A small doorway.
Hovering in the air.
Jude stops beside me and I can tell by the expression on his face he sees it, too.
“That little gremlin hopped right in there. That’s when I turned around and went to the well and found this seed.” I yank it from the pocket of my puffer vest, vaguely noting its warmth, but not until I open my hand do I realize what that warmth means.
A tiny gasp tumbles from my lips.
The seed is glowing again.
“Look,” I say—an unnecessary word.
Jude has already noticed.
He plucks the seed from my palm, examining it just like Twig did in the hospital alcove.
“Is anything happening?” I ask.
His eyes lift to mine.
“You don’t see anything?”
“I see a glowing seed.”
“No, I mean—” I stuff my hands into my pockets. “You’re not having any… visions?”
“Visions?”
I bite my lip.
“Selah, what are you talking about?”
“When I first touched it, I saw something. Or I guess, I experienced something.” I narrow my eyes at the rift, my gaze hardening. “It was my mom.”
Jude cocks his head.
“She was running through the woods. Something was chasing her.” It was me.Iwas chasing her. But for some reason, I can’t say this part out loud—me, chasing my mother away. Me, the monster who made her run. It stands in direct opposition to everything Dr. Penny told me all those years ago on her couch.
It wasn’t my fault.
That nightmare I had when I was eight—my inability to hold onto her, to save her from that ravenous blackhole—was no more my fault than Lainey’s supposed death was Twig’s. My mother leaving had nothing to do withmeat all. Dr. Penny had insisted upon it.
And yet, that vision would say otherwise.
I bury my hands deeper into my pockets. “She tripped and fell. She looked absolutely terrified. Then the vision ended.”
His brow furrows.
“Do you think it was real?”
Jude shakes his head, not ano, exactly. More of anI-don’t-know, because he is no wiser than me. “You never ran into any glowing seeds and gremlin-sized cryptids while researching for your podcast?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a topic we’ve covered.”
Not yet, anyway.
He gives me the seed back and stares at the rift,sparkling and new. “This must be how Lainey got out.”
