The summer before I was fifteen, I got my first period, and then my sister took me to a robbery. I had never been to a robbery before. I would never have dreamed of going to a robbery if it weren’t for her, but she made me want to do dangerous things. Or more like, I already wanted to do dangerous things, and Joy was the one who made those things possible.  

We were going to steal a drug. Joy often stole drugs. She didn’t take them. Well, sometimes she did. Mostly, she gave them to our Uncle Tim, and then Tim sold them to rich kids on the mainland. The irony was that she often stole those drugs from the rich kids on the mainland. Of course, the mainlanders did not know this.  

This time, we were stealing a drug called Finite Astra. This was not the brand name. Finite Astra was sort of like Percocet but also not really like Percocet. It dampened pain. It was priced high because of the formula; the formula was not supposed to be addictive. In the end, it was addictive. Everything is addictive. Name me one thing that isn’t addictive.  

If you took enough Finite Astra, you went into an altered state, and you saw stars.  

We spent a lot of that summer stealing Finite Astra. Summer was the high season for this because everyone was getting their wisdom teeth out, and there was an abundant supply.  

When Joy got her wisdom teeth out, my mother wouldn’t let her take any Finite Astra beyond the first day, even though it was a low dose. Many people’s mothers would not let them take it beyond the first day, on account of Colin Sommers, who got addicted, and then later he crashed his car into a barrier down by the wharf, and he died.  

The word was, Carrie Ann Fields had just had her wisdom teeth done, and she had a prescription. Joy had been to a party at her house, so she knew the layout. She knew they kept their medicines in the bathroom cabinet. She knew which ground floor window was closest to the target. She knew how to tease it open, how to slip over the sill.  

We wore black. Long sleeves, even though it was June. Gloves so we wouldn’t leave a trace. As if that mattered—Joy was a Ghost-Cat. She had never been caught. And if you’re the one who ruins me, she said, I’m going to fucking kill you, Amity.  

I was the lookout. Joy wouldn’t let me go inside my first time, as I was only a Ghost-Cat in training. You’ll work your way up to it, she said. So at half past two in the morning, I crouched in the bushes, waiting, watching, one eye on the road and one eye on the windowsill. It was cool and quiet and I could hear my own breath. I could hear the blood in my ears. I could hear Joy’s footsteps inside, slow and precise and careful. Joy was very good at this sort of thing—sneaking about without a sound. She was light and tiny for her age, and had sharp reflexes and a quick eye. She swore she could see in the dark. I think I believed her. This is why Uncle Tim selected her as a Ghost-Cat.  

It only took her a minute, and then she slid out the window, touched to the ground with a soft thump, and shimmied the bug screen back into place.  

“Let’s go,” she said.  

We walked home through the woods. Snuck up the back stairs. Went to sleep. The whole thing took less than an hour. I thought it might have been more eventful. I thought I have been scared or at least felt a little alive. But it was fairly lackluster. Almost tedious, in the end. I said as much to Joy and she said I was an idiot.  

“That’s what you want,” she said. “Because if it’s not tedious, then you’re caught. And if you’re caught, you’re fucked.” 

The next morning, we walked to Tim’s house to hand off the Finite Astra. Tim lived on the far side of the island at the end of a long, lonely road. His house was large, three stories, and it used to be nice, but it wasn’t anymore. The whole house tilted sort of sideways, all crooked-like, and it seemed to be sinking deeper into the ground with each passing year. Most of the paint had been weathered away by storms, and his pool had been filled with so much debris that it was now a pond, complete with cattails and a bullfrog.  

Looking at that house, you would never know how much money passed through his hands.  

As we walked up his driveway, Joy opened the bottle of Finite Astra and pocketed three pills. At my look, she shrugged and said, “This is the cheapest we’ll ever get it.” And this was true.  

Joy never liked to overindulge—never had more than a few. She had a persistent knee injury from running and from taking high jumps out of windows. She liked to take the pills after track meets or after long nights working. She said it helped.  

I wanted to slip some of the pills too, but I was too scared to ask. I had no injuries, no reason to be taking pain medication at all. What I really wanted was to take a whole bunch of them and get high, but I understood that Joy would disapprove of this. She liked danger, but in small doses. And only situations she could control. She never wanted to lose her head. She always said, that’s when you get hurt.  

