She was definitely angry, but Truman thought he detected the slightest hint of grudging awe in her voice, and he clung to it like a lifeline.

“Well, okay, here’s what happened,” Truman said. “My boyfriend was cheating on me—well, cheating with me, but I didn’t know, so I had to get out of there, and I knew Maine was where you lived, so it was like fate, you know, when I switched houses with Greta, but then I got super drunk—wine, you know? And then when I fell off the bed, it was right there, the ship, in the floor. And I was like, no fucking way, this cannot be happening, but then I woke up the next morning sober and it was still there, and I just knew it was connected because in book six, when Clarion finds the Draggør sailing ship, it’s too specific. And I thought maybe it was just a Maine thing, but no one had heard of it, so I knew it had to have been what inspired you, and Ash’s mom knew you—Julia! You remember Julia Sundahl? So then I just tracked all the leads because you have to know your books basically saved my life so many times, and I had to tell you.”

Agatha Tark blinked those ice-blue eyes under thick brows, still dark brown, and said, “Good lord. I guess you better come in before you faint on my doorstep.”

Truman opened his mouth to say he wasn’t going to faint, but at just that moment, he realized he was breathing strangely and Ash was holding his elbow.

Then another part of him realized he was about to go into Agatha Tark’s house, and he wondered if he really was going to faint.

“Just don’t Misery me, okay?” she said. “I’d never hear the end of it.”

Her house was completely brown. Not ugly wood paneling brown but the rich, subtle browns of the woods. Of tree trunks and soil and shallow water and dying leaves. The wood floors shone and the walls were painted a color between brown and gold. Bits of driftwood, twisted metal, macramé wall hangings, and towers of crystal decorated the walls and shelves. It was minimal and earthy and made Truman feel like he was inside the trunk of a tree.

They sat on a brown velvet couch, and Agatha Tark lowered herself gracefully into the matching armchair across from them.

“I didn’t comprehend a single word you said before,” Tark said, “but I gather you are living in the house on Erskine Road?”

Truman nodded and geared up to try and explain about the house swap again.

“See, we have this mutual friend, Ramona, and she—”

“I don’t care at all,” Tark said. It was final and quelling, but it lacked any malice. She was simply stating a fact. “What I would like to know is how you know Julia Sundahl.”