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He took a moment to get his bearings, then looked left, saw the downed tree, and beyond it his mother’s car. He started running toward the car, slipping quickly under the downed tree like he was sliding into home plate, then back on his feet.

He went around to the back of the car, intending to open the hatch, but the bumper was all smashed in, the glass shattered, and the liftgate damaged to the point that when Charlie hit the button to activate it, it would not budge.

No problem.

He went to the back door on the passenger side, opened it, and crawled in. His booster seat was there, and he got onto it on hisknees and leaned over the top of the backseat so he could reach into the cargo area.

Supposedly he was out here to get some fresh clothes, although he also suspected his mother didn’t want him to see something bad that was about to happen between her and Nabler. He didn’t think it was the sex thing, which he knew plenty about, and what kid didn’t in this day and age, but it was definitely something not nice and maybe even a little scary.

And, again, he wondered if she had been trying to get some message across to him without sounding like she was.

Like that bit about how when you step on a crack you break your mother’s back? Which made him wince at the recollection, because he’d lied to her, saying he’d never rattled off that rhyme. He’d said it while skipping along the sidewalk on Bank Street, but he’d done it without thinking about the words or what they meant. It was a silly rhyme, that’s all.

His mother must have already packed a lot of stuff before finding out that he had slipped out of the house in the night. And, pushing the various bags around, he found his mother’s clothes and the books she had brought up and her things from the studio. And, just like she’d said, there was a bag with some of his things in it. Some jeans and shirts and underwear. He pulled out one of each, and a pair of socks. Should he get changed here, in the car? He felt a little funny about that. Or he could do it outside of the car, right next to it. No one was going to see him. There was no one left in Lucknow, by the looks of things.

He stopped thinking about putting on fresh clothes and instead recalled something his mother had said. What was it, again?

When you hurt something that’s pretend, it makes the real thing feel the pain.

Charlie began to look through the other bags, at items that were not his. Things that belonged to his mother.

And then he saw the bag his mother had specifically mentioned. The one from Bloomingdale’s, withmedium brown bagprinted on the side.

When he looked inside, Charlie understood what it was his mother had been trying to tell him.

Fifty-Nine

“Let’s start with a drink,” said Nabler, who no longer looked like Nabler. He had transformed into the creature Annie had seen for an instant moments earlier, allowing himself to be seen as he truly was. He was pouring a greenish liquid into a long-stemmed glass.

“What is that?” Annie said.

“If you’re going to have questions every step of the way, this is all going to take a very long time.”

“It looks like a smoothie.”

“Sure,” Nabler said, the whiskers on his snout twitching. “Let’s call it a smoothie.”

She accepted the offered glass, brought the drink up to her nose, and gave it a sniff. Fruity, not half bad, but that didn’t mean it was going to taste good. She took the tiniest sip and made a face.

“Think of all the times you’ve made Charlie swallow something he didn’t love,” Nabler said. “Like broccoli or peas, or maybe a medicine he didn’t much care for. You told him it was good for him, or would make him all better.”

“This isn’t good for me and it won’t make me all better.”

“You say that now, but you wait.”

She took another sip, grimaced, drank some more. Taking her time. She didn’t know how long it would take Charlie to find it, if he found it at all. And even if he did, would he know what todo? Everything was a long shot now. All guesswork. The odds, she knew, were not in her favor.

“That’s it,” Nabler said. “Over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach, here it comes.”

Very slowly, she drank the contents of the glass and handed it back to Nabler.

“How does it feel?” he asked.

“Very... cold. It wasn’t cold when I drank it, but now that it’s inside me, there’s like this freezing that’s spreading all over the place.”

Nabler nodded. “That’s good. That’s what you’re supposed to feel. Do you feel sick to your stomach at all?”

Annie thought a moment. “No. Just cold.”