Tim opened the front door before Joy could knock. He reached out and ruffled my hair and said, “Hey, Peanut.” Then he put his hand on Joy’s back and ushered her inside. “Why don’t you go wait by the pool,” he told me. Then he closed the door.  

I felt slightly put out, but I reminded myself that Joy was the one who knew the ins and outs of working for Tim, Joy was the one who had been doing this for years, and Joy was the one who, after all, had risked the most to get the pills. So, I wandered out back with the intention of stretching out under the big elm tree, and as I rounded the corner I was met with an unexpected sight: there was a boy in the pool.  

He was tall and thin in that stretched-out, reedy sort of way of teenage boys. He wore faded green waders and big orange gloves and his hair was swept back with a headband. He carried a net and bucket and appeared apprehensive. He had paused knee-deep in the pool and could not seem to find the momentum to move further.  

I did not blame him. The pool had not been cleaned in many years. A decade, even. The water was dark, almost black, sort of bottomless and sullen. Reeds grew in the shallows. In the spring a film of yellow pollen floated like stars. And each May, the bullfrog awoke from his winter slumber. It was the biggest bullfrog I had ever seen—it was almost the size of a dinner plate, pitch black, and covered in bumps and warts. When it croaked, it was so loud that the water in the pond shivered. 

The boy drew in a breath, then took a step. It occurred to me that he might not have been warned.   

“Hey!” I called from the top of the hill. “Hey! What are you doing?”  

He peered up at me, shading his eyes with his hand. “I’m cleaning the pool.”  

“You have to watch out. The frog has teeth.”   

“What? Frogs don’t have teeth.”  

“This one does.” 

He began to pick his way out of the pool. “Come down here, will you?”  

I waded toward him through a sea of uncut grass, praying that I would not pick up any ticks. “Tim should have warned you,” I said when I reached him.   

He took me in for a long moment. I took him in too. The jagged lines of his face. His crooked nose. His chapped lips and the purple under his eyes. “I know you,” he said. “You go to the high school. Your name is Amity.” 

“Yes. Well-spotted.”  

“I’m Thomas. Does the frog really have teeth?”  

“Oh, yes. And actually, most frogs do.”  

“Really?”  

“Yes. It’s just that this one has particularly sharp teeth.” 

“Well, I suppose I’ve got to kill it.” He looked up at the sun, squinting in a manner that made him look like a little boy. “Tim told me to kill anything I found in this pond. Pool. Pond.”   

“You’ll need a weapon,” I said.  

He held up his hands. “These?”  

“No,” I said. I almost laughed, but I did not want to hurt his feelings. “If you want to do this right, you’re going to need a hammer. Trust me. I’ve done it before.” 

Joy was still inside. She was taking a very long time. I did not know what she was doing, and I could not leave without her, and I could not go inside. I decided I would help Thomas kill the frog.  

The key to killing a frog is waiting. You cannot come to the frog; you must wait for the frog to come to you. That is what I explained to Thomas, as he was new to killing frogs.  

We sat in the shade of the elm tree—he in his waders and I in my bare feet—anticipating the arrival of the frog. I was relaxed. He was jumpy. He was very sure the frog wouldn’t show up, and he wanted to get to cleaning the pool, as, he explained, that was what he was here to do.  

I rested my head against the trunk of the tree and closed my eyes. The ground beneath me began to shake—a boat was jetting off from the shared dock nearby. From the sound, I knew which one it was: Ezra Haddonfield’s, small and blue and light. Red racing stripe. He kept cologne stashed on board to mask the scent of his mistress’s perfume.  

“Just wait,” I said. “He will come.”  

The sound of the boat engine faded into the quiet, and all was still for a long moment. Then: the frog bellowed. A deep, grating sound like gravel churning. The sound traveled across the pond in ripples. Thomas yelped, and then cleared his throat to appear as if he had not yelped.  

“Why are you here, by the way?” he said. “Are you one of his girls?” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”  

“A Ghost-Cat.”  

I opened my eyes ever so slightly, studying him through netted lashes. He appeared distant from me, blurred and golden. I realized why his face was familiar to me—he was the principal’s son. He was always arriving at school in the passenger seat of his father’s car, all low-down and sulking. He spent a fair amount of time hiding behind his hands. He was older up close. It struck me that he looked pretty strung out.  

I closed my eyes again. “I don’t know anything about Ghost-Cats.”  

“Right.”  

