Calla

The first thing I see when I wake up is Mack being eaten by the Fremont Troll.

She has wedged herself beneath one enormous concrete hand, her face twisted into theatrical terror, one arm reaching toward the camera as if whoever took the picture might still save her. A family of four stands behind her waiting for their turn. The youngest child looks deeply concerned.

Two messages sit beneath the photograph.

MACK: Ran into your boyfriend.

MACK: He says the distance is becoming unbearable.

I smile into my pillow.

ME: Tell him it was never going to work. He has the emotional availability of a rock.

The three dots appear immediately.

MACK: Wow.

MACK: He opened himself up to you and this is how you treat him.

Another picture arrives, this one an extreme close-up of the Troll's eye with Mack's lips pressed to its cheek.

MACK: Don't worry. I'm helping him heal.

ME: I hope you both find happiness.

MACK: We already have.

I am still laughing when a crow lands on the roof outside my open window.

The sound leaves me all at once.

Another crow.

It walks along the gutter with slow, deliberate steps. Its claws scrape metal. When it reaches the corner, it tips

its head and peers into my room.

Just a crow. It tilts his head and stares at me.

“Hello,” I say to it. Its eyes are glossy. I get goosebumps on my arms. It flies away.

I push myself upright and close the window.

Downstairs, Finn is standing at the kitchen counter in yesterday’s clothes, watching coffee drip into the pot as if it has personally offended him.

“Morning,” I say.

He looks over his shoulder too fast.

“Jesus, Cal. You walk like a cat burglar.”

“You hear like an old man.”

He turns back to the coffee. There are faint shadows beneath his eyes, and his hair is flattened on one side.

He slept, then. Just not well.

I reach around him for a mug.

“Did you tell me crows remember faces?”

“Yes.”

“And they can tell other crows about people?”

“Sort of.” He pours his coffee. “If they decide someone is dangerous, they warn the others. Then all their little crow friends hate you too.”

“Only if they hate someone?”

Finn glances at me. “Where is this going?”

“I was wondering if Edgar or Wollsy could have told other crows about us.”

“Other crows where?”

“Anywhere.”

He stares at me.

“What? You just said they communicate.”

“Edgar and Wollsy are crows, Calla. They don’t have a nationwide intelligence network.”

“You don’t know that.” I pour my coffee. “There seem to be more crows here than usual. And one of them must’ve left an identical Rainier cap on my windowsill. That’s too much of a coincidence. Maybe it was their way of telling me they know Edgar and Wollsy.”

Finn stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“I doubt your peanuts were that good, Calla.”

He takes his coffee and leaves the kitchen.

I take a picture of Cheeto asleep in the fruit bowl, orange fur spilling over the edge between three apples and an elderly banana. I send it to Mack.

MACK: Please tell my son I love him.

ME: Your son ate a moth in the funeral-home hallway yesterday.

MACK: He's expressing himself.

Then, after a moment:

MACK: How's Finn?

I glance through the doorway. He is sitting on the bottom stair with his phone in one hand and his coffee balanced on his knee. Whatever he is reading eases something in his face. The corner of his mouth lifts.

Then he sees me watching him and turns the phone facedown.

ME: Weird.

MACK: Finn's baseline is weird.

ME: Slightly weirder than baseline.

MACK: He's probably tired.

ME: He looks it.

Finn stands and slips his phone into his pocket.

“Who are you talking to?” I ask.

“No one.”

He bumps his shoulder into mine as he passes, hard enough to make me slosh coffee over my thumb. It is a thoroughly normal Finn thing to do.

The rain holds off through the morning, although the clouds remain low enough to snag on the treetops.

I am upstairs changing the battery in my camera when I see Dare cross the lawn below my window.

He is wearing one of Dad's old jackets over a dark shirt, and his hands are tucked into the pockets. He walks without hesitation toward the trail leading down to the cove.

For someone who doesn't know where he is, he seems remarkably confident about going there alone.

I watch until the trees swallow him.

Then I pick up my camera and go after him.

Not because I am following him.

Because he nearly drowned on that beach three nights ago, he still doesn't remember his last name, and someone should make sure he doesn't wander into the ocean and do it again.

The fact that he is ridiculously handsome has nothing to do with it.

I find him standing near the bottom of the cliff path, looking out over the water. Wind moves through his hair, pushing it back from his face. Against the pale sky, his profile is all clean lines and shadow.

