Nick kept rubbing his face. “This chocolate—I can’t get it off my face. It’s like it’s tattooed there.”

“It is,” Lief said. “It’s how you died.”

“What?”

“It’s just like your clothes,” Lief explained. “It’s a part of you now.”

Nick looked at him like he had just pronounced a life sentence. “You mean to tell me that I’m stuck with a chocolate face, and my father’s ugly necktie until the end of time?”

Lief nodded, but Nick wasn’t ready to believe him. He reached for his tie, and tried to undo it with all his strength. Of course, the knot didn’t give at all. Then he tried to undo the buttons on his shirt. No luck there, either. Lief laughed, and Nick threw him an unamused gaze.

The more frustrated Nick and Allie became, the harder Lief worked to please them. He brought them to his tree house, hoping it might bring them out their sour mood. Lief had built it himself out of the ghost branches that littered the ground of the dead forest. He showed them how to climb up to the highest platform, and when they got there, he pushed them both off, laughing as they bounced off tree limbs and hit the ground. Then he jumped and did the same, thinking they’d both be laughing hysterically when he got there, but they were not.

For Allie the fall was the most terrifying moment she ever had to endure. It was worse than the crash, for that had been over so quickly, she had no time to react. It was worse than the Greyhound bus passing through her, because that, too, had come and gone in a flash. The fall from the tree, however, seemed to last forever. Each branch she hit jarred her to the core. Jarred her, but didn’t hurt her. Still, the lack of pain made it no less terrifying. She screamed all the way down, and when at last she smashed upon the hard earth of the dead forest with a hearty thump, she felt the wind knocked out of her, only to realize there was never actually any wind in her to knock out. Nick landed beside her, disoriented, with eyes spinning like he just came off a carnival ride. Lief landed beside them, whooping and laughing.

“What’s wrong with you?” Allie shouted at Lief, and the fact that he still laughed when she grabbed him and shook him made her even angrier.

Allie put her hand to her forehead as if all this was giving her a killer headache, but she couldn’t have a headache now, could she, and that just made her all the more aggravated. The rational part of her mind kept wanting to lash out, telling her that this was all a dream, or a misunderstanding, or an elaborate practical joke. Unfortunately her rational mind had no supporting evidence. She had fallen from a treetop and had not been hurt. She had passed through a Greyhound bus. No, her rational mind had to accept the irrational truth.