i

Credence wasn’t all warm hobbit holes nestled in the land. Somewhere past the edge of the residential area, the land gave way to taller buildings of the working district, the green factories and the hospital, and I thought I understood what it meant when people said that Credence only gets grander. You could see some of them, the taller, nicer official and administrative buildings over the low hills of the residential area and past the short rows of factories, especially during the day, but I never expected what stood on the other side of the working district, what mammoth, sleeping giant stalked the unsuspecting (or perhaps, this was their doing) people of Credence.

A knock had come at my door three days or so after Halloween, and when I had dragged my pajama-clad carcass to answer it, a woman from Child Protective Services wasn’t the visitor I had pictured in my mind, my face falling when it wasn’t someone a bit closer to me — take Marilyn or Josh, for example. But the woman had orders different than the last time we’d spoken: I wasn’t being shipped off to God Knows Where. I was staying right here in Credence.

Staying at the foster home straddling the gap between the residential area and the working district was out of the question because Richard Greene himself had demanded I move in with him and his nephew. He claimed responsibility for whatever killed my aunt, and I didn’t really care the details, letting them wash over me as the woman stood in my doorway and rambled.

Barely a handful of days had passed, but it was long after I had packed my things. I was on my way to the other side of Credence, tumbling further into the valley. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise, the sight of the Greene residence. It was unlike anything else I’d encountered since moving to this cursed city, but somehow perfect when I learned Josh and his uncle, the CEO of Greene & Greener, Inc., dwelled in such a poisonous estate.

There were words invented to describe the kind of mansion that had been carved out of the base of the mountain where this monstrous tumor lay in wait, and while the sight of it called to mind the various impressive shots of Nolan’s Bruce Manor, not a single word fitting for such a castle could be listed among the tags that leapt from the cliff of my mental tongue. This mansion hearkened more to the classic architecture of the marble monuments dedicated to this grand nation, a modest three floors with easily two dozen rooms, a dozen bathrooms, libraries, kitchens, living rooms, any kind of room any which way — and judging by the towering fence that divided the rest of Credence from this beast, the actual structure wasn’t all that there was to the residence.

I couldn’t make it all out from the front gate, the bars of the wall much too close together, but the expanse of land easily ran up the mountain a ways, though surely there was an electric fence ringing the preserved natural beauty, the line that if Greene crossed would trigger a relentless attack of Her striking defense system so blinding even a group of lost souls would wander around the earth at its mercy.

Guard after guard, each shrouded in form-clinging black, each casting a shadow ten times as tall, the tips of their clipped wings scratching and clawing at my feet on the stone path leading from the gate to the front door, and yet none of them so much as looked at me, all through me. It was probably better that way as they shriveled and cowered behind their tired leather masks, desperately relying on the weapons strapped to their hips or tightly clenched in their palms.

The greenery was fake, shapened to the desires of whatever Greene demanded of his ground keepers, hourglass curves and rotund shrubberies. Spirals of rose bushes, yellow brick roads that dead-ended in thorns — I was surprised when the various young women and men, armed with sheers and plastic smiles, didn’t reshuffle themselves, no sliding buckets of paint behind their ankles and concealing brushes in their artful seductresses.

I wore two duffel bags across my body, my backpack bumping into my chest as I waddled down the stone path, another strap of a duffel bag in my hand, and I knew I must have looked ridiculous, the new girl with all her meager belongings crammed in a couple bags. But the bodies, humming bees working circles around one another, seemed incapable of being ripped away from their tasks, not a single face turning upward to meet me with acknowledgment, again more eyes merely to peer through me.

The thudding of the doorbell, cutting and shrill, resonated throughout the mansion, and as I stood next to the woman from CPS, my palms sweating, I forced the lump in my throat down, noisily and anxiously clearing away the ominous pretense threateningly tapping on my shoulder. The young woman who answered the door was prompt, breezily waving her hands welcomingly and with ease, as if she didn’t have to stand by the door all day long.

With a snap of her fingers, young men jumped from the shadows, snatching up my bags, and despite my protests, they disappeared up one of the two staircases calling down at us with their outstretched fingers. I wasn’t too keen on letting my things off in the wild of this well-groomed machine, but along with their inability to register me as a living creature, the workers here were incapable of hearing any of the words falling from my lips. I wasn’t sure if it was the words or their ears, but I grit my teeth with angry frustration for a moment, wondering if this was how my ghostly counterparts experienced the world: by being ignored, but not by choice as those here simply were too busy.

The CPS woman spoke with the woman who answered the door, and I mused inwardly if there were quarters for all of Greene’s servants here on his grounds. By the looks of the security system, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one was ever allowed to leave. Made me think twice about Josh.

Speaking of my favorite homosexual, where was Josh? It would have been nice to have been met with a friendly face.

“Hello, Ana.” The woman who answered the door smiled politely at me, her cheeks pink.

For a brief inglorious moment, the question if Richard Greene had ever parked his car in her garage flashed through my mind, but I brushed it aside quickly, returning the smile.

“Where’s Josh?” I prompted her, hurriedly cutting her off from asking any small talk questions that I had very little interest in answering.

Her smile didn’t move, and neither did her cheeks, as she replied, “I don’t know, Ms. King. He’s probably busy, like his uncle Mr. Greene. They’re both very busy men.”

“Do I get to meet Mr. Greene?” I crossed my arms.

“It’s already on his schedule.” She stared at me, not blinking, and the perk in her voice was beginning to come across as more mechanical than practiced. “You’ll be having a private tour of the grounds provided by Mr. Greene shortly after lunch.”

I nodded.

“With that said, let’s get you into the dining room for lunch, all right?” Her smile remained fixed upon her face.

I fell in step behind her, the CPS woman disappearing through the front door again as I glanced over my shoulder at her. I wasn’t sure if I was exactly pleased at the inconceivable turn of events placed before me like fine china and matching place settings, but I had very little choice in the matter, as it was obviously not my dinner party that was being hosted. But the reality of the dinner party interested me even less than whose it was, so as I perched on a hand-carved chair around a magnificent table in the middle of a well-dressed room, questions of science and progress shushed themselves because I simply just didn’t give a fuck.

ii

It was hypnotizing, the swirls of the thick soup before me, inviting me to dive in, but as mesmerized as I was, just watching the dizzying whirlpool spin, the overwhelming smell of the soup, causing my stomach to buck and growl hungrily, just couldn’t break me away from the nauseating knot in my throat. I stared and stared, my lips tugging further back into a sick sneer, my brow falling in a deeper frown, but still did I struggle to lift that spoon to my mouth, my tongue writhing in the cage of my teeth, choking me. I just couldn’t do it.

The back door of the kitchen flew open, slamming against the kitchen counter on the backswing, and a thunderous Josh stormed through the opening, snarling in the back of his throat, eyes ablaze with his fists clenched.

Of course, with his bursting into the room, I flung myself to my feet quicker than I threw down the spoon, more than grateful for the distraction.

“Josh!” I called as he pushed past the various bodies roaming around the kitchen, baking this, cleaning that, and for a moment, his nails digging into the skin of an apple as he plucked it from the abundant fruit basket hanging over the island in the middle of the kitchen, he didn’t look at me either, just another lost soul in this mansion.

“Josh?” I repeated, tentatively taking a step toward him.

He spun on his heel, the hatred burning in his eyes sputtering out as an excited grin crept over his face. “Ana?”

I grinned. “Hey!”

“What are you doing here?” He grasped me by my elbows, his eyes darting back and forth between mine. “It’s so good to see you. How have you been?”

“I’m living here with you and your uncle now.” I explained, a hand involuntarily waving at the buzz of the kitchen. “I’m doing all right. How about you?”

His eyes rolled upward as he groaned, shoulders slumping. “Greene & Greener just lost some very important schematics.” He shook his head, his fingers pushing through his hair, impressively arranging clumps in wild spikes. “My uncle is going to lose it. With those schematics gone, his next concept car isn’t going to be any sort of revelation.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What happened?”

“You don’t want to know.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, dejectedly studying his apple. “Maybe if I’m lucky, Luke will think The Phantom did it on purpose.”

“What did The Phantom do?”

He met my gaze, his steely green eyes staring me down evenly. “He let the guys from a rival company get in and steal the schematics, that’s what he did. He didn’t do his job.”

“It was an accident.” I clarified quietly.

He huffed and bitterly tore into the apple again. “My uncle won’t see it that way.”

“Why does it matter?” I shook my head. “I mean, yeah, it sucks that they got away with the blueprints or whatever, but why take it out on The Phantom? Clearly, these other guys are in the wrong for fucking stealing them.”

Josh drew in a deep breath and pushed it out through his nose. “Other than the fact that the presence of The Phantom practically challenged these guys to try to steal from Greene & Greener, we have no proof to take up against them. It was clean, most likely an inside job.”

“Then how can The Phantom be blamed for that?” I waved my hands angrily.

His fingers instinctively caught my wrist, gripping me tightly, and he spun me so that I had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Because that is his job, and he didn’t do his job. It’s his fault.”

I yanked free of his grasp, my jaw taut, and Josh’s lips twisted into a disgusted curl.

“Forget it.” He muttered, crunching another bite of his apple.

He shouldered past me and disappeared through the kitchen door, his footsteps pounding hard against the hardwood and thundering through the walls as he took the stairs three at a time.

The woman from the front door peered in through the same service door Josh escaped, and her plastic smile returned.

“Mr. Greene is ready for you.” She announced. “Follow me please.”

“Yippee,” I grumbled under my breath, falling in step behind the woman.

She led me into a part of the mansion a little more structurally bare, steel beams and wiring exposed or occasionally covered with drywall, and after pushing through another door, we stepped onto a balcony overlooking a large room filled with computers and desks.

“Mister Greene, Miss Ana King is here for you.” The woman smiled mechanically at the short man in a grey suit, his back to me.

He spun on his heel, and I took in his pointed nose, the white wispy hair smoothed across his balding scalp, and the sharp green eyes glinting at me. I saw the familiarity in his cheekbones and tight lips puckered in a studious frown; this man was undoubtedly related to Josh, and as he thrust a hand forward, picking apart my face as I did his, his eyes narrowed with keen intrigue as his lips pulled back in a small smile.

“So you’re what made that damn doorbell ring, eh?” His voice lilted with an accent I couldn’t place, and for a moment, I wondered if he was of British background.

I shook his hand, nodding.

“Well?” He arched an eyebrow at me, gesturing at the walls with a hand adorned with a thick ring on the fourth finger and smooth silver watch at the wrist. “What do you think?”

I drew in a breath, eyes roaming throughout the room, and admitted, “It’s impressive.”

He smiled at me proudly, his own eyes still fixed on my face. “And you haven’t even seen it all yet!”

He looked to the smiling woman and released her with a nod. “Thank you. Send Josh in here in half an hour.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded, bowing a little as she backed out of the room.

Mr. Greene rested a hand on my shoulder. “Come, Bell-ringer. I’ve got something I want you to see.”

