And that wasn’t the only thing. Approaching the house from this direction, I saw something I’d missed before. In the yard, under the shade of a huge maple tree, was a fairly discreet real estate sign. What was less discreet, however, was a giant foreclosure notice plastered diagonally across it.

I stopped. “Crap.”

“What?” Alona asked, but then she followed my gaze. “Oh.” She shrugged. “So? His van is here. He has to be here.”

Yes, but in what kind of state? Probably not one prone to helping us. He’d been gone from his family for five years—thanks to the ghost we were trying to shove back in his direction—and in that time they’d evidently lost their home.

I sighed. “Come on. Let’s go.”

We made our way toward the house, dodging neighbors and their small children alike.

Up close, the home had a distinctly abandoned look and feel to it. The grass was longer than it should have been. The windows didn’t have any blinds or curtains, creating the look of hopeless eyes gazing back at us. And through the windows, we could see dark squares on the walls where pictures or paintings had been. The rooms, at least the ones I could see, were empty—no furniture visible.

I took a side trip to the driveway to check out the van. It was definitely Edmund’s. Even if I hadn’t recognized its battered appearance, the box full of half-melted purple candles on the passenger seat was a dead giveaway. But he wasn’t in it.

“His?” Alona asked.

“Yeah.”

“Still want to walk up and ring the bell?” She rested her hands on her hips, as if this plan had sucked the whole time instead of just the last ten minutes.

“No,” I admitted. If Edmund was inside, he certainly wasn’t going to be running to answer the door, that was for sure. “You want to—”

I didn’t even have to finish before she’d turned on her heel and marched up the porch stairs to the front door and then through it.

Suddenly, with her absence, I felt more conspicuous hanging around this house that was not mine, like someone was going to start pointing and shouting at me. Which was ridiculous. From the perspective of the living residents here, I’d been alone the whole time. It was just, I guess, that I hadn’t felt it until now.

I ducked my head and tried to look like I belonged here, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling growing in my chest.

Was this going to be what it was like if/when Alona vanished for good? Me, lurking around places alone, feeling even more like a freak just for being by myself in this mess? What if we couldn’t find a way to get Erin out…or if Alona was right and she was no longer strong enough to keep the physical form of Ally going? Or, if she simply chose not to? In the end, it was Alona’s decision, in the best-case scenario. Would she really intentionally choose to live as someone else, knowing it would be forever and that the person she’d been before would be gone for good?

I could safely say the Alona I’d first met would have chosen disappearing over life as Lily—or even Ally—Turner, and I certainly hadn’t made the prospect of changing her mind any easier by being so hard on her changes to Lily’s appearance and the way she was handling her second chance at “life.”

I wanted her to stay, definitely. But when it came down to it, I didn’t want her to be miserable just because I would miss her if she were gone, because my life was better—although, okay, more complicated and sometimes more stressful, too—with her around.

No.I pushed those negative thoughts away. We couldn’t have come this far together for her to just…not be here anymore. We’d figure it out. We had to.

“Hey.”

I looked up to see Alona leaning out through the still-closed door, her hair hanging forward over her shoulders.

“It’s unlocked already. And you should probably get in here.” Her mouth was curved downward in distaste or worry, or maybe both.

Uh-oh.

Then she pulled back inside the house, leaving me no choice but to follow.

The house had that clean but closed-up smell that I associated with the first day of school after summer break. Floor wax and disuse, I guess.

I was standing in a small foyer, with what was probably the living room to my left—the spacing of dents in the whitish carpet indicating that a sofa and chairs had once lived there. A long, narrow hallway led to a kitchen, and an open stairway to the second floor was to my right.

“Up here,” Alona said from a landing midway up the steps. Her expression did not look any less grim than it had moments before, and I wanted to ask why, but that would have meant giving up any element of surprise, which I didn’t want to do yet. Getting through the door without a racket—the stupid real estate lockbox on the door had rattled with every movement—had been tough enough. If Edmund was still unaware that I was here, I wanted to keep it that way for at least a little while longer.

I followed Alona up the stairs as quietly as possible to an open area at the top that also looked like it had once held furniture. Three more empty rooms branched off from this space—probably bedrooms—but I didn’t have to go any farther to find Edmund…or smell him.

He was sitting on the floor, leaning against a small section of wall between two bedroom doors. The fumes pouring off him, and the whiskey bottle clutched in his hand, made my eyes water even from ten feet away. That explained Alona’s reaction, at least. She was probably experiencing flashbacks of her mom.

“Hey,” Edmund said with a goofy grin, lifting his bottle in greeting. “What are you doing here? It’s me, Ed.” Like I’d somehow managed to forget him in the last eight hours.

Alona rolled her eyes.

“I messed up, man,” he continued before I could respond. “I left because of Erin, and everything went to shit.” He waved the half-empty bottle around, the contents sloshing. “The neighbors said my mom got depressed, my dad lost his job, and now…they’re gone. Kicked out of their ownhouse.” He shook his head glumly. “No one knows where they went. And even if they did, they aren’t going to tell me, the crazy son who caused so much trouble and made everybody’s property values bottom out.”

I shook my head, not sure I’d gotten the gist of what he was saying through his muddled speech. What did property values have to do with anything?

I moved closer and knelt down next to him, breathing through my mouth and forcing myself to be patient, when all I really wanted to do was shake him. “It’s not your fault. You were doing what you had to do to survive, and I’m sure they’d understand that if they knew. And we can help you find them, eventually. But first I need you to tell me—”

“Nah, man, you don’t get it.” His head flopped from side to side in a poor imitation of voluntary movement. “I was there. I could have stopped it.”

Except that made no sense. The whole point was that he hadn’t been here, and that’s why everything had fallen apart. Evidently, he’d already gotten to the part of this drunken excursion where he’d lost his grip on reality. Wonderful.

Alona frowned and knelt next to me. “At the party? On the roof?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

“Ask him,” she insisted and nudged me hard in the ribs when I hesitated.

I glared at her, but repeated after her dutifully, “At the party? On the roof?”

Ed looked up, his gaze glassy, but it was, at least, direct eye contact for the first time in this conversation.

He leaned forward with a sudden intensity in his expression, and I edged back slightly in case that was his I’m-going-to-throw-up-right-here-and-now face. “No,” he whispered, like he was revealing some big secret.

I glanced over at Alona—it was my turn to roll my eyes at her—but she wasn’t paying attention to me. “Where were you?” she asked Ed.

With a sigh, I repeated the question aloud, not waiting for her to jab me with her elbow again. My ribs still ached from the last time.