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the closest I could get to being born.

It was the closest I could get to

being an Answer.

22

“John? John?”

“John!”

It was dark.

John turned his head.

There was a car. Glaring brake lights.

The Cadillac.

“John!” Ruben called out, his head partially out the window. And then he made an illegal turn on the old road, drove a bit

past John, and pulled over onto the anemic shoulder. He hopped out. “Dude, we’ve been driving up and down this road forever.

Persephone thought she spotted you lying out. What are you doing?”

The expression in Ruben’s eyes was open, and John realized it wasn’t an awful way to live, having the complete inability to

hold a grudge.

“Hey,” said John.

“Hey yourself. Come on.”

That was it. It was perfect, as much of a makeup as John could ever tolerate.

When John got into the back seat, Persephone remained quiet. She’d called out to him a couple of minutes ago, but he got the

sense that now that it was clear he was all right, she felt safe enough to resume fuming. She took a swig of her bottled cold

brew.

“So,” said Ruben as he pulled back onto the road, “what were you doing out there?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Good. You’re rested.”

“Ghosts don’t get tired.”

“Sure.” Ruben paused. “You ready?”

“For what?”

“Well, we’re going out there, right? To find the towers?”

The moon peeked from a cloud and silvered the dark waves. “It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that? Of course it does!”

“I don’t mean I don’t care. I mean nothing is going to change the inevitable. Either the Grey Man is coming here to annihilate me or I’ll find my House with him in it, and he’s going to annihilate me. And if either of those things don’t happen, I’ll fade away into nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

The three rode in silence, and John should’ve been grateful for it, should have appreciated not having to explain himself

further, yet sitting in the Cadillac between them was a dense cloud of all that had and hadn’t been said earlier, when John

and Persephone had argued on the shore, when Ruben had—well, John didn’t imagine he’d forget the look on the boy’s face for

a long time. Nor should you , he told himself roughly.

“Why would you want to help me now, Ruben?”

“Because,” Ruben said softly, “that’s what friends do.”

John’s chest tightened and he felt a swell of gratitude for Ruben, and Persephone, too, though she was still, understandably,

stewing. John wanted to believe he—they—would find the portal to the Grey House and that the Grey Man would be waiting, and

that John would give him a real showdown, a confrontation that would make the creature regret ever coalescing. John wanted

to believe it was possible, and somehow, being with the two of them made him think maybe it was. He looked at Ruben and Persephone,

his two friends, his two anchors, and realized he had none of the apprehension he’d felt in the past. The thing about anchors

was they didn’t necessarily weigh one down; they offered stillness and strength. And, if need be, they could be lifted. John

didn’t have to see his connections to Persephone and Ruben as restraints, but rather tethers to something real. “Thanks. It’s

funny, I hated to have people stomping about my House. Now I’m bringing over guests.”

They laughed, but their laughter broke off when Persephone gasped. “Hold on!”

“What is it?” John asked.

“You’re saying there were people in your House? You mean when—like, in your afterlife?”

“Intruders. Not always, but even one time would be one time too many for me. Actually, right before I was ousted, they—”

“So it’s a real place! I mean, it’s still there! Right?”

Ruben smacked the steering wheel. “Right!”

Realization dawned on John, too, and before anyone could say another word, he was already dialing Mabel’s number.

23

John held his mobile and listened as the line on the other end rang.

“So when I did a search,” Ruben was telling Persephone, “for water towers around here in a large radius, I saw more than I

expected. We’re going to have to hurry. Drive by quick, see if John picks up on something. Move to the next.”

Mabel finally picked up.

“It’s still standing,” John said.

“Hello to you, too.” In the background the television droned, some game show. John’s irritation was fed by accelerants, the

grating buzzers and melodic dings sounding from her television.

“People walked around in the House. They were alive. They...” He trailed off because it never occurred to him until now

that he might have imagined them.

“Put it on speaker,” Ruben whispered.

John ignored him. They had certainly come together, a nice trio, Three Musketeers and all that, but engaging in conversations

that were the equivalent of stage plays was where he drew the line.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mabel said quietly.

“Of course it matters!”

“But it doesn’t. There was a fire. The orphanage wasn’t rebuilt.”

John exhaled, let down. He’d really thought they had something... And then he was struck by a terrible thought. “You mentioned

a fire, last time we spoke. Did... did I...”

