“Oh, that’s too bad,” my mom said, her brow furrowing. My mother felt everything quickly, and deeply, and cried at the drop of a hat. It was the reason none of us ever wanted to sit next to her when we saw sad movies. “That’s going to be hard for you, Em.”

My mother took a bite of her peach, but I could tell that there were more things she was about to ask; I could practically feel them, questions like whereand whyand for how long, questions I couldn’t begin to answer. So before she could ask, I said quickly, “So Beckett seems pretty excited about this camping trip.” I was almost positive that he was away at day camp, but I looked up to check the doorway, just in case.

“Yeah,” my mother said with a smile. “Your dad, too.” I nodded, figuring that this meant the trip was still on, and I hadn’t done the wrong thing by basically telling my brother as much. “Though I don’t know why,” my mother said as she shook her head, rotating the peach, looking for a perfect bite. “Sleeping outdoors when you’ve got a perfectly good bed has never—”

“Andrea, listen to this,” my dad said, bursting into the kitchen. He was holding a thick book in his hands, and talking fast and excited. “Tesla and Edison were friendswhen he first came from Paris. Edison called him a genius.”

“Scott,” my mother said. “I was in the middle of talking to Em.” But I could tell that she was only partially in the kitchen with me now. It was like I could practically feel her wanting to get back to the play, and I was pretty sure she’d already forgotten about Beckett and camping.

“It’s really fine,” I said quickly, backing out of the kitchen. “You guys go write.”

My mother bit her lip and looked at me, and I gave her a bright, Everything’s okay heresmile and headed upstairs, but not before I heard them start to talk, their voices excited and overlapping, saying words like laboratoryand patentand alternating current.

I took the stairs up to my room slowly, feeling the temperature seem to rise with every step. I flopped down on my bed and looked up at the ceiling, where I could still see the tape marks left over from the rotating pantheon of teen heartthrob posters I’d put up during my middle school years. I reached for my phone, which was, of course, free from any texts or missed calls. And even though I knew it would probably just go to her voice mail, I found myself pressing the button to call Sloane. Sure enough, her voice mail recording started, the one I knew by heart. I waited until the beep, then took a breath and started.

“Hey, it’s me. I got the job, the one at Paradise. So thanks for setting that up for us.” I said the word automatically, but a second later, reality hit me like a punch to the gut. There would be no usat Paradise. Just me, working in a T-shirt with a rainbow on it. “I’ll have to tell you what happened. It was really funny, this girl thought I was crazy.” I listened to the silence, the empty space where Sloane’s voice should have been, already laughing, asking me questions, reacting in just the right ways. “Anyway. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I hung up and, after a moment, pushed myself off the bed. I dropped my new T-shirts into my drawer and pulled out Sloane’s list. I didn’t think I was going to be able to get anything else done today—I knew I’d have to do some brainstorming before tackling the others. I carefully crossed off number seven, then returned the list to its envelope and the envelope to the drawer. Then I looked around, at a bit of a loss.

I didn’t want to stay in my room—I actually didn’t think it would be healthy to, if I wanted to avoid heatstroke—but I didn’t want to tiptoe around my parents downstairs. And I didn’t want to go over to campus, or go downtown by myself. I was starting to get a jumpy, claustrophobic feeling. I needed to get out, but I’d technically just come back. And where was I supposed to go? I kicked off my flip-flops and tossed them into my closet, where they landed on my sneakers and gave me my answer.

Without thinking twice, I pulled the sneakers out of the closet, then reached for the drawer that held my workout clothes. I wasn’t sure it was going to make anything better, but it was the only thing I wanted to do at that moment. I was going for a run.

JUNE

Two years earlier

I shook out my arms and tried to pick up my pace, trying to ignore how my breath was coming shallowly. I hadn’t run since school had ended two weeks before, and I was feeling it with every step. I’d made the cross-country team as a freshman, but had lagged behind the rest of the team and wanted to get my times up over the summer so that I would have a chance of making it again in the fall, when I knew the competition would be more intense.

Since there were too many people and too many excuses to slow down in my neighborhood, I’d gone out of my way to run in this one. It was a good ten miles from my house, and I had a feeling my return might end up being a walk—and a long one, at that. I’d spent almost no time in this part of town, Stanwich’s backcountry. There weren’t any sidewalks, but running on the road didn’t seem to be that big a deal, since there were also almost no cars.

I was just debating if I could keep going, or if maybe the time had come to give up and start walking, when I saw the girl.

She was pacing back and forth in the driveway of a house, but she stopped as I approached, and shielded her eyes from the glare. Then, to my astonishment, she started waving at me—but not the normal kind of saying hello waving—the kind of waving castaways on islands did to flag down passing ships.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she called, as soon as I got within earshot. “I’ve been waiting for you!” I slowed to a walk, then stopped in front of the girl. She looked around my age, except that she was dressed much better than anyone I knew—wearing a silky flowing top with her jean shorts, bright-red lipstick, and mascara. But contrasting all of this was the fact that her hair was underneath a towel, which she’d twisted into a turban.

“Me?” I asked, trying to catch my breath, glancing behind me to see the road was still empty. But she couldn’t have meant me—we’d never met before. I would have remembered that, I was sure of it.

“Well,” the girl acknowledged with a smile, “someone like you. Someone who didn’t look like a total scary weirdo. Although at this point, honestly, I probably would have taken that, too. But you’re like the first person to show up here in like an hour,I swear. I was worried that I was suddenly in a zombie movie where all of humanity had disappeared.” She stopped and took a breath, and I just blinked, trying to keep up with what was happening here. She spoke fast, and seemed to be a combination of stressed out and on the verge of cracking up, which was a mixture I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before.

“What—” I started, then stopped, when I realized I wasn’t sure what to say here. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she said, then seemed to rethink this. “Well, I mean, I’m, like, physically fine. I’m just . . .” She took a breath. “Can you help me break into my house?” She pointed behind her, and I felt my jaw fall open.

It was an absolutely enormous mansion. It looked old, stately, and very grand. It was the kind of place I could imagine steel barons owning, a house where black-tie parties were thrown, where duchesses and senators were invited to dinner, where grave, white-gloved butlers would open the front door.

“I live here!” the girl continued. “I swear, I’m not trying to steal anything. I just locked myself out.” She shook her head, then reached up to steady the towel. “And normally, I’d be all whatever, just take a walk or work on my tan or something. Because my parents are coming back at somepoint. You know, most likely. But I’m a little worried my hair’s about to turn permanently green.” After she said this, she started to laugh, closing her eyes and bending forward slightly, her shoulders shaking.