Falling through water, so black and thick that when I opened my eyes I saw nothing. My feet could not feel the bottom below, and my hands could not find the air above. At first I went wild and thrashed, fighting to find which way might be up, even if it meant my father was there. But the water was all mud, and creeping things were swimming about. I felt small, webbed toes shove off against my arm and was less afraid. No, not afraid at all.

My father was above, covered with my mother’s blood.

I had gone below, with the creeping things, and the hopping things. It was better there. The frogs would care for me, as I had cared for them. They would keep me safe here in the mud, where I played with them when the sun was warm and the grass was tall.

They would . . . sing me to sleep in this new . . . in this new, thick darkness. They . . . would watch over me. They would . . . protect me. The frogs were my keepers, and they would keep me . . . from harm. Yes. Everything . . . was going to be . . . fine. The frogs would help me.

Or perhaps the

. . . birds.

Epilogue

“You haven’t got a mark on you,” Lulu said, shifting to position herself more lazily in the big bed she and Dave share at home. “Rather miraculous, I’d say.”

“No more so than your recovery.” I squeezed her hand and she let me, then pried it away in pursuit of orange juice.

“Nothing to recover from.”

“And there was nothing to mark me,” I retorted, watching her down the juice and reclaiming her hand when she set it down again. I played with the wedding ring there, twisting the band in a groove around her finger. “I don’t know why you were so worried, anyway.”

She sighed and leaned her head back into the pillows, which aimed her eyes safely away from me and at the ceiling. “That old woman, you know. That’s all. And that damned boy. They never did catch him, did they?”

“I don’t think they did, no. Not last I heard.”

Harry had argued about that one, at first. But in the end, I couldn’t let them take Malachi. I’m not sure why—maybe because he’d tried to help me, or maybe because I was still so sorry for him, even after all this time. Maybe it was just as simple as that Malachi was the only link I had to my father, and though he hadn’t wanted anything to do with me, I wanted some connection to him regardless.