Dead Wrong

By the third afternoon, I'd stopped trusting anything Grandma had written on a box.

CHRISTMAS contained bank statements, a broken table lamp, and three TV remotes. I'd spent twenty minutes looking for the money she supposedly hid in old envelopes before admitting my uncle probably made that up.

The actual Christmas decorations were in garbage bags behind a dresser.

I dragged the box toward the attic hatch, felt the bottom start to give, and barely got it onto the floor before everything fell through.

"Fuck."

I stayed crouched there a minute, holding two useless pieces of cardboard.

Downstairs, my phone was ringing. By the time I climbed down, it had stopped. The realtor again. She wanted to know whether we were still on track to have the house ready for photographs Monday.

I looked at the bags along the hallway and let that one wait.

Grandma had been dead six weeks. I'd been staying at her house for nine days, sorting through eighty-one years of things she'd thought might come in handy. So far, I'd cleared one bedroom and most of the kitchen. The attic looked worse than when I started.

At twenty-three, I apparently qualified as the member of the family with the time and energy to do this. Mostly, I was the one who couldn't come up with an excuse fast enough.

I got some water, checked my phone without answering anybody, and went back up.

The book was in a shallow wooden box beneath the dresser.

I nearly missed it. There was barely room to get my hand underneath, and I thought I was pulling out another picture frame until the whole box scraped forward.

Inside were some folded papers, a white envelope with nothing in it, and a thick book with a brown cover. One corner had gone soft from damp. There was no title on the front.

I opened it somewhere near the middle.

The print was small and uneven, with those old-fashioned letters that made an s look like an f. Someone had underlined several passages. Notes filled the margins.

I recognized Grandma's handwriting.

That was what made me sit down.

Her writing was on everything downstairs: freezer labels, birthday cards, a note taped inside the fuse-box door telling you which switch did the kitchen. Seeing it here felt different. I couldn't make sense of half the words she'd written.

One page had a drawing of a hand surrounded by little symbols. Another listed plants, including a couple I recognized from her garden.

"Well, what the hell were you into?"

I turned a few more pages.

Near the back, a strip of faded ribbon marked a section headed:

For the Restoration of the Departed.

Underneath it, in Grandma's handwriting, was a date.

October 30, 1998.

I knew the year Grandpa had died. I'd seen it on his headstone often enough. I wasn't sure about the day.

I read the heading again, then tried the paragraph underneath. It took three attempts before I understood that it meant exactly what I thought it meant.

Bringing somebody back.

There were instructions.

I glanced toward the hatch. A car went past outside, its radio loud enough to hear through the open bedroom window below.

Grandma had gone to church every Sunday until she couldn't drive anymore. She'd complained when the pharmacy started opening on Easter.

I turned the book over, looking for a title, an author, anything. The spine was worn smooth.

By then my back hurt, and I'd had enough of the attic.

I took it downstairs.

That night, I ate a frozen pizza standing at the kitchen counter because the table was covered in dishes nobody wanted.

Then I showered and got into bed with my laptop.

That had become my routine. Spend the day filling bags and boxes, promise myself I'd make a proper start on the next room tomorrow, then stay awake far too late watching porn.

I'd been doing the last part long before Grandma died.

There wasn't much else happening. I worked, came home, watched something, went to sleep. Sometimes I'd waste an hour choosing a video I'd already seen. I knew it was pathetic while I was doing it, which hadn't proved particularly useful in getting me to stop.

I opened the usual site.

There was a black banner across the top of the page.

Remembering Vanessa Veil.

For a second, I thought she'd retired.

Then I saw the dates beneath her name.

I sat up against the headboard.

"No fucking way."

The photograph was one I hadn't seen before. She was outside somewhere, wearing sunglasses pushed up into her hair. Smiling at whoever held the camera.

I clicked the announcement.

It was short. Her family had confirmed her death following a car accident earlier that month. There were condolences, a request for privacy, and a link to a memorial page.

I read it twice.

I'd watched her two nights ago.

That thought bothered me enough that I closed the tab, although I couldn't have explained what difference it made. The videos were still there. She'd already been dead when I watched them.

I opened a search window and typed her name.

There were articles, tributes from other performers, people reposting the same few photographs. One article gave her real name: Natalie Mercer.

I'd never known that.

Natalie was twenty-nine. She had a younger brother. She'd grown up less than an hour from here.

I followed a link to the funeral home's website.

The obituary used a different picture. Shorter hair. A little dog tucked under one arm. I read about her family, her love of animals, things I'd never once wondered about despite the amount of time I'd spent looking at her.

The service had already happened.

Near the bottom, it said she'd been buried at St. Andrew's Cemetery.

I knew where that was.

I passed it whenever I took the back road to Grandma's.

I left the obituary open and looked across the bedroom.

The book was on the dresser beneath my car keys, where I'd put it that afternoon.

"Oh, come on."

I reached for the laptop again. Scrolled back to the beginning of the obituary. Looked at the photograph.

Then I got out of bed.

I told myself I only wanted to see whether I'd read that passage correctly.

I took the book back to bed and found the ribbon.

The section was eleven pages long.

I'd expected a few words in Latin. Maybe some candles. Something ridiculous enough that I could put it down and go to sleep.

Instead, there were paragraphs explaining when it could be done, what condition the body had to be in, and reasons it might not work. Grandma had crossed out one entire passage and written unnecessary beside it.

I kept coming back to that.

How would she know?

I moved the bedside lamp closer.

The first page referred to the last night of October. That was Friday. Three days away.

"Of course it is."

I checked the obituary again.

Natalie had died on the ninth. Twenty-one days by Halloween.

The book allowed forty.

I put my finger beneath the line and read it slowly, checking that I hadn't mistaken some other word for forty. I hadn't.

There were other conditions. The body had to be intact. It had to be in the ground. The person performing the rite had to speak the dead person's name.

Beside that, Grandma had written:

The name they answered to. Not necessarily the one on the stone.

I looked at the laptop.

Vanessa Veil.

I'd said that name out loud before. Never in any situation remotely like this.

For a minute, the whole thing struck me as so stupid that I laughed.

I was sitting in my dead grandmother's spare bedroom, checking whether a porn star qualified for resurrection.

I needed to go to bed.

Instead, I turned the page.

By one in the morning, I had my phone propped beside the book, with photographs of three passages I couldn't read properly.

Enlarging them helped a little. Grandma's pencil marks were harder. Some had faded almost completely, and she'd used abbreviations that apparently made sense to her.

There was a list of things required. Most were ordinary enough that I could find them downstairs.

One item had been underlined twice.

An article held dear by the departed.

"That's going to be a problem."

Under it, in smaller writing, Grandma had added:

Likeness sufficient.

A picture, presumably.

I searched the phrase. The results were useless. I tried the section heading in quotation marks. Nothing. Then a few longer sentences from the first page.

Still nothing.

That didn't make it real. It meant somebody had written a weird old book that wasn't on the internet.

I checked the front again. Several pages were missing before the first chapter. What remained of one had been cut close to the binding.

No publisher. No date.

I went back to the marked section.

There was a warning near the end about hunger.

That was the actual word. Hunger.

The returned would suffer from it, and whoever called them back was responsible for attending to it. There were a few sentences about weakness, confusion, and changes of disposition.

I thought about someone waking up after weeks without food or water.

Then I caught myself thinking about it as though it were a medical problem.

I shut the book.

The house was quiet apart from the refrigerator downstairs. I could hear it switch off from up here.

My alarm was set for seven.

I moved it to eight and turned out the light.

The next morning, I called my mother while I was making coffee.

She answered with, "Have you spoken to the realtor?"

"Not yet."

"She said she left you two messages."

"I know. I'm calling her today."

I opened the cupboard. Sixteen mugs, and I'd been washing the same one all week.

"Did Grandpa die in October?"

Mom went quiet for a second.

"Yes. Why?"

"Found a date written in something. October thirtieth, nineteen ninety-eight."

"That's right."

I watched the coffee drip into the pot.

"What did you find?"

"An old book. Some notes."

"Oh. Well, keep anything like that. Don't let your uncle throw it out."

"I won't."

"He thinks if it isn't worth selling, nobody wants it."

I let her talk about my uncle for a minute. It gave me time to work out how to ask the next question.

"Was Grandma ever interested in weird stuff?"

"What sort of weird stuff?"

"I don't know. Spiritualism. Talking to dead people."

"Have you found a Ouija board?"

"No."

"Because I don't want that in my house."

I rubbed my eyes.

"It's a book, Mom."

"Well, she read all sorts. She had more of a life than you remember."

"Did she ever mention anything like that?"

"Not to me."

I could hear a drawer opening on her end.

"She took your grandfather's death very badly," she said. "We all did."

"Yeah."

"Whatever it is, put it somewhere safe. I'll look when I come over."

After we hung up, I stood at the counter until the coffee was ready.

Then I went upstairs and moved the book from the bedside table into my bag.

I meant to work on the attic.

I even climbed the ladder and filled half a garbage bag before coming back down to look for stronger bags.

My laptop was still on the bed.

The funeral-home page was still open.

I sat down.

There were flowers you could order, a place to leave condolences, and a small map beside the cemetery address.

I clicked the map.

St. Andrew's was eleven minutes away.

I knew that already, more or less. Seeing the route drawn out made it feel closer.

I checked the time. Just after ten.

There was a hardware store on that side of town. I needed bags, packing tape, and something for the attic dust.

I got dressed, found my keys, and carried two full bags of trash out to the garbage can.

At the end of the driveway, I put the cemetery into my phone.

Just to see where she was.

I wasn't bringing anything. I wasn't going to do anything.

There didn't seem to be any harm in looking.

I missed the cemetery entrance the first time.

There was a landscaping truck behind me, close enough that I could see a pair of work gloves on its dashboard. By the time I spotted the sign, I would've had to slam on the brakes.

I drove another half mile and turned around at a gas station.

St. Andrew's looked smaller from inside the gate. I'd always noticed the part along the road, with the old stones and the iron fence. Farther back, it opened into a newer section with flat markers and a few young trees.

I parked beside a water spigot.

There were two other cars. An older man was kneeling beside a headstone across the drive, pulling dead flowers from a vase. He had a plastic grocery bag hooked over one wrist.

I waited until he looked away before getting out.

Then I felt stupid for waiting.

People came to cemeteries. That was what they were for.

I had no idea where to look.

For the first few minutes, I walked between rows pretending I did. Every time I stopped to read a name, I wondered whether the man could tell I didn't belong there.

He never looked up.

I found her toward the back.

There wasn't a headstone yet. Just a temporary marker with her name behind a clear plastic panel.

NATALIE MERCER.

The dates matched the obituary.

