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The date sits above it in her handwriting.

The second week of April.

Six months ago.

Under it, in my mother's hand, seven words.

She's close to him now. Good.

34

GAGE

STILL THREE DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Maren hands me the old picture placed in a sandwich bag because she wouldn't let me carry it loose. She smoothed the plastic down over the woman's face with her thumb and then she gave it to me and went back to the ledger on the kitchen floor.

The envelope with Lila's red thread in it is still in the same pocket. Three days now.

"You want me to send two with you," Cass says on the porch. She's been up all night and looks at it. "Tobin's awake. He's pretending he isn't."

"Everyone stays here."

"But, Gage."

"There's no wards on this house and there's nothing in the ground but salt." The frost on the boards has gone gray with the sun coming up behind the trees. Somewhere down the block a leaf blower starts.

It’s Monday of Halloween week, and the whole town is out putting up cobwebs. "Six of you here is worth more than two of you with me."

Sid is sitting on the rail. He's been outside more in the last twelve hours than in the entire time he’s been here, and nobody has explained that to me either.

Don't come back with half of it. His voice drops flat and cold.

She'll take half and run with it.

"I know what she'll do."

He looks at me until I look away first.

The gates at Sorrell House are shut, and Evelyn leaves me standing at them for fifteen minutes.

Friday they were open. Today she wants me to understand something has changed, so I stand in the gravel with my hands in my pockets and let her have it, because I need something from her more than I need to be right.

Then the lock throws over and the iron swings open.

She meets me in the front hall this time. Charcoal coat, gloves off, the little silver lantern at her throat. There's nobody else in the house. On Friday there were witches in three rooms.

"You pulled everyone off my street yesterday," I say.

"I did."

"You want to tell me where they went?"

"No." She turns and walks, and I follow her into the room with the long table. "Say what you came to say. I have four hours of work and about ninety minutes of daylight I trust."

I take the bag out of my jacket and put the photograph on the table in front of her, face up.

Evelyn Sorrell doesn’t touch it.