“Mom,” I said again. “Mom, did you hurt them?”

“Did I what?” she asked. “Hurt who?” She filled the mug with water from the sink.

My throat was dry. I didn’t know where to start. “Sean Coleman.”

Her face turned hard, angry, and I remembered the mood swings, how intense she could be. “Sean Coleman had been blackmailing us for years. He was . . . a drain. A leech. Taking something that wasn’t his. You know I saw him last week? Walking into the hospital lobby? He did a double take, called my name. My old name. He was coming for us, baby. You’d never be free.”

She had it wrong. Sean Coleman had been looking for me because he thought his son was going to come to me, the same way he’d come to Sean. The same way he’d come after my mother ten years earlier. Sean was coming to help me, and then he saw my mother.

Was that why he’d been watching? To see what she would do?

This. This was what Sean Coleman had been warning me about with his letter. Not his son. But this: my mother. And now she was here.

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t him.”

She turned, looked at me hard. “Don’t be naive, honey.” She turned back to the kitchen cabinets, heated up the mug of water in the microwave. “I have always, always been there to help you. Who do you think called the police when Nathan followed you?”

That anonymous call, I suddenly understood—when she said she had kept me safe. She had called it in, made sure the police came after us. And now Nathan Coleman sat in jail, the case circling around him instead of me.

“His father was blackmailing us for years. Well, like father, like son, it seems.”

“It wasn’t his father. All those years, the letters, the blackmail—it was the son. It was always Nathan,” I said.

She stared at me blankly and then took a deep breath, her shoulders pressing back. “No, he was watching this house, Arden. He was watching you.”

“No,” I said, my voice rising, “he had come here to warn me. Not about his son. Not that at all. He was coming here to warn me about you.”

I stood up too fast, the chair pushing back.

She tipped her head, momentarily confused. “Arden, calm down. You’re not acting like yourself.”

She was right. I needed to calm down. Couldn’t let the panic settle in, rendering me useless, telling me to run.

Six steps to the back door; thirteen steps to the front door. Could I make it to Rick’s house? To his shed? To his guns? With a stiff knee and one good arm?

No one was here—no one could help.

The microwave beeped, and I saw her fingers find the amber vial of my prescription from Dr. Cal in the space beside it. I saw her read the label, then quickly turn it back.

“Mom, I need to know. I need to know what happened back then.”

She sighed. “Go lie down, Arden. Rest, I’m making you a hot chocolate.” She pointed down the hallway, and I complied.

I started walking down the hall, then heard the gentle rattle of pills, like I had so many times in my memories. My mother, at night, making me hot chocolate—to calm me. The rattle of pills to stop me.

A chill ran down my back. Had she always been this person—even before? Like Emma Lyons had said? Had she drugged me long ago, before the episodes? Dr. Cal had said that sleepwalking was, unfortunately, a side effect of other medications.

Whom had I been living with all those years? A monster?

I kept moving, barefoot, quietly—by the glow of the television—peering around the living room for something I could use.

“Arden,” she said, voice closer. “Where are you going?” The squeak of a hinge, a click, and then the last of the lights went black.

She had just cut the electricity. And I understood: She knew exactly what she was doing. We were bathed in darkness, and then all I could feel were the walls on either side of me closing in. I couldn’t run from this anymore; couldn’t ever be free of it if I did.

I stood perfectly still, my eyes unaccustomed to the dark. I couldn’t tell where she was—could hear only my own rapid breathing, my own heartbeat, until the shock of her cold fingers at my elbow, her grip tightening.

She jerked me toward her, and my arm pulled. I yelled out—the flash of another memory then, another time, another possibility.

“Did he hurt you?” she asked, her voice in my ear.

“Yes,” I whispered, but she didn’t release her grip.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve got something to help you. Come. Come on.” And then we were moving, down the darkness of the hall, my free hand feeling for the wall.

A door opened, and I could feel the chill of cooler air escaping. “This way,” she said, pushing me toward the staircase. One way up. One way out. “Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”

And then she closed the door.

There was no light in the stairwell, just darkness. The narrowed walls, the smell of wood. My entire body began to tremble.

Like so long ago—the only clear memory. Of walls and stagnant water and no way out. I did now what I must’ve done back then. Not going back the way I came, but forward. I went up.

I stood in the middle of the room, in front of those glass windows: the only way out. I could feel the panic brewing. Knowing the eaves were narrowed, and the space was finite, and there was one way out of this room. I held myself very still, and I sat in the single rocking chair in the middle of the room, staring at the beveled glass windows, until my eyes adjusted to the dark.

And I waited.

Because I needed to know. I needed the truth. I needed to come face-to-face with myself, and with her.

The door opened again; the scent of hot chocolate wafted through the room. She ascended the steps and walked around the rocking chair so she was standing between me and the window, the moonlight fracturing through the glass. Like she had been here before, knew her way around. I suddenly knew she’d been the one to remove that light bulb. She’d been here all along.

“Here,” she said, holding out the mug. “For the pain.”

“I don’t want it. I want you to tell me what happened back then.”

Her mouth was a thin line before breaking into a small grin. “All right. Drink, and we’ll talk.”

I took the cup from her hands, and she waited until I brought it to my lips, taking a sip.

The liquid burned. A piece of me in exchange for a piece of her. How far was she going to take me? Was she feeding me this in the hope that I wouldn’t remember? So I would remain compliant? Or did she want to hurt me?

“How did this happen?” I asked, gesturing to my left arm. “Back then.” Bennett had an opinion, the doctors had an opinion, Nathan had an opinion. But none of them knew for sure.

She cocked her head. “You really don’t remember?”

Emma Lyons had told me about that doctor—how he thought I’d been lying. Six years old and lying because my mother was in the room.

“Did you hurt me?” I asked.

She looked off to the side. “It was an accident. You had some reaction to a medication, it was making you wired . . . you were uncontrollable, Arden, truly, I had to—” Her arm flung out to the side as she spoke. “We were on the steps—I swear, you were going to take us both down, and I—it all happened so fast. I tried to pull you back, but you screamed and I let go. And you fell.” She shook her head. “I was trying to keep you from getting hurt, I promise. But a child’s bones are so fragile.”