“But you’re the biggest witch of alllllll,” she said, her mouth opening wide like a prehistoric fish, and something wiggled on her tongue. Squirming, the size and shape of kidney beans, all of them with translucent pink skin, the hint of dark organsized shapes beneath. Opossum fetuses.

I jerked awake, my clothes sweat-damp, the inside of my mouth dry. My eyelids felt tight and puffy.

Dead weight pinning my thighs.

Emily. Her legs flopped across mine, her soft skin warm and sweet. She thrived on skin-to-skin contact, even in her sleep. I eased her sticky legs away and rolled slowly off her bed, careful not to creak the mattress. I picked up my phone from her floor and closed her door quietly behind me.

Sawyer’s door was closed. Trevor’s door was open. Everyone still sleeping. A hint of light creeping into the dark sky.

I crept downstairs, wrapped myself in a light sweater, and sat in a chair out on the back deck. Fog shifted in the dark, cloaking the pines completely, masking half the lawn, and creeping up toward the house. The morning smelled damp and cold. It must have rained last night.

I hadn’t been ready yesterday. I wasn’t ready now either, but I googled Gary Kender on my phone.

Volleyball player comes forward with accusation, and other students’ testimonies follow. Gary Kender taught Chemistry and coached girls’ volleyball at Huston Middle School in the nearby town of Penbridge. In 2016, he was convicted of sexually abusing several students and sentenced to serve fifteen years.

I pulled my legs up and cried softly into my knees. I couldn’t be sure, I’d never be sure, but it was the closest I’d come to answering the question of why Becky did it. Had my parents suspected back then? I bet they hadn’t. They’d been friends with the Kenders up until the day we moved away.

Had they ever heard about Gary’s conviction? Probably not. Holly would have mentioned it.

Was Gal Kender, the woman who saved my life when I was small, the woman who was sticking up for my mom, sticking up for Rodney, one of those horrible women? A mother who didn’t believe her child when they finally and painfully confided that Dad’s been coming in their room at night, who swears to God My husband would never do that, who didn’t believe her child even when the skeptical court system found enough reason to lock the bastard up, who didn’t believe her child even after her daughter killed herself. Even now.

The door opened behind me, startling me.

“Wow, it’s so foggy.” Sawyer. “That’s so cool. You can’t even see those pines.”