A few bouquets lay on the dirt. Most had started to turn brown inside their wrapping. Somebody had left a small ceramic dog beside the marker.

I stopped a few feet away.

Until then, I'd been half expecting something to prevent me from finding her. The wrong cemetery. A locked gate. Another Natalie Mercer.

But there she was.

I put my hands in my pockets.

"Hi."

It came out quietly, but I still checked whether anybody had heard.

I'd never visited a grave alone before. With my family, there was always something to do. Carry flowers. Stand beside Mom. Wait until somebody decided it was time to leave.

I hadn't brought anything.

There was a card tucked into one of the bouquets. Rain had softened the envelope and pulled it open. I could see the start of a handwritten message.

I looked away before reading it.

Her brother might have left that. Or a boyfriend. I didn't know whether she had one.

That bothered me, and then I was embarrassed that it bothered me.

I knew almost nothing about her.

The obituary had said she loved hiking. I hated hiking. She had a dog. I didn't know what had happened to it.

I stood there trying to think of something appropriate to say to a woman whose real name I'd learned twelve hours earlier.

"Sorry," I finally said.

A truck rattled over a bump on the road beyond the fence.

I looked down at the dirt.

The book said she had to be buried, but I hadn't read anything about getting her out afterward.

That was a fairly major omission.

I pictured myself standing here with a book while something happened six feet underneath me.

What if she woke up?

The thought made me step back.

Not climbed out. Not appeared beside the grave.

Just woke up where they'd put her.

"Oh, fuck that."

I said it out loud.

The old man across the cemetery straightened up. I turned toward my car and started walking.

I went to the hardware store.

Garbage bags. Packing tape. Dust masks.

I got everything on my list and stood in line behind a woman returning a curtain rod.

By the time I reached the register, I'd decided I was done with the book.

There was no version of this that made sense. Either nothing happened and I was an idiot standing in a cemetery on Halloween, or something happened and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

I bought a sandwich on the way home.

Ate it at the kitchen counter.

Called the realtor.

For the next three hours, I worked.

I cleared the rest of the space around the attic hatch and carried down two boxes of Christmas decorations. The real ones this time. I found Grandpa's bowling shoes, a coffee can full of curtain hooks, and an unopened electric carving knife that somebody had apparently given them in 1986.

Normal stuff.

Around four, I pulled my bag out from beneath the bed.

I wanted to check one thing.

If the book didn't explain how the person got out of the grave, that settled it. I wasn't going to spend another night thinking about something that hadn't even accounted for the coffin.

I found the section and went through it again.

Halfway down the fourth page, Grandma had drawn a small arrow beside a paragraph I'd struggled with the night before.

Her note ran sideways along the edge.

Do not disturb the earth. They will come when called.

I sat on the bed.

Read it again.

Then I turned back to the beginning to see what else I'd missed.

On Friday, I bought Halloween candy.

I hadn't planned to. There was a display beside the checkout, and I remembered Grandma always handed out the full-size bars. Kids used to come from the next street over.

I bought a mixed bag of the little ones.

Back at the house, I put them in a mixing bowl by the front door and spent most of the afternoon pretending I was going to stay home.

The book was on the kitchen table. Beside it were a candle, a box of matches, and a photograph I'd printed at the drugstore.

I'd chosen the picture from her memorial page. The one with her sunglasses in her hair.

The clerk had slid it into an envelope and asked whether I wanted anything else.

I'd said no and paid cash, then felt like an idiot because there was nothing remotely suspicious about getting a photograph printed.

Around five, Mom called.

"How's the house coming?"

"Getting there."

"Your uncle might come by tomorrow."

I looked at the book.

"What time?"

"He didn't say."

"Can you ask him to call first?"

"He'll call."

"He didn't last time."

"I'll tell him."

I picked at a hardened drop of something on the table with my thumbnail.

"Did you find anything else interesting?"

"Mostly Christmas stuff."

"What about that book?"

I stopped picking.

"What?"

"The one you asked me about."

"Oh. Yeah. I put it away."

"Well, don't lose it."

After we hung up, I carried the candy to the porch. I left the bowl on a chair with a note telling people to take two.

Then I went upstairs and changed my shirt.

I was halfway through buttoning it when I realized what I was doing.

I stood in front of the mirror.

Clean shirt. Brushed teeth. I'd even shaved.

"Jesus Christ."

I finished buttoning it anyway.

By eleven thirty, the candy bowl was empty.

Somebody had taken the note, too.

I brought the bowl inside, locked the door, and checked my bag again.

The candle had rolled beneath the book. I put it back beside the matches, although it didn't matter where it was. I'd already checked everything twice.

There was still time to stay home.

I could put the book back in the attic. Go to bed. Let my uncle complain about how little I'd gotten done.

Instead, I picked up my keys.

The drive took longer than it had on Tuesday. A few kids were still out with their parents, and a group of teenagers in masks walked down the middle of the road until I slowed behind them.

One turned and waved me around with a plastic machete.

I waited for him to move.

At a red light, I looked over at the bag on the passenger seat.

I'd spent two days trying to decide whether I believed any of this. Now that I was actually going, I wanted to stop thinking about it.

The light changed.

The cemetery looked different without daylight.

I could see the pale stones near the road, but the newer section was mostly dark. Somewhere beyond it, music was playing. A party at one of the houses backing onto the property.

I recognized the song.

For some reason, that helped.

I found Natalie's grave with my phone flashlight.

The ceramic dog was still there. Somebody had added fresh flowers since my visit.

I stood looking at them.

Then I set my bag down.

The ground was cold through the knees of my jeans. I took out the book and rested it across the bag, trying to keep the pages open while I arranged everything.

There wasn't much to arrange.

In the kitchen, that had made the whole thing seem possible. Here, it made me feel stupid.

A candle. A photograph. An old book.

I could hear somebody laughing at the party.

I checked the time.

11:54.

Grandma's note said to begin before midnight. The passage itself was less clear, and I'd decided to trust her.

I set the photograph beside the marker.

"Okay."

My voice sounded too loud.

I lit the candle on the third match. There was barely any wind, but my hands weren't steady.

For a few seconds, I watched the flame.

Then I started reading.

The first time, I lost my place.

I swore, found the line again, and wondered whether I had to start over.

There was no note about that.

I started over.

Some of the words were familiar. Others I'd spent the afternoon sounding out in Grandma's kitchen. Out here, I couldn't remember how I'd decided to pronounce them.

I did the best I could.

When I reached the part that called for her name, I hesitated.

"Natalie Mercer."

Nothing happened.

I looked down at Grandma's writing.

The name they answered to.

"Vanessa Veil."

A car door slammed somewhere beyond the cemetery.

I finished the passage.

Then I waited.

My knees hurt. I shifted my weight and caught the edge of the photograph with my shoe.

"Shit. Sorry."

I straightened it.

The candle burned steadily.

I checked my phone.

12:01.

For one unpleasant second, I imagined telling somebody about this. Actually explaining what I'd come here hoping to do.

I put the phone away.

"Well," I said.

There wasn't anything else to say.

I closed the book.

Behind me, a woman coughed.

I dropped it.

The cough came again, rougher this time.

I turned so fast that one knee slipped off my bag and landed in the dirt.

She was standing several feet away, near the next row of graves.

I hadn't heard anybody approach.

My flashlight was on the ground, pointing across her shoes. Black flats. Bare ankles. The hem of a dark blue dress.

I reached for the phone but couldn't get my fingers around it.

"Could you move that?" she asked.

I froze.

"The light."

I picked it up.

The beam caught her face before I lowered it.

I knew that face.

For the past two days, I'd done almost nothing but look at it.

Her hair was different than in the photograph. Or the videos. Somebody had styled it in loose curls that were flattened on one side. She wore small pearl earrings.

There was something wrong with her makeup. It was pale like always but her cheeks were rosey and the dark makeup around her eyes was missing. The dark lipstick was missing too. Her face looked plain..

She pressed a hand against her throat and swallowed.

I tried to stand. My foot had gone numb, and I nearly fell.

She watched me get my balance.

"Natalie? Or do I call you Vanessa?"

She looked past me at the marker.

Then at the flowers.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

She didn't answer.

"That's mine?"

I couldn't answer.

She stepped closer, slowly enough that I had time to move out of her way. She bent to read the name.

I stood beside her with the book clutched against my chest.

She reached toward the little ceramic dog but stopped before touching it.

"Oh," she said.

From the house beyond the fence, somebody shouted for the music to be turned up.

She looked in that direction.

Then she turned back to me.

"Do you have a car?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just over there."

She waited while I picked everything up.

I couldn't get the book into my bag. One corner kept catching on the zipper, and after the third attempt I shoved it under my arm instead.

The candle was still burning.

I bent to blow it out.

"Is that me?"

She was looking at the photograph.

"Yeah."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Online."

She held out her hand.

I gave it to her.

For a few seconds, she studied it by the light of my phone. Then she touched the bottom of her nose.

Her fingers stopped.

She checked one nostril, then felt beneath her nose again.

"What the fuck?"

I didn't say anything.

She looked down at herself. Pinched the blue fabric at her wrist and pulled the sleeve back far enough to expose the edge of a tattoo.

"Oh, Mom."

There was enough irritation in her voice that I almost forgot where we were.

She let the sleeve fall.

"Let's go."

I'd left a hardware-store receipt and an empty soda bottle on the passenger seat.

"Sorry. Hang on."

I grabbed them and threw them in the back.

She stood beside the open door, looking into the car.

"Are you okay?"

She glanced at me.

I wished I'd asked something else.

"I don't know."

She lowered herself into the seat carefully, with one hand on the roof. I waited until her feet were inside before closing the door.

Walking around to the driver's side, I had a few seconds when she couldn't see my face.

I stopped behind the car.

Put my hand over my mouth.

She was in my car.

I could see the back of her head through the rear window.

I'd done it.

Then she turned to see where I was, and I hurried around to the driver's door.

Neither of us spoke until we reached the road.

I kept glancing over.

The dress came right up to her neck. Long sleeves, little fabric-covered buttons. In the videos, her arms had been covered in tattoos. There was a large one across her chest, too, but I couldn't see any of it now.

Her black hair rested against the collar.

Without the heavy eyeliner and dark lipstick, her eyes looked different. The undertaker had put something pink on her mouth. There was color on her cheeks that didn't belong there.

She pulled down the sun visor.

The mirror light came on.

I heard her take a breath.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

She leaned closer.

Touched one of the pearl earrings.

Then she rubbed her lower lip with her thumb and inspected the makeup that came away.

"Do you have a tissue?"

"Glove compartment. I think."

She found a handful of fast-food napkins.

I watched her wipe her mouth at the next red light.

"My mother hated my piercings."

I looked back at the road.

"She took every opportunity to tell me."

