I go back to staring, and then, because I’m only going to beat the other four if I try harder, I say, “Why did you do it? Why her?”

It’s what I’ve always wanted to ask: of all the people out there, why did he choose my mom? Was she handpicked, or was it bad luck? Did he follow her for weeks, waiting for his moment? Or was she in the wrong place at the wrong time?

“I hate you,” I whisper. “I’ve never met you, but I fucking hate you.”

I hear the camera whirring, and I imagine someone in the studio zooming in on my face.

“Do you have a mother?” I ask. “Do you love her?”

No one answers. But for the first time, I can picture him watching.

It’s the darkness outside. That’s when your nightmares come alive.

“Do you like the name we gave you?” I ask. “The Magpie Man… It sounds so harmless…unless you know the truth.”

I’m not afraid to say his name. I will shout it from the rooftops if I have to.

I listen to my breathing and imagine Dad in the other room, choosing between old movies and late-night, one-way conversations with his daughter.

“I love you, Dad,” I say, just in case.

And then I get ready for bed and pull the covers over my face so no one can see me.

At midnight, the camera clicks off, and I finally fall asleep.

Chapter 26

When I wake up, I don’t open my eyes right away.

It’s Tuesday, so no one is watching, but it still takes a moment to realize that even after only one day of filming. I feel relieved, then scared how quickly it went.

At school, the people who stayed in the background come a little closer without the camera, and some of them even talk to me.

“Hey,” a freshman girl says. “Great show.”

“I’m looking forward to the next one,” someone shouts behind me, and when I turn, there’s a group of tenth-grade boys who nod in unison.

When Hanna sees me, she says, “It wasn’t completely awful.”

She says it with a smile, but still Emily huffs and says, “That part when you said you loved your dad. It had me tearing up.”

“You saw that?”

They both nod, and Hanna says, “Do you think he was watching?”

I assume she means Dad, so I say, “I don’t know. He doesn’t like me doing it.”

“No,” Hanna says. “Him. Do you think he heard what you said?”

“Probably not.”

“I think he did,” Emily says, and that scares me, because the thought of talking to the Magpie Man, even through a screen, makes me feel sick despite being exactly what I want.

We have English first, and Mr. Collins seems relieved that he can look at us today, but he still seems irritated with me.