I’m not sure how to describe my school back in Moony’s town. I never felt out of place there, but I also never felt like I fit in. “Small.”

“You won’t have that problem here,” Brittni says with a little too much enthusiasm as her phone begins vibrating and she rises to answer it. “Let me know when you’re ready to shop for school clothes. I know where all the best boutiques are.”

I watch her walk away and feel a pang of longing for my friends back home. I’ve been so wrapped up in all things Mary and the strange visitors I keep having that I haven’t even bothered to text and tell them I’ve moved. The fact that no one has called only reiterates what a good job I’ve done keeping our connection to a minimum. I wonder how long it will take them to notice my absence if I never tell them goodbye.

I will need to do better here. I will need someone else if Mary is all I have left in the world—a friend I can trust. It means letting someone in. I realize I’ve already let Daniel closer than any of my friends back home. I feel the warmth of him to my right and wonder when I decided he was the one.

After dinner there are peanut butter cookies, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate cream pie. By the time we are ready to leave, I am stuffed to the gills with carbs and can barely walk. Daniel is hugging his mawmaw Barb goodbye when she decides to walk us out. On the porch, she stops me and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“You’re a good girl, Cat. I can tell. You keep an eye on my Daniel now, you hear? That boy is cuter than a puppy with two tails and not half as smart.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mawmaw,” he fires back.

She rolls her eyes at him. “You keep him out of trouble, and you’ll have a place at my table any night of the week.”

“Will do,” I tell her, overcome by her sudden display of affection.

She shifts away from me, a strange look crossing her face. She makes the sign of the cross and looks to the street where a sudden breeze picks up. “Never alone, are you?” she says, not expecting a reply.

“Ma’am?”

She shudders visibly and slides her readers onto her nose. “You come back. You hear me, Cat?”

“Okay,” I agree.

“Daniel,” she barks into the night. “You bring this girl round again. She has need of me, like it or not.”

He takes my hand and begins pulling me down the steps. “You got it, Mawmaw.”

“And be careful,” she shouts behind us. “The spirits are restless tonight.”

XVIII.