If he wasn't careful, he might end up falling for her wounded puppy act. Then he'd be stuck in Barrows Bay forever, living at his mother's beck and call just like Norma. Like he almost did when as a teenager, when guilt over her condition nearly prevented him from leaving Stratford for the MFA program at NYU.

Even though he had nothing to feel guilty about.

Ruby tried to kill herself. Slit her wrist with a pair of scissors and held it out for him to see. As if to say, You did this, Martin. You killed me. He remembered the blood—so much blood. Gleaming bright red under the bare lightbulb, oozing through her fingers and spattering on the—concrete—floor.

Only five years old at the time. Much too young to shoulder any of the blame.

Nadine was wrong. He had lived under his mother's shadow. His whole damned life he'd cowered there. His childhood fear of her—along with whoever had tried to burn him and Norma alive in their own home—had twisted into a career writing about real-life monsters.

Let Nadine run if she wanted to. He'd be damned if he was going to spend the rest of his life cowering in fear.

No more, he thought. Not this time.

First thing tomorrow, he was going back to the city.

Norma woke to hushed voices, sibilant in the dark, prickling the hairs on the back of her neck.

She drew the covers up to her chin, fear crawling in her belly, and the voices stopped abruptly, as if they'd merely followed her out of sleep. Just the remnants of a bad dream. She sighed.

Or They know I'm awake, she thought. The fear redoubled, her heartbeat quickening, worrying her. The blood thinners she took should prevent an incident, but it was best to try and keep herself calm.

Easier said than done, Missy.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd woken to voices in the night. Long enough ago that she assumed they must've been a figment of her imagination, a recurring nightmare confused with waking memories. Was it possible they'd been with her all along, waiting for the right time to let themselves be heard again?

Gosh, how long has it been?

You know exactly how long. And you know why they've come back.

She did. But this thought hadn't seemed like her own. She loved Marty. She'd missed him and wished he would have visited sooner. She also understood why he hadn't. This town was full of bad memories for him. For the both of them. But the Bad Times were in the past. Long ago and far away.

Are they, Love?

Do you think so, Dear?

Not her thoughts. Other voices. Women's voices. Toneless and unrecognizable, yet somehow coming from inside her own head, like listening to the radio, half-tuned to multiple stations at once. Or like those old party-line phones, the kind they had on the island before they modernized with satellite signals and internet tubes. Where you could hear snippets of other conversations while trying to have your own.