I dropped the hammer and ran into the backyard, frantic, nearly colliding with my mom as I slid on the dew-slicked grass. I grabbed her arm to pull her back, but she wrenched it free from my grip.
“Get back in the house, Emma,” she said, her voice low and trembling. “I can save us.”
A dozen feet ahead, Amara hovered just above the ground. Her dead-eyed stare burned gold, and the edges of her body shimmered like asphalt in the summer heat. Her arm was outstretched and her fingers curled, beckoning mom toward her. Or maybe it was me she wanted.
“I couldn’t before, but I can now,” mom murmured, and something about her words scared me more than the apparition that floated before us.
“What do you mean, you couldn’t before?” I grabbed her arm again, but she was determined to get to Amara, drawing on a well of strength I didn’t know she possessed. “Dad and Davey… there was nothing you could’ve done to save them… Don’t do this, please… I can’t lose you, too…”
Amara flickered and threw her arms wide, and the doors to the backyard were torn from their hinges, left hanging askew.
And then I wasn’t standing next to my mom anymore.
I was yanked off my feet, flying toward Amara’s outstretched arms. I opened my mouth to scream but the air had been knocked from my lungs.
Shock gave way to disbelief gave way to utter horror on mom’s face as she registered what was happening…
Amara was dragging me to the water’s edge.
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