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“It’s the third time you’ve been on his show—it’s good, John, trust me.” Hannah rested her elbows on her desk.

“But another appearance on Lee Kingston just to say we haven’t found anyone?” The search was tedious business, thanks to the issue of

everyone perceiving John a bit differently, but it had become abundantly clear to the team that his Ghanian uncle from the

UK wasn’t, after all. In a sense, John was glad, a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of meeting someone with whom he might have

been close, but also he was deflated because this person would have been his best chance of finding his House.

“We keep people talking so they don’t forget. Speaking of which, Jin Mi, do you want to show John the merch?”

“Should I brace myself?” John asked.

“Oh my gosh,” said Jin Mi, “that first batch was wtf bad. I specifically emailed the one Asian girl on the team and was like,

why are you embarrassing us?”

“You know her?”

“We get drinks. She used to date my spin instructor’s boyfriend’s brother. Long story.” Jin Mi brought over a large box and

took out a t-shirt, true x john emblazoned across the front in clean sans serif.

“I got her to convince the team to do a whole do-over. These are the new mock-ups. No more graffiti. Or papyrus font, which

omg no.”

She also revealed pastel-sleeved water bottles, baseball caps, and mugs, all of which whisper-shouted in a minimalist aesthetic: true x john . The mugs had the words written repeatedly around their circumference, a mantra for those who might miss the message were

it stated only once.

John turned to Hannah. “And why do we need all these things?”

“People like freebies, and when we give it to them they don’t care that they’re walking billboards.”

“Whatever works?”

“Working is all that matters, my friend. Ever. As for the search, at least people are showing up, right? They’re crazy, but

they’re people.” Packed inside Hannah’s lopsided smile, an I told you so. She looked down at her mobile. “You’ve got to be kidding me... OK, there’s been a change, but it’s nothing to freak out

about. The interview’s been bumped up.”

“It’s not happening?”

“Not bumped off, bumped up. As in, happening sooner.”

“How soon?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Remember that possible something I told you about? She claims to be your cousin, so we put her through

the usual.”

A lilting in his chest. A pang of fear. John tried to logic his way through his conflicting emotions. This was what he wanted,

what he’d waited for, and anyway, he could maintain a certain distance from whomever. They would help him find his home; that was the important thing. He swallowed. “And?”

Hannah stared down at her mobile again, shaking her head. “She just passed her third lie detector test.”

2

They were two commercial breaks in when John began to regret the appearance.

Most of his apprehension was due to the possibility that Mabel might turn out to not be the real thing, and he’d be as far from finding the Grey House as he ever was.

Then there was the part of himself that feared Mabel might be exactly who she said she was, and they’d be forced to have a dramatic reunion before the eyes of the world.

“John, ladies and gentlemen,” said Lee Kingston, “introducing Mabel Tanner, the woman the world’s been waiting for.”

John stood and tried to look expectant, hopeful. Zen. But then he took one look at her and stepped so far back he ended up

knee-deep in the middle of the sofa.

Because it was her .

The woman in the ocean who’d floated past the Grey House.

3

There was no single glimpse into Mabel Tanner’s life, this diminutive sixty-four-year-old Black woman with shoulder-length,

fluffy red hair and thin, bone-like limbs, but a bombardment of a multitude of moments, thousands of lives’ worth, flashing

furiously through John’s mind’s eye, too numerous to discern.

“John?” Lee grinned from behind his desk. “You recognize Mabel.”

John sat, taking in the stray red hairs at Mabel’s crown, her large, keen eyes, her floral dress, and her short red-lacquered

fingernails. She was wearing entirely too much rouge. The overall effect was that of a child playing in her grandmother’s

clothes.

She fanned herself. “This is something. Really something. A lot to process.”

“Is that why you didn’t come forward when John first appeared?”

“You can’t just spring things on people.” She turned to John. “They might not understand where you’re coming from.”

John stared at her small ears, her pointy chin. Had he imagined her in that ocean? Or was she, like he, dead, only no one

had figured that out? And yet her heeled steps were audible and she’d taken those lie detector tests. If she were a ghost,

it wouldn’t have been possible.

“John?”

“Yes?”

“She asked if you understand about her not coming forward.”

“Right. No, I don’t mind—yes, I understand.”

“Mabel,” said Lee, “is there anything you can remember about John? Any anecdotes? Don’t worry, brotha, I’m sure she won’t

embarrass you too much.”

