But as I answered Gram something stirred in my mind. There had been… something. A strange sound track, whispered nonsense syllables, barely audible over the rushing of my blood.

“That’s all? You didn’t say anything else?”

“No. Nothing else.” I was a little frightened by Gram’s intensity, especially when she closed one of her clawlike hands around my forearm, her long fingernails digging into my flesh.

“Have you done this before, Hailey?” she asked, leaning close enough to me that I could smell her breath, a foul combination of cigarettes and rot. I had to resist the urge to pull my arm away.

“Done what?”

Her burning eyes searched mine, and I felt like she was looking for signs that I was telling the truth-and for something else as well, something I couldn’t understand. We stood that way for what seemed like a long time, and I felt fear unwind inside my gut, fear that fed on my confusion and the high emotions of the day.

“I think you know,” Gram finally hissed, squeezing my arm with a strength that surprised me. “You know what you done. All this time I been waitin’ on you, I finally gave up, and now you gone and done it.”

I yanked away from her, my heart pounding hard. “Dinner’s going to burn,” I mumbled. I picked up the spatula and stirred the mixture in the pan, my face hot in the rising steam.

I could sense Gram standing behind me, watching. She was scariest when she was thinking. I’d rather have her hit me or yell at me any day than stare at me like that, when I didn’t have a clue what she was thinking about.

“It don’t change nothin’,” she muttered, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

By the time I dared to turn and look, she had shuffled back to her chair, and her eyes were half closed as she watched a lawn-care commercial. I made three plates of food and got Chub set up at the table with a paper napkin and a glass of chocolate milk.