I reached through damp cardboard with my left hand, looking for something to wrap around my arm. My fingers found a stiff, crumpled sheet of paper. I pulled it free. It was a rain-damaged color flyer, but still readable. I dragged myself closer to the edge of the barrel and held it up toward a distant streetlight.

Then I saw her.

The girl in the picture looked about my age. She wore a red knitted poncho and had the kind of smile that hurt to look at—soft, loved, untouched by the hardness I knew. She did not look like anyone in Pine Hollow.

Under the picture were the words: MISSING: LILA.

I kept reading, moving my lips over the words.

Dark mole behind right ear. Small birthmark on left forearm.

My heart jolted.

I reached behind my ear. The mole was there. Evelyn had always called it my “witch mark.” Then I rubbed the dirt from my left forearm and saw the faint shape of the birthmark emerge like a small cloud.

I found a broken shard of mirror among the trash and angled it toward the light. My face was filthy, gaunt, bruised by hunger and cold. But the eyes were the same. The brows were the same. The forehead was the same.

At the bottom of the flyer was a phone number and a reward that meant nothing to me. Money belonged to some other world. I understood only this: if I was really that girl, then someone had been looking for me. Someone who might not hit me for reaching toward food. Someone who might, maybe, give me soup without insults.

In the hidden pocket of my pants, I kept my most valuable possession: a worn one-dollar coin I had earned carrying firewood. I clenched it so tightly it marked my palm.

Then I crawled out of the barrel.

The pay phone stood outside the post office near the center of town. The walk there felt endless. More than once I fell into the snow. More than once I thought about turning back, climbing into the barrel, and letting myself sleep. But I kept going, dragging one leg, pressing the flyer to my chest like it was something holy.

The booth was empty when I got there, one pane of glass broken so the wind came straight through. I stacked two bricks to reach the coin slot. My fingers shook so badly I nearly dropped the coin. Somehow, I fed it in and dialed the number.

One ring.

Two.

On the third, a woman answered.

“Hello? Who is this?”

Her voice was not rough with sleep or age. It was broken by grief.

I opened my mouth.

Nothing.