Somehow I fall asleep like that. On the hard picnic table with Lex’s fingers in my hair. The lullaby of the rain. And when I wake up, Lex is asleep, too. We’re curled up together like kittens.

It’s the foghorn that pulls me out of my dreams. Like always. It reverberates against my ribs. I look at my watch. Two o’clock. The rain has stopped. The night has turned cold, and the fog has crept up the lawn from the sea. I pick up the wine bottle. It’s almost empty, but I take it with me as I cross to the steps to stare out into the dark. I tilt up the bottle to drain the last of the liquid. And it warms me. At least for the moment.

I turn back toward the picnic table to look at Lex. But he’s gone. And just for a second, my mother is standing there. Gold sandals and pink toes. I see a little girl in a purple dress hiding under the table. Hands over her ears.

Then I hear my mother’s voice so clearly. I know it now, from those videos Willa showed me. “No more hiding!” Her words come in a low, angry hiss. “I want everything out in the open!”

A flash of lightning turns midnight to noon, and I look out toward the great lawn. When I look back, the woman and the little girl are gone. Lex is sleeping on top of the picnic table again.

And I don’t know if what I just saw was magic—or memory. The rain. Or the wine. But I know that Glory was right. My mother had a secret. One she was sick to death of keeping.

I think about those initials again. B. C. And the words my mother scribbled after them. Figure out how to end it!!! Those three desperate exclamation points.

More lightning splits the world in two. It’s so beautiful that I wish Lex was awake to see it. It makes me lonely to think that everyone in the whole world is asleep, except me.

Then I see the little blonde girl in the white nightgown.

She’s dancing on the dark lawn, oblivious to the swirling fog. She lifts one hand to wave at me. I don’t wave back, so she just keeps dancing—twirling and spinning. Her mouth is open, and I can hear her laughing.

And then she isn’t alone anymore. A little dark-haired boy has joined her. I watch them chase each other across the slippery grass. He grabs her hands and pulls her toward the trees. Toward the path to the Culver house.

The bottle slips from my hand and shatters on the stone steps.

Another flash of lightning draws my eyes up toward the heavens.

And then it’s raining again. Water is pouring from the sky the way it pours from a bathroom sink.