What the fuck?
Anger swirled inside her. Was he breaking up with her? Was he really going to dump her in the middle of all this insanity?
Jackass.
She wasn’t going to let him off that easy—she deserved an explanation. She tried to call him, but got sent straight into voice mail. It was still early—maybe his phone was off.
Fine.
She texted him.
Got ur message. Call me back. NOW.
She hit send and paced the room. Normally, the first thing she’d do in a crisis would be to call Susan, but what was she going to say? “Hey, I know you’re busy with Smith, but my parents are getting divorced and I think there’s another world out there that no one can see but me and Walker?”
Susan would think she’d lost her mind.
There was no way she could say that—not even to her best friend.
But Keira had one other friend she could turn to. A friend who didn’t care how early or late it was, who didn’t mind her snarled hair or morning grogginess, and who never accused her of losing her mind.
She carried her tea into the living room, put it on the floor, and sat down at her piano. Keira stretched out her neck and shuffled through the basket of music, nodding absently as her mother peered around the doorway and announced that she was leaving.
In the silence that followed, Keira knew that she wouldn’t be able to play any of the pieces she held in her hand. She knew each note on every page, and not a single one fit her mood right then.
Tossing them aside, she put her fingers on the keyboard. With her back to the room, she could feel the visible-invisible tree, lurking there, like it was waiting for her to start playing. She shivered.
She let the fear slink through her, let it slide down her arms and into her fingers, which twitched against the keys. The music that slithered out of the piano was terrifying. There was a simple melody woven through, but layered on top of it was something discordant and jarring.
Keira poured all of her unmanageable feelings into the music. Without the weight of so much emotion pressing down on her, she was finally able to breathe. When the notes dwindled, and she could hear the end of the song approaching, her eyes fell closed.
The last, quavering note still hung in the air as Keira slid off the bench and padded back to her room to check her phone. She felt braver after playing.
She dialed Walker again. She was going to make him talk to her. He was going to give her an explanation. If he wanted to up and walk away after that, then he was a bastard, but she’d let him go.
She wasn’t going to deal with a world that only the two of them could see all by herself. Not when he obviously knew more about it than she did.
His phone went straight to voice mail.
She dialed him again and again, not caring that in any other situation, she’d look desperate and obsessed.
The fourteenth time she called, he picked up.
“About time,” she greeted him.
“I’m sorry! I fell asleep!” He sounded exasperated. “How many times did you call, exactly?”
“How many times did it take you to answer?” Keira snapped. “You’re the one who disappeared after you left me that message. I don’t know what your plans are. Quite frankly, I don’t care. But before you tell me that we can’t see each other anymore, I need some answers from you.”
“What? Keira, I’m not telling you that we can’t see each other. Believe me, if I thought you’d be safer with me gone, I’d already be gone. But that wouldn’t keep them from coming for us. Both of us.”
A tendril of fear sprouted inside her, but she brushed it aside. “Jesus. Is the mafia after you, or what? This is Sherwin, Maine, Walker. Not Sicily.”
Walker’s laugh was rough. “They’re much worse than the mafia. Please, Keira . . . ”
Please, nothing.
He was not going to beg his way out of this. Her insides turned to flint. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I know that you saw what I saw last night. I know it. And it’s . . . Walker, that’s not the only time I’ve seen something like that.”
He groaned. “Shit. I was worried that was the case. When you said there was a shadow on my face at the theater . . . when you didn’t burn yourself on the tea that afternoon at the diner . . . ” He half growled. “I should have known then. I should have walked away and never looked back.”
She interrupted him, ignoring the grief that sliced through her when he said never looked back. “I’m not exactly trying to hold you against your will,” she countered. “But you owe me an explanation. I want to know what I’m seeing. I want to know what it means and why it’s happening more often, and then I can deal with it myself.”
“It’s happening more frequently,” he echoed in a whisper. “Oh, no. No, no, no. This is all my fault.”