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“Let me guess,” Jin says. “It’s the one full of photos and busts of James Monroe, fifth president of the United States?”

I smile. “That would be interesting. It’s Marilyn Monroe. Very sixties glam. The decor is from when the place was a bed-and-breakfast, with themed rooms. When Anton was little, it was the room he stayed in with his brother, so that’s where we always stayed.…” I clear my throat. “Anyway, Dr. Cirillo said I should use that one, if it’s not too hard on me.”

“Speaking of Dr. Cirillo, have you heard from him?” Shania asks as she carries in her duffel.

I check my phone. “Seems he texted an hour ago. He landed in Detroit safely. It might take a while to get through the border, but he expects to be here by seven. He said he’ll grab dinner on the way, so don’t wait for him.”

“We’re getting dinner delivered, right?” Jin says. “A neighbor?”

“Yep.” I run a hand through my hair, shaking it out after the drive. “Lunch and dinner will be provided by Mrs. Kilmer. She lives at the end of the road. We passed her place. She has a standing arrangement with the latest owner. Anton and I had her cook for us the last time we were here, and I was glad to hear she was still doing it.”

We head back outside to grab more stuff. Besides my CF supplies, I also brought groceries, for breakfast and snacks. And cocktail hour. Dr. Cirillo asked us not to drink past dinner—so we weren’t tipsy for the séances—but cocktails at five were fine.

After we take that all in, I go back out for Anton’s ashes. I’d tucked the box into a nook in the trunk, so no one would pull it out accidentally. As I shut the trunk, I glance toward the house, where Jin and Shania are talking in the open doorway.

I’m not eager to brush past them with this box. It feels macabre to bring it, but it also feels… private.

I call that I’m going to check around back. Then I slip to the side, where a wrought-iron fence stretches along the front of the gardens. The fence is a bit of a conceit when there’s nothing except that front section. Anton said it’d stretched around the gardens when he was young, but the sides had been in disrepair, and at some point the back toppled over the eroding cliff edge. One of the subsequent owners removed the sides and left the front section up, including the gate.

While the fence doesn’t actually fence anything in, I still close the gate behind me. Cobblestones carve paths into the overgrown gardens, and I tread with care, those stones being uneven from frost upheaval. I soon find my footing and keep going until I reach the caution tape that’s been strung along the cliff edge.

My gaze goes left, to a spot where the tape dips down. That’s the path Anton showed me, and that dip in the tape suggests others have found it, pushing down the flimsy barrier to climb over.

I step up to the cliff and look out. Waves lap at the bottom. The water is calm, no whitecaps in sight.

I stand there, holding the box in both hands.

“No boats today,” I murmur. “Sunny and gorgeous. It’s going to be one hell of a sunset.”

I lift the box, as if I’m showing Anton the view. I remember the first time I stood here with him, his arm around my waist, as we gazed out over the lake. We’d just gotten together as a couple, and I’d been so damned happy. Happy and in a bit of shock.

Anton and I attended the same high school, but only for a year before my family moved to Toronto. Then Anton came to Toronto for work, and we’d met through what I presumed was an accident, though at his death he’d confessed otherwise.

When he asked me to coffee, I expected it’d be an awkward reunion, both of us spitting out names as prompts to joint memories. Then we’d go our separate ways and vow to “keep in touch,” which neither of us would until we bumped into each other again.

Except the reunion hadn’t been awkward. And wehadkept in touch.

One coffee date became two and then three and finally actual dates, which brought us to his family’s old lake house, at the point in our relationship where we were both feeling like it was something.

“It was,” I whisper, clutching the box. “It was a big something. I love you so damn much, Anton, and—”

A frisson tingles down my arms, almost like a shock, and I fumble the box. My heart leaps into my throat, my brain imagining the box tumbling over the cliff, me jumping after it before I realize what I’ve done. But I only fumble it.

I step back from the edge, holding the box in one hand as I shake the other. The memory of that electrical shock returns, and I glance down, as if half expecting to see I’d stepped on a fallen live wire.

Nothing.

I rub my arm. My brain wants to jump on that jolt as a sign that Anton is here, but that was no lover’s touch. It was a shock, the unpleasantness of it lingering long after the physical sensation faded.

I lift the box. It happened while I was holding it in both hands. Did I conduct a jolt of energy? Yeah, no. My degree might be in software engineering, but I know enough about science to realize that a wooden box is not a conductor.

Whatever it was—

“Looks like a storm’s coming,” a voice says behind me.

I jump so fast my feet tangle. Shania lets out a squeak and lunges, as if I’m about to topple off the cliff.

Waving her off with a laugh, I gesture to the three feet between me and the edge. “Even I can’t stumble that far. What’s that about a storm?”