I read every single page of White Fox. Every page of the three parts in my hands. I try to dial Noni, I do, but I can’t resist what’s in those pages. When I finish, I manage one solitary mind-muddling half hour of unrestrained sobbing on the cold green marble floor before running down the drive to the edge of the woods for a single bar of cell service and desperately calling my sister, who—shocker—doesn’t answer. I feel weird spilling the exact nature of the news to a voice mail box, so eventually I just beg her to call me. And then, of course, I call Saxim.

When my childhood best friend hears that I’ve discovered three parts of White Fox, she tells me to give her ten minutes to persuade her mother to let her borrow the car on a school night—otherwise, she’ll hitchhike. This from a person who bites her nails to the quick watching characters break rules in movies.

“Bless you,” I whisper, my voice still tear-cracked and oddly Maggie Smith–ish, and I hang up and walk along the woods back to the house, remembering, in this pungent flash, the jag of fear in Saxim’s beautiful moon eyes when I tried to drag her into its depths to play a “spooky” version of the Miraculous Adventures of Basil & Monty. Stökéwood is so much quieter now, its true nature hidden under overgrown roots and a crust of moss. Lost to the forest of delirium, forgotten by most of those around it.

But not forgotten by Mama and me.

Vibrating with adrenaline, I change into Dad’s Mickey Mouse T-shirt and drop to the floor in his sickroom, clutching the script. I shiver with a cup of dirty-tasting tea, ruminating over its contents. I don’t know what to make of the script; it was too much, so much.

And I’m also afraid. Afraid I’ll start to dig into every single dark detail, only to discover that White Fox is another empty magazine box, telling me she didn’t love me—didn’t care as much as I think she did. I already know, from a single read, that it contains many baited traps.

I turn up that 1970s playlist on my phone until it’s loud enough to burst eardrums.

“I promise to take care of your family,” interrupts the robo-nurse from her perch in the corner, in her honeyed, calm voice, and I almost leap out of my skin.

Her name, she reminds me—blinking her long-ass lash pixels—is Mina.

“Don’t forget the retrospective tomorrow night, Thaïs,” she says, her eyes curving into cheerful n’s. “It should be a marvelous night.”

I choke on my tea, spluttering and splashing it on Mickey’s red hotpants. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, my dear,” she says, electronic eyebrows drooping at the ends with concern. “Do drink more slowly.”