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't take them out."

"No."

She checked her nose again.

"Both of them. Jesus."

The light turned green.

A few blocks later, she folded the stained napkin and held it in her lap.

There was something I needed to ask.

I waited until we'd passed a couple walking along the shoulder.

"How did you get out?"

She looked at me.

"Out of what?"

"The coffin."

She lowered her eyes to the napkin in her lap.

I kept driving.

"You don't have to--"

"It was dark. There was something right in front of my face. I tried to put my hands up, but I couldn't get them high enough."

My grip tightened on the wheel.

"Then I heard you."

"Saying your name?"

She nodded.

"I could hear where you were. I tried to reach that way."

She paused.

"Then I was standing there."

I glanced over.

"In the cemetery?"

"Behind you. You were looking at the ground."

Grandma's note came back to me.

Do not disturb the earth. They will come when called.

I'd thought it meant she would find her own way out. Apparently, getting her out was part of it.

"Did it hurt?"

"I don't remember."

She rubbed the folded napkin between her fingers.

I left it alone.

A few blocks later, she turned toward me.

"What's your name?"

"Evan."

"Evan," she repeated.

It was a small thing, hearing her say my name. I was glad it was dark enough that she probably couldn't see me smiling.

"Did I know you?"

"No."

She waited.

"I knew who you were."

"Right. Then I guess you should call me Vanessa."

Halfway home, she asked me to turn off the heat.

I reached for the controls.

"Too warm?"

"A little."

Her window was already cracked. Cold air moved through the car, lifting a few strands of hair against her cheek.

I had about a hundred questions. Whether she remembered the accident. Whether anything hurt. Where she'd been before she appeared behind me.

I asked if she wanted some water or if I should stop and get beer.

"Water is fine."

"There's some at the house."

"Okay."

She turned toward the window again.

I drove past a yard full of plastic skeletons. One was sitting on a lawn mower with a beer can taped to its hand.

I'd thought it was funny earlier.

At the house, she stood in the kitchen while I found a clean glass.

"Sorry about all the stuff. I'm cleaning the place out."

There were boxes on two chairs and a stack of plates beside the sink. I moved a bag of clothes off the remaining chair.

"You can sit."

She pulled it out but stayed standing, looking toward the hallway.

I filled the glass.

"Here."

She took it in both hands.

I watched her drink, trying not to look like I was watching.

Her gaze settled on a photograph beside the kitchen doorway.

Grandma on her seventieth birthday. A paper crown from the restaurant, one hand raised because she hadn't wanted me taking the picture.

Vanessa lowered the glass.

"That's your grandma."

"Yeah."

She looked around the kitchen again.

"I thought so."

My hand was still on the back of the chair.

"What do you mean?"

"She said you were staying here."

I waited for her to explain.

She took another drink.

"Who said?"

"Your grandma."

The refrigerator motor kicked on behind me.

Vanessa glanced at the picture.

"She says hi."

I looked at the photograph, then back at her.

"My grandma."

"Yes."

"You talked to her?"

Vanessa set the glass on the table.

"I don't know if talked is the right word."

"What does that mean?"

She pulled out the chair and sat down.

For a moment, I thought she was deciding how much to tell me. Then she rubbed her forehead.

"I could have told you a few minutes ago."

I stayed where I was.

"Now I keep trying to remember, and I get bits of it. Your grandma was there. I know that."

"Where?"

She shook her head.

I wanted to ask whether Grandpa had been there, too. Whether Grandma was okay. Whether she'd said anything about the book.

Vanessa reached for her glass and found it empty.

"Could I have some more?"

I took it to the sink.

By the time I turned around, she was examining the little buttons at her wrist.

"Do you have something I could change into?"

I gave her a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring.

"They're clean."

"Good start."

"And there are towels in the bathroom. The hot water takes a minute."

She stood in the doorway with the clothes folded over one arm.

"Is there anything I can use to get this stuff off my face?"

"Probably. Grandma had--"

I stopped.

Vanessa waited.

"I'll look."

There were bottles in the medicine cabinet that I hadn't touched since arriving. I read labels until I found makeup remover, then put it beside a clean washcloth.

She thanked me and closed the door.

I stood in the hallway.

Water ran on the other side.

Until that moment, I'd been too busy doing things to think much past the next one. Now Vanessa Veil was in the bathroom, and I was standing outside the door.

I went downstairs.

The book was still in my bag.

I took it out and found the passage about hunger.

Weakness. Confusion. Changes of disposition.

She seemed tired. That was understandable.

She'd remembered Grandma and then struggled to explain it. That fit, too.

I read the paragraph twice, looking for anything that said what I should feed her.

Nothing.

I opened the refrigerator.

When she came downstairs, I was scraping scrambled eggs onto a plate.

The T-shirt was one I'd bought at a concert three years earlier. It hung loose on her, the sleeves ending above her elbows. Tattoos covered most of both forearms. A black moth spread across one wrist, its wings disappearing around the sides.

Without the funeral makeup, her face was pale enough that I could see faint shadows beneath her eyes.

She'd pulled her hair back with something. I couldn't tell what.

"Hope eggs are okay."

"They're fine."

"I don't have much here."

"Evan. Eggs are fine."

I put the plate in front of her.

She sat down and took a bite before I remembered a drink.

"Water?"

She nodded.

By the time I filled the glass, she'd eaten almost half of what I'd made.

I sat across from her.

"Better?"

She swallowed.

"I don't know yet."

I tried not to watch her eat. There wasn't much else to look at that didn't make it obvious I was trying.

She glanced at the book beside my elbow.

"That's what you used?"

"Yeah."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Upstairs. In the attic."

She put down her fork.

"You found a book in the attic and decided to try it on me?"

"It wasn't quite like that."

She waited.

I rubbed a crumb off the table.

"I read about what happened to you. Then I found out you were buried here."

"So you thought, why not?"

"I thought you should get another chance."

That sounded good when I said it.

It was even true, as far as it went.

Vanessa looked down at her plate.

"I'm twenty-nine."

"I know."

She pushed a piece of egg onto her fork.

"I wasn't finished."

I didn't have an answer for that.

She ate the last few bites while I sat there with my hands beneath the table.

"Was there any more?"

"Yeah. I can make more."

I got up too quickly and caught my knee on the table.

The glasses rattled.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

I took her plate to the stove and opened the refrigerator again.

There were four eggs left.

I used all of them.

Behind me, her chair scraped across the floor.

"You don't have to keep cooking. I can do it."

"It's okay."

She stood beside the counter, watching while I looked for a spatula.

The drawer stuck halfway out. I pulled harder, and my finger caught against the rough edge beneath the handle.

"Shit."

I brought my hand up.

A little flap of skin beside my nail had torn. Blood welled along it.

Nothing serious, but it stung.

I turned toward the sink.

Vanessa had gone quiet.

She was staring at my hand.

"What?"

Her eyes moved to my face, then back down.

"You're bleeding."

"Yeah. This drawer's messed up."

I reached past her for the paper towels.

She stepped back so abruptly that her heel struck the cabinet.

"Can you cover it?"

I pulled off a sheet.

"Sorry."

She shook her head. Her mouth was closed tight.

I wrapped the paper towel around my finger and held it there.

"Does blood bother you?"

She looked at the towel.

"Apparently."

I waited for her to smile.

She didn't.

The eggs started hissing behind me.

By the time I turned back from the stove, she'd sat down again. Her hands were flat against her knees.

I wanted to ask if she felt sick, but I'd already asked whether she was okay about six times since the cemetery.

I put the second plate in front of her.

She thanked me without looking up.

It was nearly two when I showed her the spare room across from mine.

I'd cleared it earlier in the week. The bed was made, although there were still empty picture hooks on the walls and a tall rectangle of darker wallpaper where Grandma's dresser had stood.

Vanessa paused in the doorway.

"This okay?"

She nodded.

I put a glass of water on the nightstand.

"Bathroom's right there. You know where that is."

"I remember."

"And I'm across the hall."

She sat on the edge of the bed.

For the first time since we'd left the cemetery, she looked unsure what to do next.

I stayed in the doorway.

"Do you want the light on?"

"For a while."

"Okay."

I started to pull the door closed.

"Leave it open?"

I stopped.

"Sure."

In my room, I peeled the paper towel off my finger.

The bleeding had stopped. There was a little dried patch beside the nail.

I put a Band-Aid over it anyway.

Across the hall, the bedsprings creaked.

I sat on my bed and took out my phone.

Her obituary was still open in the browser.

I closed it.

Then I turned my light off and lay down.

For a long time, I could see the light from her room under my door.

I listened for movement.

Once, I heard her get up. Bare feet crossed the hall, followed by the bathroom faucet.

Then I heard her go back to bed.

I remembered that she hadn't answered me after the second plate of eggs.

I still didn't know whether she'd had enough.

Every time something creaked, I listened.

I wondered whether she was asleep. Whether she could sleep. Whether I should have asked her more questions before leaving her alone.

After a while, I checked my phone.

2:17.

I put it down.

Picked it up again.

Finally, I reached for the laptop.

I knew how stupid it was. She was across the hall. I'd just made her eggs and shown her where the towels were.

I opened the site anyway.

The memorial banner was still there.

I scrolled past it and found a video I knew. Her black hair, heavy eyeliner, the thick ring through her septum. She looked straight into the camera and introduced herself.

I turned the volume down low.

I kept watching for a while, getting more and more excited. Finally I gave in and peeled my shorts down.

I didn't hear the knock.

"Evan?"

I looked up.

She was standing in the doorway.

I hoped that she didn't see my hand moving under the blanket, but I wasnt sure what she'd already seen when she said my name.

For a second, neither of us said anything.

Then I found the pause button.

"Sorry."

She looked from the laptop to me.

"Is that mine?"

I nodded.

She stayed in the doorway, wearing my T-shirt.

The screen lit up the bed between us.

"I knocked."

"I didn't hear."

"Obviously."

I closed the laptop.

She folded her arms.

"Is that why you did it?"

"What?"

"Brought me back."

I looked down at the laptop.

"Vanessa--"

"Were you hoping you'd get to have me?"

I could feel my face getting hot.

"You're my favorite," I said.

As soon as it came out, I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

She waited.

"I didn't think the spell would actually work."

"But if it did?"

I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the computer.

I'd had plenty of time to think about this. In the attic. In the car. Standing beside her grave. Somehow, I'd never imagined having to explain it to her.

"Yeah," I said.

She looked away down the hall.

I started to add something, then stopped. Anything I said about giving her another chance would sound worse now.

Vanessa looked back at me.

"I came to ask if you had another blanket."

I moved the laptop aside.

"Yeah. There's one in the closet."

I got up and pulled it from the top shelf. She took it from me without stepping into the room.

