The woman lifts her hand from Grendel’s head and holds it up, cutting off my words. Grendel bounds over, sniffs my shoes. He would have barked when she first came in, because he always barks the first time he meets someone. Then he gets used to them. He looks happy to see me.

“You know who I am, Connor,” she says, “and once you remember who I am, I think you’re going to know why I’m here.”

“I don’t know who you are,” I say. “But I am going to call the police if you don’t get out. If you didn’t take anything and didn’t hurt my dog, you can just leave, and I won’t press charges.”

She ignores my threat. With a slow theatricality, she lifts the glasses off her face and folds them, placing them carefully in her lap. She blinks a couple of times but remains quiet.

“If you want food, you can take it. Or money. I’ll give it to you. But you have to go.”

“Connor.”

And then I finally see it. Her face is suddenly familiar. The eyes are bright blue. The shape of her face. Thinner. Much thinner. But recognizable.

She must realize that I’m starting to really see her because she smiles knowingly, like a chess master who has just outfoxed a lesser opponent.

“No,” I say. “No. You’re not supposed to . . . I mean, you’re supposed to be . . .”

She lifts her eyebrows. “You mean, I’m supposed to be dead? Is that it? I’m supposed to be dead.”

“Not dead,” I say, my voice lower. “Not exactly dead.”

But she’s nodding. “Oh, yes. I’m supposed to be dead. I’m supposed to be written off. Forgotten. Erased. Tossed in a ditch or a river or a forest, my bones scattered to the winds and slowly returning to the earth. Dust to dust and all that. Isn’t that where I’m supposed to be?”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s what we all thought. I’m glad that’s not true, but I’m . . . This is all very disconcerting. You’re here. . . .”

She leans forward and reaches behind her. She brings out a familiar-looking object and holds it up between us. She looks like she’s on television, presenting something to the viewing audience.

“Isn’t this what we need to talk about, Connor?”

It’s my book. The book that was published today by a major New York publisher. The one I was at the library reading from and signing. The one that represents a dream come true for me.

I don’t answer her question.

I come all the way into the room and sit on the couch across from Madeline O’Brien. I sit across from my former student, the young woman who disappeared almost two years ago, just months before she was supposed to graduate.

CHAPTER TWO