38. MEGHAN

Cascade, Idaho

When Domanska had finally brought me back to civilization after months on that damn mountain where he'd dumped my body, I never would have imagined that fate would lead me back into the wilderness—with him and his wife and kids, no less.

It was a real trip, let me tell you.

Even in the hours and days after my own murder, as I watched my bones get picked apart by the birds and the coyotes, I didn't feel anxiety like this.

I already knew I wasn't going to stick around if he did something to them. If things went south—more south than they already had, that is—I didn't want to watch. I was going to find Bubbie and disappear for good.

I sat down beside Brecia on a fallen log. "I can't believe you've been following him this long. I feel so helpless. How did you stand it?"

A few feet away, Emma brandished a moss-covered stick at a hornet then ran squealing back to April when it gave chase. Kimmie shrieked and burst into tears as the hornet approached, still clutching her purple blankie.

Brecia shook her head as Skye walked out of the cabin toward us. "I didn't. I gave up."

"So why didn't you leave?" I asked. "Like, for good."

Brecia gave me a look. "I didn't know that was an option."

I glanced between her and Skye, who looked equally confused. They didn't know.

Skye lay down on the carpet of pine needles then closed her eyes. "Tell us your magic, Meghan."

So I told them about the challah and the memory of Bubbie that promised to blossom into a million more memories as soon as I was ready. People I'd never met, places I'd never seen, an expanding universe of connected consciousnesses. I felt a little like a preacher extolling heaven as I watched Brecia's expression shift from disbelief to astonishment.

"I had no idea," she whispered. "If I did, I don't think I would have stayed."

"I almost didn't, a few times."

Skye sat up. "I don't really know anybody else who's died. I doubt anyone's anxiously waiting to show me around the other side. My grandparents are all still alive. I can't think of anyone." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Except maybe my gym teacher from middle school. He died of cancer last summer. I doubt he's all that excited to see me. I always pretended to have my period to get out of whatever we were doing."

I felt her sadness seep into the air around us. With her skinny frame and big, dark eyes she looked even younger than eighteen. She'd be the one waiting to greet her loved ones when they found her in their memories. "You said you were headed to college at Idaho State, right? Where you didn't know anybody?"

Skye shrugged. "Yeah. Maybe it'll be like that."

I reached for her hand and felt her sadness like it was my own. "Except you'll be meeting your family. The people who raised your grandparents. And the people who raised them, all the way back. Even though you don't know them yet, they're gonna claim you."

She looked thoughtful. "I always meant to do one of those 23andMe kits. My mom tried to get into family history once. Just once, after she saw a commercial. She got all excited and wanted to know if we had, like, Aztec royalty in our blood. It didn't last very long. The line stopped hard at my great, great grandparents in El Salvador during the civil war." She closed her eyes and lay back in the pine boughs again.

Brecia and I lay down beside her. "They're going to be so happy to meet you," I said. "And when your mom gets there and finds you waiting, I bet you're going to introduce her to royalty after all."

Skye smiled. "Yeah. I bet you're right."

The delicate leaves of hope pushing up through the thick sadness curled back in an instant as James suddenly came barreling out of the house.

"Where's the black backpack?" he barked. "I swear to god if you didn't bring it—"

Kimmie went silent, and Emma instinctively reached for April's hand. April tilted her head a little and marched over to the van, where she grabbed a big black backpack that had been shoved under the passenger seats. As she handed it to him, she hissed, "It's right here. Don't talk to me like that in front of the girls. You're scaring them."

"She's all bite when it comes to them," Brecia mumbled. "Come on, let's go see what's in the damn backpack."