“Dang, I was born at the wrong time.” He walks into the kitchen and opens the freezer. “Heh. If this ain’t one of them—what are they called? Refrigerators. We had one. Brand-new. My dad got it for my momma for her birthday.”

He turns the under-the-counter can opener on and steps backward in a hurry when it begins to whir. I help him shut it off. “That opens cans.”

“Angry little thing, ain’t it?” He shakes his head at it like it’s a naughty puppy and begins playing with some of the other appliances. I explain each one to him, and each time, he laughs and shakes his head. Then he turns to the microwave. “What’s this? This chew the food for you?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. His eyes fasten on the fake moose antlers over the fireplace. He whistles again. “Must’ve took ten men to bring that beast down, heh?”

I don’t want to tell him they’re fake. Based on the way he reacted to everything in the kitchen, he already knows the people of today are a bunch of wusses who can’t do anything for themselves. “Um, I guess.”

There’s a noise in the foyer, probably just the house settling, but it reminds me that Angela and Justin might come home at any minute, or Hugo might wake up. Trey has moved on to the bookcase. “Hey, I had that one, too. Journey to the Centre of the Earth. My momma bought it for me on my seventeenth birthday. Never finished it, though. Died before I could.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, it makes me gasp. “You can borrow it, if you want,” I say, since I doubt that any of us will be doing any real reading this weekend.

“Yeah?” He gets all excited, like I offered him a Porsche, and takes the book down from the shelf. He stares at it for a minute, and then gently puts it back. “I’d best not. Don’t want to muss it up.”

“Um, I’m afraid you can’t stay here. My friends will be back any minute,” I say.

“They can’t see me, kid.”

“Yeah, but I can. I can’t act normal if you’re around.”

He nods. “All right, all right. But knowing your momma wanted me to protect you, ain’t that enough for you to get yourself home?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know who to believe. Jack is telling me one thing. You’re telling me something else. All of it is so unbelievable. And I know I should be running in the other direction, but I can’t leave until I know. If my mother is here, I want to see her.”

He throws his hands up in frustration. I’m clearly getting on his nerves. “I told you. That ain’t possible. Across the river is her kingdom. She can’t abandon it. You can’t see her unless you cross the river. And you need to be dead for that. If you cross, you ain’t coming back. And you like your life, don’t you? You don’t want to leave it?”

“I do, but—”

“There’s another part to this story. Listen,” he says, his face turning to stone. “According to your momma, there’s a relation of yours from many years ago. This person would have inherited the title, but died very young, and has been living on the outskirts of your momma’s kingdom, in the shadows. The story is that ever since this person came here, they’ve been wanting to step in. They’ve been off in secret, developing these powers. This person’s been in this kingdom a long time, longer than your momma’s been ruling, and they’re awful strong. Stronger than your momma. Stronger than you, because not only was this person destined to rule, but they know more about your powers than anyone. And they’re angry. Real angry at your momma.”

I swallow. “I don’t understand. Who is this person? Jack?”

“Doesn’t matter. All it means is that you need to get.”

“Can’t my mother just come to the edge? Just so I can …” I trail off. This is so stupid. Asking to see my mother. My mother, who abandoned me. She’s dead. Gone. Even if I could see her, I shouldn’t want to.

“It doesn’t work like that, kid.”

I exhale. “Of course it doesn’t. Can you tell me something? When you die, do you stay here forever?”

“No. Everything fades. From the moment you were brought into the world, you were dying. How fast you do that is up to a lot of things. I’ve been here more years than I can count. But I guess it’s good to know that when things end, you can start again.”

I blink, fighting back the memory of my mother, sitting on the edge of my bed, telling me something so similar. Sometimes things end. And it’s comforting to be able to begin again.

He wags a finger at me. “But listen, girl. Stop getting ideas. If anything happens to you, your momma’ll skin me. Not alive, because that ain’t possible, but you get the picture. You’re all she ever talks about.”

“I—I am?” I sputter. I can’t believe that’s true. He must have me confused with someone else’s daughter. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. “I can’t leave. Not when I know my mother is over there.” I bite my lip, thinking of my mother. She left me; why wouldn’t I do the same to her? But the answer is immediate: I’m not like her. “I don’t abandon my family.”

Now he starts to pace around me, hands on hips. When he stops, his eyes burn into me. He’s angry. “If anyone could be the death of me, you’re it. You can’t do nothing about it, kid. Accept it. Just do what your momma said.”

I start to argue with him, but then I hear something. We both freeze at the sound of tires on gravel, coming nearer, up the driveway.

He reaches out and at first I think he’s going to poke me, but instead, he gently touches my cheek with his icy finger, leaving a line of tingles there. I wonder if it tingles that way because he’s not human or for another reason, but already I yearn to feel it again. I want to grab his hand and keep it there, but before I can, he says, “Go home.”

And then it’s like he was never there at all.

Chapter Sixteen

When Angela and Justin return, they look tired, not exhilarated, like I expect them to. They live for hiking and outdoors stuff, and yet Angela just collapses on the sofa without so much as a nod in my direction. Justin drops their backpacks on the foyer floor and studies me, an unfocused, confused look on his face. Finally, it’s like something switches on in his brain, because he says, “You feeling better?”

I’m standing in the kitchen, which is probably not something I should be doing if I just sprained my ankle. I start to limp over to him. “Well, uh—”

“You have your hiking boots on. Did you go outside?” He sounds suspicious, which catches me off guard. Justin is not the suspicious type.

“Yeah, I—I wanted to get some fresh air, so I just went out for a little bit,” I lie. “How was your hike?”

He kisses the top of my head. “Cool. Would have been more fun with you there, though.”

I smile at him. Of course he’s just saying that.

“I’m going to catch a shower at the Outfitters. Then we can go see that movie, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I say. A movie is the last thing on my mind, though. I can’t stop thinking of what Trey said. Someone is conspiring to overthrow the Mistress. My mother, the Mistress. This woman, the most important person of my childhood, who I adored beyond words, is only yards away. As incredible as that sounds, after all I’ve witnessed, I believe it. Inexplicably, I can almost feel her presence. It is what drew me to this place. Suddenly I realize why I haven’t been able to leave. Here, I’m enveloped by that clammy yet comforting feeling I used to get whenever she touched me. I belong here. I know now that my mother felt the same.

My mother. Even just thinking about her now, when I haven’t in so long, ties my stomach in knots. Trey said I’m all she ever talks about. And here, all this time, I’ve never talked about her. I pushed her out of my mind and off my tongue for so long, I can barely think the word without clenching my jaw. Mother.