Mama! It was Mama there, dancing in the center of the circle.

But how? Why?

Olive’s mind scrambled for explanations and for an idea of what she was supposed to do next.

If only she had a cell phone, like every other fourteen-year-old kid on the planet, then she could sneak back behind the bar, call or text her dad and Aunt Riley, tell them she’d found her mom, to hurry up and come quick.

But she didn’t have a phone and she was stuck here, in this old bar and lounge at Dicky’s hotel.

Think, she told herself.

Olive thought about tracking a skittish deer when hunting, how you had to keep it in your sights and follow carefully until you had the perfect shot, until just the right moment.

Her one and only shot with Mama was trying to get her alone, to talk to her one-on-one.

“She speaks!” one of the men said, as if reading Olive’s mind.

“Hattie, speak to us!” a woman said. “Tell us your secrets. Tell us what it is we must know. Tell us what it is we must do.”

These people sounded ridiculous, hokey, but even though it sounded like something from a cartoon, they seemed serious, and it scared the hell out of Olive.

The group moved closer to the deer-headed woman (Mama!), encircling her, listening.

But Olive didn’t hear a thing, only the hum of the group, the sound of her mother’s feet shuffling across the floor in the fairy-tale slippers.

And a whisper. Just the faintest hint of a whisper.

She had to get closer.

The possibility of hearing her mother’s voice pulled on her like a superpowered magnet, luring her out of her hiding place.

Olive spotted a small, tattered red love seat just ahead of her and started to crawl for it, sure that the group was fixated on Mama in the mask. And the room was dark. She could move through the shadows.

“Guide us, Hattie,” a man said. “Show us the way.”

Olive scuttled forward on all fours, moving fast—too fast. Her right foot struck a ladder-back chair she hadn’t even seen in the dim space. It tipped backward, balanced for a second, and then crashed to the floor just behind her.

The humming stopped, the circle opened, everyone turned to look her way.

And there was Olive.

Caught on her hands and knees, like a large and foul bug in the center of the room. And she felt as vulnerable as an insect, something that could easily be squashed and put out of its misery.

“Who the hell is that?” asked the man with the mouse voice.

Her mother leaned forward, the eyes on the deer mask gleaming, flickering in the candlelight. The group circled her more tightly, protectively.