Then she straightens and, blinking away mud, her sister’s handprint still upon her face, picks up the stockings. The forest is grave-quiet as she stands, and at first I want to run when she turns to me, but it’s the same as with Justin and Angela: she doesn’t see me. She walks through me, swiping a stray lock of hair behind her ear. I stare at the motionless body whose face I cannot see—so tiny, so vulnerable—tears welling in my eyes. But before they can spill over, something moves behind the trees. I wipe my eyes and strain to see a figure in the dark canopy of leaves, but I already know very well who it is. Trey.

He’s the one. Get him.

It wasn’t a boy who said that. It was a young woman. Lannie. She said it to Jack. She made him kill Trey, because of what he witnessed. Because he witnessed this.

Lannie did this.

I pull away from Vi’s hand and I’m shuddering. “Oh my God. It’s Lannie. Lannie is my relation? She’s the one in line to become Mistress of the Waters?”

Vi nods.

“She had Jack kill Trey … and then what?” I ask, but I already know. I hear the sound perfectly—sleesh … sleesh … sleesh—and the next words come to me right away. I did everything you asked of me. That was Jack.

I can see the whole scene so perfectly now. Jack, poor, gangly little Jack, whose pants never fit quite right and who never had any real friends, let alone girlfriends. Lannie was the first girl who’d taken any interest in him. He was easily her servant. I could see him, begging in the moonlight, begging the girl he worshipped for his life. Please don’t. I did everything you asked of me. “But you are not a real man,” Lannie spat at him. “You were going to tell everyone our secret. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut.” And she brought that ax down. She brought it down and killed him, too. I could see the blood coursing over his forehead, his eyes staring up through the tree branches, at the silver moon.

You become what you wanted most when you were alive. Of course. Now I know exactly why I was attracted to Jack. After being humiliated by women all his life, the one thing he wanted was to be adored by them.

“What happened to Lannie? She was caught?”

Vi strings up a pretend noose and makes like she’s hanging herself.

I think of the bruises on Lannie’s neck, of how I found her hanging from trees whenever we played hide-and-seek. All this time, it’s been Lannie. But does it even matter? Whether it’s Lannie or Jack, neither of them can become ruler. And I can’t destroy an entire kingdom over my mistakes. Vi’s right. We need to drag my body back to the Outfitters. We need it to be found.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When I reach for the body, Vi makes a move like she’s going to try to topple me again, but I jump back before she can touch me. “Relax. I’m helping you,” I explain. “Let’s pick it up, though. I’ll take the head.”

I slide my arms under it, trying not to look, but the feeling alone is enough to make me want to throw up. This cannot be happening. My hair is already brittle, and the whole back of my jacket is damp, yet pieces are crumbling off, either mud or dried blood. I steal a look at my face; my eyes are closed, but my mouth is slightly open, and I realize that I don’t look dead, merely asleep. I squeeze my eyes shut and hoist the body up to my waist, and Vi does the same. I wondered why, with all her strength, she was having such a hard time dragging my body, but now I know. I weigh a ton. My clothes are probably waterlogged and my hair must be harboring twenty pounds of mud. It smells like wet leaves. I choke and cough and bury my face in my shoulder so I don’t breathe in the smell as we begin to move toward the building. It’s hidden from view, and though I know it’s not far, after ten steps I feel light-headed. But Vi moves on, a determined look on her face, and so I keep going until the red cedar front of the Outfitters is visible among the trees. Vi must see it, too, because she picks up the pace and I struggle to keep up with her.

We break out of the woods, near the service entry to the building. I’m about to say that this looks like a good place to dump the body when a voice calls, “Stop!” I know who it is before I turn. Trey. At once he’s beside me. He doesn’t touch me, just stares at me long and hard. “What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I say, not making eye contact. “We’re leaving the body near the Outfitters. So it can be found.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s so furious that all he does is shake. Finally, he takes a breath and exhales slowly, and a Zenlike calm washes over him. “Kiandra. Didn’t we just … That’s a bad idea, and you know it.”

“Oh, and destroying your entire kingdom is a good idea?” I shoot back, putting the body down so roughly that my shirt gets caught on a branch and rips, exposing the strap of my lacy black bra. By the time I realize how stupid it is, I’ve already reached down and made myself more presentable. Like someone finding my dead body would think, Her bra is showing!

He sighs. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you the whole story,” he mutters, running his hands through his hair. “You’re stubborn.”

“Maybe you can, but I would never be able to live knowing my mistake caused pain for so many people. No way. Sorry,” I say, turning my back on him.

But I can feel his eyes staring through me. “I know what this is about,” he says. “Your momma. You think you got to go against everything she tells you, or else you’re afraid you’ll start forgiving her. Maybe she deserves to be forgiven.”

“Enough with worshipping my mom!” I shout, turning back to him. I want to strangle him. “It’s getting really old.”

He looks down at the ground. “About that … I spent a lot of time doing things I shouldn’t have. That’s why my shine is still strong. Your mom should’ve punished me but she let me go. She saved my hide. So call it pathetic if you will.” He shrugs. “I call it honor.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to call you that.”

He motions me to follow him, and at first I don’t want to leave the body, but I suppose off on this path, not twenty yards from civilization, is a good a place as any. It’s not as if we can parade the body into the front lobby. I rub my hands on my jeans and walk after him, first toward the river, then around, toward the picnic benches outside the Outfitters. It’s busy here. People I’ve never seen before are milling about with serious faces. Some are walking out through the woods. Everyone seems hyperalert. Is this for me?

Trey says to me, very softly, “I know your momma hurt you. If you want to stay mad at her, it’s up to you. You ain’t got to do nothing for her if you don’t want to.”

I’m about to say thank you, to explain that, really, I know I should forgive her, but that I just need time. It’s like spending a decade loving the color blue, only to suddenly realize my favorite color is red—it doesn’t seem real or right to change so soon. But then I notice that he’s staring at something between the trees, something away from the river, toward the road. I follow his gaze and, among the police cars, see a very familiar gray Honda Civic, and that’s when the world stops for me. The first thing I think of is how I spilled chocolate ice cream, speckled with rainbow-colored bits, on the front seat not two hours after he picked the car up from the dealer, and how he laughed and wiped it up and said, “Nice job, Sprinkles.”

My dad.

Trey hitches a thumb toward the man sitting behind the steering wheel, knuckles white. “You can’t undo this decision, Kiandra,” Trey says. “So even if you don’t want to think on your momma, you might want to think on him.”