THIS PART OF THE BOOK TAKES PLACE IN THE PRESENT.

"The boy, Thomas Henley, was found wandering the park after a six-day absence that terrified his parents and had law enforcement from five counties searching for him. As of this moment, we've learned only that while the child appears to be physically unharmed, he has no memory of his whereabouts during the past week other than to mention being in a cave, though a conclusive search of the park turned up nothing of the kind." Ambulance and police lights flashed behind the attractive male reporter on the screen, who appeared to be reporting from a local park. Bijou sat on the floor with Silas curled into her lap, sipping a whiskey and coke her mother herself had poured for her daughter before leaving. "Here's praying his family gets the answers they need. Back to you, Laine." The television flicked back to a woman commenting on immaterial information.

A gentle snore revealed Silas to be asleep. Bijou was glad for it yet simultaneously stumped—how could she get him off her lap without waking him? Her body ached from sitting in the same position for so long on the wood floor, but after what'd occurred earlier that day, neither of them were keen to sit on a couch. Silas hadn't even wanted to lie on a bed, and who could blame him? Bijou and her mother had managed to get him out of the cushions only because, as inexplicably as the foam squares had begun to suck him in, they'd stopped. The whole thing had been unbelievable, was still unbelievable.

After that old lady had exploded and they'd rescued Silas, all the women and children still inside had done what any reasonable people would have done and stumbled out of the house. One of them had turned on the garden hose in the front yard, and they'd taken turns frenetically rinsing the entrails off of themselves, the two women Bijou didn't know crying the whole time; if neighbors had been out and about, surely they'd have thought the party collected on the lawn was mad. What had happened or why it'd happened hadn't been explained because everyone had been too hysterical to offer coherent words. Anjulie had instead just shoved her children into the car, taken them home, and demanded they stay put until she returned. Bijou hadn't argued; she hadn't had the capacity.

And now, several hours had passed. Anjulie wasn't home, and Silas hadn't given Bijou the space to breathe. She'd had a difficult job even separating him enough from her to change them out of their wet attire. Bijou had texted her mother several times but received only terse responses about saving communication for an emergency, so she had no real idea what was happening or what time the woman would return.

Everything felt so off, so bizarre . . . sitting there trying to occupy her mind with television after what she'd seen, what'd happened. What had happened? Bijou had gone through the whole scenario non-stop for the past several hours but couldn't make any sense of it except to admit that something supernatural had occurred. As much as she'd wanted to freak out, to melt down, Silas had been absolutely a mess, and she'd owed it to him to try to play the reassuring adult. Someone needed to, and it certainly hadn't been her mother.

Anjulie had muttered something to the effect of "Why? Why now? What does it want?" before shoving Bijou a drink and hastening back to her car, clinging to the entire bottle of whiskey and taking a few swigs from it before even starting the ignition.

The doorbell rang, suddenly, jarring Bijou out of her thoughts. Who could possibly be at the door? It was eight o'clock on a Wednesday night. The lights flickered briefly, putting her even more on edge. They'd been through far too much that day, and she had no interest in speaking to anyone. Bijou recalled, too, the strange handprints she and her brother had seen outside the glass door a day or so earlier, two very definite five-fingers-around-a-palm shapes that'd somehow vanished by morning, and with all the anxiety her thoughts produced, she decided to stay put. Whoever was potentially out there on her porch could shove off! and yet in spite of her bravado, Bijou's teeth clenched. She sat dead still and waited for another knock, for whoever was out there to push their luck, to persist, but when the noise came, even though she'd expected it, Bijou was as startled as she'd been the first time. Still, she wasn't going to get the door. Silas was impeding her, anyway.

Abruptly, her phone chimed. Relieved at the thought that it might be her mother, Bijou picked it up from the floor and swiped only to find a text from a number weirdly labeled as "BESTIE." Had . . . had she done that? Put the person in her phone like that? She couldn't remember, and she had no idea who "bestie" might be.

Come out and play!

Bijou stared at the message longer than she realized; the words blurred and she blinked to realign her vision.

Another knock echoed down the hallway, and whatever trepidation the girl had felt moved aside to make room for a foreign yet familiar excitement, a thrill that pins-and-needled through her fingertips and up her arms and legs into her core. Whereas moments earlier she'd been unsure how to move Silas, worried she'd wake him, she now effortlessly shifted him off her lap and onto the floor (at least retaining the kindness to place a pillow beneath his head). Then, rising, Bijou made her way to her bedroom, where she slipped out of the T-shirt and shorts she'd been lounging about in and began to make herself up. Nothing too fancy for where she was headed but enough to draw the right sort of attention: things short and fitted and revealing the proper assets, heavy eye makeup, haphazard accessories that'd catch enough light—she'd be an angler fish in the darkness of the deep.

Without another thought for the child sleeping before the quiet television, Bijou put up her hair and slipped out of the house, grabbing her car keys and shoulder bag as she went. She made it to the driver's side before a familiar voice stopped her.

"Hey! B!"

Bijou looked over her shoulder, catching sight of a silvery crop of hair. Cognitive dissonance overtook her, the sight of her friend at odds with the compulsion churning within.

