Leaning toward it, I fall into a sneezing fit and almost tumble through the hole, down to the marble. I steady myself, head swimming.

The box is too heavy for me to carry. I take a breath, wondering if I can steel myself and manage anyway, like how moms stop cars barreling toward their children on TV. I peek down at the marble floor of her bathroom, and my nerves make a choice for me, shoving the magazine box straight through the opening.

It lands with a clattering banging BOOM that would wake the dead, and I scramble back down the ladder, knees wobbling.

The magazine box hasn’t cracked the marble, but the marble has cracked it open. Spilling out are blackened pages, bound together.

My vision fizzes out as I fall to my hands and knees and start crying.

Because I see it.

Two words on the cover page:

White Fox.

“You fucking did it, bitch,” I sob, clutching the script to my chest. Never in my life have I been more elated and frightened and buzzing full of these conflicting feelings, buzzing full enough to burst open wide, guts and heart pouring onto the filthy marble floor.

I win. I did it. I knew her. I found it.

The girl with the mark of luck does it again.

NONI

As soon as I arrive at the Limatra apartment, I take a searing-hot bath, hot enough to peel the skin right off me, turning the rest as satiny pink as a newborn’s. I do this sometimes—usually after I binge-watch Mama’s early movies for hours on end, after the banshee in my head starts to wail, See this fresh young thing? She’s dead; she’s gone; she’s dust. I dunk my head under the water, sweating and burning, and give myself permission to cry, since Tai isn’t around and doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

How could it even be possible Mama’s still alive? How could my instincts be so wrong? Does this mean I gave up on her?

No tears come, and no answers come, only that filthy feeling of guilt, which I try to wash clean with more dunks in the hellish soapy soup.

I can’t accept she might be alive, not intellectually. But the idea tunnels its way to the forefront of my thoughts anyway, leaking its toxic sweetness like the perfect drug.