I turn the watch over, feeling the weight of the metal in my palm, gauging its worth, its value. It’s not particularly old, but it’s well made. Crafted by someone who knew what they were doing. I tilt the watch so I can see it more clearly in the moonlight. Lacelike designs are etched across the back, careful and delicate. But that’s not all. There are letters, too. A name. This was made for someone. A gift—a birthday present maybe.
It reads:For Max.
I drop the watch from my hand and it hits the floor with a bluntthud.
Shit, shit, shit.
My eyes cut over to the bed where Oliver has stirred, shifted onto his side, but he doesn’t wake. Doesn’t sit up and see me at the window—picking up something from the floor that doesn’t belong to me.
Something that doesn’t belong to him, either.
He didn’t find this watch in the woods.
It belonged to Max. The boy who is dead.
Lies sift along the floorboards like mice searching for a place to nest.
I touch Fin gently behind the ear, so I won’t startle him. His eyes open in one swift motion and I whisper, “Come on.” He rises and stretches on the rug before plodding after me to the stairs. His pawsmake softclip clip clipsounds down each step, and I cringe at the noise, hoping no one will wake.
In the living room, I pause beside the door and look to Suzy, one arm draped off the edge of the couch, her face pressed into a cushion, snoring. She won’t be waking anytime soon.
But looking at the soft slope of her nose, the gentle flutter of her russet eyelashes, I wonder suddenly if she knows more than she’s saying. If little secrets bounce along behind her eyelids. Was she there that night, when the storm blew over the lake and they gathered in the cemetery? Was she there with the others?
A hard wedge of mistrust slams through me.Two strangers in my house.And maybe I can’t trust either of them.
I don’t take a breath, I don’t swallow the feeling of dread expanding in my chest. I turn for the door and run out into the pale dawn light.
For the first time since the storm, for the first time in a very long time, I actually wish my mom were here. Someone I can trust, who can see things clearly.
But I know this is a stupid thought. Mom would never believe me, never believe all the things that have happened. She would look at me with numbness in her eyes. Indifference. She wouldn’t be able to make anything right.
So I sprint down to the lake, ducking through the trees—heading toward the only place that feels safe.
I veer up along the shore, deep inhales and ragged exhales burning my lungs, and I glance back over my shoulder to see if Oliver has woken and come to look for me. If Suzy is standing among the pines. But I’m still alone, crashing through the snow. Gasping for air. Legs burning.
The light changes around me—becomes pale and milky. Night transforming to day. Yet, the morning birds don’t wake and chatter from the limbs. It’s too cold. The world too silent. Or maybe they’re too afraid.A Walker girl stirs among the trees with fury in her eyes—safer to stay quiet. Safer to stay hidden.
Thin ribbons of smoke rise up from the chimney of the small cabin beside the boathouse, and a candle gleams from one of the windows. Mr. Perkins is awake.
I hurry up the shallow steps to the porch, my breathing still sandpaper. And I knock on the door.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I flash a look over my shoulder, but the lake is still silent, a few soft flakes swaying down from the sky, remnants of last night’s storm. Late to arrive.
There is no sound from the other side of the door, and my body begins to shake, the cold settling beneath my skin. And inside my coat pocket is the silver watch—I can feel it ticking, the tiniest of vibrations against my palm, becoming a part of my own heartbeat. I stole it. And when Oliver wakes… how long until he realizes it’s gone?
I knock again at the door, and this time I hear the shuffling steps of old Mr. Perkins inside. Making his way slowly across the creaking wood floor—too slowly. A moment later the door swings inward, and Floyd Perkins peers out at me with the keenness of a bird, sharp eyed and watchful. “Morning,” he says, blinking as a winter wind blows through the open doorway.
“Can I come in?” I ask. My voice sounds broken, worse than I expected it to.
The wrinkles around his eyes draw together and he grumbles—not out of irritation, but rather the stiffness of old joints as he pushes the door wide. “The wolf stays on the porch,” he says, giving Fin a quick glance. Mr. Perkins has always thought Fin was too much wolf and not enough dog.He’s a wild animal, he said to me once.I don’t trust anything that could kill me in my sleep.
Fin obeys and lowers himself down to the porch—he prefers to be outside in the cold anyway, instead of in the cramped oven of Mr. Perkins’s cabin.
I step through the doorway and the roaring wave of heat is almost unbearable, the scent of smoke filling my nostrils, beads of sweat already rising across my forehead.
“Awful early to be out in the cold,” Mr. Perkins says, ambling across the living room and settling into one of the old rocking chairs beside the fireplace. “Only those looking for trouble or trying to escape it are out this early.”
