It slanted diagonally beneath her left cheekbone, pale strawberry color, as if someone had dipped a finger in blusher and then drawn it gently across Hannah's face. It was permanent-the doctors had removed it twice with lasers, and it had come back both times.
Hannah was used to the stares it got her.
Paul cleared his throat suddenly, startling her. She looked back at him.
" 'Dead before seventeen,' " he read out loud, thumbing through the scraps of paper. " 'Remember the Three Rivers-DO NOT throw this note away.' 'The cycle can be broken.' 'It's almost May-you know what happens then.' " He picked up the last scrap. "And this one just says, 'He's coming.' "
He smoothed the papers and looked at Hannah. "What do they mean?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I didn't write them," Hannah said through her teeth.
Paul blinked and tapped his pencil faster. "But you said you did write them-"
"It's my handwriting. I admit that," Hannah said. Now that she had gotten started, the words came out in gasping bursts, unstoppable. "And I find them in places where nobody else could put them ... in my sock drawer, inside my pillowcase. This morning I woke up and I was holding that last one in my fist. But I still don't write them."
Paul waved his pencil triumphantly. "I see. You don't remember writing them."
"I don't remember because I didn't do it. I would never write things like that. They're all nonsense."
"Well." Tap. Tap. "I guess that depends. 'It's almost May'-what happens in May?"
"May first is my birthday."
"That's, what, a week from now? A week and a day. And you'll be ... ?"