Chapter 4 — The Town That Forgot Itself

Why does no one remember the missing words—or my mother?

The ink under Ellis's skin had turned alive.

Black tendrils crept up his neck as we pushed through the woods, the smell of burning paper clinging to our wet clothes. Every few steps he coughed—a wet, wretched sound—and each time, dark drops hit the fallen leaves and sizzled.

"You're bleeding ink," I said.

"Not ink. Words. The ones she tried to pull out of me." He wiped his mouth. "They fight back."

We reached the edge of town and stopped.

Pigeon Hollow stretched before us, ordinary and utterly wrong. The bakery where Mr. Donahue had given me free cookies since I was five had a boarded window I'd never seen. Mrs. Peabody's house was the wrong shade of yellow—not the sunflower she'd always kept, but a sickly cream. The street sign at the corner read Hollow Creek Lane.

It had always been Main Street.

"It isn't right," I said.

"It's exactly right," Ellis said quietly. "This is how it really looks, when you can see past what they've printed over it."

The post office bulletin board held one yellowed clipping, pinned dead-centre:

TOWN HALL MEETING—FINAL VOTE ON CANDLELIGHT REDEVELOPMENT

The date was three days before my mother disappeared.

Ellis folded it carefully. "They don't just erase words, Mira. They rewrite people. Your mom found out what they were doing. That's why she—"

A shadow moved ahead.

Mayor Whitmore stepped into the streetlight. His suit was the kind of perfect that looks like a costume. His smile was the kind of warm that means nothing. But his hands—his fingers were too long, the joints too numerous, and his nails caught the light like freshly pressed type.

"There you are," he said pleasantly. "Miss Wicker was so worried about you."

Ellis pulled me back into the shadow of the post office doorway. I could feel him shaking—or maybe that was me.

The Mayor tilted his head and smiled at exactly where we stood in the dark.

"Of course," he said to no one, "I'll be seeing you soon."

He walked away. His shadow didn't follow for three full seconds.