"Un minou gris dormait. Sur son dos dansaient cinq petite souris. Le minou les a prises. Tant pis!" Marie raised the infant's arms and gently wiggled her fingers beneath them, laughing with Evangeline, who'd begun full belly-giggling the past few days.

"You'd better be careful," chided Anjulie, not entirely pleased at the nursery rhyme Marie had chosen yet unable to hide a smile. "You might grow attached."

Marie mock-scowled. "Never!" She scooped the baby from her sister's bed and finagled her into the infant carrier she'd taken fifteen minutes to figure out. "I'm taking Evie for a walk before I go back to work."

"Nice, isn't it? That we've brought on someone else?"

Stepping from her sister's bedroom into the hall, Marie rolled her eyes upward as if she'd just sampled the most delicious treat. "Oh! I can't even tell you. You were right, Anj. Now that business is crazy, we can afford it. And Hal's nephew is so reliable." She snorted a bit, put her hand vertical at her lips like she spoke a secret: "More so than that daughter of yours, anyway."

Anjulie crossed her arms.

"Not that I don't love her!" Marie called across her shoulder as she disappeared from view.

In the vacuum Marie's uncharacteristic flurry of activity left behind, her sister sank to her bed. Anjulie's room was a mixture of refurbished furniture and Halloweenish accents, not quite enough to scream haunted house but just enough to keep a visitor wary. She lay back on a huge, furry black pillow and stared at the ceiling. The way the light from her window played in speckles across the walls thrummed a chord, took her thoughts backward to the conversation she'd had with Helen's daughter in that sun-dappled courtyard the day after Joanna's murderous streak, after Helen's mental breakdown, after Danielle's disappearance. Juniper seemed a nice girl, and yet she'd made Anjulie nervous, the way she'd been able to communicate with that thing and speak of it so confidently. And the thought of Kitty being like an untaught little kid, as Junie had mentioned—well, that was somehow more terrifying than not. How Anjulie's innocuous childhood words had brought such a bizarre and volatile force into the world, she would probably never know, but whatever the result of their mock séance, if what Junie suggested had been right, the first thing Kitty had learned from them was cruelty, abuse. It'd watched them vent their animosity and dysphoria on Emily, and it'd built its own behavior from that lesson.

How much of the recent torment had been Kitty and how much had been Emily was impossible to discern, but it was surely true that Emily had resented them for what they'd done. Perhaps she'd used Kitty to get to them, as Juniper had suggested, or perhaps the thing had entirely lied to the girl. The reality that they could never quite be sure upset Anjulie, but at the same time, she knew she'd come out of it all far better than the others had, and why she'd been left largely unscathed was as much an enigma as the rest of it. She'd offered the invitation, hadn't she? She'd opened the door to whatever Kitty was (though she wasn't even sure that mattered anymore because it seemed to be gone), but if Emily had been out for vengeance, for justice, wouldn't Anjulie have been at the top of her list? And not just for unwittingly bringing the thing into their lives but for . . . for what she'd written large and clear on Emily's backside: Fuck me up, Kitty—Anjulie's contribution to the depravity of that night. She'd encouraged it to harm Emily, to take her, to "play" with her.

And yet here she was, Anjulie, largely let be except for the loss of Emmett, while Joanna awaited trial without bail for the murder of four people (it was assumed she'd killed her little boy, whose body had been found in her home), and Helen sat in a white-walled room being force-fed sedatives while her hands remained bound for fear she'd continue to harm herself. Who knew if either of them would ever regain their sanity, their former lives? Danielle, of course, had forfeited hers. Wherever she was, now, Anjulie couldn't say, but she was sure it couldn't be anywhere good.

Ah, well. It wasn't worth the mental effort put into it, anymore. All was at an end, and it was time to rebuild her own life. Anjulie sat up, reveling in the lightness that'd settled into her after weeks of heaviness. She'd never realized how much the past had weighed her down until it'd been reconciled; she felt like a new person, someone ready to enjoy herself once again, to listen to live music and socialize in clubs and bars and date and—and to take care of her children, of course. Silas would be her top priority, the woman reminded herself as she slipped off the bed.

Padding barefoot into the hallway and down the stairs, Anjulie considered baking cookies. She hadn't done so in ages, but the boy needed someone to provide a little familial normalcy, a childhood of treats and love. And Evangeline—well, Anjulie had put in those fostering papers as well (Danielle's parents wanting nothing to do with the child), though she had a feeling Aunt Marie was growing rather attached to the infant. They were becoming a right proper little family, after all.

Wafting into the kitchen, Anjulie saw her daughter and daughter's friend sitting at the table, scrolling through their phones and gossiping about something or other. That was another thing that was looking up: Bijou's sudden change of heart about college. The fall semester was already well underway, but her daughter had decided to apply for the spring semester at the same university as her friend, Liz. Anjulie had always liked Liz, the young woman's style and attitude, and whatever she'd done to encourage Bijou to get her act together must've been magic. A weekend of checking out Liz's campus had done for Bijou what months of her mother's nagging hadn't accomplished. Anjulie would be forever grateful.

