“We’re going to have a talk later,” Uncle Bran said.

“Can’t wait.”

In the absence of music, there wasn’t really silence, since driving that fast along country roads with the windows down is noisy. I heard rushing wind, the consistent thunk, thunk, thunk of the car tires rolling over seams in the pavement, and the occasional vroom of cars passing, going just as fast as we were in the opposite direction, unnerving me every time. The sun was high in the vast blue sky.

Suddenly, for a second, it all went away. The road noise muffled and the day dimmed as we drove under a small overpass. I don’t know why, but right then, fairies used my spine as a ladder.

I flipped around fast and watched the overpass get farther and farther away. I’d never seen anything like it before. It wasn’t a normal overpass that cars could drive across. There wasn’t a road on it, only grass connecting one side of the prairie to the other with a barely visible fence instead of a guardrail to protect people from falling off.

“What’s that?” I asked, still looking behind us, even though it was making me dizzy to ride like that.

“It’s a wildlife crossing,” Uncle Bran said. “Don’t you remember that from last year? It’s safer for the animals. It’s mostly for antelope, but all sorts of animals use it.”

“So they just built a little hill over the highway and made a tunnel through it?” I asked. We were so far away now, the crossing’s archway looked like a mouse hole.

“Yep, to protect the wildlife,” Bran said, nodding.

“So they don’t get murdered,” Kennedy said. Mah-dahd.

There’s nothing there, dummy, Mean Me said. Stop staring like an idiot. Don’t make them think you’re even weirder than they already do.

“Cool, huh?” Uncle Bran asked.

“Sure,” I said, turning back around, still unsettled by . . .

Absolutely nothing! the mean voice hissed. Get ahold of yourself!

Kennedy turned on an even worse song, and the rest of the way, I picked at an angry scab on my ring fingernail, licking away the metallic blood when it bubbled up, then pressing the underside of my T-shirt to the wound so it wouldn’t bleed more, aware of the uneasy feeling in my middle.

The speed limit lowered, then lowered again, then the highway became Pine Street, the main street through town. We pulled into a huge paved parking lot in front of the general store. There weren’t any designated spaces; Uncle Bran just turned off the car next to another one facing the road. He hit the button to open the sliding door.

Kennedy got out and stretched her arms up over her head, revealing most of her abdomen in the process. Two passing teen boys noticed.