Nobody’s home, but there are footprints going in and out from the unlocked back door. Not the front. The police haven’t left a friendly note saying whether or not they’ve been by to check on an alleged burglary.

Bonnie’s and Lynn’s belongings are still here.

I sit at the kitchen table. It’s snowing. Light flakes that drift down from above. The snow becomes heavier. Some of it has found its way inside through Bonnie’s window and the back door, bringing the damp inside. Memories of the last time I sat here come flooding back. There’s Lynn and her warning, of course. But there’s also Bonnie telling me about her new girlfriend, flushed with the excitement of young love. There’s me talking about Lebanon and Palestine, places I’ve never been to but are in my blood. About Winnipeg, where my father was born, and all the things I don’t know about that, either. I explained to her my confusion about it all, so she’ll know she’s not alone in hers.

She told me about her abortion last year and how Lynn knows about it, but Everett doesn’t. Then she asked why I didn’t do one of those ancestry DNA tests and laughed at my suspicion of data harvesting. Then stopped laughing when her mind made the connection between blood harvesting—and the troubles she’s been through in the past.

We talked all night while in the back of my mind I thought about Brazuca.

Because my defenses are already shattered by what I’ve found in this cabin, I think about him now. The inch of skin like a distant memory. The gray at his temples. The long fingers and his limp, which he stops trying to hide the more exhausted he becomes.

In this cold kitchen I think about all my actions that have led to this point. I’m shivering, so I get up to adjust the thermostat, an instinct I would have questioned in other circumstances, when I notice that the footprints outside lead not to the driveway where I parked but into the woods.

Three sets of footprints. Into the woods. Three unholy sets, one larger than the others.

Breadcrumbs. Leading away from the house.

Snow falls. A black cloud blankets the sky.

Something is waiting for me out there. It could be my daughter.

Please don’t let it be her. Please.

The snow sends light up from below as I continue on.

64

The little guesthouse looms up ahead. Nobody told me it was here, but it makes sense. Where are you supposed to stash in-laws and other unwanted guests but a place out of sight, hidden by the trees?

I follow the footprints right up to the door.

There’s a drop of blood on the snow. Crimson on white.