Margot reached up to touch the threads on their mouths but hesitated just shy, afraid the caress might hurt them. “I’m sorry. I can fix this. I—let me find some scissors. I can get these out—”

Her father took her outstretched hand and shook his head. He pointed to the ground behind Margot. She followed the signal and saw her mobile laying there, facedown, its light diffused into the grass.

Then her father pointed behind himself, into the trees.

Something was coming toward them. It crackled through the dead branches, fallen leaves crunching underfoot.

Even without words, Margot understood. Her parents wouldn’t hurt her. But the others would. She needed to leave before they caught her.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispered. A thought occurred. She grasped their hands. “Come back with me. I…I don’t care. Stay with me in the house. At least for tonight.”

Her mother’s eyes filled with longing and sadness as she gently shook her head, and once again, Margot understood.

They didn’t belong in the house any longer. They were part of the land, the soil. They couldn’t leave it.

The girl plays outside during the day, and the other family plays outside at night.

They belonged to different worlds now. Their paths were not supposed to cross like this. It was a fluke, a mistake that they had even found each other.

The footsteps were growing nearer. Three pairs, coming at her through the trees. In the pale fog and the heavy moonlight, she could barely make out the forms: tall, wild eyed. Gray skin. Quivering fingers.

Clementine wove about her legs. Her mother pressed her hand, pointing again to the phone on the ground and then toward the rise in the hill that would lead her back to the house.

“I’m sorry,” Margot said a final time, and it encompassed everything: an apology for not knowing them better. For what had happened to them after death. For the life that had been dealt to them.

She picked up the phone just as the dead ones broke through the edges of the trees. Three of them, their cold, empty eyes fixed on her, their skin sliding unpleasantly across their bones. Margot’s mother and father backed up, spreading their arms, trying to slow the twisted forms. They shoved through like her parents didn’t even exist, and Margot only had time for three parting words: “I love you.”

And then she turned and ran.

Climbing uphill was harder than the descent. Her lungs ached and her legs shook. A shadowy shape moved in from the side, and Margot had to swerve to keep out of its reach.