THERE WAS A FAINT CRUNCH of footsteps, and the woman brought the boy out of the woods. Cold daylight fell from the low gray sky. He was bundled in blankets, with thick mittens and warm boots on his feet, and he was no longer afraid.

He was with his mother.

She had told him everything on the way from Earl’s house. She spoke with the easy, effortless love of a mother who takes obvious pleasure in being with her son. In the back of her car, Henry listened, frightened at first, then dubious, and finally awestruck by the sheer wonder of what she was telling him. Now he felt the last of his doubt sliding away like a chill in a warm bath. From her purse she had shown him a baby photo of himself with her and told him how she’d watched him grow, loving him from a distance.

“Why didn’t you keep me the first time?” he asked.

“I wasn’t myself then. Do you understand?”

He shook his head.

“The woman I used to be wasn’t prepared for motherhood. She had already lost one little boy. She thought she was ready for another one, but she was wrong.”

“But you’re different now?”

Colette smiled, pure, cold brilliance. “Completely.”

She told him that from now on, their lives would be different, that the three of them would be together, she and Henry and Owen, the way they should have been from the beginning. She said she was sorry for hiding the truth from him for so long, but now she wanted to make it right.

Suddenly, looking up into the clearing, the boy pointed and said, “What’s that?”

“That?” Colette smiled. “Why, that’s our new house, dear.”

Henry cocked his head. “It doesn’t look right.”

“It’s perfect.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s wrong.” He shook his head, twisting away from her. She released him, let him climb down into the snow, then bent forward to kiss his cheek.

“Come inside, sweet boy. There’s somebody waiting for us.”

Henry brightened a little. “My daddy?”

“No,” Colette said. “Mine.”

As she said that, Henry smelled something sour rising in the air, and he looked up at his mommy. She was different now. The neckline of her sweater looked as if it had been ripped open down the middle by a pair of ragged claws, and she had angry red scratches on her chest, as if some animal had been clawing at her, but the scratches were wide-set, a full finger-width apart. Her face was no longer patient or kind, but colorless, harsh, starved in every kind of way a person could be. Pain boiled in her face, making the muscles twitch and flex.

“Mommy? Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She looked at him wanly. “I’m just tired.” Tears swam in her eyes. Somehow her pain only made Henry love her more. He wished with all his heart that there were something he could say to make her feel better, but somehow he knew that her problems, whatever they were, were insurmountable; they towered like a black city in front of both of them, a city under a curse. Yet at the same time, in a way he couldn’t explain, he did understand: He and his mommy were both trapped, somehow, by her father, the man-thing that awaited them inside.

“We can run away,” he said.

She picked him up and hugged him so hard he couldn’t breathe. More complicated feelings—pain, love, fear—broke through Henry like a kaleidoscope in patterns he couldn’t follow. A tiny fraction of the pain slipped from her face, and beneath it he saw the woman who had first come to pick him up from the house in the middle of the night.

“Where would we go?” she whispered.

“Mexico. We can get my daddy, and we can all go together. That man wouldn’t find us. It would be okay.”

“Oh, honey.” He felt her shaking her head, and they were walking again, plunging through deep snow. Henry didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to be with her so much, but he had the feeling that she was doing this because she was scared and didn’t know how else to proceed. Sometimes his daddy had acted like this, and it always frightened him, because that meant no one was in charge. Henry remembered his father looking at him over a big pile of empty beer cans with a bleary, helpless look on his face, and it was always the worst feeling in the world knowing that no one was the parent, the protector, captain of the ship. Instead, they were all sailing blind in a tumultuous storm over which nobody had control. In his worst moments, Henry understood that this was how the balance of his life was going to be.

She carried him the rest of the way into the house.