I lift my camera before I decide to.

“Do you always follow your guests?” he asks.

I lower it.

He hasn't turned around.

“Only the unidentified ones.”

“Reassuring.”

“You don't know where you're going.”

Now he looks at me. “You don't know where I'm going, either."

I step around him and continue toward the beach.

“Temporary navigational error.”

His laugh follows me down.

The tide is low, leaving a broad stretch of wet sand between the rocks and the water. Dare walks beside me without speaking for a while. He watches the waves with the same concentration he gives everything, as though the ocean might offer an answer if he studies it long enough.

“Does any of this feel familiar?” I ask.

“The ocean does.”

“This ocean?”

“I don't know.” He glances at me. “I realize that's becoming an unsatisfying answer.”

“It was unsatisfying the first twelve times.”

He nudges a piece of driftwood with the toe of his borrowed shoe. “The tide is still going out.”

“Yes.”

“It turns in less than an hour.”

I look at the water and then at him. “How do you know that?”

He studies the line of kelp left on the sand. “I don't know.”

“Thirteen.”

“My apologies.”

We walk around a cluster of black rocks polished by the tide. I step onto one without looking. Dare catches my elbow before my foot lands.

“That one's slick.”

I look down. A thin sheen of algae covers the surface.

“You remember algae?”

“A breakthrough.”

“We'll alert the authorities.”

His hand remains around my arm for a second longer than necessary. Then he releases me.

We continue along the firmer sand.

“You all pay very close attention to your mother,” he says.

The observation catches me off guard. “What does that mean?”

“It's just something I've noticed.”

“She has bipolar disorder.”

Dare looks at me. “All right.”

I wait for the questions that usually follow. Which kind? How bad? Has she ever been hospitalized? Is she dangerous?

He asks none of them.

“Her diagnosis has changed over the years,” I continue. “Different doctors have called it different things. Bipolar disorder is the only part everyone agrees on.”

“That must be difficult.”

“For her. Yes.”

“I meant for all of you.”

I shift my camera strap higher on my shoulder. “She takes medication. She sees her doctor. She knows what to watch for, and so do we.”

“What do you watch for?”

“She stops sleeping first. Usually. She'll paint all night. Talk faster. Start ten things at once because she's convinced she can finish all of them.”

“Is that what she's doing now?”

“No."

The word comes out sharper than the question deserves.

I stop walking.

“She's an artist,” I say. “She gets excited. She loses track of time. Sometimes she stays up late because she's working. Not everything she does is a symptom.”

Dare's expression doesn't change. “I didn't assume it was.”

The wind lifts my hair across my face. I push it back, suddenly aware that I am defending Mom against something he never said.

“People do,” I tell him.

“I'm not people.”

“You're definitely people.”

We begin walking again.

“If she's stable,” he says after a moment, “why do all of you still watch her?”

“We don't watch her.”

He waits.

“We pay attention.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

The easy acceptance irritates me more than an argument might have.

“She became very sick when Finn and I were five,” I say. “There were hospital stays. New doctors. New medications. For a while, every doctor seemed to have a different name for what was happening to her.”

The waves collapse beside us, spreading white over the sand.

“Once, she disappeared,” I continue. “We found her out on the cliffs.”

Dare is quiet for a beat. “Was she trying to hurt herself?”

Something snags in my chest.

“She said she wasn't.”

He nods. “Then she wasn't.”

I look at him.

There is no skepticism in his face. No careful neutrality. He simply accepts her answer as belonging to her.

“We were five,” I say. “We don't know exactly what happened. She doesn't remember all of it either. But Finn remembers being frightened.”

“And you?”

“I remember Finn being frightened.”

Dare watches me long enough that I know he understands what I haven't said.

I turn toward the stairs.

“We should go back.”

He falls into step beside me.

“You defend everyone,” he says.

“No, I don't.”

“Your mother. Your father. Your brother. Even the cat.”

“Cheeto has very few advocates.”

“I'm beginning to see why.”

I give him a look.

“Who defends you?” he asks.

“Finn.”

The answer comes without thought.

Dare glances toward the house, barely visible above the trees. “Your brother?”

“My brother would kill for me.”

I expect him to laugh. He doesn't.

“Yes,” he says quietly. “I believe he would.”

"And I'd burn the world down for him."

"I have no doubt."

