“Your Dad’s intern. Don’t you remember? He tucked us in, sometimes, and he would read me stories off his laptop until I fell asleep.”

“The intern?” I ask, remembering a gangly boy who was always around the family, another person who faded in the shadows of my memory. “He worked for Teddy or Dad?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he came from the institute. He was probably hired by your parents to watch us. They were busy, but they always made sure there were people to take care of you,” she says, a faint smile on her face. She takes a deep breath. I take one, too. The country air is mushroomy and sweet, with this grossly appealing hint of mold and decay beneath it. We stare into the dark for what feels like several minutes of calm, before she asks about the past couple of days, and I tell her everything about the strangers that Noni and I met: Daria, Yuki, and Mrs. Arakit. The most difficult parts are what we’ve learned about Mama: Lady Fleischman, impossible to trace, a ghost online.

“I feel helpless,” I admit into the dark. “And I’m too much of a coward to go back to the Arakit house. I don’t want to see … him. I can’t. But there are no other clues left. Because … the last piece of White Fox … I know who it’s about, but there’s nothing I can do with it.” Tears melt across my lashes, before I can help even that. I grind my fists into the sockets, smudging fading eyeliner onto my knuckles.

“What?” Saxim’s fingers pause as they glide over my hair. “What do you mean?”

I lead her back to the house, so I can read it to her again. Peel back the scab, and reveal the wretched, jammy truth. We pass the dead fountain, its spearfish a spooky figment in the dark.

I can’t stop shivering. This day has shaken loose something toxic and sharp-edged in my mind, and I feel it rattling around my skull, checking for vulnerable, fleshy spots. I could stuff a million Hermès scarves into those tender corners and still fail to protect them.

PART THREE

INT. GRAND OLD HOME — NIGHT

White Fox, bare-faced, clothed in a clean dress, and seated in a small room, watching Client 2 finish his coffee. There is tapping at the window, and the chattering continues, but White Fox cannot see the source. She is uneasy.

WHITE FOX

What is that infernal noise coming from outside?

CLIENT 2

What do you mean?

White Fox crosses her arms. The noise stops.

WHITE FOX

Never mind. Well. The next person I found was the man on the moon. He might be familiar to you.

CLIENT 2

Excuse me?

EXT. FOREST — NIGHT

White Fox wanders with her white hair long and loose.

She sees, in the distance, something that looks like a palace.

WHITE FOX (V.O.)