She brought a hand up to her chin, almost in thought. Even from across the yard, I could see that she was missing fingernails. She moved her hand to the top of her head, brushing her hair back. It was then that I noticed her hair was patchy, and I could see her scalp in places.

It was like watching someone decay in real time.

We kept moving, the hammer jostling around, but at that point, we didn’t care. We knew we just needed to get out. We didn’t stop moving until we were back in front of Jess’s house. We set the wagon down on her lawn and stood there, staring at each other. Jess’s eyes filled with tears as she crossed her arms over her chest, and Melissa had her hands over her head as she bent down, face to knees.

And all I could think of was this: Emily was right. She wanted our bones in that pit next.

CHAPTER
22

I snuck back inside my house and checked on Emily. She was asleep, her light off again. I carefully crept into my bedroom and lay down next to Mark in bed, listening to his heavy breathing as I lowered my body onto the mattress. I’d left the wagon in the garage and slowly taken the stairs, careful not to step on the creaky wood parts. I felt like a teenager sneaking back in after spending a night doing things I shouldn’t have.

The clock on my phone read 3:02 a.m. The kids would be awake in a few hours, so I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything that had happened in Liz’s backyard. I had just started to drift off when flashes of her appearance—bald patches, scratched-up skin, missing fingernails—caused me to open my eyes again.

Her deteriorating exterior reminded me too much of June’s in her last few months. June would show up at my parents’ house, or on my front doorstep, with her skin pallid and open sores on her face. Before she said a word and asked for money, I’d know that she was using again. And yet I let her in every time, gave her what money I could, fed her a decent meal. Before she disappeared again. When she would go underground, it was like she had died. I didn’t know if I would see her again, and part of me was ashamed to admit that I hoped I wouldn’t. So by the time I got the call that she actually had truly passed away, it felt like I had been preparing for that moment for far too long.