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Agatha?” I croaked, trying to pull my hand
back.
    The tiny woman
gave a curt nod. “And you’re Farley.” There was a lilt to her
voice, the echo of an accent. Maybe Scottish.
    “ We’re going in the wrong direction. My mom was here. She went
the other way.”
    Agatha tugged
me into a darkened walkway between two tents—a fortune teller and a
miniature red-and-white striped big top, inside which the smallest
man on record could apparently be found. She pulled her lips into a
tight line. “No. She didn’t. Your mom’s not here.”
    “ I  saw  her. I have to—”
    “ You saw what you were supposed to see. There are other people
here that want to talk to you, too. You met them briefly the other
day with Daniel.”
    “ It was her.
I know what my own mother looks like.” I yanked my hand free from
Agatha’s. I made to step back out into the melee, but the other
woman caught hold of me.
    “ She’s not out there, okay? I promise you it wasn’t
her.”
    “ You can’t promise me that.”
    “ I can. She’s not walking around anywhere, kiddo.
She’s  dead .”
    The words sank
like a knife into my back. I whipped around. Agatha stared up at me
with a firm look on her face, yet her soft brown eyes held a note
of sadness. “I’m sorry. I realize there are better ways to break
that news. You came here to talk. Can we talk?”
    “ What do you mean,  she’s
dead ?” The world had slipped into a
strange slant. I peeled my sandpaper tongue from the roof of my
mouth, tasting something cloying and overly sweet.
    “ It’s true. I’m sorry, really, I am.” Agatha cast a swift,
appraising look around us and bit down on her lower lip. “Come
inside.” She motioned to the fortune teller’s tent. “There are
things you should know.”
    I stepped
back. “No.” Suddenly getting answers didn’t seem all that
important. Not if they were these kinds of answers.
    Agatha almost
managed to conceal her frustration, but her anxiety was all too
evident in the way her body tensed with every passing second we
stood out in the open.
    “ Have you heard from Moira since she disappeared? Have you had
a phone call? An email? Have the police found any evidence to
suggest where she might have gone? Have you any other reason to
believe that she’s alive somewhere?”
    The answer
must have shown on my face, even if I refused to voice it. No,
there was no real reason to believe that she was alive. But that
didn’t mean I was just going to give up and accept that my mom was
gone.
    “ I shouldn't have come.”
    “ Yes, you should. You’re in danger. If you walk away now, I
can’t promise we’ll be able to protect you.”
    The sounds of
the fair throbbed like a beating, demented drum, refusing to let me
think properly. The smells were all too much,
too saccharine sweet, too sour, too overwhelming. I
sucked in a deep lungful of air, trying to move past the panic.
“This is ridiculous. Who exactly do you think I need protecting
from? I’m an eighteen-year-old girl, for crying out loud. Who would
possibly want to harm me?”
    Agatha scanned
the area with worried eyes; she grabbed hold of my hand again and
pulled me further into the walkway. The shadows enveloped us,
concealing us in a cloak of shadow.
    “ The same person who killed Moira. The same person who will kill me and Daniel
and everyone else we know, given the chance.” Agatha stopped
searching the crowds for a moment and fixed me in her gaze, her
expression earnest and pleading. She took a deep breath.
    “ Your father, Farley. Your dad.”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Reaver
     
     
    The air inside
the tent smelled different from outside—stale, like the heavy
material had gotten damp and dried out a hundred times over. It was
musty, but thankfully empty. Anybody overhearing our conversation
would have thought we were both crazy.
    “ I know this is hard to hear. But it’s true.
I… we think it
would be a good idea if you came and lived with us for a little
while,”