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He was murmuring about his robe. “. . . was my abuela’s. Abuelita gave it to me in DR when I walked in with a busted lip. I was seven and it was my third fight in three weeks. She said it would protect me from bad vibes and stupid people.”

Persephone’s eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow.

“You asked me before,” Ruben continued, “why I didn’t have friends. I was shy, but really it was what the other kids thought

about my mom. Her being a diviner. And not only the other kids, but their parents. Not everyone, just enough. I used to fantasize

about having the kind of powers they accused me of having. Making it storm over their heads or tossing them down the hall

with hurricane winds. But then I thought, whatever . I’ve got my art. My books. My mom. You want to hear something funny? My mom thought I had so many friends. I told her I

had loads but just didn’t bring them around because... because...” He paused and said, in the barest whisper, “I made

her think the divination stuff embarrassed me. I made her think she embarrassed me.”

“Shit shit shit! Funny, talk to me. Funny? ”

“He was going to let us go,” said John.

“He could show up tomorrow. He could show up next week.”

“And now he will, considering you put a bullet in his foot. She needs a hospital.”

Parker’s gaze darted repeatedly to the rearview mirror, and each time the car swerved as if drunk off his fear, all their

fears. John turned to see a pair of headlights in the not-far-enough distance.

“Parker, don’t be a fool. She needs a doctor.” But Parker didn’t respond and John was every millisecond terrified that each

tiny slice of time would be the last one Persephone and the boys spent living. If Persephone had been at full strength when

she’d been shot, if she hadn’t done that last Overlay... because she wasn’t supposed to... He hadn’t wanted her to...

Somehow, he had to save her.

The night lit up blue and red and white.

Ruben shouted, “Police behind us!”

Why the surprise? They were going over a hundred miles an hour.

Ruben ran a hand through his mohawk. “This is so freaking bad! At least Parker looks white—John, you and me should duck before

they open fire.”

“Parker,” John said.

“Dude!” cried Ruben. “Just pull over.”

“If you stop,” John said, “they’ll take her to a hospital.”

Parker’s eyes glittered, but he shook his head.

“We’ll get this sorted,” John continued, “but if you keep up, she’ll die. You and Ruben might die, too.”

The car burst onto a main road and Parker took a hard left, sending Ruben and Persephone into the door.

“Parker—” The edges of the world fattened. Sound was sucked from the universe. Not now, not now.

And just as quickly, the world came up for air.

“I can’t stop!” Parker shouted. “The goddamn gun isn’t registered!”

... The world phased out,

sound ebbed and flowed...

“John,” Ruben said from the back seat, “you—you’re hardly there. I can barely see you.”

“ You have to help her! ” Parker shouted.

If John wanted to save Persephone, he’d have to do something. Now. He raised his left hand to place it onto Parker’s shoulder

but it fell through. He tried again. It wasn’t working.

Parker was driving faster than ever and it was evident from the swerving that controlling the car was becoming increasingly

difficult. A horn blared, but he pushed the Cadillac harder. “You gotta have something, right? Powers?”

So pitiful, so sad, his desperation.

But John was desperate, too. He squeezed shut his eyes, tried to call from some unknowable inner place the strength to be

able to touch something, just once more. He opened his eyes and glared at Parker’s shoulder and willed himself to make contact.

John reached forward. And felt it. The fleeting sensation of hard muscle beneath his palm.

“Come on, man,” Parker howled. “You have to be able to do something! She’s—” Parker slammed his palm against the steering wheel and sobbed, “What the fuck good are you? What fucking good?”

Hurtling to the right.

Hurtling to the left.

But John, ghostly and not absolutely subject to the rules of physics, remained upright, his hand still on Parker’s shoulder

as Parker swayed in his seat. And then his hand floated through Parker’s body. The brief moment of contact was over.

The sound of metal scraping metal as Parker hit a guardrail. A horrible, unnatural sound.

“John!” Ruben’s voice.

“Shit!” Parker.

Metal again.

John turned. The police vehicle fell back.

John asked himself why they’d changed plans just as a swirl of red, blue, and white lights shone through the windshield.

A line of police cars sat blocking the road, and Parker wasn’t slowing down.

31

John had no expectation as to what would happen afterward.

He knew only that he had to do something . The most difficult thing about this predicament was that there really wasn’t anything to do. Yell? Beg? Demand? Yet the

line of Christmas lights was growing close, and if nothing was done, Persephone, Ruben, and Parker were going to die.

