“Just when we think he must’ve kicked it, he’ll show up. A connection of mine saw him a few years back, said he was masquerading as a preacher. He’s run since, but no doubt he’s just set up shop somewhere else. And he always has it.”

I felt Cal tense from across the room. I reached out my mind to hers like I had during our Grand Slam, but she blocked me with a shock.

Something was not right.

“Well, Jason,” I said, “if you want him dead, we can do that right now from this living room. But—and I don’t mean to be harsh—one soul is not enough to send us on a wild-goose chase.”

I put my hand on the doorknob and nodded to Cal. She was kneeling in front of a frozen boy on a folding chair. She traced the neck of his T-shirt, rolling between her fingers a thin chain that hung there.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Jason said, almost walking into the suspended beverage in his kitchen. “What if you get all of us? What if you get fifteen souls?”

I hesitated.

“We’ll do it,” Cal said, tablet ready.

We were gone before the bottle hit the wall.

LILY

THAT AFTERNOON, LILY MEANDERED through the market’s floral aisle, touching petals when no one was looking. She took the car into town, the grocery list not nearly long enough to require a trip tucked purposefully into her shirt pocket. She had spent sixteen summers in the same place Sarah died, there the very minute, second, year after year. Never once had she and Silas done anything to acknowledge the day, except maybe pour their evening drinks a little early, a little strong. She paid for a bouquet of poppies in cash. She drove the long way back, and parked between their property and the Watersons’. She didn’t want to go to the clearing through the backyard. She needed to be alone for this.

—

THE DAY OF THE night Sarah died, Lily nursed her hangover on the float, diving off the edge whenever she needed to feel cold water. Madeline and the other girls joined her in the beginning, all rowing the canoe out so they could bring the stereo, but, as always, they abandoned their towels and tanning oil when they heard Phil’s bike.

“Not into the hog?” Sarah asked as she pulled herself up the ladder. She twisted her hair and shook it out over her shoulders. Usually, it was the color of a sunset or the forest floor in the fall, but sometime that summer, she got highlights that, to Lily’s delight, looked terrible.

Lily shrugged. “He’s Silas’s brother; I can ride it whenever I want. I’m surprised you’re not up there, though.”