Page 77 of The Narrow

Maeve’s face swings in her direction, but she seems disinterested. She looks back toward me as Zoya, muttering what might be a prayer, creeps over to Veronica to relight her candle.

“We thought we could talk to you safely this way,” I say. Even though it’s out, I clutch my candle tightly in my hand.

“You told me you would help me find her,” Maeve says, a hint of a question in the garbled words. “Did you change your mind?”

“No,” I say. “I’m going to help you.We’regoing to help you. But we don’t know where Grace is, Maeve. You have to tell us what happened that night. Where she might have gone.”

“That night,” Maeve says. Her eyes grow unfocused. She draws in a strained breath, then coughs, filthy water gushing over her lips.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” Ruth is chanting. “This can’t be real. Thiscannotbe real.”

“Maeve. The night you died. Where was Grace?” I ask, tuning Ruth out.

“Grace. She was—they wouldn’t let me see her,” Maeve says. Her fingers crawl up into her hair, digging painfully at her scalp. “Said I was bad. Said I was wicked. Said I made her do things, that she’d been good before she met me, and she was. She was so good, and she never stopped. So sweet, so serious. Such a solemn little thing, you know—didn’t know how to laugh properly until I taught her.”

With every word, her voice grows clearer. The bright star of blood in her eye recedes to a small point of scarlet.

“We said we were going to be together forever. But they tried to get rid of me. It didn’t work. We were going to run away together,” she says, her voice turned bright and hopeful. Slowly, across the circle, Ruth and Zoya steal back to their places. Zoya’s eyes are wide. Ruth’s jaw is clenched so hard, it flares.

“You came to the school. To the woods, to meet Grace,” I prompt.

“It was dark and she wasn’t there,” Maeve says. Her voice trembles. She gags on water. “Grace wasn’t there, she—it’s dark—the water—I can’t hold on, I—don’t let go, don’t let go, foreverforeverforever—” Her stream of words cuts off. She jerks backward, blood blooming in the air behind her as if through water. Her feet lift off the ground, her spine bending backward, her hands lifting as if drifting in a current. We’re losing her.

Before I can register what I’m doing, I’m on my feet. Veronica screams at me to stop, but I’ve already stepped across the line of chalk, my foot splashing into the puddle of cold water. I reach out, grab her arm. She isn’t moving, yet I can feel a force tearing her away from me, an unstoppable current.

“Maeve!” I yell. “Look at me!”

I pull hard.

The river relinquishes its hold. I stumble back as she falls toward me, and now I’m the one falling—but her hand turns, catches my arm, each of us holding the other tight.

There is no pain. Not this time. Our breaths are ragged, and they seem to fill the dark around us.

“Look,” Maeve whispers.

Another sound emerges—the rush and babble of water. Wearen’t in the room anymore, but wrapped in darkness pricked by the light of a swollen moon. Beside us glides the thin silver tongue of the Narrow—no, beside me and me alone, because Maeve is gone.

My body isn’t my own. I wear a familiar blue blouse and jeans, and dark hair tumbles over my shoulders.

A branch cracks behind me. I turn. A shadowed figure approaches from among the trees. For a moment my heart leaps—Grace—but the figure is too tall and too broad. Anger burns away my fleeting happiness.

“You can’t keep her from me,” I say. “I love her, and she loves me.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” says a voice that I recognize immediately, despite being decades younger than when I last heard it. “Go home, Maeve.”

“She is my home,” I say, the words sandpaper in my throat. “At least let me see her. Let me talk to her.”

“I can’t do that. You need to leave. If you don’t, I will do whatever is necessary to make sure you’re kept away from her.”

“You have no right,” I bite out.

The figure steps out from the trees, and the moonlight casts a pale wash of light over Geoffrey Oster’s face. He’s younger—much younger. But the hardness of his eyes and the stern line of his mouth haven’t changed. “Don’t test me, Maeve.”

Rage tears through me, my anger snapping free. “You heartless bastard!” I shout at him. “How can you do this to us? You’ll never keep me away from her!” I scream, and all I want to do in that moment is leap on him, gouge his eyes with my nails, bite andclaw and tear. I wheel away, turning my back on him, hands balled into fists.

And then—

There’s a strange sensation, like hurtling through the dark. Then, strangely, a smile creeps over my face. The rain pelts down. My clothes are soaked through, clinging to my skin, and I shiver with cold, but all I can feel is inexplicable elation. I can’t seem to see properly; everything is blurred from the rain in my eyes.

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