“What happened?” Rosa asked.

  “Nothing,” Jessica replied.

  As Jessica pulled out of the parking lot, tiny raindrops started to fall, but neither Jessica nor Rosa rolled their windows up. Iridian quietly tended to her wounds in the back seat, while Rosa extended her arm out the window to wiggle her fingers in the rain.

  Even though her leg stung when the hydrogen peroxide hit the scrapes, it was a pain she could manage.

  “Iridian,” Rosa called back. “Have you ever touched someone’s hand? Like, really studied it?”

  Iridian had written so many descriptions: what it was like when a hand brushed against another hand, or stroked hair, or pinched tender skin. She’d had lines and lines, pages and pages. And now she could describe what it was like to care for broken skin—the soft pressure; the cool, gentle burn of the peroxide; the feeling of being very close but not all the way close.

  But, no. She’d never touched someone’s hand, not the way that Rosa meant, anyway.

  “I hope you get the chance sometime,” Rosa replied, watching raindrops bounce off her fingernails. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Uh-huh,” Iridian replied. It was all she could say. Maybe that was true—she was sure that hands could do wonderful things, but all Iridian could think about at the moment was hands doing destructive things: smashing against cheekbones, pulling hair, tearing book pages.

  Iridian kept applying the peroxide until there was no more burn and her wounds stopped fizzing. Jessica kept driving, directionless, in circles it seemed. The winds were picking up. The receipt from the pharmacy flew from the back seat and out the window before Iridian could catch it.

  “Where are we going?” Rosa eventually asked.

  “Nowhere,” Jessica replied. “Just around. Peter said he’d come by the house after his shift was over, and until then I’m just killing time.” She paused. “He said he thinks Ana is trying to get us out of the house. That’s why she’s scaring us, ripping up Iridian’s things, sending Rosa to search for the hyena.”

  “Leave the house and go where?” Rosa asked. “Where does Ana expect us to go?”

  “Anywhere.” Jessica let out a dry little laugh. “Or maybe she’s lonely. Maybe she wants some company.”

  That wasn’t funny. Iridian immediately thought of The Witching Hour, which doesn’t have a happy ending. Whenever Iridian got close to the last few chapters, she always hoped that things would turn out differently. She didn’t understand how a story could bring two characters together only to pull them so hopelessly apart. Why create something great only to destroy it? Even though the ending broke Iridian’s heart every time, she never skipped it. She felt like the story was punishing her, but that it was a punishment well earned.

  At the end of The Witching Hour, the ghost wins.

  Jessica

  Here’s a secret: Something interesting happened four days after Ana died. Jessica was taking a shower. Just after turning on the water, she crouched down and peered into the drain. As the hot, hot water rolled down her back, Jessica pulled a clump of her older sister’s hair from the trap. She knew it was Ana’s because it was longer than hers was, and because a few of the strands were gray at the root. Jessica held the wet strands between her fingers for a few moments before putting the hair in her mouth and swallowing it.

  Jessica

  (early Monday, June 17th)

  Peter smelled like lemons, fake lemons like laundry detergent. Jessica could still smell it, even in her moldy old car, even over the dirt-smell of the rain. The lemon scent had been sucked up in her nostrils as she’d gasped and snorted against Peter’s work shirt. She imagined it mixing with her cells and entering her bloodstream. She imagined it scraping against the walls of her organs and changing them, the way acid eats away at rock.

  When Jessica had clung to Peter, she’d dug her nails into his lemon-scented shirt—through his lemon-scented shirt—and into his flesh. She’d created little hooks to hold him in place. She wondered if he still felt the impression of those hooks and if the small crescents made by her nails were still there in his skin. She wondered what she smelled like—she hoped it wasn’t moldy like her car—and if her smell still hung in Peter’s nose.

