Just when I was expecting to see a continuation of memories that followed the night of the fire—and sensed my fingers releasing from pure exhaustion—I felt strong hands wrap around my wrists, and a voice told me, “I’ve got you.”

I opened my eyes to find myself looking up into Trey’s face. He’d made his way down the peaked roof toward me on his belly. Hanging on to my full weight was making his arms tremble from muscle strain, and through gritted teeth, he calmly told me, “See if your feet can reach the wall.”

“What?!” I asked in desperation, terrified that I was going to pull him over the edge.

“The wall in front of you. Try to touch it with your feet.”

Trying to swing or kick my legs in any direction after holding as still as possible took quite a bit of effort. It was also very cold outside, and moving around made me more aware of the temperature. But to my great shock, Trey was right: The roof’s overhang was only about six inches deep. My chest swelled with joy as I pressed the soles of my feet against the smooth wall.

“Can you reach it?” Trey asked.

I was concentrating too hard to reply while trying to get firm enough footing so that I could use the muscles in my legs to boost myself back onto the roof. Trey was in no way weak, but he wasn’t going to pull me up to safety on his own. The effort required to hoist myself up high enough so that Trey could pull me up a few inches farther made me grunt.

But when he’d managed to raise me so that my rib cage was level with the edge of the roof, the sound of a bloodcurdling scream from four stories below made us both startle. The scream was unmistakably female, and I knew immediately that it had come from Violet. She must have stepped outside and seen her father’s dead body crumpled on the hood of his vehicle.

“Don’t listen to her,” Trey commanded me. “You’re almost all the way up. One more big boost.”

I repositioned my right foot higher on the wall and hoisted myself once more with all my might. This time, Trey had to inch backward to give me enough room to clamber over the edge and back onto the roof. Once I was finally able to set my knees down, I threw my body forward and pressed myself against the shingles, almost unable to believe that I’d made it.

“Are you okay to climb up?” Trey asked me, nodding his head in the direction of the widow’s walk at the top of the peak.

I could barely catch my breath, and dug my fingernails into the rough roof tile. Nothing felt or seemed real, and I wondered if my disorientation was a side effect of having cheated death. I had no sense of Jennie’s presence, and wondered exactly what had happened earlier in the parlor, and if she was safe. If I’d managed to survive the spirits’ death prediction for me, it would have been a bitter victory if something terrible had happened to Jennie to make that possible.