“What the hell is wrong with you, Tina?” she demanded. “Did you hit your head? Or have you been brainwashed or something? No, back off, Gary. Tina, you’re wearing a dress and a bloody pastel cardigan.” She swore again and I winced.

“Quit it,” said Gary.

“No. No, you quit it, Gary. Because if you could have stopped this, believe I’m going to blame you. Pull over. Let me drive. I’m creeped out, sitting next to her.”

“No,” said Gary calmly. How far was it to Carter’s Crossing? Had we gone too far to turn back?

I risked a glance at Trish, who was watching me as if I were a snake coiled beside her.

“It was time to grow up, Patricia,” I said quietly. “My mother needed me.”

“Like. Hell.”

“Trish, you haven’t been here,” said Gary.

“You have, and look what happened. Tina, what did she do to you?”

“Nothing! I stayed. Everyone else left.” You want to be with me, don’t you, Bettina? I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be. I hadn’t imagined anywhere else at all. To be so far from Runagate already frightened me like falling.

“Let’s kidnap her,” said Trish. “We can just keep driving.” Her voice was brassy. “We’ll get to the coast eventually. Go to my place and hide out there. We’re between housemates. We can give her a makeover.”

“You remember what my grandmother says about waking sleepwalkers—” said Gary.

“No, no, I don’t. It’s probably something awful. But this—for once, this really isn’t natural, Gary. Tina, you were my best friend.” She was remembering wrong. She was thinking of someone else. “You were a terrible influence. It’s been—what? Three years? And you stay home and bake patty-cakes?”

Gary was driving faster, not watching us. Looking at the mirror.

“I went to the botanic gardens just before I came back here,” said Trish. “They have a building full of bonsai trees. Stunted. Horrible. Don’t know why I thought of that.”

“My mother loves me,” I said.

“She loves what she’s made you, maybe,” said Trish.

“What do you know about it, anyway, Trish?” asked Gary.

“More than you, evidently!” said Trish. “Or I care more. I haven’t seen one thing about this—this china doll here to prove she’s our Tina.”

“She’s run away,” Gary pointed out. “She’s dragged us with her.”

“‘You will help me, won’t you, Gary Damson?’” mimicked Trish unpleasantly. “And here you are.”

“And here we are,” he agreed. He hadn’t mentioned that I threw paint at his car.

“Let’s just keep driving,” said Trish. “We’ll call from a truck stop and explain. But we won’t go back.”