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“Boy wouldn’t make a dent.” Grandma Josephine shook her head. “Not in that curse. It’s gotta be you, Red. You’re the crack. It’ll break for you.” She approached the wall, wincing as she got closer.

Olivia followed, frowning and worried. “It’s strong, isn’t it?”

Grandma Josephine nodded wordlessly. “Never felt anything close.”

“Don’t do it, Red.” The look Olivia gave me was the same one you’d use for the man on the ledge, poised to jump. “You break it open, and you’ll get the curse.”

I approached the wall. I could sense it too. Potential. Coiled. Waiting. The jaws of a mantrap. “This is going to be bad…” I turned away. “Perhaps we should…”

Perhaps we should what? Hunt for my sister in abandoned buildings? Ditches?

Grandma Josephine looked down, shaking her head slowly. “You don’t have to do this, child. But you and this girl of yours, you got business to settle. And I can’t see no other path.”

“Shit…sorry…I mean…”

“I ain’t so old I ain’t heard yoots cussing.” She nodded me toward Olivia. “Livia’s right though, you break it open, and that curse won’t have anywhere to go but you. It’s one of those choices that shape your future—often for the bad. No shame in turning away.”

“I’m a crack in the world.” An angry defiance bubbled inside me. “I guess that means I should be breaking things.” Had it been me, I wondered, who broke my mother’s mind? Just the pressure of being near me. And now Sophie had gone—cracked or driven off?

I readied the hammer, trying to keep my hands from trembling.

“Don’t!” Olivia pleaded.

Xavier, out of his depth, shook his head, telling me no.

Every child should believe they’re special…if only for a short time…I guessed that my moment had finally arrived.

I checked my position and struck a smart blow.

Sound tends to come at you from the outside. This one, the deep fracturing sound that normally means you’ve broken something very expensive, came from inside me, as if it had been my thigh bone. The hammer bounced back, leaving no mark at all, not even spoiling the paintwork. I didn’t hit it with all my strength, but even if the wall had been unadorned brick or concrete, I would have expected a small impression.

“If you’re going to do it, do it like you mean it.” Grandma Josephine mimed a big swing.

“I don’t—” But some things need to be finished once they’ve been started. Gritting my teeth, I drew back my arm and put what my mother would call “some welly” into it.

This time the sound was all my ribs shattering along with my teeth cracking open—all of it inside me—just the sound thankfully, not the pain, but even the sound hurt. The wall showed a single black crack, almost as if someone had come and drawn one on with a Sharpie, but at least it had acknowledged my effort.

I hit it again, and this time it was just like hitting an old wall with a hammer. The reverberation hurt my fingers a bit, even through the rubbery grip. Plaster dust and fragments flew. Several more blows and I was breaking through what looked like wattle and daub from some medieval hut, and there it was, a cavity with a book-shaped object wrapped in dusty leather, bound around with laces or string of some sort.

I’d half expected wraiths to rush out with freezing touch and banshee shrieks, but apart from that unshakable feeling of being somehow fractured and broken, despite my body seeming to work perfectly well, there was nothing.

I stepped back and invited someone else to take the book. “What?” I met their gaze. “I’m a crack in the world, apparently, not book-reader general.”

Olivia stepped up and took the book before the others could stop her or my teenage hormones could overcome common sense again. She shivered and brought it out as if she were holding a spider of similar size.

“Get it out of the leather then,” Xavier said.

“I don’t think it’s leather.” Olivia made to carry the book back toward the central area where Xavier kept his counter. “At least, not the normal sort.”

“Do it here,” I ordered without thinking, modifying it into a suggestion when Olivia turned and raised her eyebrows at me. “I think it should be here. Where Rose can see it.”

Olivia tilted her head and then sat on the floor, cross-legged. Grandma Josephine struggled down to floor level. Xavier and I joined them there.

“Something’s tattooed on it…” Olivia peered at the not-leather covering.

“Tattooed?” Xavier frowned, offering a small penknife he’d dug out of his pocket.

“Careful,” I warned. “Aren’t you worried about the curse?”