“You want to live with yourself if you aren’t?” Before Jesse could answer, Mira saw people running out of the entrance. Wedding guests hurried away from the grounds as they searched for their cars, dragging their suitcases behind them. Mira watched as what became two or three couples became four, five, six. Soon it was a small crowd of them, all with the same panicked look. They tripped over themselves as they ran across the graveled lot.

“Something’s wrong,” Mira said. “Everyone’s leaving.”

This was enough to make Mira get out of the car. She ran to the entrance and along the path toward the house. The path went past the gardens, eventually coming to the side of the house where it split in two directions, one around the front and the other heading toward the slave cabins, the restaurant and bar, and the cottages. Mira stopped at the fork in the path, catching her breath.

“I don’t know where to go,” Mira told Jesse, but he wasn’t there. “Jesse?” she called, although it was pointless. She knew Jesse was back in his car, had probably roared the engine the moment she’d left, driving back home, escaping whatever fate awaited this place.

Farther up along the path a crowd of guests gathered and Mr. Tatum stood in their center. His eyes were wild, bloodshot. With a face reddened with fury, he clenched the stock of his rifle, sputtered, and shook his head as he listened to the clamor of the rest of the group. He’d gathered men from the town—laborers, it looked like from their clothes, men like him who existed on the fringes of the town. Dried mud caked the bottoms of their overalls and boots. A few wore straw hats to block out the sun. They held bottles of liquor, the froth dripping down their chins as they gulped down the drink and threw the bottles in the dirt. They huddled around each other, their stammering growing to interloping yells.

Mira did not want to go near these men. Their anger was palpable. She didn’t want to get closer, afraid of what they might do. Soon they all shifted their gaze on her. She froze in response. Her heart raced, fearing they would come for her. Backing away, someone grabbed her arm and she turned and saw Phillip.

“Oh god, Mira,” he said, and the smell of his hot, yeasty breath made her want to choke. He gripped her shoulders hard enough that she gave a yelp, but he couldn’t hear her; it was too loud. “Celine is out there. Oh god.”

Mira stared down at Phillip’s hands, speckled rust all along the palms. It didn’t register at first, it took her a few seconds, that the stains on his hands and on the front of his shirt were blood. “Celine is where?” she asked Phillip.