I didn’t bother offering up my name as I silently walked under his guiding arm, stopping before a giant screen that looked to have a topographical view of Credence on it. It blinked every five seconds or so, updating dark swirls swooping down from the mountains.

“These are clouds.” Mr. Greene explained to me, his fingers smoothing over the rough swirls. He tapped the screen where they were gathering. “This is at the mouth of Credence.”

He turned to me. “How much about meteorology do you know?”

I shrugged indifferently, unamused. “Looks like a storm.”

He nodded, lips pulling back in a crooked smile. “Very good. There’s a storm coming, Miss Bell.”

I glanced back at the screen, watching the screen blink, the dark clouds pouring over the mountains and down into Credence. They continued across the screen, stretching diagonally to the bottom left corner, where the Greene mansion was marked with a black-filled circle, a single green G in the middle.

I looked back at Mr. Greene. “It’s Ana.”

He smiled at me, chin slanting downward. “Of course it is.”

He patted my shoulder. “Come, come. There’s more I want you to see.”

I walked behind Mr. Greene as we jogged down the steps. We strode through the middle of the rows of computers and ended at a single grey door, which opened to the outside, and I found myself standing in a field of mud.

“We’re below sea level here.” He explained to me as he took off across several smooth stones that led to a patio.

I noted the sky darkening with rain clouds and lowered my gaze to study the landscape reaching across the distance from the mansion to the base of the mountain. In the distance, horses were racing the stream trickling down the mountain and galloped past the men perched on stallions, herding them back toward the stables, which stood opposite the small orchard, a lumpy mass of orange and red dashes atop the thick trunks, dark popsicle sticks shoved in the ground. As a few droplets of rain began to fall, workers among the trees emerged, wide baskets at their hips, half-empty, and they made their way toward the patio also entrenched with thick mud that sucked at their boots.

For a moment, as I came to a halt on the edge of the patio beside Mr. Greene, who was staring out at his land, I half-expected him to lean over, pointing to the majestic mountain towering over his noble throne and casting its long dark shadow across the valley of Credence, and whisper in my ear that that currency was untouchable, a greedy Mufasa warning me of his kingdom’s reach. Instead, Mr. Greene just hummed a little under his breath, scratching his chin, and after drawing in a deep breath, he cleared his throat and commented on the way the rain was increasing.

Another door leading to the patio squeaked as it opened behind us, and the workers filed inside, tramping mud and leaves across the concrete. Mr. Greene continued to stand there, his feet seemingly planted in the grey smooth cement, and he didn’t move as a couple of older women carrying handwoven baskets of laundry passed between us. They made their way across the mud to where two steel poles had been rammed into the soil and a couple lines strung between them, and the women plopped their baskets in the mud, reaching inside for the wet clothing. I watched them pin the dripping shirts, pants, and sheets with clips to the ropes swinging violently in the pounding rain.

I frowned, cocking my head as I pondered the waste of energy and time. “Don’t you have dryers?”

Mr. Greene, still frozen, merely looked on disinterestedly.

As the older women grappled with the laundry and winding ropes, strands of unkempt poisonous hair buckling and frizzing in the wind and rain, I noticed a figure on the periphery of my vision. Standing on the corner of the patio, just barely under the overhanging balcony that extended out of one of the living rooms above, stood a man who at first glance I didn’t recognize; however, upon further scrutiny, I realized he was the same guy from the opening night of Our Town who was wandering around backstage. He was staring at me, unmoving like how Mr. Greene was, lost, taking in the sight before him, and I didn’t know whether to acknowledge him or pretend I hadn’t caught him fixedly watching my every move.

When Mr. Greene broke out of his reverie, disregarding the man not fifty feet from us, I went with ignoring him, too, and Mr. Greene clapped his hand on my shoulder again.

“Come, Bell. I must show you more.”

I chose not to correct him this time and followed him back inside the house, leaving behind the man at the corner of the patio, and Mr. Greene carried on his private tour of his castle.

iii

I had been given two options: wear the purple dress and dine alone with the Captain, or wear nothing at all and dine with the entire crew.

I stood in the middle of my new lavish bedroom. I stared at the golden lace canopy over the King-sized bed, a deep maroon duvet draped over the mattress. I felt sick, my stomach twisted up in knots. Everything had traces of gold, traces of silver — the wallpaper had flowers and ivy, swirls, pictures of the things all of this should be. One wall was a floor to ceiling window, thick maroon curtains, probably velvet, with gold trim and a golden rope and tassels pinning the curtains back, the already-tame hair framing the face of the world without a fight.

Mahogany baseboards, mahogany bed frame, mahogany trim in the middle of the wall, separating the printed flowers from the chestnut paint below them. Mahogany hardwood floor, with a chest of drawers and armoire carved from matching wood — and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same tree that produced these living quarters, the bars on the windows dripping with the spilt blood of the nature Richard Greene was obviously striving to protect.

It didn’t take long for me to plop my bags beside my bed, the back of my tongue drenched with this awful taste, and I couldn’t stand to put anything on the furniture. I didn’t even want to touch the duvet. It made my jaw clench, nostrils flared in disgust, all of this. The golden chandelier with glass teardrops wasn’t a fashion statement; it was a wooden stake through the vampirous heart of the American Dream.

The squeak of the door swinging open and the creak of the floorboards bowing down, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a young woman no older than I bending to my bags. She began to pull clothes out.

I took in her hair smoothed back neatly into its bun, her ruddy cheeks devoid of any makeup, a couple pimples here or there, and I watched her wipe her hands on her apron covering the ankle-length skirt and shapeless blouse. What century was this?

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved my hand at her. “I’ll put the clothes up...if and when I feel like it.”

The girl froze, eyes wide, and she just stared into the headlights of my face.

I approached her and carefully removed the jeans from her hands. “Seriously. I’ll do it.”

She blinked — once, twice, several more times — and then she looked away, confusion knitting her brow together.

My eyebrow arched into a point, and I wasn’t sure if my lips twitched in amusement or further dismay.

The girl slowly met my gaze. “You insist?”

I nodded, lips puckered in a tight frown as I studied her. “You don’t hear that often, do you?”

She shook her head violently. “Please, Sir has clear rules—”

“Yeah, I don’t care.” I cut her off, crossing my arms. “I can take care of myself.”

Her lips rolled into her mouth and then back out as she cleared her throat, fishing for words.

“You can go.” I softly informed her. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

She flicked her eyes to mine, and for a moment, I thought she was going to smile. Instead she nodded, not even a giggle on her lips, and she spun on her heel and strode out, her back straight.

The way she had looked at me when I told her no — she wasn’t expecting me to even see her. That look of recognition flashing through her eyes, it was the same as what ghosts gave me upon realizing they weren’t invisible to me.

Poor girl.

Speaking of seeing ghosts, where had Miracle been? She hadn’t come out to play since that night, hovering over Josh’s shoulder, furiously shaking her head no at me. Was she seriously holding a grudge against me? I mean, I wasn’t exactly thrilled that I told Josh the only thing I’d never told another soul, but I had it coming. I openly screamed at my aunt who was already dead. I didn’t know I was signing my own death certificate with my friendliness. How could Miracle be mad at me? If anything, she should have warned me. Surely, she must have known when Aunt Terry was bewilderingly wandering the streets of Credence that she was just another bedfellow in the cemeterial cradle. If anything, I should be holding a grudge against Miracle, but did she see me ignoring her? I barely wanted to eat without having that stupid ghost of a shadow forever at the tips of my fingers. She was the only way I’d managed through this hell, and now I was buried in sludge up to my neck. Who else could it be to save me from suffocating on the excrement threatening to swallow me whole?

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be here.

There was a random door in the corner of the room. It was made of mahogany, too, unsurprisingly, but it wasn’t ornate.

I gripped the solid gold door handle, feeling its molded curves and points beneath my palm. The door was locked, and my only guess was that the door connected my room to whatever room was next door.

Only one way to find out, I supposed.

I shuddered upon crossing the threshold of that disdainful room assigned to choke me, but unfortunately the hallway wasn’t much of an improvement, mahogany trim everywhere, a deep burgundy rug striping down the middle of the hardwood floor. I padded along the carpeted section, hoping that with the dampening of the thuds of my socked feet I could just disappear, forever meandering down this fucking hallway.

It was easily a sixty- or seventy-foot distance from my bedroom door to the next, and I briefly mused if there was actually a passageway between my room and my neighbor’s, though it really wouldn’t have surprised me if that random door in that bedroom opened straight up into the next. It was a mansion after all.

Soft grumblings and murmurs echoed through the thick wooden door, that was almost latched, and something in the tone of the voices made me hesitate. The tender mixture of the tenor and baritone voices tugging and pulling at one another in a lilting waltz was the first sound I’d encountered bridging the stark silence and the wild chaos that danced dangerous whirlwinds around one another in this mansion, and for a moment, I just stood at the door, slightly hunched, not purposefully trying to eavesdrop but more admiring the artful masterpiece the two were composing.

With the backs of my knuckles, I edged the heavy door open hardly an inch, not wanting to disturb the carefree entanglement, and the corner of my mouth curved ever so slightly with sad congratulations.

I had never seen Josh shirtless before, and I hadn’t expected the first time to be with another man’s fingernails digging into his shapely chiseled skin. His muscles rippled as he moved, running his fingertips across the neck and jaw of the guy he had pinned to the wall.

I could only assume the other man worked somewhere in this colossal estate, and it didn’t take a genius to understand no introduction should occur under such circumstances. From his voice caught in a strangled moan and his physique, he must have been near our age, perhaps a little older, but all that seemed far from neither here nor there as the two of them rocked their hips in a smoothly steady rhythm, both of their labored breathing occasionally disrupted with a guttural grunt or appreciative groan.

Josh whispered a smile into the guy’s ear, teeth grazing his earlobe, and the other man’s lips twitched into a satisfied curve, shaping around his own response, just as quiet but more gruff. When Josh replied with a gut-wrenching kiss, folding and fitting his lips around his lover’s, I withdrew from the secret meeting I had no business in, not only owing the both of them their hard-earned privacy but also sincere praise for their confidence, their defiance, their certainty.

Before turning away from them, I noted the same mahogany door in the corner, satisfied that my hunch was correct. As I made my way back down the hallway to the bleeding room pinned to me, I couldn’t help the grin my mouth was struggling to contain, my entire face itching to explode with happiness on their behalf.

If I had ever envisioned how intimacy looked, that tenderness, the absolute devotion shining in their eyes, lost inside one another one hundred percent — that was always how I had imagined it. It wasn’t for me, but I saw the appeal. Who couldn’t?

I passed a giant rectangular painting of Richard Greene. I half-expected him to be wearing a crown, a scepter slanted in the frame, his perfectly manicured hands delicately curled around the end of it, and I snorted with private laughter. If Dick Greene missed the tension of such a scene, the business of wrapping himself around a stick, so cruel, so sovereign, then perhaps he had no place on the thorny throne of Credence, deserved a painting a crude imitation of the masters, for his face to be obliterated into pointy cubes.

