Meanwhile, there was still the other matter. Ema had to go face-to-face with Jared Lowell, this online persona who had, it seemed, captured her heart. We started down the same road I had walked with Rachel. The wind grew less powerful as we moved inland, but it never left.

“Do you remember what Bat Lady said to me?” Ema asked.

“She said a lot of things.”

“At the very end. Right before she got in that car and she drove off with that shaved head guy.”

I did remember. “She asked if you loved the boy.”

“She didn’t ask. She said it. Like she knew.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Do you remember what she said after that?”

That line I remembered verbatim: “‘It will hurt.’”

“Right.”

“And then you asked what will. And she said the truth.”

We were nearing Jared’s road now. If the island had seemed quiet last time, it seemed completely abandoned now. We had not seen anyone or even a passing car since leaving the dock.

“I think,” Ema said, “we may be coming close to that truth.”

We made the turn onto Jared Lowell’s road. It was completely still, silent. I almost expected one of those ghost-town tumbleweeds to blow across the street. Ema turned to me and said, “Which door?”

I pointed up the block a bit. “That one.”

“Okay, good.”

“Do you want me to wait here?”

Ema thought about it. “No, come with me.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. “If this is going to hurt, I want you to be there for me.”

We started up that same cracked-concrete path. I knocked. Ema and I stood there, adjusting our shoulders and then our heads and doing that dumb stuff you do when you’re waiting for a door to open.

Eventually we heard footsteps heading toward us. I glanced at Ema. She gave me a hesitant smile. The door opened.

But it wasn’t Jared. It was his mother.

She frowned at me. “You were here a few days ago.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“What do you want?”

She said it as though it were an accusation.

“We’re here to see Jared.”

“What do you want with him?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I looked toward Ema. She said, “We’re his friends.”

“From the Farnsworth School?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“Then where are you from?”

“Kasselton, New Jersey,” Ema replied.

A look of horror crossed the woman’s face. She leaned toward us, baring her teeth like a feral dog. Her eyes were wide. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Get off this island and never come back!”

She slammed the door so hard that we nearly fell off the stoop.

Ema and I stood there, trying unsuccessfully not to look flabbergasted.

After some time had passed, Ema said, “What the heck was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you see how she reacted when she heard where we’re from?”

I nodded.