I FEEL LIKE I’VE BARELY BREATHED since Mr. Henry started the story. When he finally pauses, I wonder if he’s had me in some kind of a spell. Maybe he kept me transfixed so he could go upstairs and steal the sword. I look at the window and it’s nearly dark out, one of those snowy winter nights when you’re glad to be inside. The dusk is a purplish-gray and the snow howls against the house, a beast checking for any way inside. My coffee is cold.
“You’re probably wondering what happened to that little girl,” Mr. Henry says with a serious look on his face.
“Actually, I was wondering what happened to the story you were going to tell me about Abra,” I say, staring at him for a moment before standing and taking our empty mugs into the kitchen for a refill. Despite my sarcasm, I have to admit that he has drawn me in. I pour myself another cup and steady my breath. I have to push the fear back down. I pour him another cup.
I stay for an extra minute in the kitchen, wondering if I should slip out the back door and make a run for it. So to speak. Could Mr. Henry be gaining my friendship only to let me down at the end? Fear is a physical thing and it rises inside of me, pushing upward from my gut and into my throat, threatening to choke me, threatening to take away my breath.
“Fear is a funny thing,” he says, his voice coming to me from where he sits at the table. For a moment I think he’s talking to himself. “It can make you freeze up, or it can make you run faster.”
I wonder if he can read my mind. It feels like, in all of this, he is appraising me. I know he’s one of them. But is he a Mr. Jinn or a Mr. Tennin? Is he shadow or light?
“When it came to fear, I was always a runner,” I say loudly, still in the kitchen.
I take a deep breath. I walk back to him with the two steaming mugs. I sit down and stare at Mr. Henry.
“So, the city where the man took his child. That is Over There?”
Mr. Henry shakes his head harshly while taking a sip of too-hot coffee. “No, no. Absolutely not. The city is only the Edge of Over There, although many who find their way there don’t realize it.”
“I don’t understand. I’m not going to pretend I do.”
He smiles. “You will, when the story is over. You’ll understand more than you ever have.”
“How did Abra get involved with this?” I ask.
“Well, as I said, Ruby and her father walked through the grave of Marie Laveau four years before the Tree appeared here in Deen, four years before you fought the Amarok. Four years before you killed Jinn.”
“It wasn’t really me,” I said.
He frowned. “Then, after all that, another four years passed. By then, you and Abra were sixteen.”
“By then, the little girl, Ruby, must have been . . .”
“Yes, eight long years had passed since Amos had taken her and the Tree through the grave. She was thirteen years old.”
“And Leo . . . ”
“Eighteen years old. He never stopped trying to find a way into the grave of Marie Laveau. But he had nearly lost hope.”
I stare out the window into the snow. I wish I could be more critical of Ruby’s father. I wish I could despise Amos for running away with his child. But I can’t. I would have done the same with my mother all those long years ago, if I’d been given the choice. I would have taken her through whatever door I needed to, if her healing lay on the other side.
“Hope.” Mr. Henry says the word quietly, as if even the sound of it is fragile. “Hope can last a long time, longer than we expect or imagine. Even after you think it’s gone, the smallest of things can bring it back.”
“They lived in the city all that time?” I ask. “At the Edge of Over There? For eight years?”
“For eight long years, yes, they did. And much happened during that time. But first, Abra’s story.”
I nod. The wind has begun to howl.