“I already have a therapist,” Wallace snapped. “He does what I pay him for, and I have no complaints.”

  “Really?” Mei said. “No complaints. None whatsoever.”

  “Mei,” Hugo warned again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. She drank from her own tea. Her eyes widened slightly before she drank the rest in three huge gulps. “Holy crap, this is good.” She looked up at Wallace. “Huh. I didn’t expect that from you. Congrats.”

  Wallace didn’t know what she was on about and didn’t care to ask. That hook in his chest felt heavier, and though it tugged pleasantly, he was growing annoyed at the sensation. “I’m in the mountains.”

  “You are,” Hugo agreed.

  “There are no mountains near the city.”

  “There aren’t.”

  “Which means we’ve come a long way.”

  “You have.”

  “Even if you’re not the ferryman for everyone,” Wallace said, “how does that work? People die all the time. Hundreds. Thousands. There should be more here. Why isn’t there a line out the door?”

  “Most of the people in the city go to the ferrywoman in the city,” Hugo said, and Wallace was unnerved by how carefully he seemed to be choosing his words. “Sometimes, they get sent on to me.”

  “Overflow.”

  “Something like that,” Hugo said. “To be honest, I don’t always know why people such as yourself are brought to me. But it’s not my job to question the why. You’re here, and that’s all that matters.”

  Wallace gaped at him. “You don’t question the why? Why the hell not?” The why of things was Wallace’s specialty. It led to truths that some tried to keep hidden. He looked at Mei, who grinned at him. No help there. Nelson, though. Nelson was in the same boat as he was. Maybe he could be of some use. “Nelson, you’re—”

  “Oh no,” Nelson said, glancing at his bare wrist. “Would you look at the time. I do believe I’m supposed to be sitting in my chair in front of the fire.” He shuffled away toward the fireplace, leaning on his cane. Apollo trailed after him, though he glanced back at Hugo as if to make sure he was staying right where he was.

  That certainly didn’t make Wallace feel better. “Somebody had better give me some answers before I…” He didn’t know how to finish that.

  Hugo reached up and scratched the back of his neck. “Look, Wallace—may I call you Wallace?” Then, without waiting for an answer, “Wallace, death is … complicated. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through your head right now. It’s different for everyone. No two people are the same, in life or in death. You want to rant and rave and threaten. I get that. You want to bargain, make a deal. I get that too. And if it makes you feel better, you can say whatever you want here. No one will judge you.”

  “At least not out loud,” Nelson said from his chair.

  “You had a heart attack,” Hugo said quietly. “It was sudden. There was nothing you could have done to stop it. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know that,” Wallace snapped. “I didn’t do anything.” He paused. “Wait, how did you know how I…” He couldn’t finish.

  “I know things,” Hugo said. “Or, rather, I’m shown things. Sometimes it’s … vague. An outline. Other times, it’s crystal clear, though those are rare. You were clear to me.”

  “I expect I would be,” Wallace said stiffly. “Which makes this easier, because I don’t know how much clearer I can be. Send me back.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then find me someone who can.”

  “I can’t do that either. That’s not how it works, Wallace. A river only moves in one direction.”

  Wallace nodded, mind racing. He obviously wasn’t being heard. He wouldn’t find any help here. “Then I bid you good day, and request I be returned to the city. If you can’t help me, I’ll figure it out on my own.” He didn’t know how, exactly, but anything would be better than being here and hearing nothing but these three idiots talking in circles.

  Hugo shook his head. “You can’t leave.”

  Wallace narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying I’m trapped here? Keeping me against my will? That’s kidnapping. I’ll see you all brought up on charges for this, don’t think I won’t.”

  Hugo said, “You’re standing.”

  “What?”

  Hugo nodded toward the floor. “Can you feel the floor beneath your feet?”

  Wallace flexed his toes. Through the thin, cheap flip-flops, he could feel the pressure of the wood floor against the bottoms of his feet. “Yes.”

  Hugo lifted a spoon off the tray and set it on the counter. “Pick that spoon up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to. Please.”

  Wallace didn’t want to. He couldn’t see the point. But instead of arguing, he stepped back up to the counter. He stared down at the spoon. It was such a little thing. Flowers had been carved into the handle. He reached down to pick it up. His hands shook as his finger curled around the handle, and he lifted it.

  “Good,” Hugo said. “Now put it back down.”

  Grumbling under his breath, he did as he was told. “Now what?”

  Hugo looked at him. “You’re a ghost, Wallace. You’re dead. Pick it up again.”

  Rolling his eyes, he made to do just that. Only this time, his hand passed right through it. Not only that, his hand went into the countertop. There was a strange buzzing sensation prickling along his skin, and he gasped as he pulled his hand back as if it were burned. All his fingers were still attached, and the buzzing was already fading. He tried it again. And again. And again. Each time, his hand passed through the spoon and into the counter.

  Hugo reached out for Wallace’s hand, but stopped above it, hovering and coming no closer. “You were able to do it the first time because you’ve always been able to. You expected it because that’s the way it’s always worked for you. But then I reminded you that you’ve passed, and you could no longer touch it. Your expectations changed. You should have unexpected it.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all about your mind and how you focus it.”

