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In the place between sleeping and waking, Jennifer came to me. I heard her voice as surely as I had in those days when, unable to sleep or frightened by a bad dream, she would trek from her room to stand by my side and wake me from sleep with the touch of her hand.

daddy,she said,i made a mistake

I felt her fingers brush mine, in death as once in life. I saw the shoreline, and the waters in which the departed immersed themselves. Where Jennifer would sometimes sit, waiting for the day when I might join her, I glimpsed three figures, one taller and darker than the rest, its form indistinct, shimmering, threatening. This was what Jennifer had witnessed from her place of concealment, and she wanted me to witness it too.

i should have hidden myself better

The tallest of the three stepped forward, its features transforming from the indistinct to the defined without remaining fixed on any one aspect, as though a multiplicity of identities resided within a single being, each seeking precedence and each failing. Some I knew by name or sight, while others seemed familiar without my being able to recall precisely why. But what they had in common, either remembered or sensed, was that all had caused me harm. Briefly, the features becamethose of the Traveling Man, he who had taken Jennifer and her mother from me, before finally settling on one face.

My face.

Jennifer’s voice broke in sorrow.

i should have hidden us both