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  “Your birthday’s coming up. Do you want a party? Maybe invite some friends from school?” Marian hesitated after she said it. The last time they’d tried to plan a birthday party for Briella, the bullying at Southside had come into the open.

  A crash of thunder made them both jump. A moment after, both laughed. Marian tilted her head, listening if Mikey had woken, but she heard nothing.

  Briella set a steaming mug in front of her. “Yeah, I’d like a party!”

  “Good.” Marian sipped her tea. “Oh, this is good, too.”

  “Is it all right if I take mine up to bed? I want to finish my book before lights out.”

  For a moment, Marian felt a pang that the kid was choosing to be alone rather than with her mother. But that was natural. She’d done the same with her own mother.

  “You’re not too scared of the storm?”

  Briella paused and hugged her. “I am. But I’m too old to be scared of it.”

  “Maybe you’re never too old to hug your mom, though, huh?” Marian let the girl go. “How about I come up in a little bit to tuck you in?”

  Twenty minutes later, Marian’s eyes were drooping so much she had to shake herself to keep from passing out. She heard the stealthy slide of feet on the floor above her head. Briella was awake and moving around. The ceiling creaked.

  Marian sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and headed for the stairs. At the top of them, she looked to the left. The door to the baby’s room was open. Briella’s was closed, without even a strip of light creeping into the hall from beneath.

  Marian stood still, listening. The storm had come on stronger. The hall lit briefly with blue-white light from the baby’s room. Almost at once, the boom of thunder made her jump. It seemed so much closer here on the second floor.

  Inside the baby’s room, Mikey lay sleeping peacefully in his crib, unwoken by the storm. Fierce love burned inside her as she placed a gentle hand on the infant’s back. His soft curls brushed her lips as she bent to kiss the top of his head. The milky smell of him and the softness of his breathing intoxicated her.

  She knocked on Briella’s door. When there was no answer, she pushed it open. The room was dim. The girl had unplugged her night-light, and Marian felt another pang at how quickly she was growing up. A flash of lightning showed the bed.

  Empty.

  “Briella?” Marian hit the light switch, revealing the bed’s tangle of covers but no Briella. She cried the girl’s name again.

  Another burst of storm. The window flung open hard enough to shatter the glass. Rain and wind poured into the room. Marian screamed.

  The raven flew in the window.

  The lights went out.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The bird was blacker than the night outside, but in the swift strobe flashes of lightning that lit the bedroom, Marian could clearly see every feather. Onyx gave her that head tilt she’d come to loathe, the one that seemed so assessing and judgmental. Marian’s lips skinned back over her teeth in a grimace.

  “Where is she?”

  The bird didn’t answer her, of course, not even with one of the few phrases it had learned to mimic. It didn’t move from its perch on the window seat when Marian stalked toward it. Her fingers curled to grab it, maybe to try again to throttle the fucking thing, but she stopped herself, wary and remembering what that beak could do. In Briella’s small room with its sloping eaves, in the pitch black, Marian would be at a disadvantage, even if it couldn’t see in the dark any better than she could.

  Another flash lit the room. Onyx croaked, like the mutter of a curse under its breath. It wasn’t a word or phrase she’d heard it say before, but she recognized herself in the tone. The damned thing was mimicking her. Fury and disgust rose so fiercely inside her that for a moment the dizziness eased. It was back in a second or so. Her head spun.

  “Where,” she said again, “is Briella?”

  “Briella,” Onyx said. “Briella.”

  Gusts of wind tossed the curtains, soaking them and the window-seat cushion. Her stomach roiled, bitterness at the back of her mouth. Marian put a hand on Briella’s dresser to keep herself from going to her knees.

  The lights came on again, flickering and dim. Her hand hit an orange prescription bottle that fell off the dresser and rolled, popping the lid off. She and the bird dove for it at the same time. Marian caught it up in her fist. She barely had the chance to see Amy Patterson’s name, with ‘…for insomnia’ on the label, before the bird snatched at it. Marian balled her fist and punched the raven as hard as she could. It squawked and landed a few inches out of reach.

  I wanted to try some of your tea. Sit down, Mom. I’ll make you some.

  I’ll make you some.

  The tea in Marian’s stomach churned. She couldn’t keep her eyes focused. She shoved her fingers down her throat, forcing a gag. She bent over the garbage pail, not caring if she vomited into it or onto the floor. She needed to get this out of her system, or she was going to pass out. She might even die.

  The sound of Mikey’s crying forced her to stand. Her nipples ached and burned as her milk began to let down. She didn’t press her fingers to them to stop the flow, too disoriented, too uncoordinated. Her eyes had been closed, and she hadn’t even realized it. Shit, how long had she been like that, hunched over the can with her mouth open, drool and puke hanging in strings off her lips? Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and slid, burning down her cheeks. Mikey was crying, and Briella was still missing.

  Except that it was not her baby who wailed, it was that fucking bird. This time, Marian didn’t stop herself from grabbing it. Onyx took off right before she could get a grip. She snagged it briefly and was left holding a feather. The bird thumped the air with its wings, then hit the sloping ceiling hard enough to make it let out a squawk.

  “Where is my daughter, you filthy piece of road-kill-eating shit?” Marian tried to scream the words, but they came out in a rasp, slurring.

  More rain began to pound the roof and smack the glass as lightning illuminated the room. She could see the slashing torrent in the blue-white light. A moment later, thunder rumbled, but she heard another cry. This time, it was not the mimicking raven. It was Briella.

  “Oh, God, oh no.”

  The kid was on the roof. Marian tugged at the sill, her fingers clumsy and thick, but determined. She yanked it up, but it stuck. She stuck her head out, but that was as far as she could get. She screamed Briella’s name but could see nothing until the next flash of storm light.

  Marian shoved with one shoulder, trying to get the window to open enough for her to get through it. She managed to push it another inch or so, still not enough, but now at least she could twist to see the roof in front of her. A silhouette, hunched and small. Her daughter.

  “Briella! Baby, you need to come back inside, please. Come back to Mama!”

  Briella turned. Marian’s eyes had adjusted a bit to the darkness now. She could make out the wide, dark eyes. The curling hair, limp and straight now from the wet, hanging over Briella’s shoulders and back. She wore the Parkhaven school T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and her tiny hands gripped bony knees. She wore no shoes, and Marian could see her toes crimping into the shingles.

  “Come back inside!”

  Marian strained, reaching, but the girl was a good six inches out of reach. Again, Marian shoved at the window, trying to get it to move just enough so that she could squeeze through it. Either it was too stuck or she was still too drugged to muster the strength, because all she did was send a stab of pain through her back and shoulders. Her breasts, swollen and leaking milk, ached as they pressed against the sill. Another retch struggled out of her, and she spat a mouthful of bile onto the roof.

  Impossibly, the rain got harder. The gutters had started to fill, sending a waterfall over the edge of the roof. More rain cascaded across the faded and worn shingles, a