  After almost an hour of doing loops through the neighborhood and the rain-soaked, near-empty streets of downtown San Antonio, Jessica stopped for gas at a corner store. She stood with her hand on the pump, leaning her hip against the back end of her car. There was an overhang that was supposed to protect her from the rain, but the spray was still hitting her sideways. The wind gusted and sent the raindrops swirling. Jessica was standing in a puddle. A wrapper from a red Starburst floated by her left shoe.

  Rosa ran up, splashing across the parking lot. She’d gone into the store to get herself a bottle of water. She handed Iridian a small carton of chocolate milk through the window.

  “Either save it for later or drink it all right now,” Jessica told Iridian.

  “What?”

  “Save it, or drink it all right now and throw the carton away. I don’t want you spilling and getting that smell in my car.”

  What she meant was that she didn’t want the smell of milk to mix with or overpower the smell of lemons.

  “What smell?” Iridian shot back. “I’m not a child. I know how to drink milk without spilling it.”

  Jessica waited as Iridian opened the carton and drank the milk all at once, in three large chugs. Then Iridian climbed out of the back seat to shove the empty carton into the overflowing garbage can between the pumps.

  “There you go, princess,” Iridian said, getting back into the car.

  Jessica also got in, turned the ignition, and checked the time. Peter’s shift ended at 6 a.m., in a little over thirty minutes. Peter hadn’t told her what they would do once he got to her house. Maybe they would just sit on the floor and wait for Ana to tap on the window again. Or break something. Honestly, she’d settle for either. Or anything, really.

  “We should go home now,” Jessica said.

  She expected at least one of her sisters to protest, but neither did.

  Jessica pulled into the driveway, into the empty space where her dad usually parked his truck.

  “Where do you think he went?” Iridian asked.

  Jessica didn’t answer. She realized she didn’t really care anymore.

  The sisters bolted out of the car and hustled through the rain to the door. Iridian was running so fast, she slid through the wet grass and lost her footing. Jessica and Rosa both reached out to catch her before she fell.

  “Jess!”

  Jessica spun around to see a rain-soaked John jogging up the sidewalk. Had he been lurking around this whole time?

  “It’s okay,” Rosa whispered. “I can take care of it.”

  “I don’t need you to take care of it,” Jessica replied.

  “I’ve been calling, sending messages,” John said, crossing the yard. “Why haven’t you answered?”

  Jessica balked. John hadn’t even acknowledged her sisters: one who he’d struck and the other who’d struck him. Instead, he was reducing everything that had happened that night to a little quarrel about Jessica not answering her fucking phone.

  She thought back to the night she’d first kissed him, in front of everyone, in Evalin Uvalde’s entryway. She’d wanted John to taste magical, cool like sweet tea, but he hadn’t. She’d wanted him to tell her that she smelled like Ana—she’d doused herself in what was left of Ana’s cotton-scented perfume before she’d left that night, screwing off the cap and slapping the liquid directly on her belly. She’d wanted John to tell her that she felt like Ana, that their skin was the same temperature or that they made the same sounds when naked.

  He’d never said that. He’d also never told her what she, Jessica the individual, tasted like, felt like, sounded like. Instead, he always wanted to know, When are you coming over? and Why aren’t you answering your phone?

  Jessica wanted John to answer one question, and then she wanted nothing to do with him ever again.

  “Did you see my sister die?” she asked.

  John narrowed his gaze, pretending to be confused. Oh, she knew that look. It was one of Rafe’s go-to expressions.

  “Jessica,” John said, “can we go inside, please?”

  “Did you see her?” Jessica urged. “Did you hear her? She shouted. We heard her cry out.”

  John spread his arms wide, in a way that also reminded Jessica of her father. It was this big lost-for-words T-shape. It meant, What do you want me to say?

  Jessica handed Rosa her keys. “Can you two wait in the car?”

  “In the car?” Iridian balked.

  “I’m going to take John inside to dry off,” Jessica said. “I’ll just be a minute. I promise.”

  Rosa’s eyebrow hiked up.

