The snake detached itself and seemed to vanish into the grass as if it had never existed, as if it was never there at all.

“You have to help me,” said Jeremiah, his neck already swelling, his face breaking out in a sweat. “You have to hurry.”

But she didn’t. Mom just stood there and watched him.

Jeremiah staggered to his feet and began to walk. He tried to holler for help, but his voice was all ragged, and it came out barely a whisper. He walked past the pond and into the woods like he was trying to make it to the Farm but he’d lost his sense of direction. He was wandering, hopeless, aimless. Mom followed a few steps behind him, silent, her bare feet padding softly through the grass. Eventually they came to the Split Tree. Jeremiah stumbled there and fell against the tree trunk. He leaned back and stared at the sky, panting, groaning in pain.

As his throat closed up and his eyes rolled back in his head, Mom knelt beside Jeremiah and held his hand.

Until Jeremiah grew still.

I jolted out of my vision, gasping for air like it was me who had been snakebit, like my throat was the one closing up.

Was that vision true? Did it mean that Mom killed Jeremiah? Or not killed him, but let him die? Was that why she hid the Farm and Grandma and everything else from us? Was it all just her guilt?

Jeremiah stood there before me in the real world, a sort of white glow about him. His eyes shone blue and pure, as if lit by an inner light.

“Jealousy is a powerful force,” he said. “It can corrupt anyone, even those closest to you. Even your own sister.”

I thought about Murphy back at the house, off sulking in her room.

“Murphy doesn’t believe in me or the Farm,” I said. “But she’d never turn on me like that. She’d never kill me.”

“Perhaps not,” said Jeremiah, his voice gone sad and wise, like he knew so much more about the world than I did and he had learned every last bit of it through pain. “But it’s dangerous to trust one single person too much, to rely on them alone. That’s what the community is for—to balance each other, to protect each other. There’s a power when all of us are together, a love stronger than anyone can understand. An abiding love, not easily broken. A love that can hold on far beyond the grave, long after death. That’s what you deserve, Lee. A family who believes in you. Who will stand by you and your visions. Who will love you forever, unconditionally. Not like your mother, and not like Murphy either.”

“But she’s begun drawing my visions now. The Spirit is moving in her.”