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you.”
    My heart gave a small hiccup.
    “You’re not like them, Laney. I saw it the second you arrived. You didn’t belong there.”
    “Where do I belong?”
    “On a rocky cliff above a tempestuous sea. With the salt breeze whipping through your hair, and a house burning behind you.”
    I had to smile. “Maybe you’re not so bad at the whole head-shrinking thing.”
    “Maybe we’re more alike than you think.” When he spoke I was aware of the way his lips moved over his teeth, enunciating words so meticulously. Little things like that tell you everything about a person. “It’s almost time.”
    “For what?”
    “What I wanted to show you.”
    We both lay back in the sand, and the drain of the long night and the last dregs of my high hit at the same moment, making me immensely weary. My eyes drifted closed. When I jerked awake it felt like hours had passed. I’m not sure how long I flickered back and forth between states of consciousness before Armin touched my shoulder. I sat up, disoriented. The sky looked like layered sherbet, creamy peach melting into raspberry and blueberry, shading the world in soft, milky tones. The sun was an eye-smarting bead of white light trembling at the horizon. A woman jogged barefoot along the tide line, sand sticking to her shining brown shins. I felt like I’d woken up in another universe.
    “Where am I?” I said blearily.
    Armin’s voice floated to me like a breath of morning mist. “Away.”
    ———
    I slept on the Metra, asking the guy across the aisle to wake me at Naperville. The town air was drowsy and sweet after the city. I walked home half-asleep on my feet, a zombie in Wonderland, taking off my shoes to tread barefoot on lush store-bought lawns. Armin and Blythe and Umbra seemed like a bizarre, fading dream. I unlocked the front door and headed for the stairs.
    Dad was in the kitchen, sitting with his coffee and tablet. Neither of us spoke. He cleared his throat, then looked down.
    When I paused at the top landing I could see the bald spot on his head. It seemed so vulnerable, so babyish. It made something sad twist inside me. His gaze remained fixed on the whorls in the wood grain.
    I locked my bedroom door. Pulled my dress over my head, tossed my shoes into a corner. Slipped the small silver key from my purse and stepped into my closet.
    Upside to having a brother obsessed with architecture: he will help you build a concealed door in the crawl space between your rooms.
    I shut the closet, sealing myself in darkness.
    I could find the lock by touch. I knew the furry splintered surfaces like my own heart, the taste of sawdust and wool and time. The smothering heat like a human hand over my mouth. I knelt gingerly and felt for the portable light.
    Flick.
    The space was about the size of a car interior, a rectangle of cinderblocks and plywood.
    And every square inch of it was covered with him .
    His face, printed from Facebook and newspaper articles. Rising star. The boy with the golden touch. [Scratched out] carries Redhawks to state championship. His transcript. Schedule from senior year. Bills and bank statements sent to his parents. His daily routines, traced on maps. A massive dossier.
    I picked up a pen and crossed PI/PHI SUMMER MIXER off the July calendar.
    He was going to Colorado for the first half of August—I had a copy of his hotel reservation and hiking itinerary—then no data until classes started in September. I wouldn’t see him till school began.
    But that was okay. Like my mother, I was nothing if not patient.
    I plugged my phone into my laptop and copied the photosI’d taken at Umbra. Strange, twisting staircases and labyrinthine hallways. Places to get lost. Places to be among hundreds of people without being seen.
    I paused at the pic of Blythe.
    She was wrong about looking wretched. She had an unreal beauty. I’d caught her with a curiously wry expression, mouth half-open, brow furrowed. Her canine teeth were longer than the others and