So delicious that I couldn’t stop myself from smiling from the time I went back into the nursery until I got in bed. I read for a while, growing sleepier and sleepier, until I realized that I was waiting for Laura’s entrance. I heard her and Agatha come in, but she didn’t even knock on my door.

It’s okay, I told myself. She’s just busy.

The next time my eyes started to slide closed, I set aside my book and switched off the light.

I fell asleep with Barrett’s gold-tinted profile projected in my head like a movie.

It was lovely.

Until the screaming started.

CHAPTER

18

IN MY DREAM, I was wandering around the graveyard by myself, looking for something . . . someone? Fingers of light reached through the trees and lit my path. I passed the stately memorials and elegant statues without taking much notice of them.

Who am I looking for? I wondered.

Suddenly, ahead, a flash of movement across the narrow path—a cat?

“Missy!” I cried, beginning to run. “Missy!”

I kept catching sight of her, even when the trees got so close together that I had to turn my body sideways to keep going. A shadow here, the flick of a tail there—

“Missy, wait!” I had to catch up with her—she wanted to show me something. But what?

I came around the corner and found Lily’s grave, completely covered in flowers. On the far side, the cat waited, perched on the grave marker.

I began to wade through the lilies toward her, but halfway there I realized that I’d made a huge mistake.

My feet were beginning to sink into the soft ground. Every step required a massive effort to lift them free. But before I could turn around and go back, I had sunk too far to pull myself out. For a moment, I thought the flowers were growing freakishly high, but then I realized that I was the problem—I was being dragged underground.

Soon I was up to my waist, grabbing for the flowers, as if they would help me. I imagined I could feel slender fingers in a vise grip on my ankles, helping the process along, and all the while, the cat sat just out of reach and primly cleaned her paws.

At one point, I tried to dig in the earth and my hands came up filled with tiny bones—and then I heard muffled ringing and saw the collar dangling from the fistful of mud I was holding. These were Missy’s bones. I frantically shook my hands and the bones went flying, lost among the lilies.

Suddenly, I felt the cold, wet grit of the soil on the back of my neck, and my shoulders and arms were completely submerged. The mud, inches below my nose, smelled of death and ruin.