"Thanks."

"Are you mad?"

She held the blanket against herself.

"I don't know what I am yet."

Then she went back across the hall.

This time, she closed her door.

I woke up to a cupboard closing downstairs.

For a few seconds, I lay there trying to remember who else was in the house.

Then I saw the laptop beside me.

"Shit."

It was almost nine.

Across the hall, her door was open. The blanket I'd given her lay folded at the foot of the bed.

I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and spent longer than necessary washing my face.

When I got downstairs, Vanessa was standing at the counter reading the instructions on a packet of instant oatmeal.

"Morning."

"Hey. Can I use this?"

"Yeah. Anything you want."

"Where are the bowls?"

I opened the cupboard beside her.

She took two down.

"Want some?"

"Sure."

She handed me a packet.

We made breakfast without mentioning what had happened.

I put coffee on. She found spoons. For a minute, it was easy to pretend she was somebody who'd stayed over under circumstances I could explain.

Then she pushed up her sleeve, and I recognized a tattoo I'd seen on my screen the night before.

I looked into my bowl.

"I need clothes," she said.

"Okay."

"And some other things."

I waited.

"Makeup. A toothbrush. Jewelry."

Her hand went to her nose.

I glanced at the empty place beneath it.

"Your rings?"

"Those, yeah. They took out my nipple rings and the one in my belly button, too."

She said it with the same irritation she'd used about the dress.

"All of them?"

"Every one."

"Your family?"

"Maybe. Or the medical examiner. The funeral home. I don't know who actually took them out."

She stirred her oatmeal.

"The holes are still there. I checked."

I took a drink of coffee.

She looked at me over her bowl.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'd like to get replacements."

"Okay."

"And something to wear that fits."

"Yeah. Of course."

"Today, Evan."

I set my mug down.

"I can go get things," I said.

She watched me.

"If you tell me what you need."

"You know my sizes?"

"No, but--"

"My makeup?"

"You could write it down."

She put her spoon in the empty bowl.

"Why can't I come?"

I looked toward the window. A man was walking a dog past the house.

"Somebody might recognize you."

That made her pause.

I wished I'd said it first.

She looked down at her borrowed shirt, then touched her hair.

"Right."

"Your picture's been everywhere."

"Everywhere you've been looking."

I didn't answer.

She pushed her bowl away.

"Do you have another idea? Because I'm not staying in these."

I thought about ordering things. Waiting for deliveries. My uncle coming over and finding a woman in my clothes sitting at Grandma's kitchen table.

"I don't know."

Vanessa got up and carried her bowl to the sink.

I thought she was angry until she stood there a little too long with one hand on the counter.

"You okay?"

"Still hungry."

"There's more oatmeal."

She looked at the empty bowl.

"Yeah. I know."

While she made another packet, I went out to my car.

There was a pair of sunglasses in the console. Cheap black ones that a girl forgot in my car.

The lenses were big enough. Maybe they would work. I cleaned them on my shirt and brought them inside.

"What about these?"

She took them.

"You could wear them until we get back."

Vanessa put them on.

They covered her eyebrows and half her cheeks. I could still recognize her immediately, but I knew who I was looking at.

"That might work," I said.

She lowered them enough to look over the top.

"Got a veil, too?"

I laughed.

She waited.

Then I stopped.

"I'm nervous."

"I noticed."

"I don't know what happens if somebody recognizes you."

"Neither do I."

She took the glasses off and folded them.

"But I need a toothbrush."

I got her a black hoodie and found an unopened toothbrush under the bathroom sink. The toothbrush seemed to improve her mood more than anything I'd said.

While she went upstairs, I checked my bank balance.

I could cover clothes. Makeup, probably. I had no idea what the jewelry would cost.

I moved some money out of savings.

My phone buzzed before I could put it away.

My uncle.

Coming over around eleven. You there?

I typed that I had errands and would be out for a while.

Leave a key.

I stared at that.

I'll call when I'm back.

He started typing, stopped, then sent a thumbs-up.

I put the book in my bag and zipped it shut.

Vanessa came downstairs in the hoodie and sweatpants, carrying the sunglasses.

She'd tied her black hair back properly this time.

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

At the front door, she stopped.

I nearly walked into her.

She was looking through the glass at the street.

"What day is it?"

"Saturday."

"The date."

"November first."

She nodded slowly.

I waited while she put the sunglasses on.

Then she opened the door.

In the car, she asked where the nearest mall was.

"About twenty minutes."

"Does it have somewhere that sells body jewelry?"

"I think so."

"You think so?"

"I've never needed any."

"Fair enough."

She turned toward the window.

I pulled away from the curb.

For the first few blocks, I watched every car that passed us. At a stoplight, a woman in an SUV glanced over, and I looked straight ahead until the light changed.

Vanessa didn't notice. Or pretended not to.

By the time we reached the main road, I'd started thinking about walking through the mall beside her.

Someone might look at us and assume we were together.

I adjusted the rearview mirror, although it was already fine.

She pushed the sunglasses farther up her nose.

"Are you going to do that all day?"

"What?"

"Check whether anybody's looking."

"Probably."

"Watch the road, Evan. One fatal car crash was enough."

I looked straight ahead.

She laughed.

It took me another second.

A minute later, she reached for the radio and found a station she liked.

I knew the song from one of her interviews. She'd mentioned the band.

I almost told her.

Then I decided I'd explained enough about my viewing habits for one morning.

The first store had already put up its Christmas display.

Vanessa stopped just inside the entrance and looked at a plastic tree covered in silver bows.

"Didn't waste any time."

"It was probably there yesterday."

She adjusted her sunglasses.

We found the women's department, and I followed her between the racks with my hands in my pockets.

She knew what she wanted. Black jeans. A fitted black shirt. Underwear she chose while I became interested in a display of socks.

She walked over to the boots. After a few minutes, she picked out a pair and sat down to try them on.

Sexy black knee-high boots with high heels. Not quite stripper heels, but not far from it.

"Better."

The jewelry store was a small place near the escalators.

Vanessa leaned over the glass while the woman behind the counter pulled out trays.

"Ten gauge," Vanessa said, pointing to a shiny silver septum ring.

The woman checked the label.

"This one?"

"No, the smaller diameter. And a small silver stud for my nostril."

There were more questions about sizes and closures. Vanessa answered them while I looked at a display of watches.

She had picked out another pair of thick stainless steel rings, too.

"Still okay?"

"Yeah."

The total was higher than I'd expected.

"I don't have to get the rings for my nipples."

"You have to get them."

"I don't need them."

"I really want you to get them. Please."

She gave me a smile. "Okay, fine. Just for you."

Outside, Vanessa took the small bag from me.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I mean it."

"I know."

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded toward a cosmetics store.

"One more store."

At the makeup counter, she pushed the sunglasses onto her head to check a lipstick against her skin.

The cashier looked up.

Then looked again.

My stomach tightened.

"Has anybody ever told you that you look like Vanessa Veil?"

Vanessa didn't hesitate.

"I get that."

"It's your eyes."

"Hopefully that's a compliment."

"Oh, definitely."

The cashier scanned the lipstick.

I should have stayed quiet.

"She gets it everywhere."

Vanessa glanced at me.

The cashier nodded politely.

"People stop her all the time," I added.

Nobody had asked.

Vanessa put a small bottle on the counter, then added a fewvother tubes and bottles.

"Just this stuff, please."

I took out my card.

We made it halfway to the escalator before she started laughing.

"What?"

"People stop me all the time?"

"I panicked."

"I noticed."

"I was trying to help."

"You were about three seconds from telling her I was your cousin from Ohio."

I laughed then, too.

A woman coming toward us smiled as she passed.

For a few steps, I forgot why we were there.

Vanessa changed in a restroom near the food court.

I waited outside with the bags, checking my phone.

My uncle wanted to know when I'd be back.

I told him later.

Then Mom asked whether I'd spoken to him.

I put the phone away.

When Vanessa came out, she was wearing the jeans, boots, and black shirt. My hoodie was folded over her arm. She'd put on the dark lipstick and lined her eyes, and the thick silver ring was back beneath her nose.

The small stud caught the light when she turned her head.

"Well?"

"You look amazing."

She held out my hoodie.

I must have been staring.

"What?" she asked.

"Are you wearing the other ones, too?"

"You mean the nipple rings?" She gave me a smile. "I'll show you later. Thanks to you, I feel less like somebody dressed me for a job interview."

I put the hoodie in a bag.

Her hair was loose now. Against the black shirt, her skin looked even paler. A little of the tattoo across her chest showed above the neckline.

She caught me looking.

"Food?"

"Yeah."

She ordered a burger, fries, and a large drink.

I got the same because it was easier than deciding.

We found a table near the edge of the seating area. I put the bags beneath my chair, and Vanessa pulled the lid off her drink.

For a while, we ate without talking.

She finished before I did.

"Want the rest of these?"

I pushed my fries toward her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

She took a few.

At the next table, a little boy was trying to get a straw through the lid of a milk carton. His mother helped him while another child tugged at her sleeve.

Vanessa watched them briefly, then looked back at me.

"What do you do?"

"What?"

"For work."

I told her. She asked a couple of questions, and I answered them badly at first because I'd spent so much time wondering what to ask her that I hadn't considered she might ask about me.

Eventually, I stopped trying to make it sound more interesting than it was.

She smiled.

"That bad?"

"It pays."

"Fair enough."

She took another fry.

"Do you like living here?"

"I don't usually. I'm just staying at the house while I clean it out."

"I meant the town."

"Oh."

"You're nervous."

"A little."

"You can stop agreeing with everything I say, you know."

"I'm not."

She raised an eyebrow.

I looked down at my tray.

"Okay. Maybe a little."

The children started running while their mother was gathering wrappers.

They chased each other around an empty table. She told them to stop.

They slowed down until she turned back to pick up her purse.

Then the smaller one took off again.

I saw his foot catch the leg of a chair.

He went down hard.

The sound made me wince. For a second, he stayed on his hands and knees, looking surprised.

Then he started crying.

His mother was beside him almost immediately.

"I told you not to run. Come here. Let me see."

She sat him on a chair and lifted the hem of his shorts.

There was a scrape across his knee.

I turned back toward Vanessa.

She wasn't moving.

A fry was still between her fingers, halfway to the tray.

"Vanessa?"

Her eyes stayed on the next table.

The mother pressed a napkin against the boy's knee. He tried to push her hand away.

Vanessa set the fry down.

I thought she was upset by the crying.

"He's okay," I said.

Her hand closed around my wrist.

Hard.

"We need to leave."

"What?"

"Now."

I looked at her face.

Her mouth was shut tight. She was breathing through her nose, short breaths that lifted her shoulders.

I reached beneath the chair for the bags.

