Every person at the table stilled.
“Start wherever you need to, honey,” Beth said.
Alice nodded. Her eyes were glassy and haunted, the look of someone who’d just come off the world’s worst amusement park ride and realized she’d never even buckled her seatbelt.
“My grandmother called. She sounded scared. I’d never heard her like that. She said, ‘Alice, I need help. Please, hurry.’ Then—there was this scream. Not her voice. I don’t know whose it was. The call just ended.”
Even Henry’s breathing went shallow.
“What did you do then?” I asked, trying to keep my tone gentle.
She squeezed the napkin until the edges started ripping. “I got dressed and drove straight here. By the time it occurred to me to call you, Henry, I’d lost my phone service. I got here and the lights were all off. Like, every light. Even the porch bulb, and Grandma never leaves that off. The power was out, but the door was open. Just wide open.”
Beth’s hands curled around her mug, white-knuckled.
“I went inside. It was dark, really dark, but I thought I could maybe use my magic to…to pick up on where she was. I know I’m not great at using my magic to find people, but sometimes if I really concentrate…” Alice hunched her shoulders. “I could sense her. Or what was left. Not like a smell or a sound, but this almost—” She trailed off.
“You could tell she was somewhere nearby?” Daniel said, all business.
Alice nodded. “In the woods. Close to the house, but not in it.” Every word seemed to cost her. She dabbed at her nose, then started twisting the napkin again.
Henry stroked her back, slow and steady. “You’re doing great. Take your time.”
Alice took a breath that sounded broken. “I was so scared. I didn’t think. Just started running. I grabbed a flashlight, but it died right away. I used the moon, but I still knew how easy it’d be to get lost.”
“That’s why you left the yarn?” I asked.
She blinked, surprised that someone else had noticed. “Yeah. I didn’t want to end up like that guy in the maze. The one who never gets out? That used to give me nightmares as a kid. I pulled yarn out of my sweater, ripped it off, and dropped it every couple of steps. I thought I was being smart.”
“You were,” Beth said. “That’s how we found you.”
Alice offered a shaky smile, but it faded right away. “I kept walking. Nothing made sense. Sometimes I heard things behind me, like footsteps, but whenever I looked back, there was nothing. It was just darkness. At one point, I tripped and landed right in the creek, but I don’t remember how I even got that far.”
She looked at me for help, then at Henry. “I knew I had to keep going. I don’t know why. There was something in the woods. Not a person, not an animal. It didn’t want me to leave, but I couldn’t stop. I just kept thinking about Grandma. That she needed me.”
I leaned forward. “Did you see anything else? Hear anything besides footsteps?”
Alice hesitated, then nodded. “Breathing. Sometimes it sounded right behind me. And this buzzing, almost, inside my head. But I couldn’t focus on it.” She winced. “That sounds nuts.”
“Nothing about the last few nights was normal,” I said, shooting Beth a look to back me up.
Beth nodded, her lips pressed tight. “What’s the last thing you remember before Henry found you?”
Alice’s brow furrowed. “I was by the creek. My feet were wet, and I was so tired. I just wanted to lie down for a second. Then Henry was there.”
Henry gave her a proud, lopsided smile. “I’m glad I found you.”
For a second, nobody spoke. The only sound was a soft thud from the fire, and Alice’s tiny sniffling breaths.
“I’m just glad I wasn’t out there too long,” Alice said, followed by a shudder.
I braced myself, then broke the news. “Alice, you were gone for three days.”
She didn’t get it at first. “No. No, it was just last night.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s Friday now. You went missing Tuesday night.”
That’s when her hands started shaking again, worse than before. She pressed her palms to her head, as if she could force the facts to fit. “That can’t be right. I never… There’s no way. I remember everything. I was only out there a few hours. Maybe a day.” Her cheeks lost all color.
