“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

“Why is that so strange?”

She shrugged, still grinning.

“It’s just—well, according to Christy, the two of you have been doing this dance for pretty much ever, but no one ever thought you guys would get your heads out of the sand long enough to realize how perfect you are for each other.”

I smiled. “So you approve?”

“Approve? What does what I think have to do with anything? But yeah. Since you’re asking. I totally approve. Jilly’s going to be the coolest sister-in-law.”

“I didn’t say we were getting married.”

“I know, I know. It’s just a figure of speech. Everything’s good. In fact, it’s great.”

“What’s great?” Lizzie asked as she and Timony came up to join us. “And where did Mother Crone go?”

“Who cares?” Christiana told her. “Geordie and Jilly are finally going to be a couple.”

Lizzie smiled.

“But speaking of Jilly,” Christiana went on. “Where is she? And what was all this crap about you dying and coming back?”

“It’s a long weird story.”

“And we’re in a hurry to go where?”

So we all sat in the shade of the petroglyphs and got caught up with each other’s stories. But the whole time I couldn’t stop worrying about Jilly. I knew—better than anyone, maybe, considering I was the one who’d died—just how powerful Del was. I wanted to be full of hope, but the longer Jilly was gone, the heavier my heart grew.

Joe

There was something solid underfoot—dirt, he thought, though he couldn’t see it. It just had that rough and uneven texture against the soles of his boots. And he could hear the sound of moving water. A river, maybe. Or waves lapping against a lake shore. There was an echo, so it was hard to tell what it actually was, or where it was coming from.

Everything else was mist. An oddly dry mist that was of no particular temperature, but it certainly wasn’t cool.

Joe didn’t know where he was, but he knew it couldn’t be good. The last thing he remembered was turning, but not quickly enough. That club of Minisino’s caught him on the back of the head and then . . . and then . . .

There was this.

Whatever this was.

Mist. Silence, except for the sound of that water. Nothing to smell. Nothing to see.