She let go of my wrist and stood so quickly that the table shifted.

"Sorry," I said to nobody in particular.

I left our trays where they were.

She walked ahead of me through the mall.

I had to hurry to keep up. Once, she turned the wrong way at an intersection, and I pointed toward the exit.

She changed direction without speaking.

Outside, she stopped beside a concrete planter.

"Keys," she said.

I pulled them out.

The car chirped across the row.

She went straight to it.

By the time I got the bags into the back seat, she was sitting with her window down.

I climbed in.

"What happened?"

"Can we go?"

I started the engine.

At the first stop sign, I looked at my wrist.

There were four pale marks where her fingers had pressed into it. They were slowly fading.

She saw me looking.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"No. It isn't."

I waited.

A car pulled up behind us.

I drove.

We were almost out of the parking lot when she spoke again.

"I could smell it."

I kept my eyes ahead.

"The blood?"

She nodded.

I didn't know what to say.

She rubbed her hands on her jeans.

"I'd just eaten. I was sitting there eating your fries, and then--"

She stopped.

I turned onto the road.

The book was in my bag behind my seat. I thought about pulling over and getting it out.

Instead, I asked, "Did that happen last night?"

She looked at the Band-Aid on my finger.

That was enough.

"Food isn't helping," she said.

There was no irritation in her voice now.

I preferred the irritation.

"I'll look at the book when we get home."

"And if it doesn't say?"

I tightened my hands on the wheel.

"I haven't read all of it."

She turned toward the open window.

I left the radio off.

When we got home, Vanessa left the shopping bags beside the stairs.

"Where's the book?"

"I've got it."

She followed me into the kitchen.

I put my bag on the table and unzipped it. A receipt came out with the book and fell on the floor.

Neither of us picked it up.

I found the ribbon.

Vanessa pulled a chair beside mine.

"Show me."

I pointed to the paragraph about hunger.

She leaned closer and read it slowly. Then she went back to the beginning.

"You read this before?"

"Yeah."

"Before you came to the cemetery?"

I nodded.

She sat back.

"And?"

"I thought it meant you'd need to eat."

"I do need to eat, Evan. That's the problem."

"I meant normal food."

She looked at the page again.

I waited for her to say something else.

When she didn't, I started turning pages.

Some of the next section was printed in smaller type. I'd skimmed it the first night, looking for more instructions, then gone back to the part about getting her out of the grave.

Now I read every line.

Vanessa got up and poured herself a glass of water. She stayed beside the sink while I worked through a sentence that seemed to contradict the one before it.

"What does that say?"

"I'm trying to figure it out."

"Read it out loud."

I did.

It didn't sound any clearer.

She came back to the table.

"Does it mean I'm going to get worse?"

"I don't know."

"You keep saying that."

"I know."

She gripped the back of the chair.

I turned another page.

There was a note along the bottom, partly hidden where the paper curved into the binding. I pressed the book flat.

Grandma's writing.

He ate everything I gave him. Still said he was hungry.

I read it again.

Vanessa bent over my shoulder.

"Who's he?"

I didn't answer right away.

"Evan."

"I think my grandfather."

She pulled the chair out and sat down.

"You think?"

"There's a date at the beginning. The day he died. I checked with my mom."

"And your grandma wrote all this?"

"Yeah."

Vanessa looked toward the photograph beside the doorway.

I followed her eyes.

The paper crown. Grandma's hand raised toward the camera.

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"He died before I was born."

"No. After she brought him back."

I looked down at the book.

"I don't know."

I checked the rest of the section for more handwriting.

There were corrections, underlined words, a question mark beside one paragraph. Nothing that explained what Grandma had done when feeding him didn't work.

I turned through the pages after it.

Then the ones before.

Vanessa watched me.

"Maybe she wrote it somewhere else," I said.

"Another book?"

"Or a notebook. There were papers in the box."

"Did you keep them?"

"They're still upstairs."

I hoped they were. I'd moved so many things since finding the book that I couldn't picture where I'd left the wooden box.

Vanessa put a hand flat on the page.

"Wait."

I stopped turning.

"What if there isn't an answer in there?"

"There might be."

"That isn't what I asked."

I sat back.

She took her hand away.

For a while, we listened to a truck backing up somewhere down the street.

"Have you got any meat?"

I looked at her.

"In the refrigerator," she said. "Anything."

"Some hamburger. I was going to make--"

"Can we try that?"

"Yeah."

I got up.

Having something to do helped. I took out the package, found a pan, and turned on the burner.

Vanessa stayed at the table with the book.

I divided the meat into two uneven patties. One started coming apart when I put it in the pan.

Neither of us cared.

"Do you want anything on it?"

"No."

I got a plate ready.

While the meat cooked, I kept looking over at her. She was reading the same page, one finger beneath the lines.

Once, she touched the septum ring and adjusted it.

An hour earlier, I'd been pleased with myself for buying it.

Now I couldn't remember how much it had cost.

She ate standing at the counter.

I stayed by the stove.

After the last bite, she put the fork down and waited.

"Well?"

She shook her head.

"Maybe give it a minute."

She looked at me.

I turned off the burner, although I'd already turned it off.

"Sorry."

"I wanted it to work, too."

She carried the plate to the sink.

There was a little grease left on it. She ran the hot water and watched it wash away.

"At the mall," she said.

I waited.

She kept her back to me.

"I didn't just smell it."

I looked at the Band-Aid on my finger.

"What happened?"

"When he fell, I wanted to get closer."

Her voice was quiet enough that I moved toward her before thinking.

She turned.

I stopped beside the table.

"I knew his mom was there. I could see her helping him. I knew exactly what I was looking at."

She shut off the faucet.

"I still wanted to go over."

I pulled out my chair.

"Is that why you grabbed me?"

She nodded.

"I needed you to get me out."

I sat down because I didn't know what else to do.

Vanessa leaned against the counter.

"Say something."

"I'm glad you told me."

She gave a short, unhappy laugh.

I looked at the book.

"We'll find the papers. See what else she wrote."

"And until then?"

I started to answer.

A knock at the front door cut me off.

We both looked toward the hallway.

My phone was in my pocket. I took it out.

Two missed calls.

A message from my uncle.

Car's here. You back?

"Who is it?" Vanessa asked.

"My uncle."

Another knock.

"Evan?"

I stood up.

Vanessa straightened away from the counter.

"Does he have a key?"

"I don't think so."

The doorknob turned.

We watched it from the kitchen.

It stopped.

"Evan, it's me."

"Hang on."

My voice came out too loud.

I went to the door, then looked back.

Vanessa had stayed in the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around herself and gave me a small shake of her head.

I turned the lock and opened the door just far enough to step outside.

My uncle was holding two coffees.

"There you are."

I pulled the door shut behind me.

He looked at it, then at me.

"Been calling you."

"Sorry. Phone was on silent."

He handed me a coffee.

"I can stay a couple hours. Figured we could get that dresser down."

"Today's not great."

"You said you were doing errands."

"I was."

"Well, you're back now."

He reached past me toward the door.

I didn't move.

His hand stopped.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. I've got somebody here."

He looked at me for a second.

Then he smiled.

"Oh."

"It's not--"

"Could've just said."

I let him believe it.

He stepped back off the porch and took a drink.

"Tomorrow, then. We need to get this place cleared."

"Tomorrow."

He pointed at the coffee in my hand.

"You owe me one."

I waited until he'd driven away before going inside.

Vanessa was standing halfway down the hall.

"Did he leave?"

"Yeah."

She looked at the cup.

"He brought coffee?"

"One for me."

She nodded and moved aside so I could pass.

In the kitchen, I set it down beside the open book.

My uncle had come over to help me move furniture. He'd brought coffee, and I'd stood in the doorway hoping he wouldn't come any closer.

Vanessa pulled out a chair.

"Let's find those papers."

I found the wooden box behind a stack of empty picture frames.

For a minute, I thought I'd thrown the papers away.

Then I lifted the envelope.

They were underneath, folded together.

"Got them."

Vanessa was standing at the bottom of the ladder.

I handed the box down before climbing after it.

We spread everything across the kitchen table.

There were six sheets of paper. Two were old household accounts. Another had an address written across it and a shopping list on the back.

The remaining three were covered in Grandma's handwriting.

I checked both sides.

No dates.

The first page began halfway through a sentence.

... wouldn't let me turn the light on. Said his eyes hurt.

Vanessa pulled her chair closer.

We read together.

Grandma had written about making soup. Grandpa had asked for the meat she'd set aside for Sunday. Then more soup.

She'd described him sitting at the table while she cooked, following her around the kitchen whenever she moved.

I glanced at Vanessa.

"Keep reading," she said.

Near the bottom of the page, the handwriting got smaller.

Caught my hand on the tin. He had hold of it before I could get a cloth.

I stopped.

The kitchen was quiet.

Vanessa reached for the next sheet.

Grandma hadn't written it like a diary.

Some parts were careful, with whole sentences crossed out and rewritten. Others were just reminders.

Lock back door.

Move knives.

Then, farther down:

He asked me to shut him in. Later said he hadn't. Don't believe him when he says he's better.

Vanessa leaned back.

I kept reading because I didn't want to look at her.

Grandpa had known what was happening. At least some of the time. He'd asked Grandma to keep away from him.

Then he'd called her name through the door.

Then he'd cried.

There was a long blank space after that.

At the bottom, she'd written:

I opened it because he sounded like himself.

I turned the page.

Nothing on the back.

"Where's the rest?"

Vanessa pointed to the last sheet.

I picked it up.

It was a list of page numbers.

Beside one, Grandma had written:

This is the one. Don't wait until you need it.

I got the book.

The page number took us near the back, well beyond the section I'd read.

There were no drawings. Just a heading, four short paragraphs, and a passage set apart beneath them.

Grandma had marked the margin with a heavy pencil line.

I read the first paragraph twice.

Vanessa watched my face.

"What?"

I moved the book so she could see.

The passage described how to end the restoration.

Not cure it.

End it.

She read more slowly than I had. When she finished, she went back to the top.

I looked through the following pages.

There had to be other information. Another version. Something Grandma hadn't tried.

"Evan."

"Hang on."

"Stop turning it."

I let go.

She pulled the book toward herself.

It had to be done by the person who called them back.

That much was clear.

No cemetery this time. No candle. The words had to be spoken in the person's presence, using the name that had brought them out.

There was a sentence about returning what had been borrowed.

I hated that sentence.

Vanessa touched Grandma's pencil mark.

"Did she do it?"

"I don't know."

"Is there anything else?"

We searched all three sheets again.

At the bottom of the last one, beneath the page numbers, was a line I'd mistaken for part of the household accounts showing through the paper.

I held it toward the window.

