Maria might have done some bad things. Mateo certainly thought she had.

Delilah wished she could talk to Maria, just one last time. To tell her she knew what Maria had done. What she’d given up.

She wished Maria had the chance to make a new life for herself, the way Delilah had. Maria would’ve done a better job of it.

If they could talk one last time, Delilah knew Maria would want to tell her she was sorry. Delilah would say she was sorry too. For being a bad friend. For letting herself get caught up in the stuff that didn’t really matter.

Delilah wanted to hug her. She wanted to hug everyone she’d ever known. To tell them they were all worth so much to her.

She wished she could tell Maria that it was all right. That she didn’t need to be sorry anymore. That she’d done something Delilah could never have had the strength to do.

She wished Maria were here, so she could tell her.

So she could tell her she understood.

Acknowledgments

I’ll write a retelling of Macbeth, I decided one evening. With ghosts. And gay people. Writing it will be fun! And easy!

I was right about the fun part. Easy, though? Not so much. Fortunately, I had a ton of help along the way.

Thank you to my agent, Jim McCarthy, whose edit letter for the first draft of this manuscript was full of insightful Shakespeare analysis, and who later helped As I Descended find a wonderful home at HarperCollins.

My amazing editor there, Kristen Pettit, is a genius who caught all the things that didn’t make sense (well, as much as anything makes sense in a world where characters are having prophetic conversations with twigs), and also helped make the words sound a thousand times better.

Also at HarperCollins, I am massively indebted to Elizabeth Lynch for all of her help, to Michelle Taormina for the utterly gorgeous jacket and design, and to Alexandra Rakaczki, Elizabeth Ward, Kara Brammer, Sabrina Abballe, and Gina Rizzo for helping to make this idea an actual published reality.

I workshopped this story at the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices under the guidance of the wonderful author and editor Katherine V. Forrest. Thanks are due to Ms. Forrest, the entire genre fiction workshop crew, and the Lambda Literary Foundation for everything they do for queer writers at all stages of their careers.

Thanks to my brilliant Spanish consultant, Dr. Nancy Levy-Konesky, and to my Spanish beta readers, Nadia and Holly.

Thank you to Marieke Nijkamp for an incredibly helpful and thoughtful beta read; to Anna-Marie McLemore, who read a very early draft and has been with me every step of the way since; and to my fabulous beta readers, friends, and de facto support group: Jessica Spotswood, Miranda Kenneally, Caroline Richmond, Lindsay Smith, Andrea Colt, Kathleen Foucart, and Tiffany Schmidt, for everything.