Vera kept moving, quickening her pace, eager to put distance between them.

She shook it off, feeling guilty for being rattled. Anatole Durand was not responsible for his father’s mistakes; he was literally a child on his deathbed at the time. Now he was giving back to the community and making things right. She, of all people, knew not to judge others by their parents’ actions. She should have been nicer.

Actually, she should have been nicer to Maxwell today too.

Her rubber soles halted at the Don’t Walk signal, and she tugged her necklace from the V-neck of her scrubs, squeezing the golden cross between her thumb and forefinger. It was a gift from her parents. She closed her eyes, a warm breeze brushing over her, lifting her wavy locks from her shoulders.

Then a melodic pulse rang out, and she opened her eyes to see the signal changed—Walk.

I’ll call my parents, she thought. There was no harm in telling them what was going on. She could ask for their advice. They could point Maxwell in the right direction, whether that be the hospital or somewhere else.

Vera turned onto Broadway, the cracks in the sidewalk disappearing into an even denser fog. She squinted into the mist and reached for the elastic around her wrist, tying back her damp hair. She checked her phone’s battery; plenty of charge, no messages. A car rumbled past, its high beams blinding. She flinched, shielding her face with her palm, and caught a swish of movement in the powder-blue hydrangeas lining the grass. She gazed into the haze, expecting the yellow corneas of a deer or a raccoon.

Only, what she saw lacked life.

Hovering in the air a few feet ahead were the black-pitted holes of a skeleton, formed from a dewy cloud. The image was distinct—two hollow pits hung above the angular holes of its fleshless nose, black tears streaming toward the silent shriek of a gaping mouth. Behind the bony face, white wisps of fog formed long, feathery wings.

This wasn’t her imagination.

It was the Angel of Tears, dancing so close she could extend an arm and touch it.

A vision of Mr. Gonzalez’s shrine flashed in her mind, and every hair on her body spiked. Her pulse turned into the rattle of cymbals.

Then a seagull called in the distance, and her face shot up, unable to see the bird in the haze. When she lowered her head, the skeletal face was gone.

She dropped the necklace she was clutching and reached into her pocket.

This was a sign.

She pulled out her phone and found Maxwell’s number.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Max

Max sat on the edge of his sister’s bed, her black curly hair fanning across every speck of her pillow. Their Jamaican, Dominican, Swedish, and Italian roots left them both with hair so spiraled that Max buzzed his scalp rather than learn to care for it. Chloe’s hair was his mother’s responsibility, or it used to be. This week, Max was forced to tie an elastic at the base of Chloe’s neck, opting not to comb it at all and instead grouping all the knots together. She was teased at school, Chloe told him at dinner, and a stiff jab to the kidney would have hurt less.