Ahead, Kincaid passes under streetlights, taking the same route Bree described to me on the bus that morning. Down to the corner of Maple, a right onto Summer. We try to hurry without running or tipping him off to our footsteps. It’s like I’m cursed with it now, this need to know where he comes from, as if it will somehow be the key to everything: why he clouds the truth with urban legend, how he almost made me believe in the Mumbler the other night, just for a moment.

A rattle as he hops off in one of the dark places, moving through a side yard bordered by hedges. We keep low, hustling after him, boxwood raking our clothes. The hedges end, and Bree stops so suddenly that I run into her back. “Where is he?” she hisses.

Ahead, I can make out the shape of a garage, another backyard. I listen to the night sounds, cars passing down on Main Street, people probably heading home from the football game. “He’s hiding. Has to be.” Nobody could disappear that fast. Why would he hide? I could understand him jumping out from behind a tree, trying to scare us, pay us back for stalking him, but instead he’s trying to throw us off his scent.

I narrow my eyes, trying to pick him out from the shadows and shade trees, the same way his face appeared in the marsh woods that day. Search for the planes of cheekbones and forehead—the skull shape, and how appropriate, painted like he is tonight, not a woods elf but a headhunter, watching us from the bushes, features framed by long hair.

“Do you see him?” Bree asks.

There could be something there, in the brambles dividing the property lines. Too motionless to be human, too tall and bent, like an alder tree choked by vines. I think of the marsh, the shape on the opposite bank, the soft sway of something like hair among the branches. Think of my closet door. Open. Then closed.

“No.” I step back fast, catching her sleeve. “He’s gone. Let’s go.” Because all I want to do is get out of here, my skin cold and rigid, and I don’t want her falling even one step behind.

Bree isn’t one to be pulled, but she must’ve picked up on some of what I was feeling back there, because she doesn’t shake loose until we’re safely back on Summer.

Thirteen