The old wooden stairs climb the cliff in steep, narrow sections. I start up first, keeping one hand on the damp railing. The boards have been here longer than I have. I know which ones bow and which ones creak.

At least, I thought I did.

Halfway up, the tread beneath my right foot splits with a sharp crack.

My leg drops through the broken wood. My weight pitches backward.

The sky tilts.

Then Dare catches me.

One arm locks around my waist. His other hand braces against the railing as my back collides with his chest.

The impact knocks the breath from both of us, but he holds.

For one suspended second, there is nothing beneath my right foot but air.

“I've got you,” he says against my ear, and I can hear my pulse.

His grip tightens as he lifts me high enough to pull my leg free. I twist toward him, reaching for the railing, and suddenly his face is inches from mine.

Close enough that I can see the darker ring around his irises.

Close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against my mouth.

His hand is spread against my ribs beneath the edge of my jacket. My palm has landed flat against his chest.

His heart is beating hard beneath it.

So is mine.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

The remaining wood groans beneath us.

Reality, apparently, has no respect for timing.

Dare shifts his footing and guides me onto the next solid tread. His arm stays around my waist until both of

my feet are beneath me.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

“No.”

He looks down at the broken board. “Your commitment to understating danger appears hereditary.”

I brush dirt and splinters from my jeans. “You can let go now.”

Dare looks at his hand, still resting against my waist.

“Right.”

He releases me.

The cold absence of his touch is immediate and irritating.

I test the next step before putting my weight on it.

“That was a fast catch,” I say.

“You were falling. It seemed rude not to intervene.”

I start climbing again before he can see me smile.

This time, he stays close behind me.

Calla and Finn, walking to cove with flashlights .png

By the time we reach the house, the sky has lowered over the estate in a solid sheet of gray. The kind of sky that makes four o'clock feel like evening. I turn to Dare.

“Make sure you come to the house for dinner. Mom is making beef stew and fresh bread.”

“Sounds delicious.” He heads to toward the Carriage House while I climb the steps to my house.

I open the door and the smell washes over me: savory beef, onions, red wine, and rosemary. The pot is in the oven, bread dough rising beside the stove, and a saucepan of something is simmering on the back burner.

I am at the kitchen table cleaning a camera lens when Mack sends me another picture. She is at the coffeehouse, holding up a paper cup with CALLA written across it in black marker.

MACK: They say they'll keep your position open until 4:30.

I photograph the rain streaking the kitchen window and send it back.

ME: Tell Ricky I'm commuting.

MACK: He says you're fired.

ME: He can't fire me. I quit.

MACK: He says you're double fired.

I am typing a response when the smell changes.

It takes a moment to separate it from the stew. Garlic, but bitter now. Burning.

I set down my phone and cross to the stove. The liquid in the saucepan has reduced to a dark paste around the edges and it’s smoking. I turn off the burner and move the pan, then call toward the hall.

“Mom?”

No answer.

The back door is open several inches. Cold air presses through the gap.

“Mom?”

Finn appears in the doorway. “What?”

“Where's Mom?”

“I don't know.”

“She left this on.”

He looks at the ruined saucepan, then at the open door.

Neither of us says anything for a second.

Mom forgets things. Everyone forgets things. She leaves brushes soaking too long and coffee cooling in strange places. Once, she put her phone in the greenhouse refrigerator beside the seed packets and spent half a day accusing Dad of moving it.

She does not walk away from a lit stove.

“Her car's here,” Finn says.

“Her phone is on the counter.”

I pick it up anyway and check the screen. No missed calls. No message explaining where she went.

Finn moves through the hall, calling for her. I check the studio and the small sitting room while he takes the stairs two at a time. We meet again in the foyer less than two minutes later.

“Not upstairs,” he says.

“Not in the studio.”

“Dad?”

We head toward the funeral home.

The public rooms are empty. Our footsteps change as we pass from old wood to the spotless tile of the back corridor that leads downstairs.

The air is cooler here. It smells faintly of disinfectant and something sweeter underneath it, something chemical that clings to the back of my throat. Formaldehyde.

The preparation-room door is open.

The embalming machine gives off a mechanical hum. Dad stands beside the stainless-steel table in a protective apron and gloves, his attention fixed on the man lying beneath the bright overhead lights.

The sheet is folded neatly below the man's collarbones. His head rests on a white plastic block, tilted slightly toward us. His mouth has been closed, but not yet made peaceful. One pale hand lies exposed beside his body. Clear tubing runs away from the table. Another line carries fluid the color of old wine.

