Page 67 of Confessions of the Dead

Did you test it? Like those kids?

Maro:

Hollows Bend has some of the purest water in the world.

Analysis Note: He repeated this three more times, like some kind of mantra. Like he was trying to convince himself.

Sordello:

Sick. Infected. Crazy. Angry. Paranoid.Those are the words you used to describe it. If not the water, what did you believe was the cause? At this point, you still hadn’t talked to the girl. Did you believe she was connected or just another victim? What do you think was behind it all?

[Silence. Subject scribbles something on the back of the coroner’s folder.]

Sordello:

Deputy? What did you just write?

[Subject holds up the folder so she can make it out. He wrote: We suffer the Malcolms of the world.]

50

Hannah

MALCOLM’S LOUD CRY HADceased nearly as abruptly as it started, and the silence that followed frightened Hannah more than his terror-filled shriek had. Malcolm went completely quiet, his body was still. The only sounds in the old house were Hannah’s breathing, the buzz of flies, and the rustle of crows as they shifted around that far room from one perch to another, as if trying to get a better view of the boy below.

Had something hurt him?

Did he pass out?

Was he …

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