He was himself when I began. I nearly stopped.

Vanessa read it over my shoulder.

Neither of us said anything.

I put the paper down.

"What if we just stay here?" I asked.

She looked at me.

"For a couple of days. Keep you away from people while we figure it out."

"We've been figuring it out."

"We've been looking for an hour."

"And your grandma?"

I glanced at the papers.

"We don't know how long she tried."

Vanessa rubbed her forehead.

I could hear how I sounded. I kept going anyway.

"There might be another book up there. She could've written something somewhere else."

"Something she missed before she did this?"

"Maybe."

She pushed her chair back and stood.

I thought she was going to leave the room. Instead, she went to the sink and filled her glass.

She drank half of it.

Then she stood holding the rest.

"I bought boots this morning."

I waited.

"I spent about ten minutes deciding between two pairs."

"I know."

She looked down at them.

I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make it worse.

After a while, she came back to the table.

"I don't want you to do it."

"Okay."

"Don't say okay like I asked you to turn the heat down."

I shut my mouth.

She sat across from me.

"I'm scared."

"I know."

"No. You don't."

I looked at her hands. She was holding them together so tightly that the skin around her knuckles had gone white.

"You're right," I said.

She loosened her grip.

For a while, we stayed like that.

Then she pulled the last sheet closer.

"If I start acting like him--"

"We don't know that you will."

"If I do."

I let her finish.

"If I ask you to stay away, listen. Even if I change my mind afterward."

"Okay."

"And don't bring anybody in here."

"I won't."

She looked toward the hallway, where my uncle had been standing on the other side of the door.

"Tomorrow?"

"I'll tell him not to come."

She nodded.

I reached for my phone and sent the message while she watched.

Then I put it facedown on the table.

We agreed to keep looking.

Saying it out loud made me feel better. Vanessa didn't seem to feel better, but she went upstairs with me anyway.

I brought down another box of papers. She sat on the bedroom floor sorting them while I went back for more.

Old bills. Letters. Instructions for appliances Grandma hadn't owned in years.

Every few minutes, I looked toward the hallway to make sure Vanessa was still there.

Once, she caught me.

"I haven't gone anywhere."

"I know."

She opened another envelope.

By late afternoon, the bed was covered in papers.

We hadn't found anything useful.

Downstairs, the book lay open on the kitchen table.

I'd left it at the page Grandma marked.

Before carrying down another box, I went into the kitchen and closed it.

When I went back upstairs, Vanessa was still sitting on the floor.

She had a birthday card open in her lap.

"Anything?"

"Your grandma's sister sent her twenty dollars in 2006."

I put the box down.

"Keep looking. Maybe we can cover what I spent this morning."

She smiled, but it didn't last.

I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for another stack of papers.

"Evan."

I looked up.

"I need to stop."

"Okay."

"Just for a while."

I put the papers down.

She closed the card and slipped it back into its envelope.

We'd been at it for hours. My back hurt, and the light outside had started to fade. Neither of us had turned on a lamp.

"Want me to order something?"

She looked at me.

"Right. Sorry."

"You can eat. You don't have to stop eating because I'm having a problem with it."

"I'm not hungry."

"Neither am I. Apparently that doesn't matter."

She put the envelope in the box.

I waited while she got up. One of her legs had gone stiff from sitting, and she steadied herself against the bed.

I started to stand.

"I've got it."

I sat back down.

She stretched her leg, then sat beside me.

For a while, we looked at the boxes.

"I spent all morning wanting to feel like myself," she said. "Then we came home and spent the afternoon reading about how to put me back."

"We were looking for something else."

"I know what we were looking for."

I rubbed my hands over my jeans.

"What do you want to do?"

She turned toward me.

"You really have to ask?"

I looked at her, then away.

She gave a small laugh.

"That wasn't a difficult question for you last night."

"Last night was different."

"Was it?"

"Before the mall. Before we found those papers."

She nodded and looked down at her hands.

I wished I hadn't said it like that.

"I don't mean--"

"I know."

From downstairs came the sound of the refrigerator switching on.

Vanessa picked at a loose thread on the borrowed blanket beside her.

"I'd like to spend a little while not being frightened."

"So would I."

She looked at me again.

"Well. Being alone with me was the whole idea, wasn't it?"

My face went hot.

"I'm trying not to be that guy."

"You are that guy, Evan. We already had that conversation."

I stared at the floor.

She let the thread go.

"But you've also spent the afternoon trying to help me. I noticed."

I looked up.

"I don't want you thinking you owe me anything."

"Please stop deciding what I'm thinking."

"Okay."

"And look at me when I'm talking to you."

I did.

Her expression softened a little.

"There you are."

I couldn't manage a reply.

She glanced at the papers spread across the bed.

"Can we put these somewhere else?"

I stood and gathered them carefully, keeping Grandma's letters together. Vanessa held an empty box while I laid the stacks inside.

When we finished, I set it outside the room.

I stayed in the doorway for a moment.

"Come in here. I want to show you the rings you bought me."

Vanessa peeled off her shirt, and for the first time, I saw her big, pierced tits in person instead of on video.

The thick stainless steel rings caught what little light filtered in through the window, stark against her pale skin and the dark ink of the chest piece spreading across her collarbone.

My throat felt tight. Looking at her felt like standing too close to a drop-off.

She didn't say anything right away. She sat down on the bed and took off the boots, followed by her pants. She leaned back in just a sheer thong and watched me as I took her in.

"Well?" she asked, her voice low in the quiet room.

"They look..." I started, then stopped, swallowing hard. "Absolutely amazing."

A ghost of a smile touched the corners of her mouth, though her eyes stayed sharp and watchful.

"Okay, Evan. You've watched all my movies. We don't know how much time I have left. Which one do you want to live out the most?"

"I wanna lick your pussy," I blurted out.

"You can fuck me any way you want, and you want to munch on my cookie?"

"Yeah, but that's just to start. I definitely want to fuck you too. But can you wear the boots?"

"Absolutely." She picked up the sexy black boots and pushed her pretty feet back inside. "How do you want me, Evan?"

"Lie back and spread your legs."

For a moment, I stayed where I was.

Vanessa looked at me.

"Evan?"

"Yeah?"

"Smile. Stop looking like you're waiting for somebody to tell you this is a bad idea."

She peeled her panties off. "You brought me back for this. So do it."

That got a nervous laugh out of me.

I lay down on my stomach between her spread legs. I stuck my tongue between her pussy lips down low and slid it up her slit. When I got to the top and ran it right over her clit, she moaned loudly. When I looked up at her face, her eyes were closed, and she was playing with her nipple rings.

I continued licking her pussy and sucking on her clit, occasionally tongue-fucking her until she was breathing fast and crying out loudly. She ran her fingers through my hair and held my head tightly. With her holding my mouth against her clit, I kept licking until she had an intense orgasm.

Once she calmed down, she let go of my head and ordered me to fuck her. I got up on my knees and pushed my hard dick into her wet pussy. After I'd pushed all six inches inside her, I leaned down to kiss her.

She stopped me. I saw something in her eyes, and then she turned her head away. I could have sworn I saw anger before she closed her eyes.

"Evan, stop."

I quit moving. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. Let's change positions. Fuck me from behind."

The way she'd stopped me bothered me, but at least I was still getting to fuck her.

I pulled out and watched as she flipped over onto her hands and knees.

"Fuck me," she demanded.

I slid my cock back into her pussy. She moaned as I pushed all the way in. I couldn't believe that I was actually fucking a famous porn star. Not to mention that she was dead.

I looked at the creepy nighttime cemetery scene tattooed on her back in a whole new light.

"Oh, fuck yeah," she moaned.

I was slamming into her as fast and as hard as I could. I wasn't going to last much longer.

"Oh yeah, fuck me, baby."

When I came, shooting deep inside her, it felt amazing. Her pussy was squeezing my cock. I didn't want to pull out, but after a minute, she flopped forward onto her stomach.

"Go get cleaned up. Give me a few minutes," she said softly, looking at the headboard.

I didn't want to go, but I got to my feet and walked to the bathroom.

I stayed in the bathroom longer than I needed to.

I washed my hands, then my face. There was no clean towel on the ring, so I used the end of the one hanging over the shower curtain.

In the mirror, I looked exactly like myself.

That seemed strange.

I leaned against the sink and listened.

Nothing from the bedroom.

I kept remembering how she'd turned her face away.

Maybe I'd done something she didn't like. That was possible. Watching somebody on a screen didn't mean I knew what they wanted from me.

But she hadn't looked annoyed.

I tried making the expression myself in the mirror.

Then I felt ridiculous and stopped.

Her door was closed.

I knocked softly.

"Vanessa?"

"Give me a minute."

"Okay."

I went into my room.

The shopping bags were still downstairs. Her burial dress lay folded over the chair by my bed, where she'd left it the night before.

I looked away from it.

Across the hall, a drawer opened and closed.

Then her door opened.

"You can come in."

She was sitting near the headboard, dressed in the black shirt and jeans. The boots stood beside the bed.

I stopped just inside.

"You okay?"

She nodded toward the chair beneath the window.

"Sit there?"

I did.

There were several feet between us. I noticed every one of them.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No."

"Because when you stopped me--"

"You didn't hurt me."

I rubbed my palms against my knees.

She was looking at the floor.

"Then what happened?"

Vanessa pressed her lips together.

I waited.

"When you tried to kiss me."

"Yeah?"

"I wanted to bite you."

I sat still.

She looked up.

"I don't mean a little."

"I know."

"You didn't a minute ago."

"No."

She pulled at a loose thread near the knee of her jeans.

I watched her fingers.

"Is that why you turned away?"

"Yes."

"And afterward?"

"I needed you out of the room."

I looked toward the door.

It was open. I'd left it that way without thinking.

"Did it help?"

"A little."

I nodded as though that was useful information.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

"I thought you didn't want to look at me," I said.

She stopped picking at the thread.

"Evan."

"I know. That sounds stupid now."

"It wasn't about that."

"Okay."

She rested her hands in her lap.

"I could hear you breathing. Every time you moved closer, I kept thinking about how easy it would be."

I pressed my feet against the floor.

She noticed.

"You can leave."

"I'm fine here."

"You don't have to prove anything."

"I'm not."

I wasn't sure that was true.

Downstairs, a pipe knocked inside the wall. We both looked toward the sound.

"Want some water?" I asked.

She nodded.

I got up slowly.

In the kitchen, I took a glass from the cupboard.

The book was on the table.

I stood with my hand on the faucet, looking at it.

Then I filled the glass.

When I came back upstairs, Vanessa was in the same position. She watched me cross the room.

I'd almost reached the bed when she said, "There's fine."

I stopped.

She pointed to the dresser.

I set the glass down and returned to the chair.

