And we had just enough to get us here. My mother had always called it a hope chest, and that was exactly what it gave us. We bartered two brooches for third-class passage on a freighter. A black velvet band with a diamond buckle for cross-country seats in the back of an ice truck, quiet and gloomy as a tomb. An emerald bracelet for this very house, long past its prime anyhow. When at last the journey was over, and the unforgiving California sun was sneaking in through every window, this was the only piece of jewelry we hadn’t used up.

“Let’s keep it for a rainy day,” Bee had said, tucking it in the back of the drawer. That’s where it’s stayed ever since. Where I hope it stays forever.

My hands shaking, I finally find the matchbook and turn away from the desk.

After the candle burns out, Bee heads to bed early, but I can’t sleep. My door locked, I sit up, my knees pulled into my chest, my sheets crumpled around me like a discarded love letter. The coyote from last night returns, scratching again in the garden, howling loud enough to set the floorboards rattling, but I keep the curtains closed.

Friday comes, sneaking in sly as a thief, and it’s hotter than yesterday, the heavy swelter settling in by noon like an unwanted houseguest. I’m halfway through checking on the urns when there’s another knock at the door.

I roll my eyes. More empty threats about city council, no doubt.

With Bee down the hall in the kitchen, I cross to the front door and fling it open, ready to surprise Tyrone, maybe even make that empty heart of his seize up in his chest.

But he’s not the one standing on the other side.

It’s a girl, her hair damp and stringy. She stares at me, not saying a word. I’ve never seen her face before, but there’s something off about her, something I can’t quite place. She isn’t one of the neighbors here to complain about the state of the house, that’s for sure.

“May I help you?” I ask, and that’s when I realize what’s wrong.

I can’t hear anything. There’s no heartbeat inside her.

I back away. “Who are you? What do you want with us?”

“Lucy?” Bee’s voice lilting in from the next room. “Is everything okay?”

Before I can tell her no, tell her to run, she materializes in the archway behind me.

Instantly, the girl’s face brightens. “Hi, Bee,” she whispers, and at the sight of her, Bee goes completely gray. Dread coils through me, my gaze shifting back and forth between them, fully aware that something terrible is happening, even though I’m not sure what.

One final, weightless moment, like a free fall before you hit the ground.