I shake my head. I’m not sure I want to, not anymore. Not now that they’ve found that body. It’s brought everything home: the summer of death, the summer Bella died. If I remember now, I’ll never be able to unsee it and I’ll never be able to sleep again.

“We came here that night. Once upon a time, two girls went into the woods and only one came out…”

I shake my head again. No. No, we didn’t. That’s not how I want the story to end.

“We came here that night and you have to remember.”

“No, I don’t.” It comes out as a shout. “Why? What’s the point now? It won’t bring you back, will it? You’re dead. You’re fucking dead, rotting in the ground. You’re not here. We’re not here. If I remember, it’ll…”

“It’ll what, Tess?”

“It’ll change how I see you,” I whisper.

The blood is back on her forehead. Mud on her top, leaves in her hair. If I remember, what will I see?

I hear a noise, something coming toward us through the woods, something big, crashing through the trees. Bella looks behind her then back at me, her eyes wide.

“You have to remember, Tess, but for now you have to run.”

I wake up with a gasp and I know it was a dream—I’m back in my bed at Dad’s house. But my legs are burning like I’ve been running and I’m sweating and in the dark there are shadows on the bedcovers that look like mud.

I get out of bed, my legs trembling. Lena’s asleep in the bed next to me. My door is open, but I remember closing it before I went to sleep. When I look, my feet are muddy and there’s blood on the bottom of one of them, a stinging cut that could have come from a sharp stone. Oh God, I’ve done it again, but this time I got out of the house, went sleepwalking through the woods, talking to my dead sister. Bella keeps telling me to wake up, but I can’t because I don’t know the difference between asleep and awake anymore. Am I awake now or still in the dream?

There are no other lights on. No sounds coming from any of the other rooms. There was something off in the dream I had, something off that nags in my memory. Lights. There were lights. Not in the woods—coming from behind us, from up at Dean House. A flickering light in the windows, like someone was in there with a flashlight. Did I dream all this? Did I?

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

There’s a strange car outside when I go downstairs next morning and Lena’s hovering outside the closed kitchen door.

“What’s going on?”