Death looks smaller in this room than it does upstairs.

Not less important. Just more physical. More technical.

Finn stops half a step behind me.

Dad looks up. He reads our faces before either of us speaks and immediately reaches for the controls. The hum stops.

“What's wrong?”

“Have you seen Mom?” I ask.

His eyes sharpen. “Not since she started dinner.”

“She left a burner on. The back door was open.”

He clamps the tubing with swift, practiced movements, then strips off his gloves. “Did you check her studio?”

“And upstairs,” Finn says.

“Her phone and car are here,” I add.

Dad tosses the gloves into a covered bin and removes his apron. Behind him, the dead man's fingers curve naturally toward his palm, as though he has only just released something.

“I'll check the rest of the house and the grounds around the funeral home,” Dad says. “You two take the greenhouse and the lower path. Call me if you find her.”

His voice is calm, but he has already begun rolling down his sleeves before we reach the hall.

Outside, the air smells rain that hasn’t started yet.

We cut across the lawn toward the greenhouse. As we pass the Carriage House, movement catches my eye through the front windows.

Dare is now sitting in the chair beside the lamp with one ankle resting over his opposite knee. A book lies open across his lap. Even through the glass, I recognize the black cover and silver lettering of Rebecca, one of the old paperbacks from the shelves.

He looks up.

His eyes find mine as if he knew exactly where I would be.

For a moment, neither of us moves. Then he lowers his gaze and turns the page.

“Calla.”

Finn is already several yards ahead of me.

I follow.

The greenhouse door stands ajar. Inside, damp warmth closes around us, green and fragrant. Mom's basket is on the worktable. Fresh rosemary and thyme lie inside it. Her shears rest beside them, still wet where the stems were cut.

Finn touches the herbs. “She was here.”

Beyond the glass, the forest waits.

“Mom!” I call.

Only a bird answers from somewhere high in the trees.

Finn goes still.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

He leaves the greenhouse before I can study his face.

We take the path into Blackwater Forest. The ground is soft beneath our shoes, and the trees close quickly behind us. We call Mom's name at intervals. Every time, the forest absorbs it.

At the fork, Finn gestures toward the chapel path. “I'll check—”

“No.”

He looks at me.

“We stay together.”

I expect him to argue. He doesn't.

We pass the meadow and descend toward the cove, following the narrow trail beside the stream. The water runs dark between moss-covered banks, appearing and disappearing beneath fallen branches.

The cave mouth comes into view below us.

“Mom?” Finn calls.

The sound returns from inside, smaller and warped.

Then Mom answers.

“I'm here.”

Relief hits so hard it makes my knees briefly unreliable.

We scramble down the last section of path and enter the cave.

Mom is sitting on a flat shelf of stone beside the stream. Her shoes are damp, and there is dirt along one knee of her trousers. Both hands are cupped around a small paper boat.

She looks up at us, surprised. “There you are.”

Finn reaches her first. “What are you doing?”

“Sitting.”

“In a cave.”

Mom looks around as if verifying this. “Yes.”

“You left the stove on,” I say.

Her expression changes. “Oh.”

“Dinner was burning.”

“The wine sauce.” She closes her eyes. “Damn it.”

The response is so entirely Mom that some of the tightness leaves my chest.

Dad calls. I answer immediately and tell him we found her. He is silent for half a beat before telling me to

bring her home.

“Why did you come all the way down here?” Finn asks when I hang up.

Mom smooths one damp finger along the boat's folded edge. “I heard someone singing.”

Finn's attention snaps to her. “Where?”

“Near the greenhouse at first. I thought it was Calla.”

“I was in the kitchen,” I say.

“I know that now.” Her forehead creases. “It sounded like you.”

“What were they singing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it inside your head?” Finn asks.

Mom and I both look at him.

His jaw tightens. “I mean, could you tell where it was coming from?”

“Of course it wasn't inside my head.” Mom's tone goes cool. “I followed it.”

Finn glances into the dark recess of the cave.

“It kept getting farther away,” Mom continues. “Every time I stopped, I heard it again. Then I came in here and it stopped. I haven't heard it again.”

Water whispers over stone beside her.

I nod toward her hands. “Where did you get that?”

She looks down as though she has forgotten she is holding it.

“It was floating in the water.” She points toward the black opening where the stream emerges from beneath

the rock. “From there.”

