“She did it during one of her episodes,” Laura said. “Afterward, when she was passed out, I buried the cat in the garden, thinking we could have a memorial of some kind. But what did we get instead? Defiled soil, as far as I can tell. I don’t really believe in those things, but—like I said, nothing grows by the gate.”

“Poor cat,” I whispered.

“Poor cat,” she agreed with a sigh. “And poor Lily. She was convinced that I killed it.”

We had reached Lily’s grave. It lay bare—no vibrant carpet of flowers. There was one small shoot beginning to reach out of the dirt near the foot of the grave, but Laura reached down and plucked it.

“Weeds,” she said with distaste. “I’m sorry if I seemed harsh last night. It wasn’t easy for me to decide to share this with you. If you were to hear my sister’s account, I’m a monster. And perhaps Agatha feels the same way. But I don’t think I’m a monster. Do you?”

“No,” I said. I mean, maybe.

She seemed pleased. She patted me on the back. “Good girl. Now let’s go have some lunch.”

We continued along the path, farther than I’d ever had reason to go, and we came across a large pond, which looked cold and black under the dappled shade.

Yeah, no thanks. I wasn’t a fan of dark water.

“Isn’t this a sweet place?” Laura asked. “When I was a kid, there were always ducks here.”

“That’s cute,” I said.

“They were filthy,” she added.

As we were turning to leave, I felt a strange sensation in my back pocket—something incredibly familiar, but also something I’d nearly forgotten about.

Laura locked the gate, and just as we reached the entrance to the garden, I paused and looked over my shoulder. “Oh, I need to clean the shears I was using earlier. They’re in the shed, but they’re not dry.”

To Laura, leaving a piece of gardening equipment sitting out uncleaned was basically like stealing a loaf of bread from a widow. A moral failing.

“I’d better go take care of it,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

I turned and walked away and felt her watching every step I took.

In the shed, I wiped down the shears and hung them on their little peg, in case Laura had followed me. Then I went around the side of the small building and pulled my phone from my pocket.

I gasped—there were new-message notifications. I scrolled through them and found mostly spam, with a few medical billing notices, but that didn’t matter—

What mattered was that there was a cell signal at the far side of the graveyard.

I felt a surge of power. This was big. It was huge.