She waited until I was sitting before getting up to take it.

Neither of us commented on that.

"What happens if you do?" I asked.

She lowered the glass.

"Bite me."

"I don't know."

"Would I--"

"Evan, I don't know."

I shut my mouth.

She looked into the water.

"I don't want to find out."

"Neither do I."

She set the glass on the nightstand.

The room was getting dark. I reached toward the lamp beside the chair.

"Is the light bothering you?"

"No."

I turned it on.

She watched my hand return to my lap.

I remembered Grandma's note about Grandpa refusing the light. At least that wasn't happening.

I held on to that for a moment.

Then I remembered all the other things in the notes.

We tried talking about something else.

I asked about her dog.

Her expression changed.

"How do you know about him?"

"An interview."

"Oh."

"And the picture. On the funeral home's website."

She looked away.

"I forgot about that picture."

"What's his name?"

"Milo."

I nodded.

"He's probably with my brother."

"Would he take him?"

"Yeah. He loved him."

She rubbed beneath one eye with the heel of her hand, careful of the makeup.

"I hope he remembered which food to buy. The other stuff makes him sick."

I almost offered her my phone.

I had it halfway out of my pocket before I stopped.

Vanessa saw.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Were you going to let me call him?"

"I wasn't thinking."

She looked at the phone.

For a few seconds, I thought she would ask anyway.

Then she shook her head.

"Not tonight."

I put it away.

After a while, she asked what my uncle was like.

I told her about the time he'd tried to move a refrigerator by himself and trapped his foot beneath it. He'd called my dad instead of an ambulance because he didn't want anybody cutting his boot off.

Vanessa smiled.

"Did he get to keep the boot?"

"Yeah. Dad made sure everybody heard about it, though."

I started telling her what he'd said at Thanksgiving.

Halfway through, I noticed she wasn't listening.

Her eyes had settled just below my face.

I stopped talking.

She didn't look up immediately.

I pulled my collar higher before I could stop myself.

That got her attention.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Please stop saying that."

I looked down.

She got off the bed and moved to the window. I stayed in the chair while she stood beside me, then realized how close that put us.

I started to get up.

She stepped away first.

"Maybe you should go downstairs for a while."

"I can move the chair."

"Evan."

There was nothing sharp in her voice. She sounded tired.

I stood.

"Okay."

I went downstairs.

In the kitchen, I put the clean glass beside the sink into the cupboard, then moved the shopping bags off a chair. I opened the refrigerator and stood looking inside before shutting it again.

"Evan?"

I turned toward the hallway.

"You still here?"

"Yeah."

I went to the stairs.

She was sitting on the top step, her bare feet on the step below.

"I thought I heard the door," she said.

"No. Just the refrigerator."

I sat sideways on the bottom step, my back against the wall, and looked up at her.

She rested her arms across her knees.

For a while, neither of us said anything.

From there, I could see the boots beside the bedroom doorway.

"Is this okay?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Stay there a while."

I settled against the wall.

"Okay."

"I'm sorry," I said.

She looked down at me.

"For what?"

I rubbed my thumb along the seam of my jeans.

"All of it, I guess."

"You'll have to be more specific."

"That you died."

She lowered her eyes.

"And that I brought you back without knowing what I was doing."

For a while, she didn't answer.

I could hear a television through the wall from the house next door. Somebody laughing at something.

"I didn't think about what it would be like for you," I said. "Not really."

"No."

"I thought about you being here."

"With you."

"Yeah."

She picked at a spot on the edge of the step.

I wanted her to look at me, but when she did, I had trouble holding her gaze.

"You were dead. I kept telling myself anything had to be better than that."

"I might have thought the same thing."

That made me feel worse.

"You don't have to make me feel better."

"I'm not. I'm telling you I don't know what I would've chosen."

She rested her cheek against her knee.

"I didn't get to choose either time."

I looked at the floor.

There wasn't anything I could say to that.

After a while, I shifted on the step. My hip was starting to hurt.

Vanessa lifted her head.

"You can get a chair."

"I'm okay."

"You're sitting on the edge."

I moved farther onto it, keeping my back against the wall.

She watched until I settled.

"I keep wanting to come up there," I said.

Her fingers tightened around her knee.

"Don't."

"I know."

"Then why say it?"

"Because I don't know what else to do."

She looked away.

I waited before trying again.

"I want to sit beside you. Put my arms around you. Something."

"You think that would fix it?"

"No."

She looked back at me.

"I just hate that you're sitting there feeling like this and I'm down here doing nothing."

"You're doing what I asked."

I nodded.

It didn't feel like enough.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"A little."

"I can get the blanket."

"I can get it."

She stood, and I started to get up without thinking.

"Stay there."

I sat down again.

She went into the bedroom. A moment later, she returned with the blanket around her shoulders.

She sat on the top step and tucked it around her feet.

I watched her arrange it.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

I rested my head against the wall.

She'd been gone for less than a minute. I'd spent most of it listening.

"I remember being scared," she said.

I lifted my head.

"In the car?"

She nodded.

"I don't remember much else. I keep trying, but it's just little things."

"You don't have to try."

"I'd like to know."

I waited.

She rubbed a fold of the blanket between her fingers.

"I remember thinking somebody would help."

My throat tightened.

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are."

She wiped beneath her nose with the back of her hand, then looked irritated with herself.

I wanted to go to her so badly that I put one foot beneath me.

She noticed.

"Please don't make me ask again."

I stopped.

Then I lowered my foot to the floor.

"Okay."

She watched me for another moment before leaning against the wall at her end of the stairs.

"Talk to me," she said.

"About what?"

"Anything else."

I looked around the hallway.

There was a pale square on the wall where I'd taken down Grandma's clock. The little nail was still there.

"She used to make me sleep with that bedroom door open," I said.

Vanessa glanced behind her.

"Your grandma?"

"Yeah. When I stayed over as a kid. I wanted it closed, but she said she needed to hear me if I called."

"Did you call?"

"All the time."

"What for?"

"Water. Bathroom light. Thought I heard something."

"Sounds familiar."

I smiled a little.

"She'd sit out here until I went back to sleep."

Vanessa looked down the stairs at me.

"Right there?"

"Usually halfway up. She said the bottom step was too hard to get up from."

"And you picked it anyway."

"I'm starting to understand her point."

She laughed quietly.

I stayed where I was.

After a while, she asked me to tell her something else about Grandma.

So I did.

I was telling her about Grandma's car when she moved down a step.

"She scraped the same side of the garage three times," I said. "Then she told my dad somebody must've moved the shelves."

Vanessa smiled.

"Had they?"

"No. The shelves weren't even on that side."

She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.

I shifted against the wall. My leg had gone numb.

"After that, she parked in the driveway. Said she preferred it."

"She sounds stubborn."

"Yeah."

I looked down and rubbed my knee.

When I looked up, Vanessa was another step closer.

I stopped talking.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Finish."

I tried to remember where I'd been.

"There wasn't much else. Dad offered to--"

Her eyes moved below my face.

I knew what she was looking at now.

"Vanessa."

"Hmm?"

I didn't answer.

She looked at me properly.

Then she looked down at the stairs between us.

Neither of us moved.

"I didn't--"

"I know."

She got up too quickly, catching the blanket beneath one foot. I started forward, but she grabbed the railing and steadied herself.

"Stay there."

I sat back.

She went upstairs without looking at me.

I heard the bedroom door close.

After a while, I went into the kitchen.

My coffee was still on the table. I took a drink before remembering how long it had been there. Fuckin' cold. Hot coffee is great. Iced coffee too. Room-temperature coffee is gross.

I poured it out.

It was after seven. I hadn't eaten since the mall, and my hands felt shaky. I opened a delivery app, looked at the wait, then checked the pizza place a few blocks away.

Twenty minutes for pickup.

I stood with the phone in my hand.

Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.

I went to the bottom of the stairs.

"Vanessa?"

Her door opened.

"I'm going to get a pizza."

She appeared on the landing.

"Okay."

"And some soda. Do you want anything?"

She shook her head.

"I can have it delivered."

"How long?"

"About an hour."

"Go get it."

I looked toward the front door.

"I won't be long."

"I'll be here."

She tried to smile.

I didn't manage one back.

I locked the door behind me.

Before getting into the car, I looked up at the bedroom window. The curtain was partly open, but I couldn't see her.

At the pizza place, they told me five more minutes.

I stood near the counter while a man argued about a coupon. Somebody had left a plastic skeleton hanging beside the register. One of its arms had fallen off and lay next to the tip jar.

My pizza came out.

I bought a two-liter bottle of soda and carried everything to the car.

My uncle's car was in the driveway.

I stopped with my front wheels still in the street.

For a second, I was only annoyed.

I'd told him not to come. I'd specifically told him.

Then I saw the front door.

It was standing open.

I pulled in behind him and got out, leaving the engine running.

"Hello?"

No answer.

I took the porch steps two at a time.

A furniture dolly stood on the porch. One wheel rested against the railing.

"Hey?"

I saw his shoe first.

He was lying near the stairs, partly on his side, with one arm beneath him.

There was blood across the floor.

I stopped suddenly in the doorway.

For a moment, I couldn't understand what I was looking at. I recognized his jacket. The jeans he'd been wearing that afternoon. His keys on the floor beside his hand.

I went to him.

"Hey. Hey."

I knelt in the blood.

His eyes were open.

There was a wound at his neck that I couldn't make myself look at for more than a second.

I touched his shoulder. Then I shook it.

He didn't move.

I said his name again, louder.

"Evan."

I looked up.

Vanessa was standing at the top of the stairs.

There was blood down the front of her black shirt. It had dried around her mouth.

"I thought it was you."

I got to my feet.

She came down one step.

"Don't."

She stopped.

I looked at my uncle, then back at her.

"What did you do?"

She opened her mouth.

"What did you do?"

"I heard the door."

I stared at her.

"Somebody was trying to get it open, and something hit against it. I thought you were trying to open the door with your arms full."

She looked toward the door.

"I came down to help."

I shook my head.

"He asked who I was. Then he called for you."

"And you--"

I couldn't finish.

"I tried to go back upstairs."

"But you didn't."

"No."

She gripped the railing.

"He stepped toward me. I could hear him breathing. I told him you weren't here," she said.

"Stop."

She went quiet.

I took out my phone.

There was blood on the screen before I realized it was on my fingers.

Vanessa watched me.

I couldn't get the phone to recognize my thumb.

I wiped it against my jeans and tried again.

"I feel different," she said.

I looked up.

"I'm not hungry."

My hand tightened around the phone.

She glanced at my uncle.

Then back at me.

"It stopped."

I couldn't believe she was telling me this.

"He's dead."

"I know."

"He brought me coffee this afternoon."

