The old woman didn’t look scary anymore, like some cackling evil crone out of a B horror movie; she just looked small and confused and very, very elderly, half-blind, her toothless mouth caving in on itself. “I’m sorry,” Alice kept murmuring over and over. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” Charlie said. “It’s not your fault she’s lost her marbles.” She grabbed Alice’s hand, tugged. “Let’s get the hell out of here before she gets her teeth back in.”

“God,” Alice said when she and Charlie at last emerged on the other side of the park. “That poor woman. But kind of spooky, right?”

“Kind of spooky? Full on heebie-jeebieville, I’d say.”

“She must’ve been from the Meals on Wheels program that Camilla did volunteer work for.”

“See, that’s why I never do anything selfless. Bites you in the ass. With its gummy, old-person mouth.” Charlie shivered delicately. “Hey, did we park on this street or one over?”

“One over.”

A minute later, Charlie was chattering away, the traumatic event in the park all but forgotten. Alice, though, could still hear the sounds of the old woman’s weeping. Didn’t stop hearing them until she got into the Mercedes, crossed the Greeves Bridge, leaving town behind.

• • •

It was still early when the two girls returned to the beach house. Not wanting to end the night just yet, they climbed into Charlie’s bed, bringing her laptop with them. They’d been working their way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in Cambridge and were halfway through season three. They picked up where they left off, starting the next episode on Hulu. Charlie was out before the credits even rolled. Alice hit the pause button, moved the computer to the desk. Then she pulled the blanket up to Charlie’s chin and crept back to her own room.

As she lay on top of her bed, not daring to slip under the covers, waiting for the clock to strike midnight, she had trouble keeping her eyelids from closing. It was like tiny weights had been sewn into them. She’d been sleeping so little lately, sneaking out to join Tommy at the bonfire pit on the beach for the last couple of nights, staying with him until the sun came up. She’d get in a nap before breakfast—and nap was the word for it, losing consciousness for two hours, three at the most—and the lack of rest was beginning to catch up with her. Not that she cared if it did. No way was she going to stop meeting him for so boring a reason as clinical exhaustion. These clandestine encounters were better than any dream she could be having. Sometimes she thought they were a dream she was having.