There was a knock on the kitchen door, as I was washing dishes, my eyes gritty from exhaustion. I stopped dead, my hands in the soapy water, and waited for something more—a long pause in the evening. Finally, I went to the door.

Tuck was on the doorstep. He held up his hands and grinned, like he was saying surprise. He was wearing the threadbare yellow shirt he’d been wearing the day I fainted by the Carson Cove information booth, a brown jacket with patches on both elbows. His hair was standing up all around his head, as mane-like as ever, and I wasn’t entirely clear if I was looking at curls or tangles. “I came over on the nine o’clock boat,” Tuck said.

“But—why?”

“I don’t know. Wanted to see you, I guess. You haven’t called in a few days, and—I don’t know. Maybe they had you tied up in the basement.”

The night was cool, and there were small bright clouds passing over the moon. I looked behind him at the lawn, the dock, the bay.

“And now I’m glad I came,” he said. “Are you okay? You look—”

“But how did you know where I lived?”

“I just asked at that bar where the ferry comes in. Everyone knows you. I didn’t even have to say your last name. Which is good, because I don’t know your last name.”

A gull screeched. From the living room, I heard the sound of something small falling to the floor, a spoon maybe or a comb. Tuck looked over his shoulder in the direction of the ferry landing, which was empty now. The boat was gone. It wouldn’t come back until morning. He looked at my face. “Um. I can find somewhere to stay,” Tuck said.

I smiled, shook my head. “No, no, I’m being stupid,” I told him. “Of course you can stay here. I’m just surprised to see you. I mean, I’m happy to see you, too.”

“Okay,” he said. “That’s a relief. Because I have no idea where I would go.”

I was happy to see him, but there was more to it than that. A faint tension was growing between my shoulder blades, a strange little gnawing pain.

“I don’t know how they’re going to react.” I nodded my head in the direction of the living room where we heard Lucas’s and Cole’s voices, a low rumble.

“Who cares!” Tuck said. “Anyway, let’s go find out.”

When he crossed the threshold, I reached out and touched the hem of his shirt. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe to feel something that was real between my fingers. It felt rebellious, subversive even, to bring Tuck into the house. It was a house full of ancient and dead things, and his footsteps were already stirring up dust.