  Wallace started to panic, throat closing, hands shaking. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “That’s because you’ve been conditioned your entire life to think one way. Things are different now.”

  “Says you.” He reached for the spoon again but jerked his arm up when it passed through it once more. His hand caught the teacup, knocking it over. Tea spilled onto the counter. He stumbled back, eyes wide, teeth grinding together. “I … I can’t be here. I want to go home. Take me home.”

  Hugo frowned as he came around the counter. “Wallace, you need to calm down, okay? Take a breath.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” Wallace cried. “And if I’m dead, why are you telling me to breathe? That is impossible.”

  “He’s got a point,” Mei said as she finished her second cup of tea.

  For every step Hugo took toward him, Wallace took an answering step back. Nelson peered around the edge of the chair, a hand resting on the top of Apollo’s head. The dog’s tail thumped, keeping time like a silent metronome.

  “Stay back,” he snarled at Hugo.

  Hugo raised his hands placatingly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I don’t believe you. Don’t come near me. I’m leaving, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “Oh no,” Mei breathed. She set down her teacup and stared at Wallace. “That’s definitely not a good idea. Wallace, you can’t—”

  “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” he shouted at her, and the light bulb in one of the sconces sizzled and snapped before the glass shattered. Wallace jerked his head toward it.

  “Uh-oh,” Nelson whispered.

  Wallace turned and ran.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The first obstacle was the door.

  He grabbed for the handle.

  His hand passed right through it.

  With a strangled yell, he jumped at the door. Through the door. He opened his eyes, finding himself on the porch of the tea shop. He looked down. All his bits and bobs still seemed to be attached, though the hook and cable were still there, the latter extending back into the tea shop. Something heavy moved thunderously toward the door, and he leapt from the porch, landing on the gravel. The stars stuttered in the sky above him, the trees more ominous than they’d been when he’d first arrived. They seemed to bend and sway as if beckoning him. He stumbled when he thought he saw movement off in the trees to his left, a great beast watching him, a crown of antlers atop its head, but it had to be a trick of the shadows because when he blinked, all he saw were branches.

  He took off down the road, heading back the way he’d come earlier with Mei. If he got to the village, he could find someone to help him. He’d tell them about the crazy people in the tea shop in the middle of the woods.

  The hook in his chest pulled sharply, the cable growing taut as it wrapped around his side. He almost fell to his knees. He managed to stay upright, flip-flops snapping against the bottoms of his feet. How on earth had he ever thought flip-flops were a good idea?

  He glanced back over his shoulder toward the tea shop in time to see Mei and Hugo burst out onto the porch, shouting after him. Mei said, “Of all the stupid things” just as Hugo said, “Wallace, Wallace, you can’t, you don’t know what’s out there—” but Wallace doubled down, running as fast as he could.

  He’d never been much of a runner, much less a jogger of any kind. He had a treadmill in his office, often walking long distances on it while on conference calls. He had time for little else, but at least it was something.

  He was surprised, then, to find that his breath didn’t catch in his chest, that no stitch formed in his side. Even wearing flip-flops didn’t seem to slow him down much. The air was strangely stagnant, thick and oppressive, but he was running, running faster than he ever had in his life. He glanced down in shock at his own legs. They were almost a blur as his feet met the pavement of the road that led to the village. He laughed despite himself, a wild cackle that he’d never heard himself make before, sounding as if he were half out of his mind.

  He looked back over his shoulder again.

  Nothing there, no one chasing after him, no one shouting his name, only the empty, dark road that led to destinations unknown.

  It should have made him feel better.

  It didn’t.

  He ran as fast as he could toward a gas station ahead, the sodium arc lights lit up like a beacon, moths fluttering around them. An old van sat parked next to one of the pumps, and he could see people moving around inside. He ran toward it, only stopping when he reached the automatic doors.

  They didn’t open.

  He jumped up and down in front of them, waving his arms.

  Nothing.

  He shouted, “Open the doors!”

  The man behind the counter continued to look bored, tapping on his phone.

  A woman toward the back of the store stood in front of a drink cooler, scratching her chin as she yawned.

  He growled under his breath before reaching out to pry the doors open. His hands went right through them.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Dead. Goddammit.”

  He walked through the doors.

  The moment he entered, the fluorescent lights in the store above him flared and buzzed. The man behind the counter—a kid with enormous eyebrows and a face dotted with dozens of freckles—frowned as he looked up. He shrugged before going back to his phone.

  Wallace smacked it out of his hands.

  At least he tried to.

  It didn’t work.

  He also tried to grab the man by the face with the same amount of success. Wallace recoiled when his thumb went into the man’s eye. “This is so stupid,” he muttered. He turned toward the woman in the back, still staring at the coolers. He went to her without much hope. She didn’t hear him. She didn’t see him. Instead, she picked out a two-liter of Mountain Dew.

  “That’s disgusting,” he told her. “You should feel ashamed. Do you even know what’s in that?”

  But his opinion went unnoticed.

