“I know you don’t understand,” I tell her again. “But maybe someday. Maybe soon.”

I turn and start to climb the stairs.

“No,” says Frankie quickly. “No. Don’t leave. Thea. I’ll give you anything. I’ll never speak to Anders again. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please. Please.”

But I’m already shutting the door.

I pull the bolts. Make the cut on my palm. Draw the fresh X across the door’s wooden surface.

I drag the boxes and bags back into place.

I shut the shed door behind me and turn its wooden latch.

It’s just nearing twilight. The woods are darkening, but I can see the circle of stones, glowing and unbroken, in what’s left of the powdery light.

The woods are strangely quiet. There’s only stillness. No wind. No birds.

I move over the crackling ground toward the house. Then something shifts in the distance, to my left, almost out of the range of my sight.

I turn in time to see it duck into a swale in the ground. It’s long limbed. Bony. It’s covered in thick, pitch-black hair, although the way it moves, one bent limb at a time, is less like a mammal than a spider.

I wait, staring at the spot where it vanished.

It can’t get to her. Not with both me and Aunt Mae here, not with the protections I’ve put in place. My heartbeat is steady. I breathe deep and slow. It won’t have any of my fear to feed on.

We’re safe.

When two whole minutes of stillness have passed, I move on, stepping in through the house’s back door.

Aunt Mae sits at the kitchen table. Her cards are spread out on the Formica, in a pattern that isn’t solitaire. There are two empty teacups beside her. The open, battered Bible.

She’s perfectly still. She gazes at me, but her eyes don’t take me in.

“Aunt Mae?” I say softly.

“They’re coming for him,” she says, in a cloudy but steady voice. “I see them getting close. Thieves in the night. They’re coming.” We’ve known this, of course. It was only a matter of time.

“When?” I ask.

“Soon.” She inhales, a shiver filling her body. “Tonight.”

I touch her shoulder. Aunt Mae doesn’t stir. “I’ll go,” I tell her. “I’ll keep him safe. You keep her safe.”

Aunt Mae gives a tiny twitch. She’s trying to pull herself out of something heavy, something that clings and drips from her like mud.

“Aunt Mae,” I say. “Keep her safe.”

Now Aunt Mae turns and looks up at me. Her eyes clear slightly. She gives a short nod. Then she reaches up and squeezes my hand.

Before I leave, I put a folding knife in my pocket. It’s no use against them, of course. But it’s good to have it. Just in case.

Then I slip out the door and onto my bike.

Anders

For a while I just drive.

I tear away from the studio, down Main, then left, right, left. I zig back and forth through quiet neighborhood streets like I’m in a hurry, but I’m not headed anywhere. I’ve got nowhere to go. Can’t hang out at Jezz’s; things are still too weird with us. Can’t waste time at the studio. Not ever again, now that Flynn has cut me off. And I can’t be at home, alone, boiling with all of this.