I wanted to say, “Yes, Mother.” I’d spent three years telling myself I was a good girl. We would return to our peaceful life, and she would teach me to believe this was a dream. I would agree and forget.

“No,” I said. “I did this.”

“You’re in shock.” My mother touched my forehead quickly, with cool hands. Over everything I smelled lemon flowers. But what were they, or any of the coaxed and tortured plants in our garden? They grew from blood and bone, murder and power.

“No,” I said. “And I lied before. I didn’t do this. You did.”

She opened her eyes wide, and put a slim hand to her chest. “I?” She turned to Sergeant Aberdeen; he was looking past her. Looking for Trish.

“You will help me to convince her to come home, Win,” she pleaded. Win. I looked at Winston Aberdeen still standing by her. This power was all her own. “You know how … fragile she is. This could push her too far. I couldn’t bear it. Not again. Not like—” She put her hand over her mouth.

“Like what?” said Sergeant Aberdeen.

“Oh, I haven’t proof,” said my mother, pressing her hands to her temples, as if in pain. “That horrible night. She was so angry with her father when they left; she was such a wild, strong thing in her rages.”

She didn’t look at me. Maybe she meant it. I was taller and stronger than her.

He regarded me narrowly. “I was told—Nerida, you said she was with you that evening. You confirmed it, Bettina.”

“I wasn’t with my dad,” I said. Dead, all he knew and understood gone with him. “I’d forgotten. I was out with”—I stumbled, still wanting to say Patricia—“Trish and Gary and, and my brothers. Driving. Playing tag.”

Such a petty crime. There’d been the fireworks—they’d scorched the tank stand at the school; Trish brought rum. Then we’d driven around Runagate with the headlights off, looking for each other in the dark. I’d driven. I looked at my hands. Odd to imagine them on a steering wheel.