“No,” I respond instantly. “I don’t want to stay here.” There’s really nothing to go back to, but I find myself leaving Fear’s side and following the woman back to the car. The door hinges shriek as we leave, and clouds of white swirl through the air with each exhale. The woman doesn’t ask any questions as we get back into the car—which she probably stole, now that I think about it, since she has no need for one when I’m not around.
The night whizzes past once again, less urgent this time. Pressing my forehead to the glass, I close my eyes and try not to think about Fear. But it’s impossible not to. I know why I don’t want to be there when he wakes up; I can’t get those images of him and Rebecca out of my head. Knowing that he once loved me—someone that I destroyed—I can’t face him. I keep picturing those moments of passion, the way Rebecca and Fear touched. Gone. Fear’s been wandering the earth in pain just as long as I have. He found Elizabeth and loved again. And again, I ripped that love away from him. His pain, his struggles, his torment. All my fault. I can’t pinpoint the sensation that makes my chest hurt … or maybe I’m not willing to explore it. Not right now.
Once again the woman and I are silent in the car. The white lines on the road shoot by. It isn’t until we’re back in Tim’s driveway, back at the house that isn’t really mine, that she speaks. The engine idles as she shifts gears again, and the leather seat creaks when she twists to face me.
“I want to tell you something.” She hesitates, and stillness fills the space between us. “About the illusion,” she asserts.
I angle toward her, too. “Okay.”
The woman taps her knee with her finger. “When it breaks … it’s going to hurt. A lot. Not just physically.”
“Well.” I take this in. “Thank you for letting—”
“That’s not what I want to tell you,” she snaps. “I should have told you this the day you asked me to do the illusion … I just want you to know that you’re strong. Okay? You didn’t need the illusion to overcome w-what you’d g-gone through.” She clenches the steering wheel at this, and I know she’s struggling to speak past the power that not only affects me but both of us. She breathes deeply, then continues. “I only did it because we needed to get Nightmare off your trail. And it did, for years. So I don’t regret doing it. But you didn’t need the illusion to survive … to survive what you did. Do you understand me?” The power stops her from giving me details, and there’s still a portion of the illusion standing, so I don’t understand, not completely. But I nod. The woman nods, as well. “Good,” she says. “Good night.”
That’s my cue to go. Her polite way of telling me to get out. She’s never been polite before, so I quickly comply. The house is dark, but Charles’s car is in the driveway, so I know he’s home.
Preparing myself for the scene ahead, I watch the woman drive away into the night, back to Fear. And I have a feeling that when I see her again, things are going to be very, very different.
Even though it felt like a decade, I was only in the woods for two days. My not-brother yelled at me when I got home, and it wasn’t horrible for his first lecture. When he was done, his face was as red as Tim’s. But the menace was missing. Instead of looking furious, he just looked … weary. He’d returned to this house for me, altered his life for me, and this is how I repaid him. But the guilt I should have felt was absent, as the illusion taunted me with its resoluteness.
Three more days have gone by. I can’t bring myself to go back to school. My thoughts are consumed by my real family and the few glimpses of my old life that I’ve been given. No, that I’ve fought for. Why? Why fight for something I tried so hard to forget? That was what I was doing, throughout all of this. Fighting. Looking for the truth. Seeking to find a place where I belonged. In this way, I’m so human. I’ve observed it many times, thought it on countless occasions: give a person what they want, and it turns out it’s not what they wanted after all.
As the hours pass, I lie in the bed I’ve slept in for thirteen years. It feels strange now. Like I’m burying myself in someone else’s sheets. They smell like me, Sarah picked them out for me, but the ghost of what should have been fills this room like a choking perfume. The mural looms closer and closer and Landon’s prone form swallows my attention whole, no matter how much I try to concentrate on something else.
Charles doesn’t hover. No matter how much he’s changed, he was never good at that kind of thing. He loses himself in the car he’s invested so much hope in, and continues his shifts at Fowler’s. I’ve seen him poring over bills, though, Worry pressing close. I really didn’t give Charles enough credit over the years—he’s just as extraordinary as Maggie.
Maggie.
I try not to think about her. The memory of her pallid face causes an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of my stomach. Every time my guard slips and she slides past, one word pounds at the inside of my skilclass="underline" Should. I should have tried breaking the illusion sooner. I should have been able to lay my hands on her and heal her, as I had with Fear. I should have been more for her. If I hadn’t been so weak, so desperate to cling to logic and escape the past, her death could have been prevented.
It’s a mantra: Don’t think about her.
Finally, though, one thing drags me from that bed, from that room, from the pieces that are me and someone else. And that thing is Joshua Hayes. Charles must have told him I’m back, because he calls the house relentlessly. Whenever Charles tiptoes through the doorway—as if disturbing me will set off some sort of grenade—I pretend to be asleep. But Joshua is there, lodged in my head. Past all the questions and torment about Landon, our mother, what I am, why Fear hasn’t come to see me now that he’s better, Joshua is there. Waiting. I saw you. The words replay over and over with all the tenacity of a blaring radio. I pay my dues, and I owe him. He was nothing but kind to me. The only problem is that he wants. Wants Elizabeth, who’s fragmented and fading. Wants a future, which I can no longer imagine. Wants more, which I just can’t give. Because so much else stands in the way, and it isn’t just the illusion.
So, as I shower and dress for battle, the decision is easy: I’m going to lie. I feel nothing, for him or for anyone. Once he believes me, sees that I’m a monster, he’ll let me go. Quite easily, I imagine.
My face void of all expression, I head outside. My truck is parked by the barn. Charles must have had it towed back from wherever Nightmare abandoned it.
As it always does, the thought of the Element sends a jarring shiver down my spine. But Fear doesn’t come—I can’t help but notice. No, I won’t let myself wonder. I’m becoming an expert at avoidance, and there’s no reason to abandon the skill now.
I climb into the truck, find the keys on the dashboard, and go.
I haven’t been to the Hayes’ farm since Joshua’s mom died. Everything looks like it’s falling into disrepair. The roof on the house is sagging, and whatever color paint it had is long gone. The fence alongside me is missing sections and the driveway is full of potholes. And the crops … the beans aren’t right. I can tell, even when looking at the field from yards away. They should have been harvested by now. The plants are yellow, half-withered, low to the ground. Joshua wasn’t exaggerating when he voiced concern; this place is slipping away.
Even when the sound of my truck rumbles through the air, no one emerges from the house or the fields. Killing the engine, I get out and wander.
I’m not surprised to find Joshua in his barn. Like me, he seems to takes solace in the quiet there. He’s shoveling manure out of a stall and into a wheelbarrow, the muscles in his arms standing out as he works quickly, intent only on this. I watch from the doorway. I wait. It doesn’t take him long to notice me.