I stood at the foot of the painting depicting the CEO of Greene & Greener in his business suit as a man without that sheen in his steely eyes, the crazed shine replaced with a warm invitation, the pulse of a family man. I stood there, staring into his eyes larger than dinner plates, and I shook my head. Was this guy for real?

Where was Miracle? She would get a kick out of this.

I finished the rest of the trek down the hallway back to my room. I bunched my hands into fists on my hips, my eyes narrowed at the bed, and I quirked an eyebrow as the ideas darted through my mind.

Without a second thought, I settled on jumping on the bed with my shoes on, a cigarette hanging between my lips, and I even hummed a little to myself, waiting for someone to burst through the thick, disgusting mahogany door.

I told myself it couldn’t have been a reflection upon Dick Greene when no one came.

iv

I stared at my pack of cigarettes lying on the shiny surface of the mahogany table in the dining room, the lighter still embedded in my curled fingers, and I brought the death stick to my lips, listening to it crackle and pop as I took a drag.

The table was unnecessarily long, and Mr. Greene sat at the head, nursing his first course of soup. Another bowl of soup and a banana were placed at a third table setting, meant for Josh, who had been showering after his workout session.

I pushed the breath of smoke out across the table and leaned back into the wooden chair as a pair of feet skipped down the stairs and gave way to a freshened up Josh entering the dining room, a wide smile on his lips.

“Hey, everyone,” he greeted, mussing my hair playfully with a hand as he walked around behind his uncle to take his seat opposite of mine.

“You’re late.” Mr. Greene commented, not looking up as he continued shovelling soup into his mouth.

Josh shrugged, scooting his chair up to the table, and a servant brought forward a pitcher of water, which he poured into the glass at Josh’s left hand. Josh muttered his thanks before emptying half with a large gulp, and he picked up his spoon, frowning at me when he realized I didn’t even have food before me.

I just took another breath of smoke and ashed the cigarette in a small goblet.

Josh’s lips twisted into a suspicious frown momentarily as he swallowed his question with a mouthful of soup. His eyes landed on the banana perched at the foot of his glass, and his eyes lightened with a secret smile, a memory flashing across his face, a betraying flush of his cheeks quick to follow. He set down his spoon to pick up the banana and began to peel it, eyes never leaving the fruit.

“Eat your soup first.” His uncle commanded, still lost in his first course.

“I need the potassium.” Josh shot back evenly and took a bite.

“I said eat your soup first.” Mr. Greene set his spoon down, breaking eye contact with his bowl for the first time since it was set down in front of him. He turned his glare upon his nephew.

Josh froze, lips around the banana.

“Put down the banana, Josh.” The edge to his voice sliced through the pregnant air, Mr. Greene’s lips tightening into a thin line.

Josh took the bite and laid the banana back on the mahogany table top, firmly holding the stare his uncle was pinning him under with a determined dip in his brow.

“Is that how you want this to go?” Mr. Greene challenged him, anger beginning to boil deep in his chest.

Josh swallowed the lump in his throat, not daring to speak up.

His uncle snapped his fingers, squeezing a whistle through his tight lips, and a servant stumbled in from the kitchen, apologetically approaching Mr. Greene and asking him what he needed. The older man’s fingers closed around the front of the guy’s collar and yanked him down to his knees.

As I tugged again on my cigarette, alarm began to fill me, recognition flowing through me as the younger guy’s face clicked in my head: he was Josh’s lover. I flicked my gaze from the poor kid on his knees, struggling to control the tremble in his lower lip, to the poor kid across from me, Josh’s jaw muscle spasming as his fingers shakily curled into clenched fists.

“You do what you are told, Joshua.” Mr. Greene’s voice was so quiet, a subtle dagger whipping through the air.

Josh’s eyes slid to his lover’s, fear creeping over his face, yet he refused to say a word.

Mr. Greene’s fingers wrapped around the servant’s chin, fingers pinching into his skin, and he mercilessly positioned the guy’s teeth against the edge of the table, the guy pushing against Mr. Greene with his neck, a low whimper rumbling in his throat, his eyes locked on Josh’s, silently pleading.

“Steady now.” Mr. Greene forcefully gripped the back of the guy’s neck, firmly setting his lips against the mahogany. He drew the guy’s head back like a golf club, double-checking his aim, his empty eyes bored with the task at hand, and this time, when he pulled back the guy’s head, going in for the kill, Josh hurled himself forward, his hand striking his uncle’s with such force that upon releasing his lover sent the kid scared witless sprawling across the hardwood.

Mr. Greene met the penetrating gleam in Josh’s eyes, his body beginning to shake with rage. “How dare you.”

“How dare you.” His voice betrayed him with a tremorous cracking, and a petrified Josh, his eyes wide with fear, noisily swallowed, as his uncle leaned back in his chair, nostrils flared.

“Don’t you touch him.” His heart undoubtedly pounding in his ears, the red in his face induced by his barely controlled outrage, Josh scrambled backward and out of his chair, protectively covering his lover from his uncle’s line of sight, and Mr. Greene slowly stood with a single nod.

“All right, Pocahontas. I’ll take your head instead.” The eerie calm in his voice fell heavily over the room, and Josh closed his eyes as he braced himself for the impact, his uncle reaching for him.

I watched Josh purge his face of every expression, his shoulders lowering with the release of emotion, and the blank look that settled over him unnerved me. It was no stretch of my imagination when he muttered under his breath, though I was certain I was the only one who could hear him, his lover in hysterics screeching at Mr. Greene and Mr. Greene very tranquil and breaking the arm off his chair.

“Just more bruises,” Josh was convincing himself, a serene look replacing the blankness with the tiniest curve to his lips. “They mean nothing.”

Mr. Greene ripped the arm free and cocked his elbow back with the swing, and I coughed on the last breath of the cigarette (dare I say, sitting on my teeth?), tearing the three of them from their world.

I spluttered through the choking, pointedly jabbing the smoldering cigarette out on the mahogany surface of the table. After dropping the butt in the goblet before me, I looked up at the men, glancing at each one of them, and I smiled, pushing my chair away from the table.

I stood and tugged on the end of my shirt. “Thank you for dinner. It was wonderful.”

Mr. Greene let his arm swing down, dropping the makeshift bludgeon onto the floor next to the servant, whose chest was rapidly rising and falling as he gasped for breath, probably on the edge of hyperventilating. His eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out on the floor, and Josh didn’t even glance at him, his gaze locked on mine. The small curve still on his lips turned grateful, the light shining in his eyes a mixture of angry and terrified tears at the aftermath. I knew he wanted to say something, the words stumbling across his face, but I waved my hand and turned to go.

I didn’t say anything as I left the ridiculously tense room and trudged up the steps. I found myself in my room before I had even processed that I had begrudgingly walked down that long hallway. I shut the door behind me, a sliver of relief quivering down my spine as I slid down to the floor, my own chest suddenly swelling as I took in a breath, and I realized I must have been holding it. No wonder I coughed on that cigarette.

I drew my knees up to chin and let my head fall forward, my face nestling perfectly against the curve of my kneecaps, and I gently and slowly sucked air in through my mouth, pushing it out through my nose, attempting to dry up the tears threatening to overtake me.

If ever there was a time for me to need Miracle, now was it. I would give anything to see her, feel her presence, but still she didn’t come. I tried not to take it personally as I knew her absence was because of my betraying her. I didn’t deserve her, and she certainly hadn’t deserved what I’d given her — an empty promise.

I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling a single tear escape through the wall and trickle down my cheek. I scrubbed it from my face and pushed myself to my feet, swaying for a moment before steadying myself with a hand against the wall. Blinking away the tears, several more prisoners fleeing down my face, I stepped toward the poisonous bed in the center of this grand room and paused to study my reflection in the full-sized mirror somewhat of an audience to my bed, looking myself dead in the eyes.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, guiltily holding the stare of the weeping girl in the universe parallel to this decaying one, and everything was empty.

“Miracle.” Her cracked lips parted with the cry, and my chest pained me. I tore at my heart sorrowfully, unable to look on the shattered spectacle anymore.

“They’re all mad here.”

v

It was dark, but as dark as it was, I could barely see the stars from the balcony I had discovered. I stood, my arms propped up on the railing, and worked my way through a cigarette, orienting myself by the stars, saddened by their sparsity. But at least it had finally stopped raining, even if it was just for a brief moment as clouds were already gathering again on the horizon, plotting their next attack.

The stars fought back, shooting themselves across the sky, falling to their death here on this cursed planet, and my eyes twitched and narrowed at one, my insides pricking up with a corresponding momentary flash of hope. A smile already tugging at my lips before the realization thudded to the bottom of my heart, pulling me down even further as I collapsed to the stone floor of the balcony, my face fitting neatly between the imprisoning bars of the railing.

Miracle wasn’t among the stars so valiantly laying down their lives for all the poor souls here in Credence. Miracle didn’t soar across the sky, that bitter taste of freedom hanging on her lips, and Miracle didn’t appear there on the edge of my vision. The only thing in my universe with real gravitational pull.

There just simply was no Miracle, and as I extracted the last breath out of my cigarette, I began to permit the thoughts, the doubts, the realities to permeate my mind. It was completely possible as both my aunt and my mom had fallen to similar fates, and though I took up arms against the hooded figure knocking on my door, I had no choice. If I was losing my ability to see the ghosts of this earth — if I was marooned on this island planet...

A thousand stars could have sacrificed themselves for me, each a wasted wish, for really what purpose did the millions of opportunities flinging themselves at me like cheap whores serve me? I invested no stock in the breaths of tomorrow, only the breaths of the present, only the breaths I had as my jaw hung open, flies free to come and go, words dripping from the drool, spooling on the ground, and one day, I knew when I woke in the morning, to prepare like any other day, the rest of them would simply stop seeing me. There was no science, no math, and by the time I would find myself on the other end of that stick, the only wish I could ever have had was to be looked in the eye again, to be heard.

A thousand wishes could have fallen on my head, and I would have tossed every single one aside. To say I wanted to see Miracle again didn’t even begin to cover what I wanted. To see Miracle? It had nothing to do with sensory desire. It really didn’t even have anything to do with desire. When something, someone, had been there, day in and day out, night after night, it was like losing a part of yourself, that void present out of nowhere.

Without Miracle, I just wasn’t me.

Perhaps that was why when some girl came to the door leading to the balcony, announcing the arrival of Marilyn, I threw my arms around her and held her so much tighter than I ever had. I didn’t know if it was because I was afraid she was just another face to disappear from my mind, but whatever the case, it didn’t seem to matter, especially as Marilyn unloaded books from her backpack and we curled up in blankets on the plush rug on the floor.

She must have missed me, too, because she easily spent the first forty-five minutes recounting in minute detail everything from the moment we last saw one another, which was unfortunately Halloween, and while she didn’t pry into the why we hadn’t seen one another at school, I knew she was curious. I had known her long enough to understand that she had desperately scrubbed at the glint in her eye for a long time to make dim but to no avail.

