She’s so gorgeous. Faint light from my phone glimmers over her dark finish. Her strings glint. I will never have another guitar like this. It will take me years to save up for anything close.

But it’s done. We’re done.

I pry my hands off the lid. My whole body is fighting me. What it really wants is to grab Yvonne, wrap her tight in my arms, and run off to some dark, safe place where we can sit and play for the next ten hours. Or ten years.

The lid thunks shut. I flick the clasps.

Okay. Okay. Damn it. There’s a lump in my throat.

I creep backward far enough that even if I reached out again, I couldn’t touch her.

Okay. It’s done.

I’m just about to turn around when I hear the twig snap.

Thea

I used to know what it was. To be afraid.

I was afraid of so many things. Nightmares. The dark. The emptiness under my bed. The inside of my closet, where anything could hide. The voices that I heard whispering to me in the night, that seemed to come from outside the house or under my pillow or, sometimes, inside my own ears.

My mother always knew when the fear had grabbed me. At least, that’s what I remember. I didn’t have to find her, force myself out of bed over that treacherous dark gap. She would just appear there beside me, settling down on my bed, under my rumpled quilts. I remember the smell of her hair, which was long and pale, like mine, and the feeling of her hands as she’d rub my forehead, over and over, until I finally fell asleep.

I was five when she died. Cancer. Fast. And after that, I wasn’t afraid anymore. Because the worst thing had already happened. There was nothing left to fear.

Now nothing can touch me. Nothing even comes close.

It’s already night as I ride to Anders’s house. And they are everywhere. The dark things. All around me. Clinging to the high branches, swaying back and forth with the wind. I can see their twisted bodies and their milky white eyes. I am not afraid. I’ve stared back at the darkness for so long now that what I feel is barely a feeling at all. It’s just recognition. Familiarity.

I know you. I see you. You mean nothing.

The Thorsons’ house is dim. No cars in the drive. I pedal to my usual spot, leave the bike in the shrubs, and creep though the trees.

I’m less cautious than I used to be. I don’t have time to be crafty. Both sides already know me anyway.

I can feel the emptiness even before I reach Anders’s bedroom window. I glance through the pane, just in case. A lamp burns on the bedside table. There’s Goblin, asleep in the twisted bedding. Rumpled clothes on the floor. The row of guitars. One missing. Yvonne.

My X on the window is faded but present, just starting to flake away. I slice my palm with my pocketknife. The cut from half an hour ago has already healed. I retrace the X on the glass before this cut can close, too.