She remembered the local police, the hospital staff, all those earnest faces. Of course we’ll find your friend, miss, just tell us everything you remember. The words boiled up inside and choked her, because she couldn’t tell them. They’d think she was mad, that she was guilty of something. She talked about the Roberts farm and the moors. She talked about snow, because that on its own seemed just the right side of Crazy Town, even though it was July. She talked about getting lost. Somehow her mouth stitched together a consistent tarpaulin of fabrication that could be draped over what she actually remembered, so the result had the same general shape but concealed all of the details. She discovered a gift for mendacity that she’d never known she possessed.

She wondered, lying alone in her hospital bed, if she’d doomed Mal somehow by lying. But if Mal had been anywhere they could have found her, then Lee’s story might as well have been the real one.

They interviewed Lee three times, three different earnest, comforting police staff going through variants of the same questions, with her trotting out her true-enough answers—and she was bone-tired, shaking and upset. She could tell they were all Poor girl, losing her friend, and not one of them guessed she’d lost her lover, her heart, her whole life. She made herself stay awake, desperate to see Mal come through the hospital room door, unscathed, even if she blamed Lee for leaving, even if she hated her, even if she never wanted to see her again.

At about seven the next morning, Lee was exhausted enough that she’d started seeing Birdmen, ragged and warlike, in the corners of her eyes. And in came a policeman who looked no older than she was, asking questions with an embarrassed little smile. Sorry, miss, be done in just a moment. And Lee realized he wasn’t here about Mal; he was asking about Cador Roberts, also missing. He didn’t seem to quite know who she was, just asked about Roberts—how Lee knew him and when she’d last seen him. She didn’t and hadn’t, so couldn’t help him.