There’s no bouncing around like kangaroos today. Back in the living room, we all feel super chill.

Only Mr. Humphries gets to feel this over and over. The rest of us get a single, temporary hit. But when you’ve heard what he said in the prayer room, it’s no surprise he keeps coming back.

When Emily goes to the bathroom, the old man I saw talking to Mr. Humphries on the first night walks over and introduces himself.

“I’m Reg,” he says.

He has a smile on his face this time, and it suits him better than the grumpy look he had yesterday at dinner. Whatever reason he had for staring me out, he seems to have forgotten.

“What did you think of the prayer room?” he asks.

“I may need some time to do it justice.”

He smiles and says, “I understand.”

“Are you a volunteer like Saffron?”

“No. Have you seen the RV?”

I nod.

“That’s my home. I visited twelve years ago and never left.”

“They let you stay here?”

“They do.”

I watch Emily come back, see Reg, and then walk over to Eloise.

If this had happened last week, she would have given me a dirty look, because there was no one else to talk to. But since the kangaroos and the spirit walk and the prayer room, we are one big happy family.

I wonder if Reg knows who I am, but I like the idea that he doesn’t. When everyone else knows your history, it’s fun being a stranger for a while.

“I liked the photos in the prayer room of all the other schools,” I say.

Reg tilts his head, and I say, “If we don’t act so uptight, if we make new friends and think about stuff that actually matters, maybe we can be another picture on that wall.”

“I think your place is already reserved,” he says.

I don’t have any granddads. My mom’s father died before I was born, and my dad’s dad passed away when I was three. But if I did, I would want them to be like Reg.

I feel different here…lighter. And I wonder if this is what closure feels like.

I always thought justice came first. But sitting here, surrounded by smiling faces and feeling waves of genuine happiness for the first time in a decade, I can imagine one without the other.

Chapter 68

“I have something to tell you,” I whisper, and when Emily grunts, I say, “Michael sent the texts. He was the one standing outside my window. It wasn’t the Magpie Man. It was all a lie.”

When she doesn’t reply, I assume she’s asleep, but then she says, “Fucker.”

“And Jamie had a hammer.”

“What?”

“That tenth-grade kid, the one who pulled me back from the alley. He crept up on Michael with a hammer. That’s how we caught him.”