“I like to watch the crew work,” she tells me, and I nod. “So I come sometimes. At night.” She’s waiting for me to say something, but my mouth has gone dry. It’s the first time I’ve been face-to-face with her since her house. When I stood outside in her backyard and heard those wind chimes. It’s quiet for a long minute. Finally, she sighs. “I made mistakes, Avril. With Nicki, that summer. I was so young. And I’d never been in love like that before. There are things I wish I’d handled differently. I wish I hadn’t—” She stops. And for one crazy moment I think maybe she’s going to confess to me. That maybe she’ll just say it. Out loud.

But she doesn’t.

Instead she says, “You can’t know how you’re going to react in a situation like that. Not until you’re there.” I nod, and she reaches for me. I let her pull me into a desperate hug. And I grit my teeth against the urge to pull away. To push her to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

Her words feel loaded. The weight of them is like an anchor tied to her tongue. And I can’t help wondering exactly what it is she’s apologizing for. Falling for Nicole Kendrick all those years ago? Not being able to save the woman she loved?

Or maybe for throwing my mother to her death from the cliff behind Willa Culver’s house. For trying her best to kill me, too.

I pull myself away from Glory’s embrace and make my way into the fog. Away from my mother’s lover.

My mother’s killer.

The next afternoon, I ask Willa a question during a rehearsal break. “Did you know there was something going on between Glory and my mom?”

She glances up from the notes she’s studying to give me a strange look. She’s startled, clearly. But there’s something else behind her eyes, too. “I suspected. I never knew for sure.”

“They were in love,” I say, and I cross to sit beside her. Willa wrinkles up her nose like I’ve said something distasteful at Christmas dinner.

“No,” she tells me. “I don’t think so. Glory was in love, I’m sure. I could see that. It would be hard not to be. But Nicole . . .” Willa shakes her head. “Glory is so completely ordinary.” Willa says the word like it’s the worst thing in the world a person could be. “She’s nothing special. I mean, she’s lovely, of course. Nice. But she’s . . .”

“Ordinary,” I say, and Willa turns that magic smile on for me.