“I’m surprised you know anything about Ghost-Cats.”  

“I don’t. I don’t know anything.”  

“Good,” I said.  

To be honest, I didn’t even know much about Ghost-Cats. The identities of the other girls who collected for Tim were kept secret. I only knew about Joy because she was my sister. I spent hours at school looking for girls who were small and lithe like Joy, who ran fast and kept low. I had a list of suspects, but I never knew for sure.  

“But if,” said Thomas, “we were to speak hypothetically, do you think—”  

“Shut up.” I straightened. I could sense the frog was near. “Shut up. Shut up. Sit very still.” I held my breath. Thomas watched me. He did not hold his breath. His breath was very loud. I tried not to let it distract me.  

There was a movement. “There! Frog!” I yelled, and then I jumped forward and smacked it with the hammer. The frog exploded everywhere. I was glad I had not worn my shoes, as I was covered in frog. Frog dripped down my arms and my legs. There was frog soaking into my shirt.  

“God!” said Thomas, looking down at the carnage surrounding him. He appeared horrified.  

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “He’ll be back tomorrow.”  

“How could he? He’s been liquified!”  

“He always comes back,” I said. “That’s the sort of frog he is.” 

“Right. That sort of frog,” Thomas said, but not like he believed me. He wiped green sludge off his face with the back of his hand. “Thanks, I guess.”  

“Yeah.” I threw the hammer down at his feet. I could see Joy exiting the back door of the house, waving me down. “You can muck out the pool now. I’ll be back tomorrow to kill the frog again.” 

*

On our way home we found a patch of wild strawberries by the roadside—the kind that are small and sort of gnarled and more seed than fruit but taste like bursts of sun. We gathered them into our shirts and ate them as we walked. Seeds stuck in my teeth. I ran my tongue over my teeth again and again but I couldn’t get the seeds out.  

“I noticed you got the frog,” Joy said, “for the boy.”  

I nodded, still running my tongue over my teeth.  

“Why?”  

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “That boy could never kill a frog.”  

“I guess that’s true.” She sighed. “It’s been a while since we’ve been frog-hunting.”   

“It’s been a while since Mom sent us swimming.”  

“Has it gotten bigger? The frog?”  

“Yes.”  

“Hm.” Joy had finished her strawberries. She shook stems and leaves out of her shirt then wiped her hands on her jeans, grimacing as her hand hit against her bad knee. “People are starting to notice,” she said, “about the Finite Astra disappearing. Tim gave us sugar pills. So we can replace the pills we take.” 

“Wouldn’t they notice when it doesn’t do anything?”  

“No.” Joy said this like it was the final word. And with her, it often was.  

“Okay. Do I get to go in this time?” 

“No. Not yet.”

*

That night, we hit a few houses near school. Two wisdom teeth removals, one appendectomy. Tim had contacts, somehow, that told him these things. Told us where to go. Joy wouldn’t let me come in. I waited in the dark, picking seeds out of my teeth, and I plotted how I was going to slip some pills without her noticing. On our way home, we passed Principal Brown’s house. I could see a light on up in the far window, and a shadow behind the curtain. Thomas, I suspected.  

The frogs were loud that night, the sound high and lost and lonely. I could hear them even when we had closed our back door behind us. These were little frogs, not big ones like Tim’s frog. Little ones did not come back like Tim’s frog. Nothing came back like Tim’s frog. Still, there were too many of them to kill one by one. Used to be the town would take a crop duster to the island every spring—get them all in one fell swoop. Of course, what they were really after was the corn beetles. Save the crops. The frogs were only the aftereffect. That was before they realized what the chemicals can do to you.  

My mother breathed in those chemicals. She had breast cancer twice. So did Nell Larson’s mother. So did many mothers. And Johnny Terry was born with webbed toes.  

But I suppose they didn’t know then. At least, that’s what they say.  

When Joy fell asleep, I crept to her side of the room. Her knee was elevated above the covers. She was breathing slow and smooth. In the light from the window, I could see her eyes twitching very fast behind her eyelids. The disjunction of these two movements made me feel uneasy.  

I reached into her jacket pocket, and I took five pills.

*

The next day, we walked to Tim’s house again. When we got up to the door, Tim ruffled my hair again and said, “Hey, Peanut,” and then he ushered Joy inside and sent me to the back, where Thomas was, knee-deep in the pool once more. Thomas looked up as I came around the corner and watched me walk down the hill. He didn’t speak. His mouth was set tight and his eyes were pouched and tired, more tired than yesterday.  

