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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

‘Oh.’ Now Dev looks confused and I know what she’s thinking – I haven’t left her side since New Year’s Eve so how could she have met someone?

‘Ash’s girlfriend from before,’ Esen clarifies, waiting for the penny to drop.

When it does, Dev’s eyes widen. ‘Before before?’

Esen nods.

‘Shit,’ she mutters under her breath. ‘Wait. Hang on. You,’ Dev points at Poppy then at me, ‘are her girlfriend?’

‘I was,’ Poppy says pointedly. ‘Until she faked her own death.’

‘Faked?’ It takes Dev a moment, then she turns to Esen. ‘You haven’t told her yet?’

‘Told me what?’ Poppy asks, gaze flitting between the three of us.

‘And she,’ Dev looks at Poppy and points at me again, ‘looks the way she always has?’

‘Of course.’ Poppy shrugs, foot tapping. ‘Who else would she look like?’

‘Oh.’

That’s all Dev says: Oh.

Not quite the explanation I was hoping for and I can tell by the look on her face that it isn’t good.

‘Oh,’ she says again, then turns to Esen, her frown even deeper now. ‘Oh no.’

Esen nods, exhaling heavily through her nose as the two of them turn to look at me.

‘Oh God, Ash. I’m so sorry,’ Dev says with a sad sigh.

‘It’s OK,’ I say with a shrug and I don’t even know why I say that because it isn’t OK.

It’s the farthest thing from OK.

‘So?’ Poppy says then, looking between us. ‘Can one of you tell me what the hell is going on?’

Sixteen

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SIXTEEN

I tell Poppy everything. Everything I know, anyway. Everything Deborah told me that night I woke up on the sofa in the bookshop. About me being hit by the car outside the mini-mart. About how I was the last person to die on New Year’s Eve. About the legend. About being a grim reaper.

Saying it out loud sounds even more ridiculous, as though we’re sitting around a campfire, telling Poppy about the patient that escaped from the insane asylum who now lives in this cemetery. She doesn’t laugh, though. She doesn’t laugh or cry or tell me that I’m mad. She listens, her eyes getting wider and wider as she turns the ring on her thumb – the silver one with the red heart-shaped stone with a dagger going through it – around and around and around until I’ve run out of ways to tell her – to explain – and I have to wait and see if she believes me. If she’s going to ask the question we’re all asking ourselves, but none of us wants to be the first to say it.