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I flip over the card, and Maeve’s tree—no, a crab apple tree with carved names similar to the one here—is pictured on the front. The only legible word on the postcard tree isHope.
“Not exactly a subtle message.” I raise an eyebrow, and Maeve arranges her face in a picture of innocence.
“I didn’t tell her a word. I guess it was a mother’s instinct.”
For the thousandth time, I check my phone. A no-service signal glares back at me from the top right.
Maeve glances out the window. The sun has lifted above the horizon, burned away the last of the mist. “Hope isn’t coming back. I thought she might too.”
“Do you know where she could be?”
Maeve shakes her head.
“Why didn’t you summon ... whatever you call it ... Brandon for Hope? You broke her heart.”
Maeve dims. “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t summon someone. They have to want to come.”
“Couldn’t you—”
“Lie? Fake it?” Icarus taps against the kitchen window, and Maeve opens it. “No, Will, that’s not what I do.”
The bluebird swoops around the kitchen, weaving through a pair of butterflies. I duck out of his way—and God, I hate birds.
“I—you’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. But ... she was heartbroken.” The heartbreak streaked across her expression is branded into my memory.
“She was. She is.” Maeve reaches into the drawer and hands me Hope’s locket. “When you find Hope, can you give this back to her? It didn’t do what she’d hoped it would do, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
I take the locket from Maeve. Up close in the light, the diamond is colorless and clear and worth far more than my mother’s ring. “You’re not keeping it?”
“For what?” Maeve shakes her head. Her fingers are conspicuously ringless. “The necklace belongs to Hope. She gave it to me because she thought it might call forth Brandon’s energy. Now that I’m sure it won’t, I don’t need it.”
“You have Ashley’s ring. And my mother’s.”
“Ashley asked me to find someone to give the ring to, someone who could use it for luck. I’ll do that for her. And your mother—well, you’ll have to ask her. Now go. Get coffee you won’t pretend to drink—Hope probably needs one too. And tell your brother I said hello. I’ve been worried about him.”
“My brother?”
Maeve cocks her head. “He didn’t tell you he’d been staying with me?”
Fatigue has only made me hallucinate once before—I’d been driving eighteen hours straight and started seeing winged specters on the side of the road. I’d blink, and they’d clear, only to return moments later at the next mile marker.
Three blinks later, this hallucination hasn’t cleared. She’s perfectly crafted—a hallucination in high-def.
I blink again, and the woman barreling toward the Friendly Bean’s front door, phone pressed to her ear, looks up just in time to avoid a collision with me.
“Will,” she says, coming to a stop. “I was just calling you.”
I hold up the two coffees in my hand. “I couldn’t answer.”
“I see that.” Hope licks her lips, and it’s the absolute wrong time to notice the rosebud set of her mouth. “I was calling because ... I need to talk to you about last night. I’m sorry I walked away from you like that. I—”
“I get it. I’m sorry I didn’t come after you. I should have—wait, are we saying ‘I’m sorry’ now?”
“I think we are. I think we—” She takes a step toward me and goes still. Her gaze lifts and snags on something behind me. I follow the direction of her gaze and see a few dozen sets of eyes trained on us.
On us in our clothes from last night. Hope has a leaf trapped in her ponytail—again. The reflection in the Friendly Bean’s storefront window reveals a smudge of ash on my cheek. My clothes have the telltale creases of a night spent on a porch swing.
I reach up and take the leaf from her hair. “I guess you’ve been up all night too?”