“Did you kill the frog already?” I asked.  

 He shook his head. The frog bellowed, then bellowed again. The water shook.  
“Then you shouldn’t be in the pool. Come on. Get on out. We’ll wait.” I sat down under the elm tree and patted the ground next to me. Silently, he lifted himself from the pool and came to me, dripping black water. He dropped to the ground.  

“I didn’t think it would come back,” he said. “I thought you were crazy.”  

I lifted one shoulder. “Well.”  

“What happens? If the frog bites me?”  

“I don’t know. No one knows. And do you want to find out?”  

“No. Why does it come back?”  

“I don’t know.”  

“Hm.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out a hammer, and handed it to me. “I know you’re one of Tim’s girls.”  

I said nothing.  

“If you can get me something, I can pay you. He won’t sell to me right now.”  

“Why?”  

“It’s a long story.”  

“I want to hear it.”  

“No.”  

“Why?”  

“Because I don’t want to tell you. Can you get me things?”  

I studied him for a long moment, weighing my options. Selling to him would involve lying to Joy, and I was already lying to Joy. Where she was concerned, I didn’t like the lies to accumulate. But she was pushing me away, and I didn’t like to feel on the outside of things. So: “Yes,” I said. And then, “Frog!” and I liquefied him. 

* 

That afternoon, I was alone. Joy was running errands—groceries, toilet paper, laundry detergent. Our mother was at work. The house was empty. I decided this was the perfect time to try the Finite Astra.  

I had heard around school that five was the number to take if you wanted to see stars. Too few and it wouldn’t work, too many and you’d be in the hospital. Most people who were addicted operated somewhere in between—they called this twilight. Enough that you were jacked up, but not enough that you couldn’t function. You couldn’t be in the stars all the time. Life doesn’t work that way.  

I situated myself in the corner of our bedroom with my pills and a tall glass of water. I took them and then I downed the rest of the water, and I waited. I waited some more. Nothing changed. I wondered if I had taken sugar pills by accident.  

And then the room began to fade. Black coming on quick. Everything slipping. Complete dark. And the stars, coming out one by one. All around me. Above me, below me. I reached out and cupped one in my hands. I closed both hands around it and the light went out. Opened my hands and the light returned. Open and close, open and close. I laughed. I couldn’t stop laughing.  

The world was so big. Almost endless. Almost, but not quite. There was an end to the stars—I could see it. A blurred roundness far off, some distant horizon. I wanted to reach it. I wanted to see what was beyond. I tried to get there but found I could not move.  

Rooted. Stuck. I started getting lonely. I thought of my mother. I thought of her tight anxious smile and her bangs stuck to her forehead in the heat and the time I saw her crying in the living room in the dark. I held a star in my hands and thought how this had once been my mother. This had once been Joy. This had once been me. And no longer.  

It was then I became very cold. I curled in on myself and closed my eyes. Block out the stars. Block out the memories. Don’t think. Don’t think.  

Coming down was the hardest my body had ever been hit. I threw up for hours. Joy couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. She thought I had food poisoning. She trashed the rest of the chicken she had cooked for dinner. Good riddance. Never buying that brand again.  

*

The next time we went out, Joy decided it was time to give me Ghost-Cat lessons. We cut through cornfields on our way to the east side of the island, kicking up dust, and she explained to me how to enter a house when you are a Ghost-Cat.  

First, it helps if the residents are home. If someone is home, doors are unlocked. Windows are open. Defenses are down, because who would dare enter an occupied house?  

Of course, it helps if the residents are sleeping.  

You check the doors. You see which ones are open. If none are open, you start with the windows. Living rooms are often at the front of the house. Family rooms are at the back. Sometimes there is a father or a twenty-something kid sleeping in the family room, so be careful. Do not enter through a bedroom.  

Once you are in, keep close to the walls. Floorboards near the center of the floor tend to creak. Don’t turn on any lights. Breathe as shallow as you can. Move quick and clean.  

If someone comes into the bathroom to pee, you can get in the shower behind the curtain.  

Try not to jump from high places, if you can. It will wear on you.  

Stay low.  

Got it? Yes.  

I still wasn’t allowed to go in.  