"You . . . look surprised to see me." Liz clasped her hands behind her back, sauntered toward Bijou with her natural lithe grace, short flowy sundress almost ethereal around her. "I was knocking. And I called you about ten times—messaged twice that . . . No?"

"Uh, I . . ." Bijou struggled to make sense of the situation, feeling a bit as if she were trying to wake from a dream.

"I'm back in town for a couple of days, just got in about an hour ago. I told you I'd be taking my stuff to school and then coming in before classes started. My brother's enlistment party? I invited you over a month ago. Jesus, Bijou."

Something stung behind Bijou's ribs, like a little claw scratching away, working to hollow out the cavity. She realized she'd been biting her tongue until it'd begun to bleed. "I didn't remember," was all she said, putting a fingertip to her mouth to dab absently at the blood.

Liz drew close enough to reach out a hand and place it atop one of Bijou's shoulders. "I'm sorry. I know there's been a lot going on with your mom's boyfriend. You know, they still haven't found my cousin Dave, either. Keller?"

Bijou studied the blood on her fingertip, then met Liz's eyes; she wasn't altogether sure she liked what she saw in them. "I'm actually on my way out. Sorry." She tried to get around Liz, but the girl stood in her way.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"You look—"

"What, huh? I look what? Say it Liz. Just say it. I look like a slut. But I don't give a shit; I'm going out. So let me get in my car."

Liz held her ground. "Why haven't you been returning any of my messages or calls? Why haven't you been on any socials? Something is wrong. I'm . . . I'm worried about you."

Rather than protest, Bijou began to laugh. She couldn't recall why this person was her friend. She couldn't recall the boy asleep in the house or the earlier events of the day or anything else about her life. She knew only the desire within, the desire to play.

"Just get out of my way."

Liz lowered her dark brows, looked almost sad, but she said nothing, just moved aside to let Bijou open the door. She watched her changed friend start her car and back out of the drive, then returned to her own, which was parked in front of the house.

The night hadn't entirely fallen; an orange gleam sliced the horizon, a molten gash between the black earth and the blacker cosmos. Bijou stared at the glowing band as she merged onto the highway. She felt quite certain that the skyline spoke to her specifically, that whatever she housed within her was like that gleam—her body the darkness, the parasite that burnished line. When exactly it'd entered her, Bijou couldn't say, and whether or not it'd ever leave was a mystery as well. Perhaps she'd always been that willing vessel, that empty shell waiting to be filled. The thing had penetrated her in a moment of weakness, probably, and yet had she really ever been unwilling? Everyone else she knew was going off into the world, forging paths for themselves, while she remained stagnant, sipping tea in her mother's backyard. As much as she'd played content, Bijou knew her picture must be bigger, that remaining in stasis was too little for what she was surely capable of. And the thing inside her now, the master tugging at her puppet strings, was far more capable than she would ever be. Why, the things it could do!

And do them, it did.

Within half an hour of leaving her house, Bijou was staking out the thing's next toy. She lingered in one of the several seedy bars she'd begun to frequent, where she'd crouch like a spider in a corner of its web and bide her time until the right person approached. During this process, her thoughts would be somewhere far away, distracted by some burning thing, marveling over the rising flames consuming her own crinkling, papery inner flesh. The sense of loss was persistent, and yet it was never strong enough to overcome the thrill of what was to come, the anticipation and elation of what was promised. Was she herself, anymore? Had she been herself, ever? What was she, anyway? There were no answers. She was content to let it live within her, crawl beneath her flesh. She hadn't even the desire to push back.

"You all alone, gorgeous?"

A man stood before her, just the sort she wanted: hungry, high on pretension, involved enough with himself to think he was special. To think he stood out from the other dozens just like him.

Bijou sipped her Coke; she never drank on these nights, oh no. She needed to feel what was to come. "My boyfriend left," she lied.

The man, who might've been somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, put an arm against the wall above her, leaned in rather boldly. "Must be an idiot, to leave someone like you in a place like this."

"I know, right?" The girl wrapped her tongue around the tip of her plastic straw, puppy-dog-eyed the man.

"What's your name?" He might've been a fool, but he wasn't blind.

"Does it matter?"

Moving the long blond hair from his forehead, the man drew near the side of Bijou's face. "I like to know whose name I'm about to be moaning," he tried.

Bijou had to turn her mockery into coyness so as not to insult her prey and send him sulking. "Kitty," she told him.

Whatever he thought of her name became entirely irrelevant when the girl reached out a hand and hooked a finger in the top of his jeans, pulling his crotch toward hers.

"I know a place we can play," she grinned.

Had the young man been paying attention, he might have seen a worrisome brief widening of her eyes, the rims of which shone with an unwholesome moisture. He might, too, have been suspicious at the acceleration of their encounter. But he thought only of his own pleasure and the assurance that he maintained the upper hand with this small attractive girl, and Bijou herself, less aware than she should have been, led him from the bar and across the dark street toward her decrepit sanctuary, oblivious to the fact that a girl with silvery hair and brooding expression watched from her car nearby.