“It’s me,” I said.
“Bloody hell,” Moab said. He covered his mouth but kept his eyes on my name.
A church bell rang somewhere in the city. I flinched. My mouth went dry. All I could see was Catherine, standing just beyond the gate, hair slicked to her cheek, lips parted like she was about to sing.
Celeste’s hand landed on my shoulder. “Feel it?”
I nodded. “It’s moving through me. Shaking my bones.”
Moab circled, eyes scanning the edges, as if expecting someone to bust us for loitering with intent to grieve. Scarlette stood by the path, arms crossed, face set in that hard skepticism of hers. But I could tell—she felt it, too.
I stayed there, palm pressed to stone, until the rain picked up. Then I stood, wiped my hand on my jeans, and turned to the others.
"This is the place," I said. My voice barely made it out.
Scarlette nodded, grudging respect in her eyes.
Celeste smiled, slow and sad. “You ready?”
I didn’t know, but I said yes anyway.
Moab peeled off, posted up under the nearest lamppost, arms folded. “Signal if you need,” he said, but his eyes didn’t leave me for long.
Scarlette paced a perimeter, her boots leaving dark prints on the mud. She gripped the knife at her belt like she could stab a ghost if it got close enough.
Celeste took her time. She circled the plot, letting the hem of her skirt brush the grass. Then she knelt down beside the headstone, hands flat to the ground. She breathed in slow, then out, a different rhythm than any of us, like she was syncing with the worms and moss.
I watched her, but mostly I watched the headstone. The name called to me. Not just “O’Toole,” but the old way: Sully O’Toole. I mouthed it, felt the shape of the name on my teeth. My heart knocked against my ribs like it wanted out.
“Want to do the honors?” Celeste asked. She slid a silver lighter across the grass, its surface etched with spirals and crosses. I recognized it from the clubhouse, a talisman she used when things got strange.
I took the lighter, flicked it open, and felt the smooth, worn metal. Celeste pulled out a bundle of dried something—sage ormugwort or just plain weeds—and wrapped it tight in a blue ribbon.
“Hold it steady,” she said. She lit the end. The smoke crawled up, sweet and sharp, nothing like cigarettes or bonfires.
She started to chant, low and steady. Not Latin, not anything I recognized. The sound vibrated up through my boots and into my teeth.
Scarlette snorted, but kept her distance.
Moab scanned the fence line, hands loose at his sides. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he believed in me.
I pressed my palm against the headstone again, ignoring the grit and slime. The memory surge hit so hard my knees buckled.
I was the old Sully, running through mud, Catherine’s name a bullet in my throat. I was dying and not dying, trying to reach her, trying to stay just long enough to say what I never could. I heard her voice, crystal-clear: “Don’t forget. I’ll find you.”
I snapped back. Celeste was still chanting, eyes half-shut. The smoke ribboned around us, bending in the wind, refusing to break.
Scarlette came closer. “There’s…something here.” Her voice barely carried. “Do you see that?”
She pointed at the grave, where the air shimmered like heat above asphalt. A trick of light, or maybe not. I reached into the haze, and the cold bit harder than any rain.
Moab gave a low whistle, but otherwise kept his mouth shut, approaching at a snail’s pace.
Celeste’s voice rose, then stopped, sudden as a car crash. The silence that followed was thick and total. She opened her eyes. Looked at me, then Scarlette, then the sky.
“This is the place,” she said. “The veil’s thinner than a razor here. I can feel it breathin’.”
The grave marker felt warm under my hand. The smoke faded, but the taste stayed on my tongue, like salt or tears.