I’m thinking of some of the experiences I’ve had, especially those in the Greatwood. I’m thinking of Joe and the crow girls and the gemmin, these lovely spirits of a place that collect stories and have the most amazing violet eyes. I’ve had all sorts of wonderful encounters with spirits and magic, but I don’t suppose this is the place to get into it. But I can’t entirely let it go, so I settle for:

“It can fill you with such joy and awe,” I tell Lizzie, “that it feels like you can’t possibly contain it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind a shot of some of that right about now,” Lizzie says.

“You’ve seen some of the worst,” Timony tells her. “When we get the chance, I’ll show you the best, as well. But first . . .”

“First, we have to figure a way out of here,” I say, “and let me tell you, I’m totally open to suggestions.”

“Well, it’s your world,” Lizzie says. “Can’t you just make it let us go?”

I shake my head.

“And there’s nothing I can do, either,” Timony says when he looks at her. “No matter where I push or prod, the way out is closed to me as well.”

I guess it’s because we’re so into our conversation that we don’t realize that we’re not alone anymore. We don’t know until a sweet child’s voice suddenly says:

“There they are.”

We look up to see Mattie pointing at us. Her giant bear is just a raggedy plush toy, held against her chest with her other arm. Beside her . . .

My heart goes still. I can’t breathe.

Beside her is Del.

Del and the priest I caught a glimpse of earlier. Dear old Father Cleary.

But it’s Del who grabs my gaze, and I can’t look away.

Raylene told me she cut him with a knife the night she ran away from home, cut him bad enough in the leg that he was still walking with the trace of a limp when she saw him years later. He was also a fat, alcoholic loser, living in a trailer park.

But that was her Del. The one that lives in the real world.

Mine’s from before, when all of Tyson County was still his playground and nobody’d dare give him a hard time. Tall and lean, that lick of hair hanging down on his forehead. Dark-eyed and mean, even when he’s smiling. Maybe especially when he’s smiling.

“You did good,” Del says, and he rubs the top of Mattie’s head, mussing up her hair.

She beams up at him.

All the guilt I was feeling, for what I did to her when I was a kid, for making her . . . it all just drains away. But it’s not replaced by anger. There’s only fear.