Her face changed.

I wanted her to say something that would make sense of it. Something I could argue with or refuse to believe.

Instead, she sat on the step.

"I remember all of it."

I looked away.

My phone screen went dark.

I don't know how long I stood there.

Eventually, I went outside and turned off the car.

The pizza was on the passenger seat. The soda had rolled into the footwell.

Across the street, somebody was closing their blinds.

Then I went back inside.

Vanessa hadn't moved.

I shut the front door.

The click of the latch made her lift her head.

"I'm sorry," she said.

I stood with my back against the door.

She was looking at my face.

Not my neck.

I noticed that, and hated myself for noticing.

After a while, she got up.

I straightened against the door.

She stopped immediately.

"Okay."

She stayed beside the stairs.

There was blood beneath one of her feet.

"I don't feel it anymore," she said. "Even with you standing there."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"It means something to me."

I looked toward the kitchen.

The book was on the table.

For a moment, I could see exactly what I needed to do. Walk past her. Open it. Find the marked page.

Vanessa followed my gaze.

"Evan."

I didn't move.

"Please."

My uncle lay between us.

I looked down at him and felt my stomach turn.

"I can't stay in here."

She stepped aside.

I went toward the kitchen, then stopped before the doorway.

I couldn't look at the book either.

Behind me, she said my name again.

"Let me get cleaned up. Then we can talk."

I heard her go upstairs. Then the bathroom door closed. Water started running.

I stood in the hallway listening to it.

My uncle had come here to help me. He'd probably been irritated when he found the door locked. Probably dug through his keys, thinking I'd left him another job to do by himself.

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

Vanessa came down in my T-shirt.

Her face was clean. She'd washed away the lipstick, too.

She stopped several steps above the bottom.

I could see her hands.

They were steady.

"I'm all better," she said quietly.

I shook my head.

"You don't know that."

"I know how I felt before. I know how I feel now."

"For how long?"

She didn't answer.

I looked toward the kitchen again.

Then she held out her hand.

I stared at it.

"Come upstairs," she said. "You don't have to stand here."

I wanted to tell her there was nowhere in the house I could go that would change what she'd done.

Instead, I stepped around my uncle's body.

I kept my eyes on the stairs.

When I reached her, I didn't take her hand.

But I followed her up.

She waited for me in the bedroom.

I stopped beside the chair.

There was blood on my jeans. A dark patch over one knee, another where I'd wiped my hand.

Vanessa followed my eyes.

"You should change."

I shook my head.

She didn't ask again.

For a while, we stood there with the bed between us.

"Was he close to you?" she asked.

I looked at her.

"My uncle?"

She nodded.

"He was here this afternoon."

"I know."

"He wanted to help."

Her eyes dropped.

I wanted her to cry. I think I would have understood that. Instead, she stood very still, holding the hem of my T-shirt between her fingers. It barely covered her ass. I couldn't take my eyes off her tattooed legs.

"I'm sorry."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

There was nothing useful I could do with her apology.

After a minute, she sat at the other end.

Not close enough to touch.

I watched her.

"What?"

"You're looking at me."

She frowned slightly.

"You weren't before. Not like this."

"I told you. It's gone, Evan."

"For now."

"Yes. For now. Maybe for good."

I wanted to believe the last part.

I rubbed my palms against my jeans and stopped when I remembered the blood.

"I should call somebody."

Vanessa looked toward the door.

"Who?"

"The police. Somebody."

"What would you tell them?"

"The truth."

She looked back at me.

I tried to imagine saying it.

I'd found a book. I'd gone to a cemetery. The woman sitting beside me had been buried there three weeks ago.

I took out my phone.

Mom's name was still in my recent messages.

I couldn't open it.

"The book's downstairs," I said.

"I know."

"Grandma marked the page."

Vanessa moved her feet back beneath the bed.

"Are you going to?"

I looked at her.

She didn't plead this time.

I wished she would. I wanted something to react to instead of having to decide.

My uncle would still be downstairs afterward.

The thought came plainly, without any effort.

I could read the words and lose her, and he would still be lying in the hall.

Nothing would be fixed.

I knew there was something wrong with that reasoning. I couldn't have explained exactly where. Every time I tried, I came back to the same thing.

It wouldn't bring him back.

Vanessa watched me put the phone facedown on the bed.

"Not yet," I said.

She moved a little closer.

I stiffened.

She stopped.

"Sorry."

I looked at her hands. Clean nails. The same tattoos.

"Do you really feel better?"

"Yes."

"No thoughts about--"

"No."

I wanted to believe her so badly that I asked again.

"Even sitting here?"

"Even sitting here."

I nodded.

She waited.

Then I moved my hand across the blanket, leaving it between us.

She looked at it before putting hers beside it.

Our fingers touched.

I watched her face.

Nothing changed.

She didn't tighten her grip. Didn't look at my throat. Her thumb moved once across the back of my hand.

I let out a breath.

"There," she said quietly.

I hated how much relief I felt.

"We don't know what happens tomorrow," I said.

"No."

"Or tonight."

"I know."

I looked at the open doorway.

From where I sat, I could see the landing. Beyond that were the stairs and everything I hadn't dealt with.

Vanessa held my hand a little more firmly.

"We're here now."

I turned back to her.

An hour earlier, I'd been sitting at the bottom of those stairs wishing I could comfort her.

Now she was close enough that I could put my arms around her.

I did.

For a moment, she stayed still. Then she leaned against me.

I watched the doorway over her shoulder.

I could still get up. Go downstairs. Open the book.

Instead, I held her tighter.

After a while, she pulled back enough to look at me.

"You're shaking."

"I know."

She rubbed my arm.

I wanted to stay like that. If I kept looking at her, I didn't have to look at the door.

Then my phone buzzed on the bed.

We both looked down.

Mom.

I let it ring.

Vanessa took her hand off my arm.

"You should answer."

"And say what?"

"I don't know."

The phone stopped.

A few seconds later, a message appeared.

Did your uncle get there? He isn't answering.

I read it twice.

Vanessa waited.

"She's looking for him." I could barely hear myself.

I picked up the phone and typed that he'd come by. Then I stopped.

There would be another question. When did he leave? Had he said where he was going?

I erased it.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

I put the phone down.

For the first time since I'd brought her home, she looked impatient.

Only for a second.

Then she touched my hand again.

"Evan."

"I need a minute."

"Okay."

I went into my room to change.

She stayed where she was.

Getting the jeans off was worse than looking at them. I had to touch the stiff patch at the knee. I pulled them down carefully and left them on the floor.

There was blood on my skin underneath.

I stood in my underwear, holding a clean pair of jeans, and stared at it.

"Evan?"

"Just a minute."

I went to the bathroom.

I wet a washcloth and wiped my knee. Rinsed it. Wiped again.

The water ran pink.

I kept hearing my uncle say that I owed him a coffee.

When I finally shut off the faucet, Vanessa was outside the door.

She stepped back to let me through.

I hadn't heard her approach.

"You okay?"

"No."

She nodded.

"I'm sorry. Stupid question."

I followed her back to the bedroom.

"Come sit down."

I stayed beside the door.

She sat first.

I thought about how many times I'd watched her on a screen and imagined her speaking to me. Now she was, and I couldn't stop listening for sounds downstairs.

There wouldn't be any.

That was worse.

"I can't stop thinking about him."

"I know."

"Do you?"

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Yes."

I sat down, leaving space between us.

Vanessa leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

"I can't undo it."

"Don't."

"What?"

"Tell me that. I know you can't."

She sat back.

I waited for her to get angry.

Instead, she looked tired.

"I don't know what you need me to say."

That was fair. I didn't know either.

"Tell me it won't happen again."

She looked down at her hands.

I watched her.

The longer she waited, the more I wished I hadn't asked.

"Vanessa."

"I don't want it to."

"That isn't what I asked."

"No."

I stood up.

She caught my hand.

Not hard. I could have pulled away easily.

"Please stay."

I looked at our hands.

Earlier, I'd wanted her to let go of my wrist. Now I was looking for reasons not to make her.

"You said you were better."

"I feel better."

"You said we could--"

I stopped.

She understood anyway.

"We can."

"How do you know?"

She didn't answer.

I sat down again.

She put her arms around me.

I kept mine at my sides for a moment, then held her.

Her hair smelled faintly of Grandma's shampoo.

I closed my eyes.

There were things I would have to do. Calls I would have to make. I knew that. But she was here, and for another minute I could stay where I was.

Then her hand stopped moving against my back.

I opened my eyes.

"Vanessa?"

She didn't answer.

I leaned away enough to see her face.

Her eyes met mine.

She smiled.

"Let me take your mind off everything else for a while."

"How?"

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve." She paused. "There's a good reason I got an AVN award for Best Blow Job Scene of the Year."

I thought that if anything could take my mind off what was downstairs, that might be it.

I couldn't help but smirk. "I'm not gonna say no to that."

Vanessa reached for my belt and opened the buckle. She opened my pants and tugged them down around my knees.

"She dropped to her knees in front of me."

She looked up at me with a smile, then opened her mouth and wrapped her lips around my rapidly hardening cock. She took my whole dick into her mouth and then into her throat. She gagged a little, and it felt like her throat was massaging my dick.

I moaned at the amazing feeling. My hands wanted to go to her head and hold her as I fucked her face, but I restrained myself. I clasped my hands together behind my back as she gave me what was, in fact, the best blowjob ever.

My moans of pleasure turned into screams of anguish and pain. I looked down and saw blood all over myself.

I fell back onto the bed.

Vanessa stood in front of me.

I reached toward her before I remembered she was the one who'd done it.

"Help me."

She looked down at my hand.

"Please."

"I'm sorry, Evan."

I shook my head. I didn't want an apology. I wanted her to get my phone.

It was on the nightstand.

I turned toward it, but moving made everything worse. My hand caught the edge of the blanket instead.

"Call somebody."

Vanessa sat beside me.

The mattress dipped.

I tried to move away.

"Don't," she said softly.

I couldn't tell whether she meant not to move or not to be afraid. Neither was something I could manage.

She brushed my hair off my forehead.

"It'll be over soon."

"No."

My voice sounded small.

She leaned closer, and I pushed at her shoulder. There wasn't much strength in it.

I thought about my uncle lying downstairs. Whether he'd asked her to stop. Whether he'd heard the same apology.

"Vanessa. Please."

She looked into my face.

I kept waiting for her expression to change. For her to understand that it was me.

Then I realized she knew.

She'd known downstairs, too.

The book was on the kitchen table.

I knew the page. I could picture Grandma's handwriting beside it.

Don't wait until you need it.

Vanessa bent toward me.

I could see the light I'd left on in the hall.

My phone started ringing.

Mom again.

I reached for it.