Parker cursed.

Ruben screamed.

Persephone’s head lolled from side to side.

And John did something:

He hurtled himself into the driver’s seat, into the space Parker occupied.

He felt nothing at first, but continued to do his best to align himself completely with Parker’s body—back, arms, hands, feet.

There was a faint warming within. John tried to slam his foot against the brake but succeeded only in repeatedly running his foot through Parker’s own and through the brake itself.

He fought to realign, and the warming inside grew into a gentle wind, into an electric surge, and one moment John saw the grisly backs of Parker’s eyes and the next it was as if John was seeing through Parker’s eyes, they were so near-perfectly aligned.

The line of police lights grew nearer, a glittering ribbon of death for Persephone, for Ruben, for Parker. And a great question

for John.

He felt a surge of exchanged energy, though there was a brutishness in the exchange, nothing like the familiar sensation he’d

felt with Persephone and Ruben. This energy he was taking .

John wrapped his ghostly fingers around the steering wheel.

Leather. Firm. Unforgiving.

He yanked the wheel to the left. Hard.

And then he felt nothing again.

32

Each second

a minute

an hour...

Time nonexistent.

Eternity

to contemplate

how he’d gotten

here,

to this (nonexistent)

moment.

33

Persephone and Ruben and Parker and John churned within the tiny compartment of the car as it spun through space.

The orphanage... the Grey House... the Ocean of Memories... Mabel... the Grey Man... Persephone... Ruben...

Hannah and William and Jin Mi and Bean and the smell of rain in the morning and the silhouette of palm trees against the violet

blush of a darkening sky and the sharp tang of ginger and the sickening stench of french fries—

Weightlessness.

Just after the Cadillac tore into the tall-grassed field to hit the perfect bulge in the ground that would launch them into

space and eternity...

34

After the Cadillac flew up and rolled over several times across the field, a frightening stillness enveloped the car. All

was dark, as if the universe were holding its breath.

Below, the ceiling curved, rocking gently against the grass spread in all directions. Above, seats hung, seat belts dangling

helplessly. John reflexively sniffed for petrol, any hint of leaking car fluids, recalling countless auto explosions on television.

Fries, only the perpetual miasma of fries.

A groan. Parker curled over, face smeared with blood.

“Persephone,” John whispered. “Ruben.”

He turned to find them sprawled across the car’s ceiling. Blood ran from Ruben’s nose and across both his cheeks; Persephone

was paper white, abrasions across her face and the jagged hole in her blood-drenched shirt growing wetter still. Neither moved,

but both breathed. John drew close.

Parker groaned again.

“Parker,” John said, “can you hear me?”

“Funny... Funny...” Parker attempted to pull himself up but couldn’t manage and held up his arm instead, as if to ask

for help.

John reached forward, wondering if he and Parker would make contact. They did not. Persephone and Ruben were... too still.

Parker coughed and pushed himself up from the car’s roof and scrabbled to his sister.

John said, “I don’t know if you should move them.” Because wasn’t there something about not moving someone who might have

a neck or spinal injury, something about making it worse...?

Ruben let out a wheeze.

“Ruben,” said John, “can you hear me?” Ruben’s breaths were thin and ragged and it did not look good. John hurriedly lay on

his back and contorted his right arm as much as possible so that it aligned with Ruben’s, which was twisted at an angle too

unnatural to match completely. John didn’t know if it would work, but he would try. When most everything was in place, he

closed his eyes and rested his head. Ruben, hang on, just hang on. All the energy you’ve given me, you’ve got to take it. You’ve got to take it back. John waited.

There.

It began at the base of John’s spine, a gentle brush, a lazy breeze that radiated outward. It filled him with something like

a rush of adrenaline, but just as quickly, he felt the depletion in his limbs, in every phantom bone and muscle in his body,

even as his heart felt full with equal parts joy and sadness, life and death. So this was the bittersweetness Ruben and Persephone

felt when they shared with him such an essential part of themselves.

Ruben grunted and John waited a few more seconds before scrambling up to hover over him. The boy took a breath, smooth and

clean. Reversing the Overlay had worked.

“Dude,” he said, weakly, “I felt it. It was like the regular Overlay but... different.”

Because this time Ruben had been on the receiving end of all that energy; it wasn’t so much an exchange, John realized, but

rather a gift.