I remember enough now—enough to know I can’t trust the others. The past is a blurred wreck in my mind: the cemetery, the taste of booze in my throat, the laughter. The feeling of my fists clenched at my sides, ready for a fight. Still, I recall enough to know that they are capable of awful things.
And I think only of her, of Nora.
They don’t trust her. The witch in the woods.
I need to find her, make sure she’s okay, and keep her safe.
Turning away from the lake, I hike up through the pines toward her house. I know she won’t want to see me. I know that whatever I say, she won’t want to hear it, she won’t let me in—and this hurts worse than anything. But I have to try. I don’t need her to trust me, I just need her to stay away from Rhett and Jasper and Lin.
I knock on the door and hold my breath until my lungs start to burn and ache.
Memories flit through me. I remember the way Max tipped his head back in the cemetery, taking a long gulp of whiskey. How he eyed me like he was daring me to make the first move, to say something that would piss him off. But I wasn’t afraid. I felt something else: anger.
I bring my fist to the door again and knock harder, waiting for Nora to come, to peek through the curtains. But she never does.Something’s wrong.The house is too dark, no candlelight through the windows. And I can hear Fin—the wolf—whining from the other side, a sad whimper. I try the knob and the door swings open.
Night swallows the place whole. No candles. No fire in the woodstove.
The wolf darts out past my legs, down into the snow, and cuts through the trees. “Fin!” I call, but he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t even slow his pace.
I run before I lose him, before he slips into the trees and is gone.Maybe he knows where she is, maybe he’s found her scent.I chase his narrow path through the snow, along the row of summer homes, until he finally stops several houses down, his tail dipped low, ears forward.
Music wheezes out from inside the house, and through the lower windows I can see several boys from camp. They’ve broken in—they’re having a party.
Fin whimpers again, nose sniffing the air, and I touch his head—unsure why he’s come here, to a house that isn’t his. I follow his gaze up to the second floor of the home.
Someone is at the window.
A girl, face barely visible from the other side of the glass.
Her.
Something’s wrong, some hint of panic in her eyes. I don’t goto the front door—I don’t want the others to see me. So I leave the wolf in the snow and use the lowest window to hoist myself up to the edge of the overhanging roof. My fingers grip the gutter, and I swing a leg onto the upper ledge, just like when I used to climb onto the roof of my neighbor Nate Lynch’s house, when we’d drink beers he’d swipe from his dad’s garage. It feels like a hundred years ago now—a whole different life, far away from these mountains. But scaling up the corner of this house is no different. Aside from the wet, slick snow.
I reach the window on the second floor, crouching low away from the wind, and tap against the glass.
Nora lifts her head to face me. She scratches her hands through her hair, her eyes cautious and dark in the shadow of the room.
“Nora,” I say against the glass, pointing at the window for her to unlock it. But she doesn’t move toward me. She takes a step back. And maybe I don’t blame her. Maybe I’m the villain. My feet slip an inch on the snow, but I right myself before sliding toward the edge of the roof. “Please,” I say, unsure if she can hear me.
She closes her eyes, as if she doesn’t think I’m real. As if I might vanish if she wishes for it hard enough. But when she opens them, I’m still here. Her mouth sets in place and she takes two swift steps toward the window, reaches out for the lock, and slides it free.
I place my palms against the sides of the window and push it up in the frame, then duck into the room, bringing the cold air and snow with me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, afraid to move too close to her, afraid I’ll scare her.
Her mouth pulls into a line. “What are you doing?” she asks. “How did you know I was here?”
“I followed Fin.”
She glances at the closed door behind her.
“What happened?” I ask. “Why are you in here?”
She backs away from me again, her fingers tugging at the hems of her sleeves.
“They locked me in,” she says, her voice turned sour, and she rubs her hands up her arms, making herself small, closed off. I hate that she’s afraid of me; I hate that she looks at me with darkness in her eyes; I hate that every move I make causes her to shiver, to twitch away from me.
“Who?” I ask.