John couldn’t stop seeing the ashen version of Mabel floating in the ocean beyond the window.

“Well,” she said, “John was always quiet. We’re cousins, but”—she looked to Lee earnestly—“remember, I said we’re distant

cousins, so, you know, we didn’t see each other all the time. Anyway, John, you were four or five or maybe six, and there

was this little swing that you just loved—plus a red bicycle. All you wanted to do. That and eat. You were always ready to

eat.”

She could be rattling off vague answers she’d already given during the vetting process. But if what she was saying was true,

he’d soon have a location, a city or town that might hold the Grey House.

“Mabel,” said Lee, “you know everyone’s probably wondering why John doesn’t sound like a Southern boy. I mean, he sounds kinda

British, right?”

“John’s family was British, but to make a long story short, he and his aunt moved out near Atlanta when I was younger and

he was just a baby.”

“Before we go to commercial, I want to squeeze in one more question, so a quick answer if you can. Where were John’s parents?”

She flashed a tiny smile at the audience and looked at John, her gaze searching his own.

Lee prompted, “Mabel?”

In a lower voice (and one that was slightly less Southern, John couldn’t help noticing) she said, “Mr. Kingston, that’s something

I should discuss with John privately.”

Lee grinned. “Of course.” But it was obvious to John, now that he knew how to read Lee, that the host was peeved about losing

an opportunity to jerk another tear or two from the audience.

They went to commercial break.

Mabel leaned toward John. “I really do hope we can talk later. You’ve been through a lot, and I think family wisdom counts

for something.”

Were you there?

“Sometimes,” she went on, “the worst things are things we do to ourselves. And we don’t even know it.”

John glanced at Lee, who was blank faced and rifling through cards on his desk, but John was certain he was listening. He

only hoped Mabel wouldn’t say anything the talk show host could use against him later.

“Sometimes,” she continued, “we just need someone watching our back.”

Theme music wafted through the studio, signal that the last commercial was wrapping, and in moments, live again, Lee said,

“You’re protective of John.” He had been listening. “But you know there are going to be lots of nonbelievers out there. I

mean, obviously we can’t DNA-test you guys. Is there anything you know that only John would know, that can prove you’re who

you say you are?”

Mabel paused and looked as if she were considering something. “John got cut up pretty bad by an older boy. He probably still

has a scar—I’d be surprised if he didn’t. But maybe he doesn’t, on account of him bein’ a ghost and all. These kinds of things—I

imagine they’re very complicated.” Her Southern accent was in full force, now.

“John?” said Lee. “Do you? Still have the scar?”

“It was that arm,” Mabel said, pointing to John’s left.

John held his arms forward. “I can’t roll up my—”

But peeking from the edge of his jacket’s left sleeve, so thin he hadn’t ever noticed it before, was a shiny sliver of a line.

4

The second the show was over, Hannah and co.

rushed the stage to corral John and lead him away.

Aside from acknowledging that there was, indeed, a scar, John said hardly a word for the last two minutes of the interview, though he’d planned to speak privately with Mabel back in the dressing room; however, they went straight into the parking garage and the black Navigator without stopping even once.

Hannah settled into her seat, and when the door shut behind them, she grinned. “I think America fell deeper in love.”

“Hannah,” John said as they pulled off, “I need to talk to her. The scar, the bicycle...” The red bicycle floating on its

side in that dark ocean water, discarded, forgotten, had been his. He’d loved it once.

“I have her contact, John. We can talk to her later—”

“I need to talk to her now .”

Silence.

“She’s the real thing. She’ll have answers to my questions. But you’re walking away. Why?” He straightened. “Not ready to

lose your best horse?”

William cleared his throat uncomfortably and dug out one of his mobiles from his pocket, and Jin Mi shifted her gaze to something

outside.

Hannah said, “She’s a stranger.”

“She could be family.”

“That fast and you’ve already gotten sentimental.”

“I don’t give a damn about sentimentality. If she knows anything about my House—”

“You really think she knows anything? She grabbed on to some very general things anyone could guess—” Hannah exhaled. “OK.

Let’s take a minute. Let’s focus on today’s win. Because it was good, John, it was really good.”

“That isn’t enough.”

“I don’t advise you to be alone with that woman.”

But they’d been alone already, in that other world, she in the ocean, he in the Grey House. “She can’t kidnap me. She can’t

hurt me.”

“There are plenty of ways to hurt someone, John.”

“As if you care.”