But like Cole said earlier, there’s no going back now.

I take advantage of the moon and cross the lawn toward the tree line. I plunge into the dark of the forest and drag myself up the hill toward the Culver house. Toward the fence at the bottom of the yard. I pull on the padlock, like Cole did before, and it pops open. I wonder if it makes a clicking noise. I can’t hear it because the whispering has grown so loud.

The gate swings and I step through. My heart is beating so fast in my chest, but I walk right to the edge of the cliff. Where Cole walks sometimes. With his eyes closed. Just so he can feel alive. Fifteen steps—blind—if things are bad enough, he told me.

There’s nothing in front of me but nothing. Just air. A sheer drop to the water.

And there’s nothing behind me but nothing. All the memories I can’t remember.

But I know I’m right on the edge. Here on this cliff. And in my own mind. There’s something just out of my grasp. Something I’m missing.

So I focus on the two things I know now.

One is that my mother was cheating on my father. She was having an affair with her best friend’s husband.

The second is that Cole was there that night.

The stars fell into the sea because Cole Culver pulled them out of his pockets. They were his stars all along. Not mine.

Look at the stars.

His voice.

But what were we doing that night, the two of us?

And what was my mother doing?

“Avril.” The voice is calm, gentle. Careful. But I’m not sure at first who it’s directed toward. “Avril.”

I don’t move. I’m so confused. Stuck between the past and the present.

“April.”

I turn my head to look over my shoulder, back toward the open gate behind me, and Willa is standing in the dark. Her long hair is loose and flowing. It floats around her face like fog. She has on a robe, and she holds out one hand to me. “Come on,” she says. “Let me help you. Please.”

There’s something about the calm certainty in her voice. Something about the absolute authority. Even though her words are soft, they somehow drown out the whispers. So I reach out to take her hand, and I wince from the pain of the splinter buried under my flesh.

Willa pulls me to her and wraps her arms tight around me. “Shhhhh,” she soothes. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

I’m shaking so hard, but I let her lead me through the gate and up the stepping-stone path to the house.