Reassured by the silence, Malachi’s shoulders drooped back into the sloped posture I remembered, and his hands went into his pockets. No, he was no threat. I relaxed too, and followed him with my eyes, then with careful feet. I made my steps match his, staying a few stones back. I was not afraid of losing him. I knew where he was going. We both stopped near his father’s grave. Our father’s grave.

Even in my head, I didn’t like the sound of that. His father, then. My sperm donor.

He sat cross-legged in front of the stone, holding his chin in his hands. I was glad he had no light—he might have noticed the freshly bent grass where I’d trampled the same spot.

Malachi ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his face, and returned his chin to his palms. I half expected him to start talking, either to himself, his dad, or to God, but he did not indulge. Instead he sat there with his head cocked as if he was paying very close attention to something I couldn’t hear.

Now I was annoyed with us both—me for following him and not leaving sooner, and him for sitting there like an idiot.

Suddenly his head jerked up. “Where?” he asked, his voice louder than before. He swiveled his storklike head, nose in the air. “Where?” he asked again. “I know, but . . . I can do it. But. But. Okay. Not now.” Then he bolted back towards the fence, hopping over it with a spindly-legged leap and disappearing down the hill.

My eyes were wide. He had successfully creeped me out.

I shook my head and flipped my light back on, making to leave as well. The bulb flickered and sputtered, then fizzed. I knocked it against a tombstone, but this only offended it more, and it died altogether. Oh well. There was light enough to see by the moon, at least to get myself back to the car. Despite my confidence in the lunar illumination, I got myself turned around and ended up farther down the hill, away from the gate but still within sight of my vehicle. I grumbled at myself, slung one leg over the fence and brought the other down behind it, dropping my shin down on something very hard that was hidden in the grass just outside the ironwork barrier.

Cursing all the way, I sat on the ground and lifted my jeans enough to see that I wasn’t bleeding so badly that I should worry. I rolled my pants leg back down and felt around in the grass until I located the source of my pain.