Each night after we went out, I waited until Joy was asleep to go into her jacket pocket. For two weeks I skimmed off the top of our pills until I had enough, and then I went to see Thomas at his house. This is the first time I had been to his house, though I had been seeing him every day for the better part of a month. He had not learned to kill the frog, so I killed it for him. There was no incentive, really, for me to do so, but I liked having a job. I liked being needed. I was not usually needed. Joy generally impeded any possible opportunities I might have for this. She was always taking care of things before I could get there.  

His mother answered the door when I knocked. She was tall and very slim, with the same angularity as her son, except on her it was beautiful, whereas it just made him appear gaunt. She was wearing a soft white shirt and blue jeans. When she smiled it broke across her face like a light coming on in the dark.  

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Amity. I’m here to see Thomas.”  

“Amity, hello.” She opened the door wide. “Come in. Would you some fresh bread?”  

“Sure. I guess.” I sniffed. The house smelled like yeast and baked things. This was new to me. My house never smelled like baked things. Usually it just smelled like dust and cold and whatever Joy would scrape together for dinner.  

“Come in, come in,” she said. “I’ll get you some bread.”  

Thomas clattered down the stairs, slowing when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “Hey. Do you want to come up—?” 

“I was just going to get Amity some bread.”  

“She doesn’t need bread, Mom. Come on, Amity.” He took my wrist and pulled me toward the stairs.  

I glanced back at Mrs. Brown. “Sorry—thanks—” 

She waved us off, still smiling, but I thought she looked a little lost there, all alone at the bottom of that staircase, arms crossed and hands tucked under her elbows like she had a chill.  

Thomas shut and locked his door behind him. “You have it? You have the stuff?”  

“Yeah. Your mom is nice.”  

“Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So, I can’t pay completely right now, but I’ll owe you. Okay?”  

I said, “Okay,” and then, “here.” I didn’t know any better. I glanced around his room—his plaid bedspread, tightly tucked, his bookshelves filled with model airplanes in neat rows, a glass and pitcher of water on his desk, and not a speck of dust in the whole place. “I took some Finite Astra the other day,” I said.  

“Yeah? You did? How was it?”  

“Kind of nice, for a minute. Then really bad. I don’t want to do it again.” 

“Hm. Yeah. Really?” He wasn’t listening to me—he was pouring himself a glass of water and taking a pill. Then another. One more. Twilight. 

* 

When I came home, Joy was on the couch, icing her knee. The previous night, she had jumped from a second-floor window. The landing hit her harder than expected. “Where were you?” she said.  

I looked around. “Is Mom here?”  

“No,” she said. Like, obviously. “Where were you?”  

“Out. Walking. Nowhere.”  

“We have a few places to hit tonight,” she said. “You should take a nap.”  

“Is your knee hurting you?” 

“Just a bit,” she said. “Nothing ice won’t fix.”  

“I could go in tonight,” I offered. “Instead of you.”  

“No.” Joy stood up, clearly suppressing a wince. “That won’t be necessary. You’re not ready yet. Come on, now. Dinner, and then nap.” 

*

It was July and Joy still had not let me enter any houses. I kept killing the frog. Thomas was almost finished cleaning the pool. He had dug through the muck to reach the bottom—turquoise tiles shining through the silt. I got him more drugs. He still owed me.  

“What happens,” Thomas said one morning, stripped down to just his waders and underwear and nothing else, panting and sweating under the shade of the elm tree, “what happens once the pool is done, and the frog is still there?”  

I shrugged. “Someone will have to kill it before we go swimming.”  

“Every time?”  

“Every time. That’s what we used to do, before Tim let the house go.” 

“Why did he let it go?”  

“It was too hard, I think.”  

“What was too hard?”  

“Everything.”   

Thomas paused for a moment, stumped. Then, “What about chlorine?”  

“Chlorine would never kill that frog. Don’t you know anything?”  

“No. I guess not.”  

“What is it like? In the twilight?” I had always been curious, but not enough to try again. 

Thomas wiped an arm across his sweaty forehead. “It’s like—there are still the stars, but it’s daytime. You can see the sun. It’s very bright.”  

“Is it nice?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s hard to say.”  

“Hm,” I said. Then, “Frog!”

*

The first day of August, Tim wanted to see us. Not just Joy—me too. We sat down in his living room. His living room was covered in dust. I focused very hard on trying not to sneeze.  

“How are you doing?” Tim said.  

