“Nobody better smell like beer.” Her father stopped short in front of them and scrutinized their faces. He adjusted his glasses and leaned closer to give her face a sniff.
“Dad.”
“Cassandra smells like beer.”
“A glass and a half. Over like three hours. I swear.”
He gave her the eye and grilled everyone else. They came up clean.
“Sixteen-year-old girls don’t need beer,” her dad said, but it was a tired lecture. He’d been talking to them about drinking responsibly since they were thirteen. “You might be grounded. I’m going to talk to your mother.” He reached a long arm into the kitchen and set the empty bowl on the counter. “Honey,” he called. “The kids are hammered!”
“What?!”
“Kidding, dear.” He smiled, but when he raised a finger his voice was stern. “I am going to talk to your mother.” He turned away back down the hall. “You kids just be careful.”
Aidan insisted she get into bed, so she sat, still dressed in jeans and her blue cardigan, her blankets pulled up to her waist and the big black-and-silver dog stretched along one side. Andie sat on the edge of the bed and scratched his ears.
“Can’t believe Henry let you borrow Lux,” she said. “He must think you’re dying.”
Cassandra stroked the dog’s furred shoulder, and Lux tilted his head toward her and whined. He’d stay with her until she fell asleep, then sneak out of her room to go crawl in with Henry. Despite being adopted as a family dog, he’d been Henry’s from the start.
Andie stood up. “Listen, I’ll call you after I’m done at the nursery tomorrow. You need a ride home, Aidan?”
“I can walk.”
Andie waved, and they listened to her footsteps tramp down the stairs. There was a short, muffled exchange with Cassandra’s parents, and a few seconds later, the front door opened and closed. Lux’s ears pricked when she started her car. For a few deep breaths it was silent, and Cassandra sat in her bed, cuddled into her blue comforter. Whatever it was she’d thought she’d seen, it wasn’t real. Feathers didn’t sprout from people like leaves. They didn’t slice through a body and tear them up from the inside out. And Aidan was fine.
“So,” Cassandra said hesitantly. “Did I make a scene?”
Aidan shrugged from the foot of the bed, where he lay reclined on one elbow.
“A little. Sam said it was a nice diversionary tactic from Casey and Matt.”
Cassandra smiled. It was what she expected. Kincade was full of nice, nonbigoted people. She’d been a little strange all her life, but no one ever made her feel it. When she went back to school on Monday, a few would ask how she was doing, whether she was okay, and when she said she was fine, they’d talk about something else. It seemed strange sometimes, like something was in the water.
“You going to tell me what happened?”
“Mmm-hmm.” In a minute or so. She wished they were somewhere else, at the kitchen table, maybe, or in the den had her parents not been in it. Her room seemed suddenly childish, with its white dresser and vanity and gauzy blue curtains. There was a jewelry box on the vanity that played music; her mother had gotten it for her when she was six. She wanted to throw it out the window.
“Cassandra?”
“You’re not going to believe me,” she said, and he gave her a look. Of course he would believe her. He always did.
“I saw you, standing in front of me. Except you weren’t right. There were cuts—wounds—and there were feathers coming out of them.”
“Feathers?”
“Everywhere. Brown and white. Like they were slicing through you somehow. Even through your tongue and”—she made a face—“under your fingernails.”
Seconds ticked by with Aidan staring at the blanket. It wasn’t exactly the quick comfort she’d expected.
“It was really real. I think I could smell the blood, the disease, even through the cold.” She swallowed, careful not to inhale too deeply. That smell might stay with her the rest of her life: sweet, cloying, and sick. It reminded her of counting pennies from her piggy bank.
Beside them, something struck the window, and Lux nearly punctured Cassandra’s lung scrambling off the bed to attack. It was gone before he’d managed to bark twice, gone in a thump and a flash of silent feathers, but they’d both seen what it was: an owl. An owl had landed on the windowsill. It had balanced for an instant, all tufted ears and yellow eyes.
“Lux, quiet,” said Cassandra, and the dog gave one final bark before returning to jump back onto her lap. Aidan went to the window and rubbed his sleeve through the fog of dog breath.
“It’s gone.”
“That’s a weird coincidence,” Cassandra said.
“Yeah.” Aidan returned to the bed but didn’t sit. He reached for his jacket. “Listen, I’d better let you get some sleep. You and your dad.”
“My dad?” she asked as he walked to her door.
“You think he actually goes to bed before he hears me go out the door?” He smiled, then paused with his hand on the knob. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you, don’t you?”
“I know. Are you weirded out?”
“No. And if I am, I like it.”
The sensation of cold hit her first. It shocked her insteps and made her toes clench. The dead, half-frozen grass spread ice all the way up her legs, and slow, chilly wind took care of the rest of her.
Moonlight showed the bony trunks of pines, green needles silver in the night. Up ahead was the orange glow of a dying fire, and the wind rattled through dry, brittle things.
No, not Abbott Park. There was no crumbling, patchy stone fence, and the trees were different. No sound of moving water from the stream either. Wherever she was, it wasn’t in the hills of Kincade. It was wide open, and flat.
But every physical sensation was there, from the cold on her goose-bumped skin to the irritating wet of thawing grass between her toes. Even the weight of her body. It felt completely real, to move and blink, to feel her hair shift across her back.
Cassandra stood silent, waiting for whatever mundane tidbit the dream wanted to impart. She crossed her arms. Stupid. The last thing she remembered was lying in her bed with a warm dog beside her. Now she was in the middle of a frigid, overgrown field, edged by pine trees.
Nothing happened. She waited, and then walked toward the place where the small fire ebbed in a hand-dug pit. She wondered who dug it; maybe her dad, or Henry. Maybe this was a preview of a really miserable future camping trip. When she stepped into the small clearing, off the grass, her wet feet turned the dirt to mud that stuck to her soles.
“Damn it.”
Her voice rang out too loud and made her jump, which made her feel stupid. Cold air crept down the neck of her sleep shirt and the embers of the fire inhaled and glowed brighter. She put her foot over them to get dry, but couldn’t feel heat. Her foot dropped lower and lower, until she stood on the embers.