“You know, you can ask me.” I glanced at her out of the corners of my eyes, meeting hers in the sideglance, and my lips involuntarily twitched into a crooked grin. “I know you want to know why I haven’t been at school.”

She waved her hand, dropping her gaze, and her jaw tightened ever so slightly, her brow dipping for only a moment as the words and memories stampeded through her mind at a nauseating rate.

I leaned back against the leg of the plum-colored armchair, folding my arms across my chest, and I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Marilyn?” I quietly called, cocking my head to catch her eye, but she evaded me, abruptly turning her chin away from me.

I scooted closer to her, throwing the blanket off me, and I curled my finger around her jaw, carefully forcing her to meet my eyes. I took in the slight puffiness around her eyes, the way the skin seemed swollen, like her cheeks were tighter with fullness, and I struggled to keep away the sneer of disgust clawing at my lips.

“What happened to you?” I whispered, my fingertips tentatively brushing the fading bruises under the layers of makeup.

Marilyn’s eyes slid closed, so much pain chained up inside, and her fingers tenderly pulled down her neckline, revealing several sharp ovals around the tops of her breasts, some with distinctive, precise tiny bruises, others messy and seemingly hasty with several red scabs.

“There’s more.” Her voice was so soft, like a hollow draft whistling through the room, and at first, I mistook her admittance (and recognition) as a trick of the mind.

She shook her head as if she had read my thoughts, and without prompting, she slowly rolled her hair away from her neck, shrugging out of her shirt.

The red lines, raised claw marks, tracing all the way down her spine, disappearing into her clothes, shone with an uncomfortable freshness, and my throat closed with the trembling. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder as I fished for words of solace.

Marilyn slid her lower lips between her teeth as she chose her next words. “I’m.” She swallowed, clearing her throat a little and blinking the tears out of her own eyes. “I’m going to move out.”

I nodded, not a single response on my lips.

She locked eyes with me. “I haven’t shown Lucas, and I can’t. Not yet. Not until I’ve healed more.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” I gently prodded her. “Won’t he be worried?”

She shook her head, her hand defensively rubbing her other arm. “No, he knows...He knows that if I don’t come around for a while...”

“Oh.” I nodded with sudden and uncomfortable understanding. “Of course.”

I drew in a sharp breath, hoping it would clear my head. “So, where are you going to live?”

She shrugged. “Probably with him.”

“Speaking of Lucas,” she added, reaching into her bag for something, “he gave this to me like a week ago to pass back to you.”

She placed the gun in my lap, and I stared at it indifferently.

“It turned out to be a good thing, actually, that he didn’t have that around his place.” Marilyn sniffed and straightened her back, leaning against the other armchair. “Lucas ended up getting raided, like, the next day.”

My eyes widened. “What happened? Is he okay?”

Her face relaxed into a smile, and she nodded. “Oh, yeah, he’s fine. He didn’t have anything at that time, and now it’s going to be a while. They didn’t find anything, obviously, not even that safe thing in his floor.”

“Wow.” I studied the dark ceiling for a moment, my head on the seat of the armchair.

I looked back at Marilyn. “At least he’s okay.”

Her eyes softened. “Exactly.”

I twisted my lips into a curve devoid of any answers, and I shook my head. “Jesus, Marilyn. I’m sorry everything’s gone to hell.”

She snorted with pained laughter. “Whatever, Ana. Come on, I want a cigarette.”

I nodded, and we both pushed ourselves to our feet. As I led her to the balcony, she couldn’t help but comment on the rather upscale state of affairs, and my stomach flopped over angrily.

I produced a cigarette from the slightly smushed carton in my back pocket. “Yeah, it unnerves me how...nice the entire place is.”

“Well, I say nice.” I tacked on, cigarette between my lips, the flame of the lighter not half an inch from the butt as I corrected myself. “These people are nuts, Marilyn.”

“What do you mean?” She narrowed her eyes at me, brow furrowed, and accepted the lighter from me.

I took my time exhaling, by the end of it, my head spinning quite nicely, and I jostled my neck and chin to shake out the numbness a little. “It’s kinda hard to explain.”

Marilyn arched an eyebrow at me. “Try me.”

“Well, the other night at dinner, Mr. Greene ripped off the arm of a chair to beat the crap out of Josh.”

“What?” She barked at me, eyes angrily flashing.

I nodded. “You heard me.”

“Why?” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “What happened?”

I groaned a little, ashing my cigarette over the balcony. “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think it was because Josh is gay.”

She waved her hands animatedly. “That’s still bothering him? Are you kidding me? Oh my god, kill me now!”

I chuckled, my eyes flipping over. “I said I’m not exactly sure. It could have been a million things. All I know is Mr. Greene’s reaction was ridiculous.”

“I never liked that man.” She growled bitterly, huffing her exhale of smoke to the world outside our tiny bubble. “He just abuses Josh. It’s messed up.”

She flicked her eyes to mine, reading my silent response in the pinched skin around my eyes and the slight knitting of my brow, and she dropped her gaze, sighing and swallowing the lump in her throat.

“It’s not the same.” She quietly argued, sucking another breath out of her cigarette.

“No?” I challenged, my jaw tightening. “Because, Marilyn, I almost witnessed his uncle openly bludgeon him, and you know what he said? He said that they were just more bruises. Excuse me, but not ten minutes ago, what were you showing me if not bruises?”

Her face dark and jaw taut, Marilyn glared at me. “I said I was moving out.”

“And how long did it take?” I slid my eyes from her left to her right and back again. “How many bruises and tears and moments of being afraid, how many did it take before you decided to move out?”

She jabbed a finger in my face, angrily whipping back, “It is not the same, Ana! Don’t you even pretend to understand!”

“The man is killing you for his own sick pleasure.” I shouted back, struggling to control my fury from inching my voice even louder. “I don’t care who the victim is, but that is never okay.”

Her cheeks flushed red, and she bit her lip, blinking the tears away as she hid her face from me with a turn of her chin. “It’s not easy.”

I drew in a deep breath through my nose, and my voice softened. “Because it’s not meant to be.”

I touched my hand to her elbow, encouraging her to meet my gaze, and she did, her wide brown eyes shiny with the tears.

I shook my head, a smile on my lips. “You’re brave for speaking up, Marilyn. That’s all it takes.”

Her face relaxed, her spirit eased, and her mouth curved. “I thought you were an angry type.”

I chuckled, taking the last drag on my cigarette. “Oh, I am, but the anger only comes out when words aren’t enough.”

She shook her head, pushing out a streamline of smoke and tossing her cigarette butt over the railing. “Whatever, Bruce Banner. Just make sure when you Hulk out, I’m not around. I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of your swinging fists.” She mimed me fighting an invisible Batman again, including the sound effects of strength colliding with stupidity, and I giggled.

“I could teach you some moves.” I offered, absentmindedly engaging in her little slow motion show, wrists automatically flicking my hands through the moves so practiced they might as well have been instincts by now.

Her eyes brightened. “Really?”

I nodded, swiftly yet playfully maneuvering her into a cornered position against the railing. “Sure, but we should probably study for this test first.”

She groaned, and I released her. She pushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear, eyes rolling. “Stupid AP Lit. At least it’s not a multiple choice test. Dear god, I hate those.”

I laughed and pushed the door open. “Honestly, I just hate tests.”

“So what are you going to do with the gun?” Marilyn prompted, poking at it with a finger.

I shrugged and carefully placed it on one of the shelves built into the wall. “Nothing probably.”

She nodded and collapsed cross-legged on the rug, throwing the blanket over her. “Now where were we?”

vi

It was cold, easily below freezing, and that was inside the mansion. There was a thick stack of blankets piled on my bed, but the sight of the structure still sickened me. Instead, I just snuggled into a couple on the balcony, a smoldering cigarette between my fingertips, and when I blew out the smoke, I couldn’t distinguish if the light grey swirl of warm air leaving my lips was a product of the death stick or merely the weather.

It’s winter time, I signed to the darkness, the cherry of the cigarette trailing smoke as I waved my hands.

I took another drag, the filter stiff and cold between my lips, and I sniffed, wrapping the blankets tighter around me. I knew it was dumb, signing to myself, but I did it anyway, some part of me hoping Miracle was watching. She’d never really been far from me before, always within my field of vision, even when she was playing hide and seek. I shivered, burrowing deeper into the blankets, proceeding through life under this same assumption.

It was easily three in the morning or so, and when a light flicked on underneath me, a semicircle of the grounds suddenly lit, I jumped, startled, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I tossed the cigarette butt off the balcony, leaning forward to watch a hooded figure sprint out across the muddy grass, all the way to the stables and never letting up.

I frowned as the figure passed from the chemically induced light to the moonlight, a rather pregnant moon, riding low over the shoulder of the mountain. The mystery character had darted right past a man standing out in the mud and not even hesitated, either clearly ignoring him or so lost in thought to not have noticed him. I leaned my head against a bar of the railing and narrowed my eyes at the man just standing there, slowly turning his head as the figure ran past him.

As the hooded figure disappeared behind the stables, the man in the middle of the mud slowly turned and locked eyes with me.

I froze.

From where I was hiding, he wasn’t bigger than my finger, and by no means could I see him clearly — yet somehow, across all that space, I read the pleading look in the man’s eyes without a single doubt tugging on the coattails of my mind. Before I really processed what I was doing, I found myself in motion, cinching the blankets around me like shawls and passing through my room. I tiptoed down the hallway in hope that I wouldn’t disturb anyone, no matter what they were up to, and slipped into the kitchen, completely unnoticed, which shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was. I entered through the service door into the dark room, only the pale moonlight falling softly onto the floor and cabinets through the tight windows, and I slid across the hardwood in my socks, my lungs burning and choking on the baited breath I was holding.

Relief washed over me when I pushed the door open and saw the man still standing there, and my chest sighed with a new breath. I realized as I worked my way across the stone path to the man that I shouldn’t have been so hasty. I knew nothing about this guy. This could be another crazy working of Dick Greene. If he knew of Josh’s lover, he was bound to have someone watching him at all times, and this quiet stranger certainly fit the bill.

I slowed as I neared him, and an involuntary shiver bolted down my spine. I clenched my fingers tighter in the blankets, my teeth chattering ever so slightly, and I cleared my throat, waiting for the man to say something.

“You really see me.”

His voice lifted at the end of his sentence, and I wasn’t sure if it was one of those questions disguised as a statement or the other way around. I watched the way his eyes narrowed at me, shining with a kind of excitement that contrasted with the dip in his brow like an enthusiastic toddler in a weary parent’s arms.

He took a step toward me, and I instinctively backed up.

His shoulders shook, and he suddenly burst into laughter and tears simultaneously, joyously weeping with his hands outstretched to me.

“No, no,” he reassured me, a curbed tremor in his voice, and he swallowed back the tears. “No, it’s okay. I-I...I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

My shoulders shook against the cold, but I didn’t respond otherwise, watching my breath huff out before in white clouds, wondering why the hell I came outside.

