Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(3)

“Not this again.” He mumbled as he leaned back against the stiff seat, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

With a sharp exhale, he nudged the glasses back into place and turned to face me. “Sweetie,” he said. “I know you think you saw something. And I believe you. I do. But we researched it for weeks. None of the U.S. or foreign networks recognized your description of the news footage.”

“I know what I saw, Dad.”

He scraped a hand across his mouth. I recognized the gesture as poorly-disguised annoyance. I’d seen it before, though not often. Once, when I’d accidently deleted his paper on ‘Karenia Brevis,’ the organism responsible for red tide in the Gulf of Mexico. And again at eight, when I’d scribbled Socrates’s speech to the Athens jury in permanent marker on his office white board.

“This isn’t easy for me, either, Hope.” His voice was hushed and so, so sad. “But we have to face facts. Your mother was inside that lecture hall when the earthquake struck. No one on the lower floors survived. It’s been over seven months now, honey, and I . . .”

His jaw flexed. A lone tear escaped and rolled down my father’s cheek. “It’s time to let her go.”





After the quake, I’d become obsessed with the news. I didn’t sleep, I barely ate. The extra pounds I’d always carried around had melted away as I pored over each picture, every article, hundreds of hours of news footage. The video had aired only once, on one of the satellite channels in Dad’s office.

Most people wouldn’t have noticed.

I wasn’t most people.

With crystal-clear recall, my mind never stopped replaying the ten-second clip.





The girl’s body lay only a few yards from the collapsed university high rise. She’d obviously tried to run when the building came down, but an immense beam had fallen, crushing her beneath its weight. The footage had panned over her mangled corpse for only an instant, but it was all I’d needed. The neon-pink flyer crumpled in the girl’s limp hand was ripped and bloody and coated with white dust. I could make out only the first few words, written in Hindi, then in English.

Today’s lecture series with renowned author and historian Dr. Sarah Walton is can—

That was it. That was all. But I knew, I knew, what that last word really was.

Not can. Canceled.

For some reason, my mother had canceled her lecture that day. She had not been inside that tower when the earthquake brought it down.

Ecstatic at first, my father had contacted the American embassies in Mumbai and New Delhi. Then every hospital, shelter, and rescue organization. But as the days and weeks dragged on, he’d slowly let the hope and faith that we’d find her just slip away. When I refused to let it go, his look had turned from pity to concern.

“Hope.” He spoke carefully over the limo’s purring engine, as if to a small child. “We’ve been over this so many times. If Sar—” He paused, took a deep breath through his nose. “If your mother was alive, she’d have contacted us. If she was injured, someone else would have. They’ve identified all the survivors. I’m so sorry. But, sweetheart, it’s time to move on.”

I threw up my hands. “Oh, you’d love that. ’Cause if she’s dead, you can stop feeling so guilty about hooking up with Stella.”

Since the day my mom—the sun around which we both revolved—went supernova, Dad and I had existed in a kind of wobbly orbit. Two orphaned planets. Polite, unfailingly cordial, but never quite synchronized.

“Bet you wouldn’t just throw me out like this if I was your real daughter,” I muttered, staring out the glass at the trees whipping past.

My dad flinched, hand pressed to his heart as if to keep it from stopping.

I hadn’t cried when he made me go with him to pick out the coffin. I’d remained stubbornly mute while Dad and the funeral director made all the arrangements. During visitation the night before, I heard my grandmother whisper how I was an unnatural, cold child.

None of it had touched me. It wasn’t real.

It took the horrified, wounded look on my father’s face for it to finally break through. I heard it happen, a quiet snap deep inside.

“Dad?” I choked. “Daddy? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. It’s just that I—I can’t . . .”

“I know, sweetie.” He pulled me across the seat to wrap me in his arms. “I know.”

The tears came then. Because he was right. They were all right. My mother was dead, and I had been so stupid.





Chapter 2


I’D LISTENED IN ON THE KITCHEN EXTENSION WHEN MY dad took the call all those months ago. The man from the Red Cross sounded so apologetic. His proper speech and Hindi accent made the words almost soothing. The search for survivors was called off, he’d explained. Explosives had been set to bring down the rest of the dangerous, mangled mess that had once housed the university lecture halls. Anyone still missing was now presumed dead.

I think Dad even thanked him before hanging up.

Now presumed dead.

The phone had tumbled from my hand as the files in my mind blew open and began to flood with images of death by crushing. Death by suffocation. The walls closed in around me as pain blasted through my brain. Unbearable, unspeakable pain. When my father rushed into the kitchen seconds later, I was curled on the floor, screaming in agony.