Thank you to Aimee Bell for her career guidance and for her continued fascination with my writing across the decades.

I always say my greatest blessing in life is having the most loving, loyal and supportive friends. So, in alphabetical order, a huge, giant, everlasting thanks to Sarah Freedman, Shira Idris, Michael Iselin, Peter LaBerge, Margot Mayer, Emily Mitamura, Andrew Mitchell, Hannah Ornatowski, Carrie Plover, Elliott Snyder, Lily Taylor, Sabrina Tompkins and Madison Vilkin for tolerating how secretive I was (for years!) about this project and their unabashed enthusiasm and promotion once I was able to announce its publication. I know I’m forgetting people, to which I say: I love and appreciate you!

Thank you to Joshua Kaufman for letting me use “hidey” well into the early hours of the morning and for permitting my nonvegan late-night food orders into his home.

Thank you to Dr. Jonathan Bello, Dr. Meredith Grossman and Dr. Lori Plutchik for keeping me sane and helping out with both the physical and mental health aspects of this book. Thank you to Dr. Sebastian Zimmermann for sharing his knowledge of child psychiatry.

Thank you to Cory de Guzman for everything; this acknowledgments page would be a second book if I explained how important to me she is.

Thank you to my family: my grandmothers, Elsa Fine and Carol Collins; my aunt Erika Fine; and my cousin Lizzy Collins. They all have encouraged my reading and writing since I was a little girl.

And, of course, thank you to my parents, Amy and Brad Collins. Thank you, Mom, for being my first reader, chief copy editor and ultimate momager. Thank you, Dada, for passing down your predilection for abnormal psychology and general fascination with anything dark, disturbing or macabre. I love you both; thank you for seeing that I nurtured, from a young age, my passion for storytelling. I owe you everything.