“Tell me anyway,” Willa urges. “Maybe I can help you put some of those pieces together.” She reaches up and runs a hand over my hair. “Maybe that would bring you some healing.” Her hand slips down to touch my cheek. “God knows you deserve a little peace after all these years.”

I hesitate, because I’ve never really talked to anyone about this before. But she’s listening in that way she has. Nobody else has ever listened to me like that. And it makes me want to be heard.

“It starts with this crazy bright light. Like blinding. Right in my eyes.” I swallow hard. Will myself to stay present in the barn. I refuse to get lost again. “That’s a new memory,” I tell her. “I didn’t remember it before I came here. And somebody—my mother, I guess—has a death grip on my wrist. That’s new, too. And I remember the cold. Just this awful, freezing cold.” I shiver. “The kind of cold that goes so deep it hurts. And I almost remember something about my mother’s eyes, I think. And the dark. The sound of wind chimes, maybe.”

I feel goose bumps break out along my arms. That brand-new memory. I’ve never heard that sound until tonight. A strange musical tinkling carried on the night air. Even just thinking about it leaves me feeling so afraid.

Willa looks confused. “Wind chimes?” I nod, even though I know none of this makes sense.

“Then there’s a feeling of falling,” I say. “Or flying, really. And—”

I stop.

“And what?” Willa prompts. “There’s something else.”

I shake my head. “The rest of it is so weird.”

“Go on, Avril.”

“None of this makes any sense. I was dead. When they found me, I didn’t have a pulse. I wasn’t breathing and—” My heart starts to race. Panic rises in my throat.

“I know.” Willa’s hand is on my knee, and her voice is so gentle. I remember what Glory said about that morning. When George found me on the beach.

“Glory said you went with me to the hospital. She said you didn’t leave my side until my dad got here.”

Willa nods. “You were so little. I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

“But that’s where this weird memory comes from,” I tell her. “At least that’s what the doctors said. It’s just my brain playing tricks.”

“Tell me anyway,” she says. “Maybe it’ll help.” Willa is like a bulldog. I wonder if she’s ever given up on anything.

“Okay.” I breathe in the smell of the theatre. No horses today. Just the familiar scent of wood and paint. “I remember falling stars.”

“You mean like shooting stars?” Willa asks. But I shake my head.