  “Bathroom’s off the kitchen,” Jessica said as she opened the door for John. “To the right. There are towels there.”

  John trudged through the dark house, and Jessica was left alone. The living room was a disaster. Pages from the notebook she’d given Iridian were strewn about, on the carpet and on the couch. The television screen was smashed to crystals, as if someone had pitched a bowling ball into the center of it.

  “You’re mad,” Jessica whispered. “I get it.”

  She took a step forward, and paper crunched lightly under her foot.

  “But I don’t think you’re mad at us.”

  Jessica waited for a sign that she’d been heard. Iridian had mentioned smelling oranges, but all Jessica could smell was the dust and mildew that always clung to the walls and old carpet.

  “I brought someone for you,” Jessica said, just as John came out of the back bathroom, rubbing his head with a towel.

  Jessica made sure she was between John and the front door. From where she was standing, she could see through the living room and back into the kitchen. She could hear the fridge buzzing, and an ice cube drop from the door to the floor.

  “I know you saw her,” Jessica said. “You had to have. You watched Ana die, and then you drove away.”

  There was a shadow—a blur—that appeared at the right edge of the door to the kitchen. It was a figure, a dark, girl-shaped figure in a dark doorway, about Jessica’s height.

  Jessica had to force her eyes back to John, had to force her feet to stay rooted and her hands from flying up to her racing heart.

  “I was scared,” John said. He hung his head and shook it. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  The figure behind John glided fully into the doorway and stopped. It wasn’t as clear as a person, but it was more than a hand on a curtain.

  “You were scared?” Jessica asked. She started to tremble as laughter built up inside her.

  Peter had told her she needed to fight for herself. She didn’t need to do that, though, because she had her sisters.

  “I don’t want to lose you.” John reached for Jessica’s hand.

  She let him take it, but only for a moment. “It’s not that you don’t want to lose me,” she said, pulling away and stepping back. “It’s that you’re scared of being alone. Wait here,” she added. “I just need to get something out of my car.”

  As Jessica turned to the door, John, for the first time, looked around and took in the destruction around him—the paper and broken glass. He started to say something, but by then Jessica was already outside, pulling the door closed. She had her key out, ready to thrust and twist into the lock. She was ready to seal John into the house. It was a terrible thing to do—lock a person in with a ghost—but Jessica was a terrible person.

  But then the bolt clicked on its own. Jessica knew she’d always remember that smooth sound: the heavy thunk, heavy like a long, satisfying exhale.

  John hit the door and called out, but Jessica backed away from the house, taking ankle-deep steps into the mucky yard. The storm was now in full force. Rain struck her from every direction, and the sky was booming, lit up gray and bright white by the lightning. She heard Rosa and Iridian running toward her from the car.

  “She was there,” Jessica gasped. “I saw her.”

  John called out again. The pitch of his voice was higher now. It was like when she was hiding in the church, and he was growing frantic when he couldn’t find her. She’d done nothing then, and she’d do nothing now. Jessica closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the rain.

  Rosa came up to her side and linked their arms together. “You did the right thing,” she said.

  John pounded on the door again, over and over. Suddenly, he stopped. Then the screaming started. Only someone standing close to the house could hear it, though. The roar of the storm was so loud.

  Iridian

  (early Monday, June 17th)

  Jessica’s eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, like she was listening to music, like the storm was her favorite song.

  Linked together with Jessica, Rosa’s eyes were closed, too. Their lids were sealed tight. Rosa dropped her sister’s keys into the grass. Jessica might have been soaking in the sound of John’s fear, but Rosa was fine-tuned to something else farther away.

  Finally, Rosa exhaled, long and slow, like she was deflating. Then her eyes popped open.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go.”

  Rosa unlaced herself from her sister and took off across the yard. Within moments, she’d vanished between two houses. Without Rosa, Jessica seemed to sway, like she’d lost her anchor. She stared at the front door, then in the direction in which Rosa had run, then back to the door.

