Yes, my Sight first and foremost. “Did you find anything in her files?”
“It’s what I didn’t find. No tax returns in your father’s name, W2s, or automobile titles. Although there is a Social Security card and a marriage certificate. It’s sometimes too difficult to integrate first-generation travelers. That may have been the case with your father.”
“Assuming he was a traveler, from another dimension.”
“Yes, assuming.”
“Why would the Screamers lead you here, though?” What I really mean is, why on earth would they help? Both in general and me in particular. Screamers don’t help at all. At least, that’s never been my experience.
“Do you want the party line or my personal theory?”
“Your personal theory.”
“I don’t believe the Screamers are evil, which doesn’t make them good. I believe they—or something that’s larger than them—are trying to correct an imbalance. They shouldn’t be in this dimension, which is why we mend fissures to begin with.”
“Is that why they feel so…” I pause and consider. I want to say emotional, but I’m not sure that’s quite right. “Insistent? Like with that couple on the Rose Walk? The Sight was convinced they should break up.”
Henry’s nodding like he agrees. “I don’t sense the emotions or motivations the way you do, with your Sight. But I believe that the Screamers are simply trying to course-correct, if you will, match our reality to theirs.”
“Might explain why funerals are so awful.”
“Hm. Indeed.”
When Henry falls silent, I add, “My mother always said the first travelers were trying to fix what they broke by falling through, and now it’s our job to try to repair what they couldn’t.”
“I tend to think they didn’t so much as fall as punched their way through and only realized after the fact that they’d done something irrevocable.”
“Something irrevocable.” The phrase catches in my mind, something about it familiar, although I can’t say what, exactly. Except. “Like the housing development?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“You’re just full of possibilities today, Agent Darnelle.”
He laughs at that and offers me his hand. “Shall we see if we can uncover yet another possibility?”
“Do you know where it is?”
“I believe I do.”
I take that outstretched hand and nearly fly to my feet. “Then let’s go,” I say, and my umbrella beats against my spine in her excitement. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 37
Henry
King’s End, Minnesota
Thursday, July 13
Henry did have a good idea of where the covered bridge was. He’d manipulated the data, ran the calculations, and mapped the most likely location. He’d plotted several avenues of approach, accounting for the density of the surrounding woods. He was hardly surprised to find the most direct route skirted the cemetery.
It was Pansy, though, who actually found the bridge.
“I remember now!” She pointed toward a narrow path leading into a dense thicket and then pushed past him. “The fairy lights! Do you see them?”
Fairy lights? The morning sun was still gentle, but nothing glimmered or sparkled. Nothing resembled fairy lights in the least. Henry lunged forward, his hand catching Pansy’s for a moment. Her fingers slipped through his, but she spun around and stopped.
“Hold up,” he said.