Finn crouches beside her.

The stream surfaces deep inside the cave. There is no exposed bank upstream. No house. No trail. Nothing but underground water forcing its way through stone.

“Did you see anyone in here?” I ask.

“No.”

“Did you go farther back?”

“I wasn't going to crawl underground after a song, Calla.”

Only far enough to enter a cave and forget dinner, apparently.

I don't say it.

Instead, I take out my phone and photograph the boat in her hands. Then I photograph the water, the rock shelf, and the place where the stream emerges. Evidence first. Questions after.

The paper is yellowed and damp but somehow still holds its shape. Dark ink shows faintly through one folded side.

“Don't open it,” I say when Finn reaches toward it.

“I wasn't going to.”

“You were absolutely going to.”

Mom offers me the boat. “Can you save it?”

“Maybe. If we let it dry before we unfold it.”

I take it carefully. The paper is cold against my palm.

From somewhere deeper inside the cave comes a soft sound.

Finn turns.

“What is it?” I whisper.

He stares into the darkness.

“Finn?”

“Water,” he says after a moment. “Just water.”

He helps Mom to her feet without looking at me.

Dad does not scold Mom when we return. That would be easier for her to fight.

Instead, he touches the back of his fingers to her cheek, checks her eyes, and asks whether she has a headache. Mom endures this for approximately twelve seconds before swatting him away.

“I followed a sound, Phillip. I didn't suffer a head injury.”

“You left the stove on.”

“And apparently I'll be tried at dawn.”

“Can we eat first?” Finn asks. “I'd rather not attend a trial hungry.”

The stew survived. The red wine sauce did not. Mom throws away the ruined panful with unnecessary violence. We eat less than twenty minutes later, and the stew is just fine without the red wine sauce.

Dare joins us.

He has changed into a dark sweater Dad found for him, the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms. The silver band remains on his middle finger. It catches the light when he reaches for the bread.

The paper boat rests on a clean towel across the room, near enough to the radiator to dry but not close enough to curl. From the table, it looks small and harmless.

It is neither.

Mom tells Dad about the singing again. Dare listens without interrupting, his spoon motionless above his bowl.

“Where does the stream come from?” he asks.

“Underground,” Finn says.

“Yes, but from where underground?”

Dad tears a piece of bread. “No one knows exactly. The cave system runs beneath a good portion of the property. Most of it isn't accessible.”

“There could be another opening.”

“There could,” Dad agrees. “But we've never found one.”

“Do you remember the melody?” I ask.

Mom shakes her head.

Finn's phone vibrates against his thigh. He pulls it from his pocket beneath the edge of the table, glances at the screen, and types a quick response.

“Are we boring you?” I ask.

“Immensely.” He puts the phone away. “Please continue discussing the cave stationery.”

Mom points her spoon at him. “The cave stationery is drying in the dining room.”

“I appreciate its commitment to the bit.”

The joke sounds like Finn. The timing doesn't.

Dare's eyes move from him to me.

I look away first.

After dinner, Dare carries his bowl to the sink and stays to help despite Mom insisting that guests do not wash dishes.

“I'm not certain I'm a guest,” he says.

“You are until we know enough about you to decide otherwise,” she tells him.

“Comforting.”

By the time the kitchen is clean, night has settled completely over the estate. I walk Dare back to the Carriage House with a flashlight even though he says he knows the way.

“What were you reading earlier?” I ask as we cross the lawn.

“Rebecca. I found it on the shelves.”

“Have you read it before?”

He considers this. “I don't know.”

“Do you like it?”

“I know what happens next.”

I turn the flashlight toward him.

He lifts one hand against the glare. “Perhaps I've read it. Or perhaps it's simply very predictable.”

“You've been here two days and you're already insulting our books.”

“Only the borrowed ones.”

I lower the light, smiling despite myself.

The Carriage House glows ahead of us, warm squares of lamplight against the trees.

“Reading is strange,” Dare says. “I don't remember learning how.”

“Most people don't.”

“That isn't what I mean.” He slides his hands into his pockets. “I recognize the experience. The weight of a book. Knowing when I'm nearly finished without checking the page number. Skipping ahead when I'm impatient.”

“You skip ahead?”

“Maybe I'm a man of weak character.” His smile fades. “But I can't remember a single book I've read before.”

For a few steps, there is only the sound of our shoes over wet grass.