“We’re good,” Joy said before I could open my mouth.  

“And how is my youngest trainee?” He reached out and ruffled my hair.  

I looked at Joy. She was looking at the floor. “I’m good,” I said.  

“I heard you’ve been taking care of that frog for Thomas.”  

“Yes. I have.”  

“You were always the best little frog-hunter, weren’t you? Got him every time. Here—” He reached into his back pocket and tugged out a wad of cash, picked out a twenty, and handed it to me. “A little extra just for you.” 

My hand closed over the money. This was the first I’d seen all summer—Joy wasn’t letting me near any of the profits. Which, I supposed, was fair, considering I didn’t do anything. Considering she didn’t let me do anything.  

She said she didn’t trust me to spend it right. Whatever that meant.  

But soon, she kept promising. Soon, you’ll be ready to do houses on your own, and then we’ll both buy our tickets out of here. And Mom too. Right? Right? Okay.  

“I have a few houses for you,” Tim said, “on the mainland.” He ran a shaking hand through his hair. His hair was the color of steel and copper. There was dust in his hair and on his shoulders. Tim’s house always rained dust.  

Joy’s hand rested delicately on her knee. The corners of her mouth twitched downward. I could tell she was in pain. But all she said was, “Okay.”

*

We had a fight on the way home. I wanted to go in. Joy would not let me. I told her, you’re hurt. You’re a liability. She said, you’re a liability, Amity. You’re a child.  

“No more a child than you,” I told her.  

She didn’t say anything for a long time. I watched her as we walked down parallel rows of corn, her face flickering in and out of focus between August-green leaves. Eventually she stopped and pulled me from my row over to hers. Then she took me into her arms and held me.  

“I want to go,” I said.  

Her voice was muffled into my shoulder. “No, you don’t.”  

We took the ferry to the mainland. Joy slept. She was blissed out on Finite Astra—just one, she said, it’s all I need to take off the edge. Just one.  

I stood at the railing, wind whipping at my skin, and I watched the stars. The real stars, not the Astra stars. The world was open that night. Clean and raw. My hands froze on the railing. Red paint chipped off and settled in the folds of my dark shirt. I shook off the paint and it spiraled away from me, disappearing into the night.  

I pulled my mother’s jacket tight around me and slipped my hands into the pockets, pushing past the old receipts and tissues and loose change. In my left hand I held a penny. It was cold against my skin. Joy’s head fell to her chest and her body started to slither off the bench. I rushed to put an arm around her waist. She slumped into me, never waking.  

There was no one else on the ferry. We were alone. 

* 

The house was two stories. Slightly inland, up against the creek. Acres of land. Burnt out Chevy in the backyard. The house was built on a hill, and all the windows were elevated. Joy needed a boost to get in. I told her I would go. I told her I should go. Still, she would not let me.  

“I am awake, now,” she insisted. “I am good as ever.”  

The night was surprisingly chilled for August. I sat under the window, waiting, dew soaking into the seat of my pants, tapping a nervous finger against the heel of my running shoe. I felt on edge. I didn’t know why.  

A light came on upstairs. My stomach dropped. I heard footsteps. Doors creaking. A thump thump thump—someone coming down the stairs. I flattened myself against the side of the house and tried not to breathe. Silence. Still. Silence.  

Joy burst through the window in a whoosh of air. “Go, fucking go!” she said, and then we were both running. I could hear a man yelling behind us. Bitches. I could hear the back door opening, and his labored breathing as he tailed us.  

A shot rang out. Joy yelped, stumbled to her knees. I pulled her up. We kept running.  

*

We were in a field. We were wet to the waist from creek water. We were shivering and cold and alone. The grass was silver and the shadows were blue. Joy had her hand over her mouth. She bit into the skin. My hands were on her arm, holding my shirt to her wound. Pressing. A clean slice. Lucky. I was covered in her blood. The blood came out warm and then quickly turned cold.  

I could hear frogs everywhere. Joy’s arm was starting to stiffen. There were frogs under us and around us. I could see them on her. She still bled. There was a frog on her neck. I took the pills from her pocket and put three on her tongue.  

Swallow, I said.  

Too many pills, she said. Took one before. 

Swallow, I said.  

I can’t.  

You have to.  

She swallowed. Twilight.  

Amity, she said, her words half a sob, it hurts. 

I leaned my forehead against hers. I know.