I spend a second debating if I really want to respond, before I mutter a quick “Thank you” and slide past her, shutting the door before she can say anything more.

It must be a corner room, because two of the walls are full of stained-glass windows. They have the same strange designs: horses with fish tails and ghostly seals, pointy-eared faeries and big black dogs.

That’s not the weirdest thing, though. The bed’s headboard is black wrought iron with actual candleholders for posts, complete with thick wax candles, already lit. Perched on the headboard is a dark metal raven, its head cocked to the side.

Trying not to let my imagination run wild, I set my bag on the bed and unzip it. I hadn’t been able to take much with me when we left our home in California seven months ago, but I at least have a few changes of clothes and some trinkets I gathered as we traveled. Not for the first time, I think longingly of the book collection I had before my parents uprooted us; Liam and I used to build forts out of them.

Sitting down on the bed, I unzip the smaller emergency bag inside, trying to ignore the twinge in my shoulder. Inside is a toothbrush and toothpaste, some deodorant, cash, a couple snack bars, a traveler’s size bottle of water, a prepaid cell phone, a mini first-aid kit, and a pocketknife.

I also included my worn dictionary that I found in our first motel room. I’m already in the S’s. It’s not the most fun, but it keeps me occupied. Books aren’t cheap—not to mention hard to cart around when you move every couple weeks—and computers even less so. My parents had an aversion to all things trackable: phones, laptops, you name it, and we couldn’t afford much when Dad went from being a nurse to a part-time grocer, and Mom quit working at the auto shop.

Besides, I figured out pretty fast that the bigger the words you use, the older people think you are, which is convenient when you need to convince a motel clerk that there’s nothing suspicious about you checking out in the middle of the night while your parents shove everything you own into the trunk of a car.

I grab the water bottle, and the bag’s contents shift, revealing a square of leather. Setting the bottle down, I brush everything aside to uncover a worn leather-bound notebook imprinted with an Irish trinity knot. It’s my parents’, and I’m sure that it was in my mom’s emergency bag, not mine.