I put my feet up on the edge of the bed frame, my burn mark protesting. It had scabbed over, but it was tight and inflexible, like the skin had begrudgingly agreed to heal but it had a few demands. I still needed to make an appointment with a plastic surgeon, but the thought of possibly having a skin graft performed turned my stomach. The rest of my body ached from carrying the wagon.

I rubbed my face and reached over to take a sip of water from the glass on my desk, when the framed photo in the corner caught my eye.

It was a picture of me, Jess, Melissa, and Liz from April. We were on Jess’s front porch, sitting in patio chairs, holding up champagne glasses to toast my birthday. Del had snapped it with my phone, and I had printed it out and given each of my friends a copy in a gold frame. In the picture, we were laughing, eyes bright, with big smiles.

But the image was different now.

Our eyes were colored in, black from ink, holes in our heads. Empty. Missing. Like conduits that allowed the darkness to pour in. Like the She Shed pit.

Around the edges of the photo mat were symbols and letters. The symbols looked like they were part of a complicated math problem, with triangles intersecting and clusters of circles. In each corner of the picture was a dark spiral that looked like it had been traced many times, the ink seeping into the paper and nearly ripping it.

There was a dark scribble on my leg, with dots coming out of it like blood. On Melissa there was the same mark, but on her upper arm. I picked up the photo and peered down at it, a wave of fear slowly filling my body. Then I saw that Jess also had a mark, on her cheek. Liz was unmarked, except for the dark holes for her eyes.

I wondered whether Emily could have done this, too, or maybe I unconsciously created it in my sleep.

My hands shaking, I turned the frame over and opened it up, pulling the picture out. In between Liz and Melissa were tiny letters, easily missed, and written horizontally and slightly diagonal. The first letter touched Liz, and the last extended to Melissa.

I brought the page to my face and squinted.

It was the word “help,” written in my handwriting.

I dropped the picture onto my desk, watching it flutter when I wanted it to plummet to the ground, where I could step on it or kick it.

I picked it up, ready to crumple it into a ball and throw it out, to pretend that I never saw it, but I looked at the word again.

Help.

I then noticed that there was another word underneath it. “Me.”

Help me.