When her breathing was under control again, she listened for sounds of who was in the house. She heard a clatter and then sizzling from the kitchen. At least one person was here.

Leaving the bathroom, Eve followed the sounds to the kitchen. Aunt Nicki was at the stove, stirring hunks of meat in a skillet. She glanced at Eve and then shook pepper onto the meat.

“What’s today?” Eve asked. “Have I forgotten again?”

“Don’t know.” Aunt Nicki stirred more. “It’s the day you nearly gave Malcolm heart failure and broke Aidan’s heart all in one fell swoop. I’d call that a twofer. You really dove into the traditional teenage rebellion with flair.”

It was the same day. She hadn’t lost any new memories, at least not yet. Eve exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs. “I saw an agency car outside Zach’s house. Is he all right?”

Aunt Nicki twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Eve. “You actually care. Astonishing. This is not unlike discovering that one’s cat has an appreciation for fine art.”

“Did I endanger him?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What do I do?”

Aunt Nicki’s lips formed a perfect O. “You’re seriously asking me for relationship advice. Again.” She laid down her spoon and sat in the second chair, opposite of Eve. “Well, if you were an ordinary girl, I’d tell you to spend as much time with him as possible doing ordinary things. See if you like being together, or if you drive each other nuts. But since you’re not an ordinary girl …”

Eve waited.

“In your case, for his sake, you should stay the hell away from him.”

“Oh,” Eve said.

Above the refrigerator, the clock ticked loudly. The refrigerator hummed, and the food in the skillet hissed. In a gentler voice, Aunt Nicki said, “The agency is taking care of it.”

Eve felt her breath catch in her throat. Again, her ribs wouldn’t expand. She clasped her hands together hard. Aunt Nicki couldn’t mean … “Please don’t let the agency hurt him.”

“You don’t—”

“I kissed him.”

Aunt Nicki shrugged. “You kissed Aidan too.”

“But it was different. Zach and I floated in the air. And this morning, in the library reading room, we made the books fly. And at his house, we made it rain. And I didn’t black out. Not once. Until I was alone again.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she thought she sounded more like Zach than herself. Thinking about him in danger made her stomach clench.

Standing up fast, Aunt Nicki knocked her chair backward. “Stay here,” she ordered. She darted out of the room as she yanked her phone out of her pocket. Eve heard Aunt Nicki say, “Lou, it’s Gallo. It’s about the boy …” and then her voice was too soft and muffled to make out the words. On the stove, the meat began to burn.

Eve woke up the next morning and knew she had seen the antlered girl before.

She kicked the sheets away from her feet and stood in front of the birds in the wallpaper. The birds were silent and still. One had its wing extended as if it were about to take flight. Another had its beak tucked beneath its wing, as if trying to hide.

She’d seen the girl’s face somewhere other than in her vision.

Eve left her room and headed for the kitchen at a walk first, then at a run.

Aunt Nicki stood at the stove. She was stirring a glop of gray mush in a pot. Sniffing it, she wrinkled her nose. “Oatmeal is a terrible concept. Who cooked this, looked at it, and thought, ‘Yummy’? Much more realistic to look at it and think, ‘Great! This is perfect grout for my new bathroom.’” She looked up at Eve. “You’re not dressed. Did you forget how to dress? I am not picking out your underwear. And I don’t do socks.”

“I want to look at the photos,” Eve said.

Aunt Nicki’s expression changed instantly. “I’ll drive you.”

Eve tossed on clothes and shoved her feet into shoes while Aunt Nicki pitched the oatmeal and fetched her car keys. Eve then followed Aunt Nicki to a black car that was tucked around the side of the house. She strapped the seat belt on and closed her eyes. She tried to fix the image of the girl’s face in her mind: the curve of her cheeks, the freckles on her cheekbones, the shape of her nose. The girl had tousled brown curls that were striped with straw-blond strands. The deer antlers sprouted from between the curls. Each boasted six prongs covered in soft brown felt-like fuzz, except for the tips, which were bleached white.

Eve kept her eyes squeezed shut for the entire drive.

She heard the driver-side window roll down, Aunt Nicki talk to the guard, and the agency garage door rattle up. Eve was rocked backward as Aunt Nicki zoomed into the garage, and then forward as she shot into a parking spot and slammed on the brakes. Still, Eve didn’t open her eyes until she heard her car door open.

Malcolm was standing there.

He didn’t speak.

Eve strode through the parking lot. Malcolm and Aunt Nicki fell in behind her. Aunt Nicki used her ID card on the door, and Eve headed directly to the elevator. Inside, as the tinny music crooned and crackled, Eve covered her ears to block the noise.

“Shut it off,” Malcolm growled to Aunt Nicki.

“The beauty of elevator music: no off switch,” Aunt Nicki said.

Malcolm thumped the speaker with his fist but it had no effect. Six prongs, Eve thought. Brown eyes. Soft brown. Like leaves in winter. The elevator lurched to a stop at the third floor. The door slid open.

Eve walked out into the hallway and then into the reception lobby. Malcolm held up his hand to forestall any words by the receptionist. “Close your eyes,” Malcolm told Eve. “I will guide you.”

She obeyed and let Malcolm and Aunt Nicki guide her through the halls. Other marshals called out greetings. Grimly silent, neither Malcolm nor Aunt Nicki replied.

Eve heard a door shut, and the sounds of the agency were cut off.

She lowered her hands from her ears and opened her eyes. Malcolm was standing before her. He thrust the tablet at her. His hands were shaking, she noticed. Hers shook too as she accepted the tablet. She sank into one of the leather chairs and stared at her glossy reflection in the smooth surface.

For an instant, she couldn’t remember how to activate it. She swiped her finger over the surface, but it stayed dark and blank. She tried pressing the button. The screen blossomed to life, and a face appeared. Looking out at her, the face filled the screen: a boy with black eyes and skunk-colored hair. She scrolled to the next face. And then the next.

A boy with pale skin.

A girl with piercings.

A yellow-eyed boy with gills in his neck.

A boy with blotches on his face, or tattoos—elaborate tattoos on his forehead and chin in swirls so dense they blurred into blotches—who stared straight out of the tablet.

No, she thought. Not you. Or you. She wondered if she was wrong. Not you. No, no. She could have imagined it. Or maybe seeing the photo had influenced her visions. No. No. Maybe her memories were warped or faulty. Not you. Maybe …

There.

There she was. The girl with the antlers. She smiled out at Eve with her crooked teeth and her round cheeks with freckles and her six-prong antlers and her brown curls with strands of blond. “Yes,” Eve said out loud.

Malcolm sank into his chair. “Tell me about her.”

Eve pictured the antlered girl in her vision. She’d reached out her hand for the flowers … Eve shook her head. She didn’t know the girl’s name or where she was from or why she was there or why she was in Eve’s mind …

But Eve knew one thing.

“She’s dead,” Eve said.

Several doctors scurried in, took Eve’s temperature, took her blood pressure, and took a blood sample. Aunt Nicki fielded phone calls. Malcolm typed furiously on his computer. Other marshals shuttled papers in and out of the office. A bulletin board was pulled into the office, and a photo of the antlered girl was pinned to it, along with a collection of numbers.