“It'll come back,” I say.

The certainty feels dishonest, but kindness sometimes requires small white lies.

“Your mother follows voices into caves,” he says. “Your brother keeps listening for things no one else can hear. And you're certain my memory will return.”

I stop walking. “Finn doesn't hear things.”

Dare looks back toward the main house. “All right.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He faces me again. “He looked frightened at dinner.”

“Finn doesn't frighten easily.”

“I didn't say he did.”

The distinction irritates me because I understand it.

We reach the Carriage House steps. Dare opens the door, then pauses with one hand on the frame.

“For what it's worth,” he says, “I heard something outside earlier too.”

Cold settles between my shoulder blades. “Singing?”

“Footsteps. Around the house.”

“It was probably us.”

“This was before you passed the window.”

“An animal, then.”

“Probably.”

He says it exactly the way I said Finn doesn't frighten easily.

I hand him the flashlight.

“Keep this.”

“How will you get back?”

“I know the way.”

For some reason, that makes him smile.

“Good night, Calla.”

“Good night, Dare.”

I walk back beneath a sky with no stars, refusing to look toward the forest when branches move beyond the reach of the house lights.

The paper boat is dry by the time I carry it upstairs.

I set it on my desk beneath the lamp, position my camera above it, and take a photograph from every angle.

The folds have softened, but the paper has not fallen apart. Dark marks show through it now—ink lines too heavy to be writing alone.

My phone rings.

Mack.

“Please tell me your troll left you,” I say when I answer.

“We're taking some time apart. He needs to work on himself.”

“He's been in therapy since 1990.”

“And look how far he's come.”

I put her on speaker and send her one of the photographs of the boat.

Her reaction arrives immediately.

“That's either adorable or cursed.”

“It floated out of an underground cave.”

“Cursed. Final answer.”

I slide the tip of a clean palette knife beneath the first fold.

It releases. Black ink scores the paper beneath it.

“What about the stranded sea prince?” Mack asks.

“Dare.”

“Right. Dare. Is that an actual name or something he commanded you to do?”

“It's short for Adair.”

“That did not answer my question.”

I photograph the opened fold before touching the next one.

“He's adjusting,” I say.

“Meaning?”

“He read Rebecca today.”

“Thank God. I was worried he might be illiterate.”

“He also thinks Finn is frightened.”

Mack goes quiet.

I ease open another section. Part of a face appears. The eyes have been crossed out so violently that the

paper has nearly worn through.

“Why does he think that?”

“Because Finn is acting strange.”

“Strange how?”

“He keeps getting distracted. Looking at things that aren't there. Sometimes I have to say his name twice before he answers me.”

“Maybe he's exhausted.”

“You said that this morning.”

“Because he is.”

I stop unfolding the paper.

“Have you talked to him?”

“A little,” Mack says. “You know. Since you left. He mostly complains about the coastal weather.”

Of course she has. Mack knows Finn almost as well as she knows me. We shared a thousand late nights in the apartment, countless breakfasts, concerts, clubs, arguments over movies and music and whose turn it was to buy toilet paper.

I look toward my bedroom door. The hall beyond it is empty.

I open the next fold.

More faces crowd the page. Some have their eyes crossed out. Others have no eyes at all. Heavy black shapes fill the margins, part wings, part shadows. The pen marks overlap until there is no clean place for the eye to rest.

“Cal?”

“There's something inside the boat.”

“A demon?”

“Writing.”

The final fold catches. I work it loose carefully, holding my breath as damp fibers separate.

The page opens beneath my hands.

Words have been written across it again and again. Latin words.

SERVA ME, SERVABO TE.

Neat along the top.

Larger beneath it.

Slanting sideways through the faces.

Carved so deeply near the bottom that the ink has bled through the paper.

I know the handwriting.

I have seen it on birthday cards and grocery lists, in the margins of textbooks, on notes shoved beneath my bedroom door. I have known the shape of Finn's words almost as long as I have known my own.

“Calla?” Mack's voice sounds very far away. “What is it?”

A floorboard creaks in the hall.

Finn appears in my doorway.

His gaze drops to the page.

For a moment, he doesn't move.

Then he crosses the room and stops beside me.

“That's my writing.”

“I know.”

He stares at the mutilated faces, the ruined eyes, the same sentence disintegrating into madness across the page.

“But I didn't write that.”

Mack is still speaking through the phone.

I barely hear her.