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She hurls herself down the stairs, her bathrobe billowing behind her. She knows what she’s thinking can’t be—but she wants so desperately for it to be true that it shuts down all logic within her.
Una bursts into the shop to see a figure sitting on a stool playing a guitar she had just prepared for a customer to pick up in the morning. Although she can’t see his face, she can see the way he holds himself that it’s not Wil.
“Who are you?” she demands, barely able to restrain her fury. It’s not Wil. “What are you doing in my shop?”
He stops playing, looks at her just for a moment, then gets up. She notices something off about his face before he turns away. He puts the guitar down on the counter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone here.”
“So you think you can just break in?”
“It wasn’t locked.”
Which is a lie—ever since Lev and the others came to stay with her a few days ago, she’s constantly checking that lock. Then on the counter beside the guitar, she sees the spare key. No one knew about that key. Even she had forgotten about it. So how did this intruder find it?
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Wait!”
Una knows she should let him go. She knows that if she reaches to pull this strand of hope, any number of things could unravel. Everything could unravel. But she has to know. “That song you were playing . . . where did you hear it?”
“I heard it played once by an Arápache boy,” he tells her, “and I remembered it.”
But she knows this, too, is a lie. Even those with the skill to play something after hearing it only once could never capture the nuances and the passion. That belonged to Wil alone, and yet . . .”
“Come a little closer.”
He’s hesitant, but does as she asks. Now, as he steps into the light, she realizes what the oddness about his face was. His entire face is covered in thick pancake makeup—like a vain old woman trying to hide her wrinkles.
“I have a skin condition,” he tells her.
His eyes are engaging. Persuasive. “Are you an AWOL? Because if you are, don’t look for sanctuary from me. You’ll have to find someone else to sponsor you.”
“I’m looking for some friends,” he tells her. “They mentioned this guitar shop.”
“What are their names?”
He pauses before he speaks. “I can’t tell you their names, or it would compromise their safety. But if you know them, then you know who I’m talking about. They’re AWOLs. Notorious AWOLs.”
So he’s come for Lev and Connor. Or maybe he’s there for Grace, to take her back to whatever life she was plucked from. His eyes speak of honesty, but so much about this visitor seems wrong. He could be working for the Juvenile Authority—or worse—a bounty hunter hoping to bring Connor and Lev in for a hefty reward. She decides not to telegraph her suspicion, though. Not until she has a better idea of his intentions.
“Well, if you can’t tell me their names, tell me yours.”
“Mac,” he says. “My name is Mac,” and he holds out his hand for her to shake.
It’s the feel of his hand that gives him away. The firmness and texture of his grip. Sense memory knows that hand before she’s even consciously aware of it. When she looks down at it, she almost gasps, but keeps it in. She turns the hand slightly in hers to notice a tiny scar on the third knuckle of the index finger—from when Wil cut himself as a boy. Now she has visual proof. She forces her breathing to stay calm and in control. She has yet to fully comprehend what this means, but she will.
Una releases his hand and turns away, for fear that something in her face might give her away. “I’ll tell you about your friends, Mac—under one condition,” she says.
“Yes, anything.”
She grabs the guitar from the counter and holds it out to him. “That you play for me again.”
He smiles, takes the guitar, and sits down on the stool. “My pleasure!”
He begins, and the song grabs the thread of hope that Una so foolishly tugged at and sails away with it, rending Una down to her very essence. The song is haunting. It is beautiful. It is Wil’s music alive but in someone else. She lets the strains of melody and harmony caress her. Then she comes up behind him, kabongs him over the head with a heavy guitar so forcefully that it breaks, and he falls unconscious on the floor.
She listens to make sure there is no stirring from upstairs. She must not wake the others. Satisfied that no one has heard, she heaves “Mac” onto her shoulders like a sack of flour. Although she’s a small woman, she’s strong from working the lathe, plane, and sander. It tests the limit of her strength and endurance, but she manages to move through the night streets and finally into the woods.
Una knows the woods well. Wil was at home there, and so she came to feel that way, as well. She carries him nearly a half mile through the forest with nothing to light her way but the moon, until she reaches the old sweat lodge—a place once used to begin the traditional vision quest for Arápache youth who were of age, before a more modern one was built.