The light that had flicked on when that hooded figure had dashed away winked off. I blinked a few times, forcing my eyes to adjust to the soft moonlight, and while doing so, a pleased smile eased its way across the man’s face. He took another step toward me, but this time I didn’t budge, cursing myself for not putting on any shoes, the cold stone biting through my two pairs of socks.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to the guy, and honestly, I didn’t know what he could possibly have to say to me.

“Wh-what do y-y-you wan-want?” I shuddered, burrowing further into the blanket shawl.

He blinked a couple times, his head slowly shaking, and he seemed flabbergasted, his lips fishing for words. “I...I don’t really know, actually. What do they normally tell you?”

My eyes screwed into a suspicious pinch, and I took half a step backward, debating whether or not I should just go.

The light on the house must have been motion-sensored because as I moved, it flickered back on, and a sudden sinking feeling rammed me in the chest, my eyes widening and my jaw dropping.

“Shit.” I whispered at the man, and this time it was his turn to wear a puzzled face.

“You’re a ghost.” I stammered through my fingers, my hands covering my lips in astonishment, and my entire mind screamed at me with the realization. Why had I not figured that out before?

The man nodded fervently, his eyes burning with an echoing passion, and he grinned. “And you can see me.”

I shook my head, my heart hammering in my chest as a million thoughts flew through my mind so quickly I could barely process any of them. “No way. I-I...I can’t believe it.”

His lips folded into a line that mixed with the shine in his eyes to cast a childlike anxiety over his face, and he stared at me expectantly, waiting for my approval.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and choked a little, my ab muscles quivering at the cold.

“I’m not losing my touch.” I murmured under my breath, my chest heaving as my eyes fell to the stone path but barely taking it in. If I could see this guy...then...dammit, Miracle really was avoiding me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut as I blew my breath out in a streamline of white fog, and I groaned in exasperation.

“What?”

I met the ghost’s eyes evenly. “I’m sorry, I...This really...”

His brow creased with a serious frown. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Yeah.” I waved my hand. “No, that’s my fault. I’m not doing a very good job of...It’s been awhile since I...”

I huffed and studied the ground around me. “I gotta sit down.”

Agitated but stunned, I shoved my hand in my pocket, pulling out the packet of cigarettes before sitting cross-legged on the stone path. I slid a cigarette between my lips and lit it, taking a long, deep puff, blinking slowly and searching for words.

The ghost man joined me on the ground in a squat, rocking on his heels a little, still intensely studying my face. “I’m sorry if I upset you. That wasn’t my intention.”

I waved my hand, pushing the smoke out of my lips and giving my eyes half a roll. “No, it wasn’t really you, per se. I just...”

I shook my head and motioned to his chest. “Who are you?”

“Oh!” His eyes lit up, his cheeks flushing a slight pink with the embarrassment, and he thrust out a hand in my direction. “Sorry, of course! I’m Thomas Greene.”

I nodded, slowly shaking his hand, barely feeling the effects of his icy touch, my fingers already nearly frozen stiff from the chilly air. “I’m Ana King.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, dropping my hand. “Greene, you say?”

He nodded, clarifying, “I’m Josh’s father.”

“No way!” A grin suddenly leapt to my face, and I shook my head in disbelief. I tugged again on the cigarette. “I’m probably the first human to see you, right?”

“You can imagine my surprise after fourteen years of not a single soul looking in my direction when you spoke to me backstage.” The gratitude mingled with the awe still shining in his brown eyes, and his face collapsed into a slightly embarrassed grin, a light chuckle pushing past his cold lips. “For a second, I thought you were maybe a ghost, too.”

I nodded. “I feel kinda like one sometimes, Mr. Greene.”

“Please, call me Thomas.” He gestured first at his chest and then mine. “We’re friends, you and I. Besides, I never really was proud of that name.”

“What? ‘Greene’?” I studied him, puzzled, and sarcastically challenged, “You don’t like your family’s empire?”

He sighed, his heading shaking back and forth, and he dropped his eyes to the stone path. “I didn’t support how the other Greene men run things.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s why you went into science. You were a scientist, right?”

When his eyes lit up, his lips curling back with an enthusiastic smile, I hurriedly tacked on, “Josh told me a little bit about his family history. Apparently, you were like the genius who reinvented Credence.”

“Ah, yes.” The twinkle in his eyes blew out, and his voice twinged with a cold and hard bitterness. “The unsung hero.”

The cigarette crackled between my fingers as I drew another breath, and I watched his face for a moment as he drowned in the memories, my brow creased with further curiosity. “Wow, you really do hate your family.”

Thomas’ shoulders slumped as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“So, Thomas,” I called out to him before he fell any further, pausing to take the last drag on the cigarette. “You said you thought I was a ghost. Does that mean you’ve seen other ghosts?”

He nodded, flicking his warming chocolate eyes back up to mine. “Quite regularly, sadly. There seem to be a lot around here.”

“Really?” I prodded him, fascinated. Was it possible that I had actually been seeing ghosts all this time and not realize it?

He grinned. “Oh, yeah, and sometimes they’ll talk to me. But mostly, they’re too confused to know what to say.”

With a sharp intake, my breath caught in my chest with hope as a question darted through my mind.

“Thomas, have you seen Miracle?”

“Your sister?” He puckered his lips, the skin around his eyes pinching up with the ponderous squint. “Not since a couple days ago. She was hanging out in the working district for some reason.”

“But she hasn’t come around here?” I urged him.

He shrugged. “Not that I know of, and I don’t blame her. It’s terrifying to hang around here, especially this past week.”

“Why?” I jabbed the smoldering cigarette butt into the damp earth next to the stone I was seated on.

“Richard’s been de-spookifying the premises.” He answered with raised eyebrows and a huff of disbelief. “Paranoid bastard.”

I glanced at the invitingly sinister mansion casting its monstrous net of a shadow over us, and I met Thomas’ eyes again. “What do you mean, de-spookifying?”

He rolled his eyes. “His goons have invented some invisible fence-like contraption that keeps ghosts out. Not that I make a habit of stepping inside that man’s shithole, but I haven’t been able to get any closer than I am now since the beginning of the week.”

Something made me squirm deep inside my chest, and the relief that had coursed through me at the realization that I wasn’t losing my ability to see my netherworld companions suddenly dissolved into icy fear cutting through the numbness comfortably nestled in my bones.

“He’s keeping us separated.” I locked eyes with Thomas, searching his for any sign to the contrary, and I swallowed the thickening lump in my throat, my forehead collapsing into my palm when he merely squinted at me in confusion. “He doesn’t want me interacting with any ghosts, Thomas.”

Terror scampered across his face, and he shook his head in defeat. “He can’t have you exhuming his monstrosities.”

“I’m pretty sure I can get plenty of live evidence of him being crazy.” I retorted, the sight of Josh subduing himself with a verbal tranquilizer popping into my head.

“No—” Thomas started to counter, splaying his fingers in my direction, but the horses in the stable broke out into a cacophonous chorus of neighing and spluttering. Thomas shoved at my arm, nervously glancing over his shoulder. “Go, go! Somebody’s coming! You can’t be seen talking with me.”

I didn’t have the heart (or the time) to explain to him that I really couldn’t be seen talking with him. The closest someone had ever gotten was that girl in elementary school, but even then, I was only mocked for keeping myself company like a freak. I allowed my eyes their responsive roll, but I focused on gathering up my blankets and sprinting back toward the house.

I didn’t stop running until I had eased my bedroom door shut again, my chest heaving and heart pounding. I leaned into the thick door as my throat burned at the dry air, and I wiped at the watery tears built up in my eyes from dashing through the cold.

My shoulders and knees still quaking with shivers, I worked my way across the room, and although I still eyed the giant bed with contempt, I didn’t know where else I could sleep. Against my will, and perhaps my better judgment, I made quick bedfellows with Mr. Greene. As the satin sheets glided over my skin and fitted to my body perfectly, I couldn’t ignore the gnawing at the back of my neck, that the gilded poles of the canopy were pinning me to the mattress, to suffocate me.

I curled up on my side, drawing the layers of bedding around my body in a defensive attempt to ward off the succubus cocooned over head, the sweat and spunk of Mr. Greene dripping from its sweet lips. I tucked the mass tight around me, squeezing my eyes shut against the thick, heavy breath.

I’d spent my life handling irrational decisions and dodging karma’s senseless blows, but Richard Greene was something else cruel and abhorrent, threatening in so many ways I couldn’t begin to describe. The only remotely logical explanation was an engagement with the destruction of humanity.

And the news of him wishing to keep ghosts away from me was equally disturbing. This house alone was smothering me. Seated at his table much longer, and Richard Greene could add my name to the list of cursed crew members.

vii

Bored. Not a word I would use regularly to describe my state of being, but currently my feelings were not shy of boredom. After sleeping in that bawdy bed, undoubtedly a worm-filled grave, I had wanted nothing more than to scour my entire body with sandpaper, so trailing down the long hallway, I finally stumbled upon a restroom lounge fit for a king. For once, I didn’t find the gold and the glimmer overdone — perhaps a little tawdry, but that was to be expected at this point. Though a little uneasy, my stomach was relatively still.

The water was a perfect temperature, and the giant bathtub with various ledges and steps, all covered with those trademark bumps and grooves of a hot tub, made for an excellent bubble bath. The setting was all too picturesque, and in my mind, the only thing missing from this also-not-a-prefect’s enjoyment of a master bathroom was still a ghost. Miracle would have loved to play with the bubbles and splash about in the water just as Myrtle did, and as I pulled myself underwater, my hair floating around my face in mock zero gravity, I imagined I was cradling an egg, my ears filling with the enchanted melody and warm water.

After my cleansing wash, I had settled back into my makeshift blanket nest on the rug-covered floor and studied a little more, sifted through the personal library of my room, thumbed through a couple books, yet there was still nothing to do.

Richard Greene had left for a midday meeting, something important and double G-related, as always, so the house was left to its own devices, servants still running here and there, cleaning this, straightening that, tidying those rooms, preparing these dishes. The house never slept, some sort of life pulsing through it at all hours of the day, a whirlwind of activity that seemed to sweep by me, ignorant of my very existence. I didn’t mind. I was still bored anyway.

Even though Richard Greene himself had personally shown me every inch of the house, the woman at the door had explicitly instructed me of my boundaries, and unfortunately, not to my liking, there were way too many. Being bored and young and everything else that makes someone want to go snooping around a huge mansion, I took off down the forbidden hallway, waiting to discover the glowing rose under the glass cage, but every door was locked or office space or a spare bedroom or a closet or another bathroom — why this hall was off-limits was beyond me. Maybe they just didn’t want me getting lost. Though if that was the case, they certainly didn’t have a lot of faith in me. (Although I didn’t blame them. While Kings didn’t get lost, I would probably tell me not to wander off, for who knew what kind of war I could start?)

So, bored. That was me as my socked feet thudded on the hardwood floor, carrying me to God Knows Where down the Forbidden Hallway, the west wing or whatever it was. The hallway suddenly widened, and I came upon shut double doors, which I excitedly toed open to peek inside.

