So: she wasn’t dying, she wasn’t paralyzed, she wasn’t even injured, at least not that she could see.

She remembered, then, the story her mom used to tell her, of a pregnant woman lying in a hospital bed and dreaming of another pregnant woman—Dea didn’t recall the details. It was some kind of fairy tale, but Dea didn’t remember whether it had a happy ending.

Thinking of her mother, she felt a rush of panic. All at once, the accident came back to her: the drive through the sluicing rain, the cop in his truck, the water spinning out from beneath her wheels . . .

The monsters.

She’d seen them. Here. In the real world. It was impossible. But she knew that she hadn’t been dreaming.

The hidden beeping grew more urgent, faster. Dea fumbled with the needles threaded under her skin. She needed to go home. She should have stayed home, like the cops had instructed her to do. Maybe—maybe—her mom had even come back by now. But the second she had the thought, she dismissed it. If her mom had reappeared, she’d be sitting next to Dea’s bed. She’d have brought a blanket from home, and Dea’s favorite slippers, and autumn leaves gathered from the yard and arranged neatly in a wreath; she’d have slung a sweatshirt over the big mirror hanging above the sink, or tried to dismount it from the wall.

She hadn’t been here, which meant: still missing.

She pried out one of the needles and felt a quick stab of pain. Blood beaded immediately on her hand, and she wiped it carelessly on the white sheet. Before she could go after the second needle, however, the door opened and a nurse came bustling in—bustling was the only way to describe it—looking so cheerfully and resolutely competent that Dea’s heart sank.

“Well, good morning, little lady.” The nurse crossed to the window and pulled aside the curtains. Dea blinked in the unexpected light. The sun was high and bright, the sky a radiant blue. She must have been out for a long time—a full day, maybe more. “Or good afternoon, I guess I should say. How’re you feeling?” She didn’t wait for Dea to reply, but instead took up her hand and quickly, with no wasted movements, blotted the blood from her hand with a cotton swab and replaced the IV, working the needle back and forth to get it into the vein. Dea had to look away. “Got to be careful to keep the fluids flowing. How’s the pain? Three? Four?” This while fiddling with the IV bag, adjusting doses, spinning dials with her thick fingers. “That better? Good, good. You hungry at all?”

There was an untouched tray next to Dea’s bed: chicken in a lumpy white sauce, some disintegrating peas and carrots, and a small carton of orange juice. Dea felt briefly disappointed there was no Jell-O. In movies, there always was. But she couldn’t have eaten anyway.

“No? Well, maybe in a little while.” The nurse had a square, friendly face that reminded Dea of a bulldog. Her name tag read Donna Sue, which seemed like a name she might have made up to keep her patients at ease while she was busy sticking needles in their arms and probing their asses. “You want me to turn on the TV for you?”

Dea shook her head. Donna was acting like she was going to be stuck there. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Hold.” Donna Sue stuck a thermometer under Dea’s tongue and counted to three, then withdrew it and checked the meter. “Temperature’s normal, that’s good.” She made a note on Dea’s chart, then looked up. Her eyes were watery blue, and her lashes so thick with mascara that little clumps of black were gathered under her eyes. “Little less than twenty-four hours. You were plain conked out. Lucky as stars, though, sweetheart. Not a broken bone in your body. No concussion either.”

“So . . .” Dea swallowed. “Can I go home soon?”

Donna Sue laughed, as if Dea had made a joke. She placed a hand on Dea’s foot as she moved back toward the door. “I’ll tell Dr. Chaudhary you’re awake,” she said. “She’ll be in to see you in just a few. Sit tight, okay, hon?” As if Dea could do anything else.

The nurse had left her chart near the sink. Dea was curious about what it said, but not sufficiently curious to try to maneuver out of bed still hooked to an IV. She considered disentangling herself from the needles and making a run for it. She knew that’s what her mom would have done. Get out of Dodge, slip through the cracks, blink and you’ll miss us. But she didn’t see where that would get her: her mom was still missing, the cops were probably tearing her house apart, and she had nowhere to go. She could hardly show up at Gollum’s and ask to be adopted. Maybe, if she was lucky, they could find her a place in their horse barn.

She felt a pulse of alarm when she remembered Toby. Would someone feed him? Was he okay?

She would speak to the doctor; she would explain that the crash was an accident, sign whatever needed to get signed, and get the hell out of there. Then she’d worry about what to do next.

She didn’t wait long. There was a soft knock, more warning than request. Before Dea could respond, the door swung open. Dr. Chaudhary was young, Indian, and a soap-opera-star kind of pretty. Dea was all too aware of the thin paper gown she was wearing; the bruises on her arms; the medicinal, foul taste in her mouth.

“Odea?” Dr. Chaudhary said, glancing at Dea’s chart. She spoke softly, pronouncing Odea’s name in a curious singsong. Maybe she hadn’t been raised in Indiana. Maybe she’d been raised in New York, or Bangladesh, or London. The idea gave Odea a curious lift of hope. Maybe she could help. “You gave us all quite a scare.”

Dr. Chaudhary sat in a chair next to Dea’s bed. Drawing the chart into her lap, she flipped forward to a blank page. “Why don’t you tell me what you remember?”

“About the accident?” Dea asked. Dr. Chaudhary nodded. Dea remembered those faceless men made of ribbons of wet and dark, and closed her eyes, thinking of Connor instead. But that hurt almost as much. “Not a lot,” she said finally. “It was raining. I must have lost control of the car.”

“Mmm-hmm.” The doctor nodded and scribbled something on the chart, as though Dea had made an interesting point.

“The nurse—”

“Donna.”

“Yeah. Donna said I’m doing okay.” Dea sat up a little straighter, trying not to look at the blood seeping through the tubes in her hand, feeling a little bit like an insect in a web. “She said I didn’t break anything.”

“You didn’t. You were very lucky.”

“She said that, too.” For the first time it occurred to Dea: she could have died. Was that what the monsters had intended? She dismissed the thought. She wouldn’t think about them. She couldn’t. Monsters weren’t real. They lived in dreams and fears and nightmare-places. “When can I go home?”

Dr. Chaudhary didn’t even look up. Dea couldn’t imagine that what she had said justified so many notes, and wished she knew what Dr. Chaudhary was writing about her. “Home,” she repeated. Finally the doctor did look up. Her eyes were the clear brown of maple syrup. “I’ve heard that your mother is having . . . difficulties. How does that make you feel?”

“Who told you that?” Dea said sharply, before realizing: the cops. Of course. Someone must have pulled her from the car, called 9-1-1, gotten her to the emergency room. Maybe it was the guy in the truck, or even Briggs. She didn’t like to think of people putting their hands on her when she was unconscious.

“Are you frightened, Odea?” It was becoming annoying, how Dr. Chaudhary didn’t answer her directly. “Are you feeling angry at the police? Are you angry about being here?”

“I’m not angry.” Dea wished she weren’t stuck in a bed; it made her feel small. Young. “Look, I just want to go home.”

“We can’t let you go until we’re sure you’re all right,” Dr. Chaudhary said gently. Dea knew she was trying to be nice but didn’t care.

“Nothing’s broken. I don’t have a fever. I’m fine. Just take my pulse or do whatever you need to do.” But even as she said the words, the anxiety, the worry, yawned big in her stomach. She realized that Dr. Chaudhary hadn’t examined her at all, hadn’t checked her head for bruises or flashed a light in her eyes or made her stick out her tongue and say ahhh.