  The automatic doors slid open, and Wallace ducked down when the clerk said, “Hey, Hugo. You’re out late.”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Hugo said. “Thought I’d pick a few things up.”

  Wallace tried to lean against a shelf of potato chips. He cursed when he fell back through them, blinking rapidly as he was inside the shelf. He jerked forward, ready to flee when the doors slid open again. He froze when the man behind the counter said, “Hey, Mei. Can’t sleep either?”

  “You know how it is,” Mei said. “Boss man’s up, so that means I’m up too.”

  The man could see her.

  He could see her.

  Which meant—

  Wallace had no idea what that meant.

  Before he could even begin to process this new information, a curious thing happened: bits of dust floated up around him.

  He frowned at them, watching as they rose before his face, heading toward the ceiling. The motes of dust were oddly colored, almost flesh-like. He reached out to touch a rather large flake, but his hand froze when he saw where the dust was coming from.

  His own arms.

  His skin was flaking off, bit by bit, the top layer of derma floating up and away.

  He yelped as he furiously brushed his arms.

  “Got you,” Mei said, appearing beside him. And then, “Oh crap. Wallace, we have to get you—”

  He leapt forward toward the coolers.

  Through the coolers.

  He yelled incoherently as he went through a row of soda, and then a wall of cement. He was outside again, on the side of the store. He ran his hands over his arms as his skin continued to flake. The hook in his chest twisted angrily, the cable running back into the wall he’d just rushed through. He ran around the back of the store. An empty field stretched behind it under a night sky that seemed infinite. On the other side was another neighborhood, the houses close together, some with lights on, others dark and foreboding. He took off toward them, still rubbing his arms frantically.

  He crossed the field and went between two houses. Music blared from the house on his right; the house to his left was silent and dark. He burst through the wall of the right house directly into a bedroom where a woman in a full-body suit of red leather slapped a riding crop against her palm, her attention on a man in footie pajamas who said, “This is going to be so awesome.”

  “Oh dear god,” Wallace croaked before backing out of the house slowly. He turned toward the street in front of the houses.

  He paused when his feet met pavement. He wasn’t sure where to go, and now the skin on his legs was flaking off through his sweats and off the top of his feet. His ears were ringing, and the world had taken on a hazy glow, the colors running together. The cable flashed violently, the hook shaking.

  He hurried down the sidewalk, wanting to get as far as he could. But it was as if the bottoms of his flip-flops had melted, sticking to the concrete. Each and every step was harder than the one before it, like he was moving under water. He grunted at the exertion. The ringing in his ears grew louder, and he couldn’t focus. He gritted his teeth as he tried to push through it. The fingernail from the pinkie of his right hand slid off and disintegrated.

  He curled his hand into a fist as he looked up. There, standing in the middle of the street, was a man.

  But he was wrong, somehow, off in ways that turned Wallace’s skin to ice. The man was hunched over, his back to Wallace, his shirtless torso covered in gray, sickly skin, his spine jutting out sharply. His shoulders shook as if he were heaving. His pants hung low on his hips. His sneakers were scuffed and dirty. His arms hung boneless at his sides.

  A chill ran down Wallace’s spine even as he took another step, everything in him screaming to back away, to run before the man turned around. He didn’t want to see what the man’s face looked like, sure it would be just as terrible as the rest of him. All sound seemed muffled, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. When he spoke, it sounded like it came from someone else, his voice cracking. “Hello? Are you … can you hear me?”

  The man’s head snapped up as his arms twitched. On either wrist, angry welts rose the length of his forearms, making a T shape.

  He turned around slowly.

  Wallace Price was clinical to an almost inhuman degree. Details were his job, the little things others might have missed, something said in passing in a deposition or during intake interviews. And it was this attribute that caused him to catalogue each and every bit of the man before him: the dull, dead hair, the open mouth with blackened teeth, the horrifying, flat look in his eyes. The thing was shaped like a human, but he looked feral, dangerous, and if Wallace had felt fear before, it was nothing compared to what roared through him now. A mistake. He’d made a mistake. He should’ve never tried to speak to this … this thing, whatever it was. Even as his skin continued to rise around him, Wallace tried to take a step back.

  His legs didn’t work.

  The stars blotted out until all Wallace knew was the dark of night, shadows stretching around him, reaching, reaching.

  The man moved toward him, but it was awkward, as if the joints in his knees were frozen. He rocked from side to side with each step. He raised an arm, all fingers pointed toward the ground except one that was trained on Wallace. He opened his mouth again but no words came out, only a low animalistic grunt. Wallace’s mind whited out in terror, and he knew, he knew that when the man touched him, his skin would be thin like paper, dry and catastrophic. And though he’d been told God didn’t exist, Wallace prayed then, for the first time in years, a dying gasp of a thought that arced through his head like a shooting star:!!HELP ME OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!

  Movement then, sudden and quick as Hugo appeared between them, his back to Wallace. Relief like Wallace had never felt before bowled through him, knocking violently through his ribcage. The cable had shrunk to only a couple of feet, extending from Wallace around to Hugo’s chest.