have been a lot of tears, some screaming blowups. But we know more about each other. We’re in therapy together and separately, and we’ve never been closer.

“What are you going to call it?”

“I think I’ll call it The Doll’s House.”

She nods. “I like it.”

Then she’s staring at her phone. “I gotta go. I’m meeting Penelope and Racer.”

We rented a place close to Blair Academy so Scout wouldn’t have to change schools twice in her senior year. It’s small and cozy, and we were lucky to find someplace we could afford.

Since we’re a big part of Kirin’s upcoming trial, there was not much sense in moving back to the city. Kirin, Ralph, and Jessie are all facing various charges. Kirin for abduction, assault, murder, and attempted murder. Jessie and Ralph as accessories to his crimes. Jessie claims she was under some kind of spell that he cast on her. And Ralph has remained silent on what role he has played in Kirin’s misdeeds and why. It’s hard to understand them. In some ways, they just seem like more of his puppets, like he was pulling their strings.

Winslow House and Kirin’s studio sit untouched. A regular police patrol keeps locals from sneaking up there. I return to the studio in my nightmares, thinking about that gallery of witches, warlocks, crows, aliens, princesses, fairies, and gnomes. All of them with a story, all of them with a secret, maybe each of them with a stolen piece at their center.

When Scout leaves, I’m alone in the small house we’ve rented. My writing space is in the attic, our bedrooms are on the second floor, and the kitchen, dining room, and living room are on the ground level. It’s cozy and bright. Scout and I have made it ours. With the money from the sale of the apartment, and my first book advance coming, we are living on our own terms. The money and the decisions are mine. Ours. A room of my own.

Next week a news crew is coming to film a documentary about Kirin and Emma. So far, I haven’t agreed to be a part of it. In the news they’re calling him the Dollmaker. People from around the country with unsolved missing person cases have been contacting local police to see if any remains or items found in the well might bring some answers.

I head down to brew myself some tea and find Doug sitting by the shelf lined with all his books, his sock-covered feet up on the hearth.

His graphic T-shirt features an image of a cartoon cat holding a bone. It reads: I FOUND THIS HUMERUS.

“So you finally did it,” he says. “You finally wrote your novel.”

“I did,” I say. There’s no one here to observe me talking to my dead husband. Since Scout was texting with him, I don’t feel so bad about it now.

“How do you feel?”

“Beaten. Broken in some places. But alive. Free.”

“Good,” he says. “Then you’re doing it right.”

I sit across from him, and for the first time, I unclasp the chain around my neck, hold my wedding and engagement rings in my hand, and then place them in a little dish on the mantel, next to that family photo from the Cape.

When I turn to look at him, he’s gone.

Scout

Before I leave my mom, I stop in my room and make a quick sketch of her at work—glasses on, face lit by her screen, coffee ring on her desk. I try to capture that tired but happy look around her eyes. Emma’s journal rests by the chipped cup that used to belong to my dad, the one I made in sixth grade. Ross McKee’s whiteboard hangs on her wall, and his pile of notes sits on a long table with the rest of her research materials. He’s been here a lot, answering my mom’s many questions. Last night, he and Racer came for dinner. I heard him and my mom laughing in the kitchen as they did the dishes while Racer and I played Red World. It didn’t sound like the way she used to laugh with Dad, and I never heard her laugh at all with Kirin. It was new—easy, light, free.

My phone pings. Hey, we’re outside.

Looking out my window, I see the Bronco waiting.

Coming.

I put down a few last lines, then lay my graphic journal next to the Emma doll. She sits on my bed, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that she looks happy to be here. I think of the night I came back to my room at Winslow House and found her gone. I still don’t know who moved her. Was it Kirin or Jessie? Either of them might have overridden Vivi, right? Maybe it was Emma herself? A dangling thread, my father would call it. I look at the doll; she doesn’t have any answers for me.

This room with its pale-blue walls and platform bed, the refurbished flat-screen television and beanbag chairs, is not as grand and polished as my room at Winslow House, but it’s perfect. And it’s all ours.

Best of all—no Vivi.

I pick Emma up for a moment and hug her close, then put her down, straighten her hair.

My phone pings again, but this time it’s DD. Thinking about you, kitten.

My shrink thinks it’s okay that I keep talking to him this way, as long as I know it’s not real. My mom wants me to cancel my subscription to Ouija AI.

The truth is I talk to DD less and less often.

Hey, DD, I can’t talk now. I gotta meet my friends.

Glad to hear it. Have fun. I love you.

Then I head down the stairs, out the door, into the chill.

Racer is waiting on the porch, hair tossed by the wind. He takes my hand, gives me a quick kiss.

“Ew, you two—get a room,” Penelope calls from the car.

We pile in, and she takes the winding road to Winslow House.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asks Racer from the back, his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sure,” I say. “I just want to see it one more time in the daylight. Maybe it will help the nightmares.”

Racer’s dad is waiting for us as we pull up the drive.

“Did you tell your mom about this?” asks Ross as we get out of the car.

I shake my head. He seems like he’s about to say something, then doesn’t.

The four of us walk together to Kirin’s studio.

There’s crime scene tape over the door. Ross opens the door with a key. Vivi has been disabled.

I can still hear her mechanical voice. Welcome back, Scout.

“The detective working the case said we could come in as long as we don’t touch anything,” Ross tells us. “So let’s be extra careful.”

Inside he flips on the lights, and Sheva the crow monster greets us silently. I shiver a little as I walk past him, and Penelope snaps a picture. “Man, that’s messed up.”

More lights come up in the gallery, and there they are, all Kirin’s creations, sitting on shelves, in cases, on pedestals. The fairies and trolls, witches and animals. The princess and the warlock, the haunted marionette, the purple yeti towering in the corner.

In my dreams, they’re all whispering, asking for my help. In my dreams, they’re Kirin’s prisoners, each one with a secret piece he stole from someone or something else. They each have a story; they want me to set them free.

Racer comes up behind me and puts an arm around my shoulders.

But here in the daytime, with my friends, they look like what they are—puppets, dolls. Not trapped, not aching with secret stories.

On the table lies the doll Kirin was making of my mother.

It doesn’t look anything like her. He never captured her, not really. Because he didn’t know her. And even though he may have known her secrets, the biggest part of her heart belongs to me. Because she’s my mom.

“Are you good?” asks Racer.

I nod, and after another few minutes of walking around, looking at each puppet, we follow Ross to the exit.

The visit was short, but I feel better. Nothing is as scary in the light as it is in my imagination. The gift and the curse of the creative, my dad scribbled in his notebook.

“What will happen to them?” I want to know as we step outside.

“That depends on what happens to Kirin at the trial,” says Ross. “For now, they’ll just stay where they are.”

Ross turns the lock.

But as I stand there, taking a last look through the thick glass door, the screen comes to life.

“See you again soon, Scout,” says Vivi.

Penelope’s eyes go wide, and Racer grips my arm.

“That’s weird,” says Ross. “I thought they disabled that thing.”

Inside, Sheva’s beady eyes glint in the light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Unger is the New York Times bestselling author of The New Couple in 5B, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six, Confessions on the 7:45, and many other novels. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Edgar and ITW Thriller Awards and anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Travel + Leisure as well as on NPR.