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only one among hundreds of untold stories. Names, dates, flowers in vases left to wilt under all this white.
    There’s so much land on the ground that they can make a garden of all their dead. It’s no matter whether anyone ever comes to visit.
    Amy looks over her shoulder at me. Her brow is raised. “What do you think happens when they bury you here, and years pass, and everyone who knew you is dead? Who comes to visit? Or do they mow this down and start over?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “It seems like such a waste—all of it.”
    “Maybe not,” Amy says. “If there were a place I could go and visit my sister, talk to her—I think I’d like that.”
    “I don’t think I could visit my parents in a place like this,” I say. “There are no spirits here. Only stones.”
    “There are spirits,” Amy says with certainty. “But these spirits aren’t our spirits.”
    I don’t know what she means. She’s a peculiar little girl who says peculiar things, but her outlandish remarks are different from the kind that other children tell. She speaks assuredly. And when she awakens from her fits, there’s real sadness, and that sadness lingers with her for days.
    And though I don’t entirely believe in the things she claims, I don’t think it’s all her imagination. A normal girl would want to imagine happy things.
    A breeze disturbs the bare branches and I hug my arms when it reaches me.
    I’d much like to leave now, but Amy may well miss out on much of the exploring, due to her fits and Judas’s overprotectiveness, and if this is all she wants, she should get to see it.
    The wind picks up, as though it means to force us away. The rusted gate swings on its hinge, an invitation to leave.
    But the squealing gate isn’t the only noise. There’s a low whistle, and then a crack so loud Amy jumps to her feet. “What was that?” she says. Another crack. Louder, so much louder, than the thunder that horrified us the other night when we heard it for the first time.
    Straight ahead of us, the headstones make a path to the horizon. They offer no answers. And they have no reaction to that black billowing smoke where a building stood only seconds ago.
    I think of what Nimble said. Bomb.
    “Come on!” I grab her arm and run for the gate. I don’t look back. She’s gasping for breath beside me, but she manages to keep up. I have a fleeting thought that this could trigger one of her fits, but I don’t know what caused that explosion or if there will be another.
    The day the flower shop caught fire, I thought it had the power to end my little world. How was I to know that there were bigger fires happening below us? I don’t know what it would take to end a world this size, if anything could. All I’ve seen are more terrifying ways to destroy, to no end at all.
    Nimble is speeding away even before I’ve had a chance to close the door. The car lurches and swerves on the ice.
    “Looks like you ladies arrived just in time for the fun to begin,” he says.

4

    The black clouds are visible from the hotel by the time we’ve returned to it. I see them rolling in the distance, moving the way that giant body of water moves, snuffing out the bereft gray clouds. The sun has made a wise decision to hide from us completely.
    The car jolts to a stop by the front door. “Go on inside,” Nimble says.
    “Aren’t you coming?” I ask.
    “After I park,” he says. “Aerial warfare’s bad for the paint.”
    The front door swings open and there the Piper children stand, perfectly in order, all of them with the same frightened eyes. “Nim!” Birdie calls as he speeds around the building.
    “Where’s he going?” Riles asks.
    “To park in the carriage house. Him and his love for that stupid bus,” Birdie says.
    “I’ll help,” Riles says, but Birdie catches him by the collar as he tries to run outside.
    “Don’t be a pest.” She ruffles his hair. “Leave the door open for him.”
    “What happened?” Basil