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Sara is stock-still, breathing thinly between her teeth.
ASHFORD: I’ve been going through your testimony, Sara. I noticed what you said to Mel in the lighthouse. “Count the crows.” I think I may know what it means. What that pattern you keep tapping means.
SARA: Don’t.
ASHFORD: I want you to think about school, Sara. I want you to think about sitting on the back steps, the day the message arrived. I want you to think about what you saw.
SARA: I saw Vanessa.
ASHFORD: Before that.
SARA: Trees. And—
ASHFORD: Yes?
SARA: I don’t know. A crow.
ASHFORD: Yes. Try to fix that image in your mind, Sara. Now I want you to think about your dream. The dream you had of Miranda. What did you see in the sky?
SARA: Birds.
ASHFORD: Crows. How many of them?
SARA: Five.
Her fingertip taps out the number against the tabletop. Ashford nods encouragingly.
ASHFORD: Good. And then—
SARA: After the gate. After the dark. There was a crow screaming. And then—and then in the town. The crow that attacked that man.
ASHFORD: One and five and one. One and four and three. What were the four and the three, Sara?
SARA: There were so many, after the flood of dark. But—but then they flew away, and there were four left. And the crows flew up from the trees in the lake and there were too many to count, but then there were three on the gate, waiting. I’m sure. There were three on the gate.
Her knuckles rap three times, sharp and steady against the table, and she locks eyes with Ashford.
SARA: One and five and one. One and four and three. And two crows in the eaves of the house. And five crows when I ran to save Kyle. And two—and two crows—
ASHFORD: Where did you see two crows, Sara? Think. Remember. Please.
SARA: The gate before the beach. After Jeremy and Trina. I went down to the gate by the beach, and I sat down. The sun was setting. The light was red over the water. I remember thinking it looked nothing at all like blood. Jeremy’s blood was darker. It was thicker. And two crows landed on the gate. And then—and then—
Her fingertips twitch. Ashford slides a pen and paper toward her.
ASHFORD: One and five and one. One and four and three. Two and five and two. You can do it, Sara. You can remember.
She begins to write.
26
AND THEN I’Mnot alone. Someone is sitting with me, a presence more sensed than seen. I turn my head—just enough to make out her shape, shot through with the dying light like sun through murky water. I can count the bones of her hands.
“Hello, Sara,” Miranda says.
“You can’t be here,” I say. I can’t turn my head all the way to look at her; fear claws through the numb shell I’ve built around me. “You were lost. In the dark.”
“It wasn’t the dark,” she says. “It was the sunrise. It’s harder to exist in the light. I’m less real.”
