“How did you—”

“You’re stuck with me. Here. This is our place. This can be like our little date,” he suggests. “Think of it like that.”

My brain whirls, and everything goes black.

Chapter 47

Do you ever just kind of blank on things that, say, a normal person might remember? Like, for instance, huge chunks of time that seem to have just disappeared into the ether? I have had a few of them. When my mom left. When the-thing-that-cannot-be-said happened. The months that followed. All gone! Just UP! Out. Somewhere far away.

And that’s how I feel now, staring down at the never-used dining room. Except it’s being used now. It’s being used by me, who for some reason is wearing a fancy dress. A fancy dress that is not mine and is about two sizes too big.

And I have no memory of how I got here and how Mike is here and how these fancy plates are in front of us. White. With navy around it. With a gold-etched design and gold on the rims. I am staring down at the whole scene from above—like I’m no longer in my body.

“See. Now we get to be rich people.” Mike sits across from me, at the head of the table. “It’s not just professors anymore!”

The storm continues to rage outside, and in a flash of lightning I see others in the room. They’re dressed oddly.

Stiff collars and hats. Gloves on a lady in one corner. An elegant black felt hat, turned to the side, just so. But she is screaming, tortured screaming above the sound of the thunder.

Then silence, abrupt and final.

A crash of lightning and the screams turn into an unearthly screech, the sound of twisting metal, the scrape of steel on concrete.

“Do you not like this? See, I thought . . .” Mike sits back in his chair. Now taking a relaxed tone. “I thought you liked playing games. I thought you liked smiling that little smile of yours and breaking hearts and not taking names. Isn’t that the game, yes?”

And now a man stands behind him in a felt cap and jacket. He holds a hammer in his outstretched hand. The man is like the room, billowing. As if cast on some kind of sail. In and out. Here then there. Mike leans in, “You LOVE playing games with people. Do you love this game?”

I can’t understand what I’m seeing. Is this a dream? Everything seems more muddled than before, like I’m half in his dream, half in mine. Like I’m slipping in and out of time.

“Do you? Do you like this little game?”

I shake my head, barely.

I’m just trying to keep my eyes on the table. Just keep my eyes on the table, forget about the billowing room.

“Did you steal the frog?” I ask, out of nowhere. I don’t even know where it came from, but it just came out in a blurt and then I can’t remember if I actually said it.