Page 24

Penny

WHEN PENNY SAW ALONSO AND NIMBLE IN THE WOODS ALL THOSE years ago, anxiety didn’t keep her from accepting that magic existed. The idea of magic didn’t even seem that scary—not if it could bring baby animals back from the dead. She never told anyone what she saw that day, because the prospect of getting laughed at was more terrifying than the fact that magic was real.

But now that her mom is in the hospital, Penny is having nightmares about shadow figures. About invisible hands pulling the threads of her reality. The world is scarier now, and there’s no going back.

A few hours before she’s supposed to go to Bloomington, Penny is sitting at the hospital fighting off sleep. She stands up quickly, taps her face. But as soon as she sits down, her eyelids become heavy again.

She’ll sleep for an hour. Just an hour. She lets her eyes close…

And the dream begins.

It’s a hot summer day at Elkie Lake. The foliage is wild, and the warm breeze has an edge to it, like fall is around the corner. Penny is sitting on the shore, her feet dangling in the warm water. Overhead, the tree branches are heavy with green leaves.

There’s rustling in the trees, and after a moment, a woman with short dark hair bursts into the clearing. She’s been running, and she bends over, hands on her knees and eyes squeezed shut as she catches her breath.

“Are you okay?” Penny says, but the woman doesn’t hear her. Penny’s eyes are drawn to her clothes: a paisley dress underneath a suede jacket. She adjusts her purse, a brown leather shoulder bag painted with blue flowers. It’s an excellent vintage outfit, maybe from the seventies. Penny is about to compliment her when someone else runs out of the woods.

Penny gasps. It’s Alonso.

Except no, it’s not quite him. He looks older, and his hair is fully blond, without a blue strand in sight. And when he steps out of the shadows of the forest, the sunlight catches on an unfamiliar scar along the edge of his jaw.

“You never used to run from me,” the man says. That’s not Alonso’s voice. This voice is grittier, angrier.

The woman straightens up, fear flitting across her brow. “You never used to chase me.”

“What are we doing here, Ellie?”

Ellie turns around. “Listen, Gio, I don’t know what he told you, but it’s best you hear it from me.”

Gio. As in Giovanni? Penny was right; this isn’t Alonso. It’s his grandfather.

Which means the woman is Ellie Barrion. Corey’s grandmother.

“I need to know if it’s true,” Giovanni says. “If you’re leaving me for him .”

Ellie goes silent, and that must be enough of an answer, because Giovanni’s face becomes drawn. Empty.

“How many times do you expect me to forgive you?” Ellie says. “You are good , Gio. The man I love is still there, deep down. But the fighting, and the nights spent in jail, and the drinking… I can’t keep living like this. I don’t want to raise my kids with a man who only knows how to fix problems with violence.”

Giovanni doesn’t seem to hear her. His eyes are unfocused, and when he comes back to himself, his expression is contorted with pain. “Charles Barrion can’t give you a good life. He’s not an angel, he’s a crook, and you’re acting like he’s going to solve all your problems. He doesn’t even love you, he just wants to prove to me and the rest of this town that he gets what he wants, when he wants it—”

“We’re engaged, Gio.”

Giovanni stumbles back. Ellie looks torn between running to him and staying as far away as she can.

“This is the worst decision you’ve ever made,” Gio says. “And I won’t let you forget it.”

They both pause, the expressions on their faces frozen. Then, slowly, they turn to look at Penny.

“What?” she says, but they don’t answer. Because they’re not looking at her; they’re looking behind her. She turns around.

Standing a few feet away is the Shadow.

Penny is immediately on her feet, one arm held out to protect herself, as if she could. The figure is closer than it’s ever been, and it looks less solid than it ever has.

“Penny?”

The voice comes from the dock, and the sound of it makes tears spring to Penny’s eyes. Her mom is there, her bare feet on the unstable wooden planks.

“I’m so lost, sweet pea,” Anita says. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

“Mom, watch out!” Penny says, but the dock is already breaking, and Anita is falling.

Penny screams, and she throws herself into the water to go after her mom. But she never hits the surface; she keeps falling, and falling…

Penny wakes up covered in sweat. Her neck is sore from the way she was curled up in the chair. Beside her, Anita’s heart monitor is beeping rapidly.

“Mom,” Penny says, and she’s about to press the button to call the nurses. But the peaks and valleys level out. Anita’s heart rate is steady again.

That didn’t feel like a dream. It was too vivid. It felt like…

Like a memory.

Penny grabs her phone. She overslept; she should’ve left for Bloomington already, but she pushes that thought aside as she googles Giovanni De Luca . There’s a scanned photograph of him from a newspaper story about the fire at the old Meredith House. Penny zooms in, and even through the graininess of the photo, she sees it: the scar along his chin.

“How did I know?” she mutters.

As Penny searches Ellie Barrion’s name, she already knows what she’ll find. Staring back at her is a woman with the same dark bob, the same kind eyes.

Penny has never seen their faces before. So how did they end up in her dream?