“The mountain?” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Ned said. “She’s up on Sainte-Victoire.”

“It’s a big mountain, Ned,” his father said. “There’s a lot of ground to cover up there. And I—”

Ned held up both hands. “No, Dad. I know exactly where. Because all of this, all of this, is about Melanie now, I think. The changed rules, searching instead of a fight. They didn’t expect that. And she’s hiding in a place she knows I know about. We had to know, too.”

“We’re putting a lot in the idea that Melanie’s…spirit, whatever, is inside Ysabel,” Edward Marriner said.

“We can do that, Ed,” Aunt Kim murmured. Her arms were tightly crossed on her chest.

No one said anything for a moment.

“All right. Fine. You said you know the place, Ned. Where?”

His mother’s first words since they’d gathered back here. She was gazing at him, that calm, attentive expression he knew.

So, looking at her, he said, “She’s at some chasm. Melanie called it a garagai, it’s somewhere near the top.”

“And she’s there because…?”

It was almost as if this had become a dialogue between the two of them. She used to quiz him like this, for science or social studies tests, when he was younger.

“Because she told me about it. That’s where the Romans, Marius, threw the Celtic chieftains down a pit, a place of sacrifice after the battle, so they couldn’t ever be reclaimed to be worshipped and help the tribes.”

“Oh, God,” said Kate. She put a hand to her mouth. “They even talked about that, at Entremont, the three of them.”

Ned nodded his head. “Yeah, they did. I thought about that, too. Melanie knew we were there. I’d called her, remember?”

“Is that the second thing?” his mother asked softly. “You said there were two.”

“No. The garagai is in her notes. The other thing was entirely me. I…twice at night, I saw that boar when I was by myself, and both times it…both times I think it was signalling me. I didn’t get it, till just now. Till you said something in the cloister. I don’t know why it was doing that, but I’m pretty sure.”

His uncle sat up, shifting his leg. He had an odd expression on his face.

“What kind of boar?” he asked.

“Huge one. Almost white. Greg saw it when Brys stopped us on the road.”

Greg was nodding his head. “Really big,” he said. “I could have wrecked the van, hitting it.”

“Go on, Ned,” Uncle Dave said.

Ned looked at him. “I don’t know if anyone will believe me, but I think it was pointing to something, both times. It came out, waited for me to see it, then it turned around and faced the mountain and looked back at me. And then it went off. I didn’t know what was going on. And…and this is weird, but the first time was before Beltaine. Before anything even happened. I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“Time can be funny in these things,” his aunt said.

“So you think she’s by this chasm,” Ned’s mother said calmly. “All right. Good. That’s our first stop tomorrow. We get directions and go look.”

Ned shook his head. His hands were trembling again.

“Mom, no. I have to go now. One of them’s going to figure this. They’ve had so much longer with her, with Ysabel. They heard her say sacrifice too. And they know that place.”

“Ned…” his father began.

“Dad, I’m really sure. I’m shaking with it, I’m so positive.” He held up his hands to show them.

His father looked at him. “That’s not what I was going to say. Ned, I believe you. There’s something else. You’re forgetting.”

“What?” Ned said.

It was Steve who answered him. “Dude, you can’t go up that mountain.”

“I have to.”

“Ned,” Greg murmured, “we saw you there. You looked like you were dying, man. I haven’t seen anyone throw up that hard since…since whenever.”

Ned stopped. He took a steadying breath. He swore. Neither parent said a word.

He had forgotten. Or, he’d half remembered because he knew he’d been sick when Melanie told him about the garagai, but he’d blocked out what it would mean to go back there. To climb.

Even the recollection made him feel ill, right here. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I have to try. I need to go, like, right now.” He was almost twitching with the need to be gone.

His father’s tone was gentle. “It’s past four o’clock, Ned. You can’t do it in the dark.”

“Won’t be dark. I’ll get my sweats and I’ll run. I’m a runner, Dad. I can do this. And maybe”—a sudden thought—“maybe I’ll be better when I get higher up? My problem was the battlefield. I think.”

He looked at Greg and Steve.

“And maybe you won’t,” Greg said, shaking his head.

“Dude—” Steve began.

“All of you listen!” Ned said. He heard his voice rising. “Melanie is gone if we screw this up. Look, I’ll take four Advil or whatever, and sunglasses, and my phone, and I’ll run. Please stop arguing. We can’t argue. We need to move. I have to know exactly where this place is.”

Kate Wenger, without a word, got up and went to Melanie’s maps-and-books file on the computer table.

Ned was looking at his mother. He saw something in her eyes that went so far beyond concern he couldn’t even put a word to it.

“Mom, please,” he whispered. “I need your help.”

“I know,” Meghan Marriner said. “I just don’t want to give it.”

He looked at her. She shook her head. “I can’t begin to tell you how little I like this. What do you plan to do when you get up there, if you get up there?”

“No idea.”

She let herself smile a little. “Well, that’s honest.”

“I’m being honest, Mom.”

Meghan looked at him another moment, then turned to her husband with a crisp nod. “Ed, get your two Veras in here, while Kate’s looking for maps. If they live here they may know.”

Her husband shook his head. “Let me try something else first.”

He crossed to the desk beside Kate and checked a phone number on Melanie’s corkboard, then dialed.

Ned found that he was breathing hard already—it looked, amazingly, as if they were going to help. But he was remembering the mountain now: Pourrières, and the worst feeling of his life. That screen of blood, filtering the world, and the smell of it.

His choice here, no one else to blame. Sometimes, he thought, life was easier when you had people to stop you. Maybe that was something parents were good for.

His father said, “Oliver? Ed Marriner. Am I interrupting anything?” He waited for whatever reply he got, then said, “I won’t keep you long, before drinks.”

The Englishman answered something, and Ned’s father managed a fake laugh. “Well, if you have one already, I needn’t rush. But I have a question that’s come up…something to photograph, maybe. Do you know a place called the garagai? Up on Sainte-Victoire?”

Another pause, a longer one. Oliver Lee was launching into a story, Ned guessed. Ned could picture him, reading glasses on their chain over his chest, drink in hand, holding forth.

Edward Marriner opened his mouth to interrupt, closed it, then plunged in, “Well, yes, I’ve read a bit about all that, and I was thinking of going up to have a look.” He paused. “I know it is a climb. Yes, I’ve heard it gets windy. But…Oliver, do you know where it is, up there? Have you been?”

The room fell silent. Edward Marriner looked at his son, his brow furrowed. It never unfurrowed. “You haven’t? So you wouldn’t be able to give me directions?”

He looked over at his wife. “Yes, of course, we’ll chase down a topographic map, or I can call the mayor’s office. They’ve been helpful.” He stopped. Lee was saying something. “No, no, it is hardly a shocking confession, Oliver. My people told me Cézanne never climbed it either.” He paused again. “Yes, of course, I’ll give your regards to Melanie.” He looked at Ned again. “No, I think I’ll let you tell her that yourself, Oliver.” Another small, forced laugh. He said goodbye and hung up.

Ned looked across the room at his mother. She was gazing at him, staring at him, really, with an expression he couldn’t remember seeing before. As if he were a stranger. It bothered him. He tried to smile at her, but didn’t really succeed.