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It was in the way the air changed. It suddenly weighed more over my shoulders and pressed harder against my skin.

I raised my head, my mind clean of thoughts right away. The hair on the back of my neck had rose to attention, too, even though my eyes were telling me that there was nobody there.

The sun was preparing to set beyond the horizon. The sky was a deep grayish blue, and the cemetery was empty. Silent. Trees ahead, far beyond rows and rows of tombstones. Birds and crows calling in the distance.

Nobody was there.

Yet my muscles remained tight, my instincts alert, my mind clear of all the things I’d been thinking about for… how long have I been here ? I took the phone out of my pocket.

Three hours. I’d been at the cemetery sitting by Mom’s grave for the past three hours.

Betty had texted, freaked out but not all the way yet. Fi had, too, to ask me where I was. Just ten minutes ago, actually.

Nothing from Dad, though.

I texted back to tell Fi and Betty that I was on my way home.

“I imagine you’re disappointed,” I said to the tombstone. I’d always spoken to it when I came here alone. I don’t know why—it was a tombstone and Mom was dead, long gone, yet it came naturally to me to speak to her as if she could hear me. As if she was still there somewhere.

After all, she was the reason I believed in God and in Heaven because the idea that my mother, that her beautiful soul had simply ceased to exist when she died, that she was no longer anywhere at all, it was… no.

Impossible. I would never accept it. There was a Heaven up there, if only to provide a place for her to continue to exist. There was a Heaven, and she was in it.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The words weighed heavy on my shoulders. I had never apologized to her before, but this time I’d taken it way too far. This time, I’d fucked up for real. I’d made people come to our house and threaten Dad with a gun.

Too far.

“I won’t be coming back here for a little while, but I’ll visit as soon as I can,” I told the tombstone, and then that prickling on the back of my neck started again.

My thoughts, my guilt faded away for another moment, and I turned to look, certain I’d see someone there. Someone watching me. I felt their eyes on me as clearly as I felt the ground I sat on.

There was nobody there but trees.

“I’ve gotta go, Mom. It’s getting dark.” I pushed myself to stand up, my legs a bit numb, my eyes on my surroundings. I was no longer crying. “I’ll visit as soon as I’m back, I promise.”

I kissed my fingers almost absentmindedly and pressed them to the top of her tombstone.

My eyes remained on the trees ahead. “Bye, Mom. I love you.”

I turned, walked back a few feet toward the asphalted road that led to the entrance gates. I’d left my bike there like a fool and hadn’t taken it with inside. I’d wanted to walk for a bit, but the gates weren’t far. If I ran, I could get to them in a minute.

Don’t run, there’s nothing there, a voice in my head said, and I wanted to believe it. Except all my instincts said that I was being watched, but no matter how many times I spun around to look about me in all directions, I found no one. Just trees and darkness and crows and… movement.

My heart stopped and my lungs froze. Something moved behind the first row of trees to the far right of the road, beyond the graves. It moved fast, and it disappeared faster.

Of course, common sense would argue that it was an animal. The cemetery was on this hill surrounded by trees, and there were plenty of animals here.

Except I’d seen a face—a human face, a man’s face with flashing yellow eyes, and now I couldn’t bring myself to breathe deeply. All I was able to do was turn around and run, up the road and toward the gates as fast as my legs allowed.

One thought in my head— they found me. Those same men who’d threatened my dad the night before had found me here all alone, and they were going to come teach me a lesson. They were going to make me pay now for what I’d done, for slashing those fucking tires, and no amount of my regretting the entire night was going to change that.

They were coming.

My feet barely touched the asphalt. I didn’t see anything at all except the green bike I’d left to the side of the rusted bars of the gates that were always open and possibly hadn’t moved in years. My heart was beating everywhere in my body, and when I finally closed my hands around the rubber handles of my bike, I turned to look, certain I’d see people running for me. Pointing guns at me.

But the cemetery was empty, the sky grey. No movement in sight.

The sound of my own breathing filled my ears.

“Great. Now I’ve fucking lost it for real.”

Even so, I couldn’t stop myself from pedaling as fast as my legs could move.

People in the streets—the same people I’d seen at least once in my life. They were all from Lavender Hill, and logic said that seeing them should have made me feel safer, given me a sense of familiarity. It didn’t. I continued to look back every few seconds while I rode my bike, and I almost crashed half a dozen times into cars and fences.

People called me names, but for once I didn’t even care to understand what they were saying. For the first time in my life, for real, they didn’t matter.

It took about ten minutes to get back home, and by then the sky had turned completely dark, and my heart was still hammering. There was not enough air in the world for my burning lungs.

The bike ended up on the side of the driveway—I could put it in the garage later. I looked around at the houses, most lights on everywhere, and the lampposts illuminated the street, too.

Nobody there, nobody there, nobody there…

Only Dad’s truck was in the driveway in front of the garage door, no other. The lights were on in the kitchen and in the living room—everything was fine. I could see it.

But even so, my hand shook when I reached for the handle and opened the door.

I felt it even before I saw it—that same shift in the air. The energy waves that crashed onto me.

All was not fine, and I realized it even before the door opened all the way, and I saw the face of the man standing in the middle of my foyer.