SCOTT LOST TRACK OF TIME. He had absolutely no sense of how long he’d been standing out here with his bare hands clamped under his arms, stomping his feet for warmth, shivering until his ribs ached and the muscles in his abdomen felt shredded by fatigue. No cars passed, and nothing stirred except him and the indifferent shine of dying starlight a million miles away. There was only him and the lonely road, as lifeless as history. After enough time passed, he almost considered going back to the car, trying the engine again to see whether he could at least get the heater going, but he was afraid if he did that, he might miss Sonia.

And he was afraid of what he might see in the woods.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, a pair of headlights scratched the distance, brightness gathering and becoming stronger, making new shadows across the road. The engine howled closer, pulling up alongside him. Behind the wheel, Sonia sat wearing a black knit cap, a few strands of hair sticking out. She stared at him wide-eyed like a woman stopped at an accident.

“Scott? You look awful.”

He tried to speak but couldn’t—he was shivering too badly and his voice was gone. Dropping into the passenger seat, he felt only warmth, and for that instant, all the night’s horrors were eclipsed by a surge of primordial gratitude.

“There’s coffee. Here.” She took a chrome thermos from between the seats, unscrewed the cap, and poured him a cup. Still shivering, Scott brought it to his lips and sipped until the hot, strong liquid began to thaw the ice from his throat. His murmur of appreciation sounded like an obstinate nail being pulled out by an iron pry bar. Slow, methodical pain had already begun creeping into the joints of his fingers. The dashboard clock glowed 1:14 A.M.

“We got stuck leaving the bar,” Sonia said. “I had to get out and shovel us out.”

“Us?”

“I had Henry with me. I took him to my father’s house. Earl’s watching him.”

“Where’s my brother?”

She glanced at him: It might have been a shrug—her heavy coat made it hard to tell. “I’m really not sure.” Beneath the strands of hair, her eyes searched him, their questioning depth breaking something open in him that the coffee hadn’t been able to touch. Without further provocation, Scott felt the words spilling out. He told her everything—finding the black wing and Colette’s body, and then hearing her voice on the phone. He made his report with a minimum of inflection, a detached unfolding of events whose emotional component was still as numb as his body’s core temperature.

When he finished, Sonia said slowly: “What’s happening to you, Scott?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He slid his cell phone out. “I’m losing my mind.”

“Who are you calling?”

“The sheriff.”

Sonia reached out and took the phone from his hand, a gesture so surprising that he just let go of it.

“Wait,” she said.

He frowned. “Why?” For the first time, he noticed that they were following the highway north instead of south. “Why aren’t we going back to town?”

She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, over a span of several seconds. When she spoke again, her voice sounded different, the way people sometimes didn’t sound like themselves when they were driving at night, their faces not wholly visible.

“There’s something you have to see.”

“Where?”

“Your father came into the bar one night,” she said. “This happened a year or so ago—last winter, when it was just the two of us sitting there. He stayed for hours, and he … he told me some things. He made me promise I’d never tell anyone—especially not you or Owen.” She spoke with great slowness and almost painful deliberation. “But I don’t think I can do that anymore after what you told me.”

“What is it?”

“I just have to show you. It’s a good distance away.”

“How long?”

“Up north,” she said. “You should try to get some sleep.”

“I can’t.”

He put his head back against the seat and shut his eyes. Exhausted or not, he thought there was no way he’d be able to fall asleep. Yet somehow, he did.