“Go home,” Bat Lady said to us. “Don’t ever come back here.”

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked.

“I told you already. You remember, don’t you?”

I nodded. “You want us to find Jared Lowell.”

Bat Lady looked at Ema as though she were seeing her for the first time. She stepped toward her and put her hands on her shoulders. “You’re stronger than you know, Ema.”

Ema glanced at me and then back at Bat Lady. “Uh, thanks.”

“You love this boy.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. In a way I don’t even know him.”

“It will hurt.”

“What will?” Ema asked.

“The truth.”

Ema and I stood perfectly still.

“Go home. Both of you. Don’t ever come back here.”

Lizzy Sobek looked over her property as though seeing it for the first time—or, more likely, the last. I wondered what she saw, how much history lay on these grounds, how many rescued and terrified children had come through here.

“None of us,” she said, “should ever come back.”

Bat Lady seemed to float toward the car. Shaved Head/Dylan opened the back door of the car. She slipped inside without another word. Dylan got into the front passenger seat.

The black car drove off.

CHAPTER 22

That night I dreamed about my mother.

I don’t remember the specifics. The dream was pretty surreal. Mom was young in the dream, really young, like before-I-remember-her young. Sometimes my dream mom was wearing tennis whites. Other times not. She was healthy, though, smiling the way she used to, the way she did before my dad died and the demons moved in and took her away from me.

Why did she have Dad cremated and not tell me?

I didn’t have a clue.

Why would she bury an urn of ashes as though it were his body? Again no clue. But I had seen the authorization form. That was her signature.

Or was it?

I had already been dumb enough to be fooled via common Photoshopping that Luther was an old Nazi from World War II. Maybe the answer here was just as simple. Maybe Mom hadn’t signed the document. Maybe someone had simply forged her name.

Again the obvious question: Why?

Answer: Take it a step at a time. See if Mom signed the papers. If she didn’t, then we check on the notary. We see where that leads. But first things first.

I needed to see my mom.

• • •

“You’re up early,” Uncle Myron said a little too cheerfully.

“I’m going somewhere with Ema.”

“Where?”

I didn’t want to get into my trip to the Farnsworth School. “Just somewhere.”

He didn’t like it, but he didn’t push it either. Uncle Myron was eating a bowl of unhealthy kid cereal and reading the back of the box. He did this every morning.

“Can I pour you some?”