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Maren doesn't. She isn't looking at the photograph anymore.
The woman in it is looking at us.
Her chin lifts. Her mouth opens, slow, around a word I've watched her say before.
Run.
Behind the table, the window over the sink has gone black against the gray morning, and it's showing me the room.
Maren in the doorway. Me at her shoulder. Sid on the counter with every hair on end.
I count three of us in this kitchen.
There are four in the glass.
14
MAREN
EIGHT DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN
My hairbrush is pointing at me.
So is the lipstick. So is one earring, and my spare keys, and a grocery receipt with my own handwriting on it. Every object in the ring on my kitchen table is turned to face the middle, evenly spaced, like someone measured it.
someone came into my house and measured.
Gage's arm comes across my chest and moves me back a step. I let him, which tells me exactly how bad this is.
"Don't touch anything."
"Wasn't planning on it."
The window over the sink has gone black against a gray morning. It's showing me the room. Me in the doorway. Him at my shoulder. Sid on the counter with every hair standing up.
And behind us, tall and thin and perfectly still, a fourth shape.
I turn around.
Coat hooks. Back door. A wall calendar still showing September because I'm a functional adult.
I look at the glass again.
Three of us.
"That's new," I say, and my voice comes out wrong.
Sid's ears go flat. Do not look for her.
"Excuse me?"
She isn't the one you should be...
He stops.
Not a pause. A stop, hard, like a door closing on a sentence. His whole body locks. He sits down very fast and stares at the wall.
"Sid."
