It sounded like fingernails. Scratching at the wall, trying to get in.

The sound didn’t fade away like it had before, either. Instead it got louder, and louder. Until that scraping sound was the only thing in Lily’s world.

14

TERRIBLE DREAMS THAT SHAKE US NIGHTLY

He was dreaming about La Llorona again.

Not about finding her in his bed. Mateo hadn’t had that dream since Brandon was alive. When he dreamed about her now she was standing upright, pointing a long, bony finger at him, and wailing, “¡Aquí! ¡Aquí está mi hijo!”

Every time, he woke up with his head swimming and his heart pounding. He’d swear it wasn’t going to happen again. He’d stay up all night drinking pot after pot of coffee if that was what it took.

It always happened anyway.

Tonight La Llorona was chasing him down the lake path. She moved unnaturally fast, gliding three feet over the ground. Her white veil hung all the way down to her feet. All he could see of her were the wild tangles of long black hair escaping from the edges of her veil and the pale, pointed fingers hanging below her billowy white sleeves.

She was going to catch him. There was no way he could outpace her.

He ran anyway. He pushed himself harder than he’d known he could.

He could win this. He could beat her. He could—

She caught him.

Mateo turned to fight, but he was tangled in her veil. Every time he swung a fist, all he reached was more soft fabric.

She wrapped her hands around his neck, around the back of his skull. Her grip was impossibly strong. Bony fingers dug into his flesh.

He stopped resisting. She banged his head into the dirt, pounding, again and again, the crashing sound echoing in his ears.

Blood bubbled out of the wounds in Mateo’s neck and flowed down his back. His head throbbed. He was going to pass out. It would be a relief to pass out. But the banging didn’t stop—the pounding, it would never stop, it—

He woke.

The dream was over.

The pounding hadn’t stopped.

“Pendejo,” he muttered. He rolled over toward the door and called, “Go away.”

The knocking continued. Mateo glanced toward his roommate’s bed, but it was empty.

The power had come back on in the night. The clock said it was ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Seven days and three and a half hours since Brandon had died.

Tonight was the homecoming dance.