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“Who the hell are you?” Lily demanded. “What are you doing out here?”

I didn’t want her answering that question. Or giving me away. “Maybe we can hold off on interrogating her until she’s inside and not hypothermic,” I suggested, putting the kind of steel behind the words that tended to make people hop into action without questioning. Kenny gave a little jerk and nodded, but Lily’s look was skeptical. Abby shivered theatrically.

“G-good idea.” She might have been playing it up, but her lips were turning blue.

Of the four of us, only Kenny had managed to grab a coat on his way out the door, and he hung it around Abby’s shoulders as we helped her toward the house. Mrs. Popova stood on the back porch, holding her rifle loosely.

“She crashed on the rocks,” Kenny said. “We’ve gotta get her warmed up.”

Mrs. Popova’s lips thinned. She looked out past us—at what, I couldn’t imagine.

“S-sorry to impose,” Abby said, teeth chattering.

For a wild moment, I thought Mrs. Popova was going to refuse. But then she stood aside. We trooped in and Kenny settled Abby on the couch before going to get the fire started. Mrs. Popova looked outside one last time, then closed the door and threw the deadbolt.

I stood a few feet away from Abby as she stripped down to her underwear, the guys turning tactfully away, and wrapped herself in a heavy quilt. What was she doing here? No, that was the wrong question—I knew what she was doing here. She was chasing the same answers I was. But I didn’t know why, and that worried me.

“Liam,” Mrs. Popova said, her voice clipped, “call your mother and tell her about our guest. And you.” She looked at Abby. “Who are you and what on earth are you doing out here?”

“Abby. Abby Ryder. Nobody would take me, so I had to find my own way here,” Abby said. “I was trying to beat the storm, but I got a bit lost. With all the mist I didn’t even know I’d found the place until it busted a hole in my boat.”

“You weretryingto get here?” Kenny asked, mystified.

Abby gave a sharp little laugh. “Assuming this is Bitter Rock, yeah.”

“Butwhy?” Kenny pressed.

Abby’s eyes flicked to me for a split second. “I’m doing this school project. About mass disappearances. I was in Juneau visiting my aunt and I heard about the whole Landontown thing. I wantedto visit and check it out, and, well... I guess I got carried away?”

She was lying. She’d called me about Bitter Rock months ago, and she hadn’t said anything about a school project then. She’d said she worked for a professor or something—Dr. Ashford. She said he investigated “this kind of phenomenon.”

“So you’re one of those,” Mrs. Popova said, shaking her head with obvious disapproval. Abby had opened her bag and pulled out a wad of wet clothes, grimacing.

“I’ll grab you something to borrow,” Lily said. “Put those by the fire to dry.”

Liam was speaking quietly on the phone in the kitchen. He hung up and joined us. “Dr. Kapoor says to stay put. Bring her to the LARC in the morning,” he said.

“For now, everyone should get some sleep,” Mrs. Popova said. “And get out of those wet clothes. Especially you, Ms. Hayes.”

Abby’s eyebrow quirked at the surname. I looked down at my soaked jeans and bare feet, the latter of which were an unsettling shade of gray. “Right,” I said.

“Where’s she going to sleep?” Lily asked, returning with the offered clothing.

“She can bunk with me,” I said immediately. “I don’t mind.”

“Sounds good to me. Sorry again. And thank you guys for saving my ass,” Abby said.

“There will be a reckoning in the morning,” Mrs. Popova said, more a warning than a threat. Dr. Kapoor, I imagined, wasnotgoing to be pleased.

And I could be sunk before I’d even gotten started.

I pointed Abby toward the room and started to follow, Abbyawkwardly carrying Lily’s borrowed clothes and her own bag while keeping the quilt wrapped around her. Liam grabbed my arm. “I know I’m not supposed to ask if you’re okay, so this is me not asking if you’re okay,” he said quietly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked. I didn’t ask it dismissively—I needed to hear the answer.

He swallowed. “Something happened out there.”

“You saw something?” I wanted the answer to be yes. Because that would mean it wasn’t just me, letting my imagination run wild.