I sat down in my chair and looked at the faces, searching for a name for any of them. I could recall none. It bothered me.

“Um, Rachel?” Nick said, peering down at the album.

“What?” Amanda? I silently asked the dark-haired girl. Was that your name?

Jenks’s wings flashed into motion, sending my hair to dance about my face. “Holy crap!” he exclaimed.

I looked down to the picture that had been under the one now in my hand and felt my face go white. It was the same day, since the background was of the bus. But this time, instead of being surrounded by preadolescent girls, my dad was next to a man who was a dead ringer for an older Trent Kalamack.

My breath wouldn’t come out. The two men were smiling, squinting against the sun. They had an arm companionably about each other’s shoulders and were clearly happy.

I exchanged frightened looks with Jenks. “Mom?” I finally managed. “Who is this?”

She came close, making a small sound of surprise. “Oh, I had forgotten I had that one. That’s the man who owned the camp. Your father and he were such good friends. It broke your dad’s heart when he died. And so tragically, too, not six years after his wife. I think that was part of the reason your dad lost the will to fight. They died only a week apart, you know.”

“No, I didn’t,” I whispered, staring down. It wasn’t Trent, but the resemblance was eerie. It had to be his father. My dad had known Trent’s father?

I put a hand to my stomach in a sudden thought. I had gone to camp with a rare blood disease and left every year feeling better. Trent dabbled in genetic research. His father might have done the same. My recovery had been called a miracle. Perhaps it had been outlawed, immoral, genetic manipulation. “God help me,” I breathed.

Three summers at camp. Months of not waking until almost sundown. The unexplained soreness in my hip. The nightmares I still occasionally woke from, of a cloying vapor.

How much? I wondered. What had Trent’s father taken from my dad in payment for the life of his daughter? Had he exchanged it for his own?

“Rachel?” Nick said. “Are you okay?”

“No.” I concentrated on breathing, staring at the picture. “Can I have this one, too, Mom?” I asked, hearing my voice as if it weren’t my own.

“Oh, I don’t want it,” she said, and I slipped it out, fingers trembling. “That’s why it was underneath. You know I can’t throw anything of your father’s away.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

Fifteen

I wedged one of my fuzzy pink slippers off and dismally scratched the back of my calf with my toe. It was after midnight, but the kitchen was bright, gleams of fluorescent light reflecting off my copper spell pots and hanging utensils. Standing at the stainless steel island, I ground the pestle into the mortar, pulping the wild geranium into a green paste. Jenks had found it in a vacant lot for me, trading one of his precious mushrooms for it. The pixy clan that worked the lot had gotten the better end of the deal, but I think Jenks felt sorry for them.