  “We should find her.” Iridian picked up Jessica’s keys from where Rosa had dropped them. “Jess!”

  Iridian yanked her sister’s wrist, but Jessica jerked away, causing Iridian to tip back. She tried to dig her heels into the ground but slipped and fell palms-first into the mud.

  “What’s your problem?” Iridian barked, wiping the splatter from her eyes.

  “She’ll be fine!” Jessica replied. “She goes out by herself all the time.”

  “Not during a thunderstorm!”

  Lightning silently split the sky, and for a moment longer, Jessica stood facing the house. John’s screams had died out, and Iridian imagined him, curled up in a ball just inside the front door, with his head in his hands, weeping. When she had a pen and paper again, she’d fill up line after line describing him there—his body position cramped, his breathless paralysis caused by fear.

  “You’re right,” Jessica said. “Let’s go.”

  Jessica took her keys and then grabbed Iridian by the waist and hoisted her up to standing. Together, they marched to Jessica’s car, but at a clap of thunder so close and loud, Iridian startled and again lost her footing. She threw her hand out to check her balance and realized it was empty. The piece from her notebook—the one that she’d been holding in her fist—was gone. Frantic, she fell to her knees and started to claw at the wet grass.

  Jessica tried again to pull her up. “Are we going or not?”

  “Stop!” Iridian yelled. “Just give me a second.”

  Iridian’s limbs were slick with rain and mud, but still Jessica managed to wrestle her up off the ground and drag her the few feet to her car.

  “Wait!” Iridian cried out.

  Thrust into the back seat, and without her scrap of paper, Iridian folded forward in half and covered her head with her hands.

  Iridian had no heart for John. She didn’t care about the low moans and high whines she heard before Jessica closed the door to the house, sounds that mimicked the wind. She cared about that paper more than she cared about almost anything. In that moment, she cared about that paper more than she cared about her sisters, including Ana. As they drove through the neighborhood, Iridian half-heartedly looked for Rosa while mourning the loss of her piece of paper. Occasionally, Jessica would call back to her and ask if she could see anything, and Iridian would just shake her head and mumble.

  Eventually, Iridian peeked at her empty hand and saw blotches of blue ink. I’m sorry had transferred to her skin. The words were blurry and backward, but they were there.

  “Jess. My paper.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Please just turn around,” Iridian croaked. “My paper. I dropped it. We can find it, and then we’ll find Rosa.”

  “Iridian!” Jessica shouted. “Shut up! This was your idea. This isn’t about your fucking piece of paper right now.”

  Iridian bolted upright and reached forward across the console to grab the steering wheel. She pulled it clockwise, in the direction of the curb, but instead of stopping, the car went into a skid. Jessica shoved Iridian away and was able to pump the brakes and prevent the car from going into a spin. They were stopped, at a diagonal, in the middle of an empty intersection. Iridian was wheezing and could feel the hard thuds of her heart.

  “What the fuck?” Jessica shouted. “Don’t fucking do that again!”

  “I’m sorry,” Iridian said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Iridian wanted to fold back into herself, crawl into the fabric of the seat. She met Jessica’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “It’s okay,” Jessica said, easing the car through the intersection. “Just . . . I’ll get you another notebook. Let’s find Rosa first, alright?”

  Rosa

  At the heart-level, all animals are different. Birds have small hearts that beat very fast. Once, at a petting zoo, Rosa held a chick up to her ear, and the sound it made wasn’t like a thump, thump, thump but more like a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, like water tumbling around and around in the washing machine. The birds that flew around Southtown during the summer had hearts like tiny engines. They were always moving. They propelled themselves from tree branch to tree branch and telephone line to telephone line. Rosa imagined their heartbeats were so fast that, if she could hear them, they would sound like drumrolls. If their hearts beat that fast, then maybe, sometimes, they conked out mid-flight, and then dropped straight to the ground.