It was a huge room with a two-story ceiling and gymnasium flooring, and for all intents and purposes, this rec area was indeed a gymnasium. In one corner, it even had a boxing match arena complete with the rubber fence, and scenes of a disgruntled Steve Rogers off to the side pounding away at a sandbag flashed through my mind — except instead of everything being in the dark but the tall, muscular blonde, the only spot of the gymnasium that was well lit was the boxing arena. Two figures, one slender and agile, and the other a breathing, immovable punching bag, stood in the ring. Thick foam helmets encaging their heads obscured their identities, and mouth guards muffled their voices, so it wasn’t until I was at the edge of the spotlight that I realized it was Josh throwing punches and whipping his ankles around at the solid man grunting orders.

My breath burned in my throat, and I realized that I had been holding it. I stood as silently as possible, shadowing the impressive display of MMA skills that probably could take me out, though it would be a tough fight. It was beautiful almost, watching the points of his wrists, elbows, knees, his chest, all of him glide through the air with sweat-glistening determination and focused expertise. My lips pulled back with a proud grin as Josh delivered a blow while simultaneously wrapping his legs around the sturdy man and effortlessly slinging him to the ground, the immovable pillar finally crashing to its knees.

The coach only grunted louder, his arms still up, his hands presenting the punching points, and Josh responded, sweeping his ankle across both. His hand connected with the top of the man’s skull, one of the few places unprotected by the helmet, and with a flick of his wrist, Josh grabbed hold of the man and threw him to the mat, his shoulder rolling effortlessly through the move, arching his coach over his own body.

My jaw had already been loosened with awe at the shock of seeing Josh in, yet again, a completely different setting, but my mouth swung open on its hinges at the sight of his hand rolling across the top of the coach’s head — a move I was entirely, and possibly uncomfortably, familiar with and had replayed in my mind innumerable times.

“Holy shit.” I ripped Josh out of his world.

His own mouth agape, Josh locked eyes with me, a rabbit of panic hopping at lightspeed through his brilliant greens.

“It’s you.” I told him simply, my voice in a hushed whisper echoing in a crooked bounce off the hard surfaces of the room.

Josh’s darkening eyes flicked from his coach’s and back to mine. In one swift move, he yanked the mouth guard out of his mouth and his helmet from his head. It was then that I noticed the gloves he was wearing weren’t normal boxing gloves but those that I witnessed on the hands of The Phantom over a week ago, and I couldn’t stop staring. I was no stranger to shock, but in comparison, this revelation was mind-blowing. I could barely move, my jaw still slack and probably catching flies, and even when Josh vaulted over the rubber fence of the boxing arena, fingers wrapping around my wrist to jerk me after him, with speeds I had never seen out of him, my feet seemed heavier than cement blocks, bolted in place.

The world flew by me as he pushed through a side door that opened up to the backyard, mud sucking at our feet, and I felt like I was merely floating alongside him, tethered by my limp arm, watching him dash across the mud and stone path and patches of grass, eventually leading us to the stables. In fact, I didn’t really feel like me again until after he’d given me a leg-up to mount a horse and we were cantering away from the mansion and past a clump of trees near the base of the mountain.

Josh slowed his horse to a trot, and mine obediently followed suit. He’d brought us to a halt at the shore of a small lake.

Josh smoothly dismounted and tied the reins of his steed to a thick branch, and he guided my horse to do the same.

Josh stroked my mare’s nose, whispering to her, “There, there, Shadow. Watch Tabeel here carefully, okay? We know he likes to make trouble for both of us.”

He turned to me, offering up his arms as assistance, but I pushed his arms out of the way, swinging myself down with ease. I stood before him, peering up at him, my eyes darting back and forth between his.

He tucked a wild lock of hair behind my ear, intensely studying his fingertips as they rounded the cartilage, his lips in a debating pucker, and the skin folded around his eyes in concentration.

With a shallow sigh and a defeated throwing of his eyes to the ground, he shook his head, his shoulders slumping, and he dropped his hand.

My fingers caught his chin, and I forced his eyes to meet mine again.

“I don’t even know where to begin.” I told him, almost surprised at the sound of my voice.

His eyes softened, his lips twitching with a gentle smile. “I want you to see something.”

I nodded, completely aware that I really had little choice in the matter, judging by the matter-of-fact-ness in his voice and determination in his eyes.

He motioned at me as he lifted several rotting logs up and single-handedly removed a canoe, which, still in the grip of one hand, he carefully set in the water, and he glanced over his shoulder at me expectantly.

“I take it your superpower is super strength.”

He laughed deeply, head thrown back in carefree mirth, and it struck me just how little he was holding himself back, probably for the first time ever not curbing his super strength in the presence of a friend.

His shoulders still shaking with the leftover chuckles, Josh nodded and gestured for me to step in the canoe. “Yeah, you could say that. That and the backing of a major innovations corporation.”

My eyes involuntarily rolled, and I couldn’t help the crooked grin that slanted across my lips. I accepted the hand he offered me as a means to keep my balance as I stepped into the canoe, and I perched myself at the far end.

“Okay, Tony Stark.” I shot at him, my arms crossing my chest. “Or is it Bruce Wayne? I can’t really tell.”

Josh joined me in the canoe and flicking his wrist behind him somehow produced a blast that sped the canoe toward the center of the lake. He grinned at what must have been a bewildered look on my face and showed me his other hand, that glove not in use. My fingertips roamed the material and grooves, fascinated by the uncharted territory.

I met his gaze. “Tony Stark it is.”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be a bad gig.”

I shook my head at him. “What...Why are you...How?”

His chest rose and fell with a sigh, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. “You know, I don’t know if I just woke up this way one day, or if I was born with it. I don’t really know. I mean, my uncle could have injected me with some serum that turned me this way.”

He cleared his throat. “What I do know is this. Credence has a need. Greene & Greener has a need. I fill those needs perfectly, and if it weren’t for this, I don’t think I’d belong anywhere.”

I gave his hand still in mine a gentle squeeze. “You’re better than how your uncle treats you.”

He pursed his lips and quietly countered, “If it weren’t for that man, I’d be in an orphanage, accidentally squashing my peers. I wouldn’t be a superhero. I’d be in jail and out of my mind on drugs.”

My jaw clenched, and I took a moment to gather myself before responding as he expertly guided us toward an opening in an outcrop of rock. As we got closer, I realized it was a cave.

“What does it really matter where you could have been, Josh? Regardless, the least that man could do is treat you with a little more respect and decency.”

“I’m not interested in his pity.” Josh retorted, his face screwing up bitterly as he steered the canoe onto the sandy shore at the back of the cave.

“That man is insane.” I argued sternly with a slicing chop of my hand. “I don’t even know if he counts as a human.”

“That man is my only family.” He spat at me, splashing me with water as he jumped overboard and waded the couple steps to the shore. “And family is everything.”

I scrambled out of the canoe after him.

He spun on his heel, his finger flying up to jab accusatorily at my face. “I know you can’t possibly understand what that means anymore since everyone you ever touch dies, and by the amount of shit you put in your system, I don’t even know if your viewpoint counts. You’re too drugged up to even know which way is up.”

The clap resonated throughout the cave with a decisive bite, and I chewed my tongue, struggling to restrain every quip and insult I was itching to throw back at him. The tears stung as they trickled down my face, and my fingers burned from connecting so solidly with his cheek. The slap resulted in a bright red spot, one that surely must have hurt, but Josh didn’t move. He just stood there and stared back evenly.

I closed my eyes against his, and I placed my hands in soft surrender against his chest.

When Josh slid his hands over mine, even weaving his gloved fingers through mine, I looked up at him in surprise, searching his face, and the pain I knew he must have been harboring for a very long time began to surface in tears that threatened to break loose, his lips beginning to shake.

He suddenly lurched forward, his knees beneath him, and I lunged to catch him, bearing his weight with my own. I curled my arms around him, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck as he sobbed, his chest heaving against mine.

“I will never be good enough.” He confessed in my ear.

I stroked his hair and shook my head. “He’s just someone else who’s afraid.”

“I can’t live like this, Ana.” He whispered, his arms clenching me tighter.

“You don’t have to.” I closed my eyes, the simple-in-theory truth ringing out in the small cave.

His hands taking me by my shoulders, he pushed us apart to study my face.

“His masterful tapestry is beginning to unwind.” A gentle, crooked curve took over my chapped lips. “And I believe you’ll find it quite liberating.”

He slid his eyes to the sand. “I’m sorry. In reality, all of my family’s dead, too.”

“All of my family isn’t...” My throat cinched closed with the last word — gone — and instead I motioned to the water. “Can we swim?”

He nodded, a smile leaping to his lips. “I thought you’d never ask.” His voice warmed with his usual melodious lilt, that twinkle slowly returning to his eye.

We stripped down to our underwear and waded back in the water. We raced some, we splash-fought some, we just treaded water; what we actually did was of little importance, as we continued our little Q-&-A session of why’s and how’s, and slowly Josh explained his training process and his first couple missions. We discussed the weather and politics, played conversation volleyball with questions of science and progress, and we never let up, even when the tide was making its way back in, the entrance of the cave slowly shrinking.

Maybe she had snuck back into the periphery of my vision, or maybe she had really just been there all along. Maybe she’d always been watching from the sidelines, a twisted guardian, a selfish guide, or maybe she’d actually been gone all this time, pursuing other dreams, changing other lives. Whatever she had been doing, it didn’t matter. Not a single thing mattered.

When I bobbed up from the bottom, the water only a shallow five feet, I pushed the hair back from my face, and I noticed her curled up on the shore, her knees drawn up under her chest — a position I found myself in way more often than her — and she was just doodling in the sand, sporting a bohemian twisting skirt with brilliant blue flames and a mango sprig of sunlight etched strikingly across the fabric. Her blond locks unusually brown, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to get some sun with all the darkness happening around me.

Josh called it quits, rubbing his shirt through his hair to dry it and tossing it along with his other clothes into the canoe, his golden cross necklace dull in the dimming cave light, and I trudged up the beach behind him. I stood there, carefully positioned behind his back as he packed. The water gathered at my nose and chin, dripped off the ends of my hair, ran down my legs into muddy pools around my feet. I stood there, drinking in the sight of her.

She slowly raised her crystal clear blue eyes to mine, and with three simple motions, I told her everything she ever needed to know and the only thing that ever really mattered to me.

Her little face crumpled into a relaxed, pleased smile, her eyes crinkling with the giddy enthusiasm that overflowed into her response:

I love you, too.

viii

Riding back across the land presumably outside of Richard’s jurisdiction (it was much too green and liberated to be hedged in by his goonies with guns, fallen angels with clipped wings) and racing against the cool wind coursing through my hair, the powerful mare beneath me rolling through her pounding hooves thudding against the wet earth, striving to reach the stable before the sun met the horizon — all of it felt so surreal yet perfect, imaginably a fate I could face forever. Working our way across the field, Josh and I edged each other further, neck and neck, my lengthening shadow with its invisible companion once again verse his useless, domesticated deference, and it was so relaxing, that wild grin plastered on my face and that squealing giggle escaping my lips, that victory cry Josh hollered and that triumphant throwing of his arms to the wind.

