I chuck my thumb behind me. “I’m just going to Hyde.”
His brow furrows. “Hide where?”
Once, when we were younger, Jared, Madelene, and I were at the park near our house when Mads decided to leap from the top of the slide, only to come crashing down on the rubber mulch. She’d ended up with a sprained wrist and slight concussion, which caused her to feel out of it for a few hours.
Maybe that’s what’s happening here. It would explain his bizarre behavior.
“Look, um—” I pause.
He straightens. “Lord William Alexander Cromwell of Dunbry.”
I glance around, waiting to see if someone’s going to pop out and tell me this is all a joke.
No one does.
I extend my hand. “Delaney,” I offer, then add, “Carmichael.”
As one of his gloved hands meets mine, a gentle buzz hums through the night air. The floodlight flickers once, then twice. As it clicks off, the lampposts along the outer trail pulse as though they have a heartbeat, almost winking in an unsteady rhythm.
I release him from my grasp and wave a hand under the floodlight, but it doesn’t respond. We’re cast in shadows.
William busies himself by dusting off his lapels. My dad’s journal flew out of my pocket in the fall, so I crouch down and retrieve it.
“Are you okay?” I ask, then remember what you’re supposed to ask someone who might have a concussion. “Do you, uh…know where you are?”
Now he looks at me as thoughI’mthe one in need of assistance. “Of course,” he says, all confidence. “London.”
I can feel the color drain from my face. “William, this”—I wave both my hands around—“is New York.”
He balks. “America?”
I wait for him to admit he’s kidding. When he doesn’t, I say, “Is it possible you hit your head when we collided?”
“I don’t think so.” He directs his attention toward the hedge. “I’m fairly certain that monstrosity absorbed most of the impact.”
I, however, do not possess this confidence, so I pull out my phone and tap on the flashlight. “We should at least see if your pupils are dilated, right?”
He squints dramatically, stepping back. “What strange lamp is this?”
“Stay still.”
He does not. “Are you quite serious? You’ll assess me?”
The nurse’s office doesn’t open until six. I don’t see what other choice we have. “Um,” I say. “Yes?”
“You,” he emphasizes, like I didn’t get it the first time. “A woman?”
He says it like I’ve just suggested a garden slug will take it from here. My immediate reaction is to release a hacking laugh of sheer disbelief before shoving my phone light in his eyes.
After Madelene crash-landed, it was Jared who stayed to calm her down while I ran to get our mom. Nothing about providing care has ever felt instinctual, but I owe it to him to try.
“What were you doing before this?” I say, as the concentrated shine moves from his right eye to his left. In the direct light, they’re an opaque shade of rich amber. No signs of pupil dilation.
“Conducting experiments,” he explains. “In the lab.”
“What—” The word is less of a question and more of a reaction. “At this hour?”
His shoulders lift in a tight shrug.
