The yard is covered in snowdrifts. They rise a foot high in some spots, the grass barely flecked with snow in others. The wind tries hard to push me down as I trek through the yard, making my way out to the dogs. The property is large, and they’re far away, pawing at something. I clap my hands and call to them again, but still they don’t come. The snow blows sideways. It gusts up the leg of my pajama pants and into the neckline of my shirt. My feet, covered in slippers alone, ache from the bitter cold. I didn’t think to put shoes on before I came outside.

It’s hard to see much of anything. The trees, the houses, the horizon disappear in the snow. I find it hard to open my eyes. I think of the kids still in school. How will they get home?

Halfway to the dogs, I think about turning around. I don’t know that I have it in me to make it all the way there. I clap again; I call to them. They don’t come. If Will was here, they would come.

I force myself to go on. It hurts to breathe; the air is so cold it burns my throat and lungs.

The dogs bark again and I run the last twenty feet to them. They look sheepishly at me as I come, and I expect to find a half-eaten cadaver lying between their feet.

I reach out, grabbing ahold of one of the girls’ collars and pulling, saying, “Come on, let’s go,” not caring if there’s a maimed squirrel there, but just needing to be back inside. But she just stands there, whining at me, refusing to come. She’s much too big for me to lug all the way home. I try, but as I do I stagger from the weight of her, losing balance. I fall forward to my hands and knees where there, before me, between the dogs’ paws, something sparkles in the snow. It’s not a rabbit. It’s not a squirrel. It’s much too small to be a rabbit or a squirrel.

And then there’s the shape of it, long and slender and sharp.

My heart races. My fingers tingle. The black specks return, dancing before my eyes. I feel like I could be sick. And then suddenly I am. On my hands and knees, I retch into the snow. My diaphragm contracts but it’s a dry heave only. I’ve had nothing to eat but a few sips of coffee. My stomach is empty. There’s nothing there to come back up.

One of the dogs nudges me with her nose. I latch on to her, steadying myself, seeing plainly that the object between the dogs’ feet is a knife. The missing boning knife. The blood on it is what’s piqued the dogs’ interest. The blade of the knife is approximately six inches long, same as the one that killed Morgan Baines.

Beside the knife sits a hole that the dogs have carved into the earth.

The dogs dug up this knife. This knife was buried in our backyard. All this time, they’ve been digging into the backyard to unearth this knife.

I glance quickly back to the house. Though in reality I see nothing, just barely the softened periphery of the house itself, I imagine Otto standing at the kitchen window, watching me. I can’t go home.

I leave the dogs where they are. I leave the knife where it is. I don’t touch it. I limp across the yard. My feet tingle from the cold, losing feeling. It makes it hard for them to move. I lumber around the side of the house, missing my footing because of my frozen feet. I fall into snowdrifts and then force myself back up.

It’s a quarter-mile hike to the bottom of our hill. That’s where the town and the public safety building are located, where I’ll find Officer Berg.

Will said to wait. But I can no longer wait.

There’s no telling what time Will will be home, or what may happen to me by the time he is.

The street is barren and bleak. It’s saturated in white. There’s no one here but me. I shamble down the hill, nose oozing with snot. I wipe it away with a sleeve. I’m wearing only pajamas, not a coat or a hat. Not gloves. The pajamas do nothing to keep me warm, to protect me. My teeth chatter. I can barely keep my eyes open because of the wind. The snow blows from all ways simultaneously, constantly airborne, swirling in circles like the vortex of a tornado. My fingers freeze. They’re blotchy and red. I can’t feel my face.

Off in the distance, the blade of a shovel scrapes a sidewalk.

There’s the littlest bit of hope that comes with it.

There is someone else on this island besides Otto and me.

I go on only because I have no choice but to go on.

MOUSE

In the middle of the night, Mouse heard a noise she knew well.

It was the squeak of the stairs, which had no reason to be squeaking since Mouse was already in her bed. As Mouse knew, there was one bedroom on the second floor of the old house. At night, after she was in bed, there was no reason for anyone to be upstairs but her.

But someone was coming up the stairs. Fake Mom was coming upstairs, and the stairs themselves were calling out a warning for Mouse, telling her to run. Telling her to hide.

But Mouse didn’t have a chance to run or hide.

Because it happened too fast and she was disoriented from sleep. Mouse barely had time to open her eyes before the bedroom door pressed open, and there Fake Mom stood, backlit by the hallway light.

Bert, in her cage on the bedroom floor, emitted a piercing screech. She rushed under her translucent dome for safety. There she held still like a statue, mistakenly believing no one would see her on the other side of the opaque plastic, so long as she didn’t move.

In her bed, Mouse tried to hold real still, too.

But Fake Mom saw her there, just as she saw Bert.

Fake Mom flicked the bedroom light on. The brightness of it overpowered Mouse’s tired, dilated eyes, so that at first she couldn’t see. But she could hear. Fake Mom spoke, her voice composed in a way that startled Mouse even more than if it wasn’t. Her steps were slow and deliberate as she let herself into the room, when Mouse wished she would come running in, screaming, and then leave. Because then it would be over and through.

What did I tell you about picking up after yourself, Mouse? Fake Mom asked, coming closer to the bed, stepping past Bert and her cage. She grabbed Mouse’s bedspread by the edge and tugged, revealing Mouse in her unicorn pajamas beneath, the ones she put on without anyone having to tell her to put them on. Beside Mouse, in the bed, was Mr. Bear. Did you think that picking up after yourself didn’t mean flushing a toilet or wiping up after you piss all over the seat, the same seat that I have to sit on?