Finn tried to move but discovered that she was frozen in place. The only muscle she could feel was her heart thumping against the wall of her chest, and the familiar feeling that had comforted her only moments before had taken on a wistfulness that made her want to cry. She searched the faces of her guests. Did the memory belong to one of them? If so, she saw no sign of it in their smiling faces.

One by one, the sounds of the party began to peel away until all that was left was the rhythm of Finn’s own breath. Then a voice cut through the silence. A woman’s voice. Humming a song she recognized.

A song about a bird.

No one else saw it when it happened, but Zadie did: Finn’s unfixed gaze, the subtle clenching of her jaw, the twitch in her right index finger. She’d seen her sister like this before, but not since she was a kid, back when she had less control over her gift. Zadie had to get to her sister before someone noticed and decided she was having a seizure.

“Excuse me,” she said to no one in particular as she squeezed through the crowd. Jostled strangers flashed her dirty looks as their lemonades sloshed over the lips of their plastic cups, but Zadie plowed ahead. Her progress was stalled, however, when she ran into the railing that separated the upper and lower levels of the deck. Zadie looked down and realized there was no way of getting down to the first level from where she was without climbing on someone’s shoulders.

She turned her attention back to Finn and saw her sway on her feet. But rather than fall, her sister pivoted sharply on her heels and broke into a sprint that sent her flying down the deck stairs and along the brick path that led to the rhododendron garden. While Kathy and the guests stared after her in stunned silence, Zadie wasted no time in squeezing back through the crowd toward the pavilion. When she came out the other side, she started running. It had been years since she’d last been to the zoological gardens with her mom and sister, but she still knew the place by heart. And she was pretty sure she knew where Finn was headed.

THREE TWELVE MONTHS

(UNTIL NORA WILDER’S DISAPPEARANCE)

“That’s because I have eyes in the back of my head.” Nora had her back turned to the girls, her hands submerged in soapy water, blindly feeling the bottom of the apron sink for forks like a diver searching for sunken treasure. Being careful not to move her head too much, she sneaked a peek at Finn’s skeptical reflection in the kitchen window. Her daughter was so cute when she was suspicious.

“You haven’t touched your potatoes,” Nora said without turning around.