Izzy took the mannequin out of the tub and dried it with Cyrus’s bath towel, which she had not touched since he left. It smelled vaguely of mildew but also—still, when she pressed it to her face—of sage and of smoke. Or at least she imagined it smelled of these things.

She carried the mannequin to the bed and laid it on a sheet. The hard head, the flat chest, the weirdly blank pubis, the jointed legs and arms, the awkward, useless feet. The thing was not like Cyrus at all.

Cyrus’s head: the high forehead, the thick hawkish eyebrows and cheekbones, the deep-set eyes.

Cyrus’s generous shoulders and chest that she’d often rubbed with coconut oil. His tapered waist. His muscled arms, full of his blood. The way the veins stood out like the venation of leaves in his forearms. The V of muscles pointing toward his groin—

Cyrus’s legs, smooth, almost hairless, and narrow in proportion to the rest of him, but long like his arms. She’d rubbed out the knots that formed there after he ran.

Cyrus’s large feet with the long second toe. She’d bathed those feet at night in salt water strewn with rose petals.

She remembered the ever-surprising softness of his skin, the warmth penetrating through fabric. The flowered and winged flesh of his back and chest.

She remembered his hands.

She poured some acrylic paints—red, green, black, blue—into cups, added water and painted Cyrus’s tattoos as best she could onto the mannequin’s shoulders and chest. The roses, the serpent, the skull, her name. She sat beside the mannequin and closed her eyes and tried to breathe while the paint dried. Then she turned the mannequin over and painted a primitive-looking panther and falcon on the plastic back. Let these dry.

She gathered up two chunks of the green malachite, the small piece of amethyst and the rose quartz and taped the malachite over the mannequin’s eyes for protection, the amethyst to its forehead for enlightenment, the quartz over its heart for love.

She took Cyrus’s pocketknife from beside the bed.

He had not carried this knife with him when he stepped outside that morning.

She flicked open the knife and touched the blade.

Nicked her finger. Let some drops of blood fall onto the mannequin. Staunched the bleeding with her shirt. Then she took off her shirt and tore at the thin cotton until a strip ripped away. She used the material to tie the knife to the mannequin’s wrist.

She needed one more thing.

She needed his ring.

But his ring was gone.

The police had it.

“Take my ring now,” she said and removed the small silver band from her finger. Placed it in the mannequin’s left hand. Without the ring, her hand felt foreign, too light, as if it might detach and float away.