“Oh, no. Though it’s a twist of fate, isn’t it?

” She sounded as if she were settling into a chair.

“You started a fire when you were twelve, locking those bullies in their room after setting fire to their trash can while they slept. But they were all right—they’d long before swiped their own key.

It was a wonder there wasn’t more damage to the building. ”

Had he really tried to kill those boys?

“I can hear you thinking,” she said. “I don’t think you meant it to go that far, don’t think you understood what could really

happen.” John couldn’t tell if she meant it or not, or if she was trying to ease her own mind. “You didn’t mean it.”

“Or perhaps I did.”

“Maybe,” Mabel conceded.

“What happened, after?”

“I sent you away to school. To Maryland.”

She sent him away. “And the other boys?”

Her silence said enough. They’d been permitted to stay.

“You were frightened of me.”

“I was frightened for you. I could see how full of rage you were. It wasn’t unwarranted, but it wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t good for you, hardly

ever seeing a Black face and having to deal with those ignorant terrors. I had my reasons.”

Her reasons. Frightened for him. No, he heard in her voice that he’d stated it correctly: frightened of him. How bad could he have been? And what had he grown into? His gaze darted around the road, as if expecting to catch fog

creeping out from the asphalt. He could see nothing but somehow knew it was not so far away, the fog. Perhaps it was always

near.

“Are you there? You aren’t a bad person—John, we make mistakes. And we should do our best to rectify them. It’s all we can

do in the end, especially if we have the chance to. We owe ourselves that much.”

“On the shore, you asked me if I might’ve put myself out of the House. I loved it there, but... do you think I might’ve?

Because of what happened, what I did, to the boys?”

“I can’t know,” Mabel said slowly. “You were right. The house was your home, and even after the incident, you didn’t want to leave. I don’t think you wanted to leave in death, either. Not exactly. But you ended up on this side, anyway.”

“So... he pushed me out?”

“I’m not sure about that... Maybe you fell out?”

“All of this, everything that’s happened, because I accidentally fell?” He didn’t believe it.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that’s probably what you have to find out.”

24

“So,” said Ruben, “we’re looking for your personal construction of the Grey House and you probably can’t get there by portal

but somehow something... in your mind will... just... get us there.” Ruben, who’d up to now done well at sounding

confident, released an exasperated sigh. “Well, we’ve got the water towers.”

“We don’t have water towers,” said Persephone.

“Not yet, but we’ll figure it out.”

Yet concentration was beginning to prove difficult. No matter where they drove, John’s nostrils were inundated with the rancid

stink of rotting french fries. The odor had overcome the cabin of the car, every corner of John’s mind. “You two don’t smell

that?”

The symphonic ringtone of Persephone’s mobile filled the cabin of the car. As before, she ignored it.

“Smell what?” Ruben asked.

“Fries.”

Ruben took a long sniff. “Hush puppies, maybe. And that dang tuna melt.”

Persephone’s mobile rang again, seemingly louder and more insistent than it had been before. Ominous.

Ruben said something, but John couldn’t make it out because the sound of Ruben’s voice, of the tires whirring across the asphalt, of Persephone’s mobile, all fattened and deepened, as if John were listening from underwater, and every image blurred until nothing, not the seats, not the dashboard, not the dark stretch of highway, not Ruben and Persephone themselves, were separate.

John blinked hard and the world snapped back into focus. Ruben was pulling into the car park of the Dairy Queen they’d visited

previously. He said something John couldn’t understand. John blinked again. Whatever was happening, it was because he was

close to finding the towers, the way into the Grey House. That was it.

He needed it to be it.

Ruben leapt from the car and dashed for the Dairy Queen entrance, and John inhaled as heavily as he could manage, trying to

determine if he might smell anything but rank potatoes. He could not. Whatever the cause, he sensed this development was very,

very bad.

“Persephone,” John began. It was too late. That he ever thought he’d had time to find his elusive Grey House and face down

the Grey Man was ludicrously funny. “I’m sorry. I—”

Ruben appeared outside the driver’s-side door and spoke through the partially opened window. “Bathroom’s flooded or something.”

He pointed across the street. “I’m gonna hit that Tex-Mex spot. It’ll be faster for me to just run across the highway. Be

right back!” And just like that, he was gone.