Sure, I’d told Roger some of our Narragansett stories before, but never like I believed them. Never like I was sure there really was something out there waiting to get me. I’d always kept this cool facade going. I was in control. Maddy, the mistress of all she surveys. But for the last twenty-four hours, I’d been crumbling like an old wall whose mortar has worn out. If Roger laughed at me, or told me to grow up and get real, it would all come down, every last stone. I’d be totally exposed and all alone. And then what would I do? Maybe I would just run and keep running.

Roger reached out a long finger to tuck back a thick strand of damp hair that had come coiling down over my eye. It was the sort of thing my mother used to do. It was so kind and gentle that it made me raise my head to look at him. He didn’t say a word, but just nodded. Then he slid his arm down to put it around my shoulder. I let out a sob and just grabbed at him. I wrapped my own arms around his skinny waist, my good hand grabbing my other wrist. I held on to Roger like a shipwrecked sailor holds on to a floating timber.

I imagine that people who saw us standing there like that thought we were just a couple of exhibitionist kids who were making out in public. But we were two friends, real friends who could depend on each other. And as I hugged Roger, he seemed as solid and reliable as a tree.

Our Narragansett creation story says that Cautantowwit made the first people from stone, but then broke them up and put them back into the earth because they were hard-hearted and uncaring. Then Cautantowwit shaped a man and a woman from the ash tree, and when those first people stepped forth they were as connected to the earth and as graceful and giving as the beautiful trees. That was how I felt as I stood there holding on to Roger—safe and rooted as we swayed a little bit like two trees in the wind.

That moment didn’t last long. We both stepped back, just a little embarrassed, but glad that we’d had that moment.

We turned together and began to walk down Benefit Street.

I was the first to break the silence. “What do you think?” I said.

Roger stopped walking. “At first, everything that’s happening seemed like a bunch of unconnected things: the random phone calls, the words scratched into your door, and then, most serious of all, Bootsie getting injured. But now, after what just happened back there, together with your dream . . . if it really is the Whisperer, why now?”