So picturesque, so tragic — this idea, this reality; it made me want to cry and scream all my frustrations to mother nature, for I knew that out here, in her embrace, she would listen to every word and catch every tear. She would welcome me into her bosom and never think twice about what I was running away from, already striking it down with her majestic temper, and as I chased my peace of mind away with the hammering steps of my mare, I could feel her fingers slip down my back, release me from her grip, the icicle queen latching onto me instead. Oh, how I wanted nothing more than to just leave Credence and never return. What sorrow swept over me the moment we neared the stable, with the sinking realization that only several more steps and it all came crashing back down, sinking to a different low, a realm ruled by an icy heartbeat.

I stroked Shadow’s nose as Josh removed the saddle, and with a parting pat, I whispered my goodbye, Miracle echoing the salutations with a swift curtsy, the eyes of the poor horse dilating with primal, instinctive concern. I rolled my eyes at Miracle, on Josh’s heels as we rounded the stable and made our way to the stone path, and we were met with not one lost soul but two: Richard Greene, himself, silent at attention, his hands clasped behind his back, and Thomas Greene.

Immediately, we slowed, and not unlike my horse’s reaction, Josh stiffened with instinctive concern, his hand protectively sliding before my abdomen to slow me down.

Richard Greene stood there, ever the latent volcano awaiting his trigger, and his eyes burned with a wildfire that even had Miracle on edge. She flicked her hard eyes to me, probing mine with a million questions.

Over his shoulder, Thomas narrowed his eyes, shifting his focus from the man deranged to the man enslaved and back, eventually pushing it beyond them and to us.

“You complete your training sessions, Josh.” Mr. Greene quietly instructed across the path, and for a moment, my tensed shoulders relaxed with a brief hope of normalcy.

Josh nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Ten more hours.” He whipped back without hesitation. “No dinner, no breaks. You leave that room, you don’t wake up in the morning. Is this clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Josh stammered, nervously swallowing the lump in his throat, and before Richard could get another word out, Josh broke into a jog, headed for the mansion.

Josh shamefacedly ducked his head as he passed his uncle, and, not a warning in his calm body language, the man unsheathed a rugby bat, cracking it over Josh’s head with well-practiced aim, thwacking him squarely across the shoulders, and sending the lean teen sprawling. A startled whimper escaped as he brought his hands up to catch himself, but it was too late. The left side of his face scraped across the stone path, a pained howl snatched up from his lips. Josh pushed himself back to his feet, his dignity and blood spatters smeared on the stones, but he didn’t look back, his shoulders shuddering with the tears he was trying so desperately to smother.

Richard merely nodded and tucked his hands, bat in tow, behind his back once again. He turned to follow Josh up to his mansion, hesitating only to meet my horrified gaze.

I was too stunned to even bring my hands up to my lips as the polite curtain to my jaw swung freely in the breeze, and in all honesty, my disgust was better on display than locked up in some muzzled jar. Richard Greene met my eyes with the skin pinched up all around his in hatred.

“I’ll deal with you later.” He softly promised.

My fingers slowly curled into clenched fists, and my jaw snapped tight with enraged spasms. “He’ll be making his own luck soon.”

Mr. Greene paused, studying my face. “You’re a twisted kind of optimist, Bell.”

“Go tend to your mighty empire, Your Highness.” I spat back. “Surely you can’t stand to have your hands dirtied in this mess with your nephew.”

“Hm.” He blinked. “So queer.”

I watched him make his way across the stone path, brushing right past Thomas, and I locked eyes with the tall ghost. Once Richard was out of earshot, I shook my head at Thomas.

“He’s going to kill your son.”

Thomas shrugged, dashing his gaze to the earth. “It would only be fitting, really.”

My brow furrowed, and I puckered my lips at him, Miracle hovering over my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

Thomas sighed, waving his hand absentmindedly. “That man staged the accident that killed me. He planned it all, and he probably did so over his breakfast, fussing when his eggs were over-medium instead of over-hard.”

“What?”

Thomas slowly met my gaze, his eyes weary with sorrowful defeat, and he drew in a deep breath. “Richard also drove my wife to self-harm. It was his idea to lock her away from our son. His only goal has been to destroy me for a very long time. Even if it means his destruction as well.”

I glanced at Miracle, her wide eyes locking with mine innocently. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s very simple, really.” Thomas sighed. “He has to be at the top, the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most satisfied, the best.”

“And he killed you for that?” I spat, gesturing at the nauseating mansion, and Thomas shrugged.

“And you never told Josh?” I challenged. “Why haven’t you tried to save him?”

Thomas studied the ground, his head shaking back and forth gently, and I huffed, stomping off toward the gigantic, loathsome structure.

“If you can’t tell him, I will.” I threw over my shoulder angrily. “Some father you are.”

Thomas blipped in front of me, his hands propped up in surrender. “You can’t.”

“What do you mean I can’t?” My fists met my hips.

“Richard’ll hear you.” He turned to the mansion and then back to me. “That cross necklace Josh wears? It came from his mother, but only after Richard pried it from her fingers. He had some sort of device installed in it, so he always knows where Josh is and what he’s doing. He can monitor entire conversations.”

My eyes widened, my frown deepening. “What?”

Thomas nodded. “Everything Josh hears, he hears.”

My tongue turned thick in my mouth, my stomach flopping over, sick, and I choked on the shock in my throat. “So, every conversation, everything...That’s how Richard knew about ghosts...Where Josh and I went...”

Thomas held my horrified gaze almost apologetically. “Josh can’t be touched.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t believe you. If I tell him his necklace...He’d take it off...He’d...”

Icy fingers curled around mine, and I looked up to see Thomas giving me a soft smile of pity. “Ana, Josh would only think you as crazy as you think Richard is. He’s been forced to think of his uncle in a positive manner. It’s the only way he copes.”

The tears tickled in my nose, my throat swollen with the sobs I was choking back, and I violently shook my head. “It can’t be.”

“There’s nothing I can do.” He admitted with a shake of his head and spread of his hands, his empty palms offering up the blatant nothing with a regretful shrug.

I stared then, at the two ghosts, that simple statement hanging over their heads, heavy and laden with the depressing defeated nature of their states. Voiceless, powerless — they mimed their lacking with gestures, motions, skeletons of the humans they used to be, and they faded into black and white, crude, emotional lighting playing up their features frozen in time harking back to the cast, the outlining mold of German expressionist cinema. For the first time, Miracle’s refusal to speak seemed less of a choice and more of a well-placed notch, just one more defining jigsaw piece to the overall masterwork of art, slowly painting itself on the walls of the great art halls meandering through the stars.

But who held the brush? Certainly, they didn’t have readily-heard voices, but that didn’t mean they were anything short of chock-full of opinions. Who spoke them, wove them into tapestries, painted their fates on the walls?

I couldn’t watch a man die — I couldn’t watch a man tear himself apart.

ix

You know, I had never walked out on a movie before, leaving her high and dry, her displaying herself for all the world to see yet still being unfit for me. Never. Though I’d seen every “gotcha!” moment, and they had ceased to even catch my eye a long time ago. I saw them everywhere in the world anyway, mundane as the shadows people left behind: Disney only mostly killed him, Darth Vader is really his daddy, the gun in the narrator’s mouth was really in his hand all along, I actually just had dinner with Paul Owens last night, and — oh, you hadn’t heard? Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.

Everything was not as it seemed. The biggest climax trope ever invented, and obviously no script writer, director, or producer had ever consulted me because they had clearly missed the part where it was done before. It was overdone.

She was my sister, now a ghost. My parents died. My aunt died. All dead. Not mostly dead. The only slight exception was Miracle, and BAFTA must have awarded her ten times over by now for Best Actress in Persistence.

Richard Greene wasn’t really Josh’s daddy, and I was almost embarrassed to admit that the thought to the contrary had crossed my mind.

Maybe all of this was only happening to me because it was actually me, my doing — or maybe I was already dead?

But there was no escaping it: this was no practical joke, no prank call.

Abuse was no laughing matter, and, albeit I had never studied any kind of medicine, other than the recreational kind, I knew it didn’t take a doctor to make the prognosis: Richard Greene was beyond sick. He was practically knocking on Death’s door. Was it made out of mahogany, too? Maybe they played cards regularly, knocking around souls and battering ideas over coffee in expensive china, handmade, limited editions.

Somewhere backstage Goffman was in a tither, wringing his hands. He had wanted to make a musical next, not a movie, but there was always next year, right? Besides, I’d seen this film a hundred times, though this one took the cake. Judging by the tempting, tempestuous tango Richard and Death danced, I could understand why Goffman had wanted a musical. There was a musical gold mine here, but all anybody wanted was an allusion to the screen masters.

I wasn’t fighting myself, forcing my own gag reflex with the thick taste of metal. I wasn’t the loophole threatening the balance of everything past and future by chasing the ever-fleeting feathers of love.

But it was me, holding the gun. It had always been me.

I knew neither Miracle nor Thomas could come with me, and honestly, their presence wouldn’t have made any difference now anyway. But that didn’t stop the sting when Thomas called out to me, Miracle’s frosty touch nipping at my fingertips; it pierced my side, her icy displeasure and his pleas for me to cease pursuit of my sudden ambition, but I was already in motion, sprinting across those stones faster than the tears streaming down my face.

I burst through the kitchen — for the first time, a servant acknowledging me with a startled drop of a pan in the dish water, soap suds flying. I pushed past the stairs and flung myself down the forbidden hallway, in my head ticking off the number of glowing petals I still had left.

Run, they always said. Run like they did in the movies. Your hair flowed back away from your face in that golden light cast just right; your motions slowed for effect lent you majesty, power, determination. Those few moments of physically chasing down the only thing that truly mattered. Those few long-legged strides of primal instincts.

It was all over-dramatized, of course, because the only thought pulsing through my mind as my shoes slapped against the hardwood floorboards was faster. When I reached the double doors, shoving them open with both hands, my shoulder popping uncomfortably, even then I wasn’t fast enough, every millisecond a god’s breath, every decisecond his vacation, and I screamed at Josh, vaulting across that gym floor.

“We’re leaving now!”

Chin tucked in, head wrapped in that foam helmet again, mouthguard between his teeth and gloves on his hands, Josh never broke focus, beating right-left-right-right-left, over and over again.

I tugged on the rubber fence. “Josh, come on! You can’t stay here!”

Hell, if Marilyn just walked out, why couldn’t we? What was he waiting for?

Josh thwipped the mouthguard out with a wet spit, and he grunted, swinging his ankle up at his breathing punching bag’s head.

“Ana, I can’t leave.” He shook his head, still not directing his eyes away from his target. “You know that.”

I leaned in, trying to catch his eyes with my own, but he jerked his face away from me, spinning around in another magnificent show of talent.

“Who are you?” I whispered, my lips curled back with a disgusted, twisting pain, a confused emotion straddling not understanding and anger.

Josh exhaled as he struck again, his form ever excellent. “I’m a superhero.”