"When are you headed back to school, Liz?" Anjulie asked, crouching to retrieve a mixing bowl from a cabinet.

The cat-eyed young girl peeked up from her phone, stick-straight hair swishing at her shoulders, now. Anjulie caught herself admiring the black-crystal clips with which she'd pinned back her bangs. "This afternoon."

"What are you girls so absorbed in?" Anjulie plopped a metal bowl onto the counter with a bang, then leaned against the cabinets, folded her arms, and looked at the young women at her table.

"Oh, it's wild," Liz drawled in her mellow manner. "You know my cousin who's been missing? We call him Keller."

Anjulie's mouth fell open; her brow lowered. "Oh, yes! I do remember. I'm so sorry, Liz. I've been so wrapped up in everything going on."

"It's all right, Ms. Aubert. I understand. But they found him, alive."

The woman gasped. "You're joking!"

"No!" Liz went on, meeting Anjulie's gaze full-on while Bijou watched her nails as she clicked them against the tabletop. "They found him downtown, just wandering, and they found all the other ones who'd been missing, too, apparently."

Anjulie clasped her hands to her heart. "Oh, thank God! There's some good news in all this craziness!"

"Well it gets crazier," Liz added, turning sideways in her chair, crossing her legs, and draping an arm over the back. "None of them can remember where they've been."

"Like that little boy! The one who said he was in a cave! What is this, some sort of collective amnesia?"

Liz shrugged. "I don't know, but listen to this—" She leaned forward, and Anjulie instinctively drew nearer. "Apparently, they're—they're sans . . . something."

Anjulie frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, one was missing his eyes." Liz grimaced. "But apparently, they also—even my cousin—well . . ." The girl sat back and, as casually as if she were discussing her lunch, added, "Let's just say none of them will be reproducing any time soon."

Those words took a moment to sink in, but once they did, Anjulie clapped a hand over her mouth. "My God! That's—that's really sick! Someone did that to them?"

Liz sighed. "Apparently." She turned to Bijou. "Right, Bee?"

For the first time since they'd started the conversation, Bijou glanced up at her mother. "Oh, yeah. Apparently."

An awkward moment passed, but then Liz stood. "Well , I actually should get going; it's a two-hour drive and I'd like to get there before the happy hour idiots get on the road. See you next weekend, Bee. Call me when you're on your way so I can be there to help you unpack."

Liz rose, passed Bijou a knowing look and Anjulie a smile, then drifted out of the room like a celestial breeze.

Anjulie waited for the sound of the front door, then studied her child. She raised a subtle eyebrow. "So . . . Liz?"

"Friends, mom. Just friends. I like men."

"I wasn't implying anything to the contrary! No need to be snappy." Sweeping her twin black braids behind her shoulders, Anjulie kept her eyes on her daughter as the girl returned to her cell. Bijou really was a beautiful girl, her mother reflected. For as little as her father had contributed to her life, he'd certainly given her the most attractive bits of DNA. Bijou's smooth coppery skin, her large smoldering eyes, her soft yet defined curls—her figure had come from her mother, though; Anjulie at least had that to be proud of. College boys will be all over her, the woman thought with concomitant twinges of concern and pride. "You want to put down that thing for a minute, help me make some cookies?"

Bijou seemed disinterested at first, then reconsidered and placed her phone screen-down on the table. "Silas really likes the peanut-butter chocolate ones, that bar cookie."

"I haven't made those in forever!"

"I made them for him after Emmett died," Bijou got up and joined her mother at the counter, surveyed the ingredients Anjulie had gathered. "No, you don't want walnuts. He won't like those. Do you have coconut?"

The woman found herself unable to stop looking at her daughter, smiling in the way only a content mother could.

"What? Mom, stop being weird."

Placing a hand at her daughter's cheek, Anjulie risked getting too emotional. "I'm just so proud of you, that's all. I'm excited for you to be taking this step toward your future, moving in with Liz and working on campus until we can get you into classes. This is going to be such a formative time in your life. You're going to love every minute of it."

Bijou couldn't help but return her mother's warmth. Her cheeks reddened a bit before she responded, "I'm sure I will."

Anjulie nodded, removed her hand. "Well! Let me see if I have that coconut." She began to sort through her baking cabinet.

The phone on the table dinged, and Bijou, still a little fuzzy from one of the only positive interactions she'd had with her mother in months, reached to check the message: i got a perfect place, Liz's text read. soooo much space for the collection, middle of nowhere

While her mother joyfully exclaimed something about finding what she'd been looking for, Bijou began typing into her phone, but before she could send a reply, her device dinged again, and the girl opened what she'd just received.

It was from an unknown number, sent to both her and Liz, and said only

Knock knock! Let's play soon!

END OF PART VI

THE END . . . SORT OF . . .