For a while, no one spoke. We listened to the sounds of the neighborhood around us, to the kids beginning to mill about their front yards, to the neighbors exchanging muffled greetings. To dogs barking at each other and the Spadlowski teenager blasting nineties rap out of his bedroom window. To the distant hum of the Kowalskis’ air-conditioning unit turning on, the same noise I’d heard the night before the attack.

Melissa regained her voice first. “Why would she do something like that? Y’all, it doesn’t make any sense.” She slowly glanced over at the fence line toward Liz’s house before she turned back.

“If I knew, I would tell you. That’s why I wanted to ask you guys. In person, so you could see how bad it is.” I rubbed my forehead and put my elbow on the patio table. “I know it sounds unhinged, but—but I think this is something bigger than us. Bigger than Winchester. Bigger than . . .” I trailed off, glancing at the empty hole where the rabbit’s nest used to be.

Neither of my friends finished my sentence.

Jess sat back in her chair and ran her hand down the length of one of her braids, stopping at the end. “I can’t believe Liz, of all people, would hurt you.”

“She’s obviously unstable,” Melissa said as she looked at her phone. “Do you think she’s on drugs?” She stole a quick glance my way before looking back down.

I shook my head slightly. I knew what that looked like, and this wasn’t it.

“Maybe she’s just trying out a new identity,” Jess said.

I shook my head again. A new identity or personality change wouldn’t have made her face melt into rubber or caused mist to rise from the pit. I had seen it, and an emotional problem or drugs, even, wouldn’t have done that.

A wave of panic rose over my body, moving up from the ground to my head, down my legs, and circling my blistering wound as I thought of voicing my fears. But I had to.

“I think it’s something supernatural. Dark.” Melissa snapped open her mouth to protest, and I held up a hand. “When I was a social worker, patients at the end of their lives or after a traumatic incident would sometimes talk about ghosts or spirits. I never believed it, but it didn’t matter because it’s what they believed. I saw this with my own eyes, and I didn’t imagine any of it. I know it sounds bonkers, but I’m afraid there’s a supernatural explanation. I think—”