“You don’t have to answer, Carl.”

“She’s been a ghost since”—he poked the side of his head—“since I killed her, Magic Boy. Killed her.”

My hand jerked. I dropped the soggy piece of bread.

“I had to. She was a tracker. Urh. Sending correspondence to the government. Collecting my thoughts and letting them seep into the pipes. Even water from the shower was contaminated.”

I swallowed. “Do—do the police know?”

“Do—do the police know?” He peered behind him. “They try to follow me. Government sent Workers to my house with books in their hands, talking about the great power. Jelly, jelly, jellyfish on my doorstep. I could see neural wires inside of them. My mother opened the door. They wanted to sting me.”

I put the plate on the ground. Darkness had fallen down around us, the trees and leaves coated in it.

“They trapped me in a white room, Magic Boy. The walls were soft and went on forever. When my mother took me home I didn’t take my eyes off her. I told her I was going to kill her. She knew, urh, she knew. She cried and cried and then she said goodbye. She was selfless like that. I had no choice. I had to kill her, but”—he put his hands out in front of him and turned them over—“there is no blood on me.”

Air shuttled in and out of the very tip of my lungs. A horsefly landed on my forearm, punctured my skin. I didn’t know how to absorb what Carl was telling me. He was rocking back and forth, talking so fast that it was a blur of syllables flooding my ears. Firelight moved over his face. Sections of his beard were thin and his skin looked raw.

I looked at the woods. The darkness was thicker now, and yet I could still run. But which way to go? What if Carl chased me? He was enormous, and I was certainly small.

Girl pawed at his leg and Carl stopped rocking. “She’s okay, though. My mother. She likes marigolds best of all. They grow all around her white house. Sometimes I borrow a ride, and I see her. But I don’t get close.”

“Oh,” I whispered. I didn’t understand.

He poked his head again. “I just killed her up here. Inside my, my, my, urh, brain. That’s the way to do it best, you know. Her heart got broken, but she wasn’t hurt.”

“Your mother’s not dead?”

“Did I say that?”

“Sort of.”

“You’re all mixed up, Magic Boy. Killing a person doesn’t have anything to do with that person being dead. I—I just didn’t trust myself.”