I snorted, my eyes looping over in a roll before my brain had even fully processed the action’s request. Too easy.

“You are not your job.”

He grumbled something, throwing a punch harder than what the trainer was expecting, and the man staggered back.

“That’s it.” I muttered under my breath.

I swiped a pair of gloves and, tugging them on, pushed through the rubber slats, sliding before Josh and finally locking eyes with him.

Josh clenched his jaw, nostrils flared. “Get out, Ana.”

I sent a soft jab at his head, and he swatted me away like a gnat buzzing too close.

“Do you know who you are?” I caught him behind the knee.

With a disinterested flick of his wrist, he sent a blast of science at my chest, throwing me against the rubber fence. My neck snapped back, and I groaned, knowing that was going to be painful later.

I collected myself, back on my feet, and I steadied my core, pushing my legs back to a ready stance. “You are a human being, Josh.”

Josh tossed his eyes heavenward, huffing, and he zeroed his burning eyes in on mine. “You really want to do this?”

“I can’t say the same about your uncle, and deep down you agree.” I blocked a jab, kicking his ankle back and ducking under his other ankle as Josh used the momentum to spin himself around.

“Your uncle isn’t a man.” I got a lock on him and yanked him close, leaning into his chest. “He’s a coward.”

Josh exploded then, shoving me back with that super human strength he’d been curbing. With a snarling battle cry, he went on the offense, rolling through the extension of his elbow, and I slammed my hand against his jaw and ear. Josh stumbled for a moment, shaking his head to clear the slight ringing, and took to the air once more, his lithe feet soaring.

He slid his legs around me, hurling my back against the mat, and my breath fled in an out-of-practiced whoosh. Josh knelt at my side, his moist lips and hot breath at my ear.

“Stop attacking him.” He growled, his voice gruff and teetering on the blurry edge of rage.

“Stop defending him.” I grabbed him by the neck and held him close, his muscles trembling under my touch, and I knew he could break free easily if he wanted to. “You are a human being, Josh. You deserve to be treated like one.”

“Oh, I suppose there’s just nothing here for me.” He spat on my face, sweat and tears streaking down his flushed cheeks. “I suppose there’s no future, no hope, nothing.”

“Listen to yourself.” I searched his eyes, far too murky. “You have the strength of an entire army, but you can’t fight your uncle?”

Something snapped deep in the dilating pupils — I saw it happen. Something so buried beneath the surface broke loose, and for a moment, Josh just stared down at me, glassy film over his eyes, tears draining from them as emotion did his face.

“So, tell me, Ana.”

Shooting my glance between the tangled mess of our knees, I met Richard’s gaze.

He cocked his head at me, and I felt Josh’s chest tense, his breathing ragged, nerves dancing on the edge.

Richard took a step closer. “Tell me, Ana. Why are you so interested in business that isn’t yours?”

“You made it my business by bringing me here.” I retorted, shoving Josh off me and vaulting to my feet.

He chuckled and corrected with a pointed finger. “No, I made you my business by bringing you here.”

I stepped to the rubber fence ringing us in. “You’re at the end of your reign.”

Richard narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t expect you to understand, merely being a guest here in my Credence, but these affairs which don’t belong to you aren’t what you think they are.”

A sword made by your own hand thrust through your own heart — but cruelty is only a matter of perspective, no?

I twisted a little, stretching to meet Josh’s eyes. “Your uncle killed your father and destroyed your mother.”

The blank, wide-eyed look hanging on his face gave way to a betraying pinch of the skin around his eyes. Hesitation streaking through his furrowing brow, disbelief peering out from behind the curtain.

“Thomas just told me.” I quietly admitted, my fingers splayed in surrender to Josh. “I couldn’t keep it from you.”

“You spoke with a dead man?” Richard scoffed, his cheeks pulling back in ridicule.

I raised my chin to him, accepting his challenge. “Stranger things have happened, so don’t pretend this phases you.”

I addressed Josh again. “He knows I told you I have a sixth sense, and he knows when you make love to that boy. He monitors everything you do, Josh.”

His eyes slid past mine to those of Richard, his frown deepening. “What?” His voice finally cracked through the frozen surface, a deep boiling swelling in the pit of his chest.

“That cross you wear is a tracking device and microphone. More information courtesy of your father.” I motioned to the glittering ornament, his gloved fingers absentmindedly jumping to it, curling around it. “Do you believe me yet, the leash this beast has you chained to?”

I spun on my heel, my eyes darting back and forth between Richard’s hollows. “Your affairs are my business. For as long as there exist those with no voice but things to say, I am needed. Whether it’s the voices you refuse to listen to or the voices you stifle and smother every waking chance you have, I am here to speak them, and you know exactly what I need to say.”

Richard blinked, a hand falling over his sternum, and he swallowed. “I’m not interested in your messages from the other side. If I had wanted to hear my dead brother talk, I would have kept him or your aunt alive.”

“And you murdered without a second thought.” I snarled. “Do you know what it’s like for everyone to look through you like you’re nothing? Do you know what it’s like to catch the eye of someone whose sole cause of his enthusiasm is finally having attention paid to them?”

“I have no need for such conversation.”

I shook my head. “I don’t expect you to understand, merely being a guest here in this land, but while you are insane, you aren’t unintelligent. You are no stranger to Death, leading more people to him than most. I don’t have to explain to you that there will come a time when you don’t wake up alive.”

I leaned over the rubber fence, quickly cinching closed the distance between us. “There is nothing else. You are alive, and then you are a ghost. And being a ghost lasts longer than your reign as a businessman, and you spend every wandering moment searching in desperation for another soul.”

“There is nothing else.” I whispered harshly, my nose inches from his.

“If the only options are life and death, seemingly endless purgatory either way, then why interfere?” Richard eliminated the distance.

I shook violently with the disgusting rage. “You’re just another bully on the playground, picking on the weird kids.”

“How noble.” He purred, his fingers drumming against his chest. “You still believe in a higher calling. You’ve probably never considered yourself idealistic before.”

“It isn’t idealistic to lend a voice to the voiceless, eyes to the eyeless, strength to the weak. It’s common courtesy.”

“A god to the godless. Hope for the hopeless, yes, yes.” He fluttered his fingers. “You give them something worth living for. That’s idealistic, optimistic, delusional, childish. I could go on if you’d like.”

“Alive or a ghost, we all suffer the same disposition, receive the same punishment. Life makes no distinctions. We’re all we have.”

“You yourself are not unintelligent.” Richard quietly studied things unseen. “How often has equality been the dream of a dying fool, the last breath he breathes?”

That was it then, the signal I wasn’t even aware I was awaiting, but that was it. I glanced back at Josh, his face bright red, his lips quivering with the words of outrage, his tongue loading the barrel of his mouth with insult, simply waiting for the order to fire away. Written in every creasing fold of skin in his brow, circling his darkening eyes, his soul burning with desire, was the coming of a new age, yawning in the twilight.

The black cut through with a crackling and a bang, and rather than Josh’s body bending over backwards gracefully and dodging the bullets, his chest lurched from mine, the one shot lodging itself in his shoulder. His limp limbs crumpled in a heap around him as he crashed back into the mat. I whipped around, staring down the barrel of a smoking gun, gripped in Richard’s other hand — and I gritted my teeth at the acerbic recognition: that was Batman’s gun.

The fingers of his hand still at his chest dug into his shirt a little, the tips and knuckles growing white, and Richard growled, the nose of the gun wavering.

I steadied his hand, my fingers curling around the pistol to break it free of his grasp, but with another crackling bang of despair, my vision flickered, my mind exploding with a million soft pillows to cushion the pain. My teeth swallowed the bullet, the back of my jaw giving way for a clean passage. It was a film I’d seen before; it was actually a book first.

My eyes slid open once more, loaded with spots bursting and popping stars, and I shook my head, my fingers tenderly scouting out the wound.

When Richard groaned, I locked eyes with him, daring him to hold my gaze, and he stumbled backward a step, the pistol clattering at his feet as both hands clutched at his chest. In the distance, another figure joined us, sprinting across the gymnasium as I had done earlier, but my eyes never left Richard’s, pinning him down as he staggered, one of his knees collapsing beneath him. He wheezed, lips pulling back in a tight grimace, his eyelids fluttering closed with the pain. He struggled with his last, uneven breath, the black grip on his heart squeezing harder with each passing second. I knew his foolish lips would be moist with silent words, merely another roaming soul.

But then — his eyes sprung open impossibly wide, the whites of his eyes shining brighter than his suddenly pallid countenance, and my brow furrowed as his lips rounded. Fear sparking and flying from his sloppy tongue and flashing eyes, Richard spluttered, his other knee giving way beneath him, and he shook his head with such trembling echoing throughout his body I couldn’t tell if it was stubbornness or true fear. I’d seen that look of shock upon an unsuspecting human face at the first sight of a ghost, but there was no way Richard was contorting in horror because he got spooked.

No. This was a primal reaction. True terror at the darkness descending upon him, claiming his soul at last, and with finality, in a voice cavernously quiet, compared to the blood pounding in my ears, he denied himself.

No sooner than his final sound had departed his lips that his eyelids grew heavy, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, and Richard slumped over on the floor, giving up the ghost.

My chest rising and falling with the rapid, shallow breaths my body was struggling to haul in, I twisted on my heel and took in the sight of his lover bent over Josh’s wounded shoulder. I hobbled to their sides and carefully eased myself onto the mat beside Josh. Weaving my fingers through his, I offered him half a soft smile, the pain beginning to creep into the back of my mind, my teeth starting to tingle.

Josh turned bleary eyes to mine. “You look like hell.”

I snorted and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, my tongue slippery with the thick blood trickling down my throat. “Takesh one to knuh one.”

“We need to—” Josh broke off to roar behind clenched bars of his pearly whites as his lover kept pressure on the the wound. “—get to the hospital.”

I nodded in agreement, glancing at his lover, and signalled to him to get help, replacing his hand at Josh’s shoulder with my own. There was no way we were going to get to the hospital without his assistance, and honestly, I expected both of us to succumb to shock soon and slip into unconsciousness.

His lover leapt to his feet and pushed through the slats of the rubber fence, coming to a harsh halt at the sight of Richard, and he glanced back at me, fright dancing in his eyes. I waved my hand at him. It was hardly the time for explanation.

“Guh.” I urged him, my vision beginning to grow fuzzy around the edges.

“What was it?” Josh prodded, struggling to lift his head, but I forced his forehead back down, positioning myself so his head could rest in my lap, his lips twitching with a grateful smile.

“It’sh thuh boduh of Mistuh Greene.” My frown deepened as my lips and tongue slurred the words bubbling and gurgling through the bloodied mess. “He’sh dead.”

Josh focused his green eyes on me, attempting to study my face through the dark veil falling over him, and his face screwed up into a questioning frown. I shook my head with two quick jerks to discourage continuing this far from urgent conversation, and I gave his hand another gentle squeeze. My eyes surrendered at last to the beckoning black night, finally coming to a close.

Next Chapter: VII. Epilogue