She lingered at the neighbor’s door a moment more, then left, taking the package with her to the front door of her own home. Then she stood at her own front door, frozen, just as she had been frozen at the city sign. This was the moment she had waited for. All she had to do was ring the bell. All she had to do was lift her finger—his finger—and do it. Never had a living hand felt so heavy.

Then, to her surprise, the door opened without her ever ringing the bell.

“Hi, is that package for us?”

The woman who opened the door was not her mother. She was a total stranger. She was in her twenties, and had a baby on her hip, who was very excited by the prospect of a large box.

“Just bring it in, and put it by the stairs,” the woman said. “Do I have to sign for it?”

“Uh … uh … It’s not for you.” Allie cleared her throat, startled by the way she sounded. She could never get used to the masculine timbre of her voice when she cross-jacked. It was one of several troubling things that came with being temporarily male.

“Well, if it’s not for us, then who is it for?”

“The Johnson family.”

“Who?” she asked, then realized. “Oh, right. We got things for them every once in a while, once the forwarding order expired.”

They had moved—but that could just be her mother and sister, who weren’t in the car. She still had no way of knowing if her father had survived.

“Any idea where they went?”

“No,” the woman said.

“Wasn’t there an accident?” Allie asked. “I heard about it—they lost a daughter.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. Sorry.”

And then Allie asked the big question. “How long have you been living here?”

“Almost three years now.”

Allie closed her eyes, and tried to take that in. She had been in Everlost for three years. Unchanged, never aging. Still fourteen. How could so much time have passed?

“Wait a second,” the woman said. “Of course, I can’t be sure, but I seem to recall something about Memphis. I think that’s where they went.”

It made sense—her mother had family there … but did that mean her father had died in the crash, and her mother had sold the house? There were so many questions still unanswered.

The woman shifted the baby to her other hip, getting impatient. “The neighbors might know more, but then a lot of them are just summer renters.”

“Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.”

Then the woman closed the door, to the protests of the baby, who began to wail over the fact that the box was not for him.

Allie went to other homes on the street, but few neighbors were home, and the ones who did come to the door were clueless.