“What is it?” I asked him. “Rastin, what’s happening?”

The medium turned toward me, expression lost. “His world. It should not still stand. The roses . . . this dimension . . . they should have ended with him.”

“Erik,” Stephanie whispered to the corpse. “Wake up.”

And though she did not see the limp skeleton’s hand twitch . . . I did.

EIGHTY-FOUR

Erik

Poppies crowded the field.

I stood knee-deep in the redheaded stems, surrounded on all sides by their beauty.

And the blooms stretched on forever, terminating in a horizon just above which peeked a hazy twilight sun.

Silver clouds hung still in a cobalt sky. Tilting my head back, I gazed up at them, but then shut my eyes to the sensation of the wind on my naked face.

Was this the breath of God that now stirred my hair?

Should I thank him when the two of us finally met face-to-uncovered-face? For the gift of seeing Stephanie one final time?

I had seen her push through the door just before the boy had plunged his knife through the rose. Though I despaired to know that the sight of my demise had brought her pain, I relished the final vision all the same.

That glimpse alone had all but erased the urge to unleash upon God the fury that had seeded itself in my nonexistent heart for nearly all of my earthly existence.

She, after all, was free.

I inhaled, long and slow, my lungs filling with the perfume of the poppies—so different from that of the roses. When I exhaled, I imagined myself releasing all that Rastin had always hoped I would.

The masks. My separated soul. My mistakes.

It was then, just before I opened my eyes, that I felt a small hand slide into mine.

I glanced down again, to the short figure now at my side.

She wore her Sunday hat, its yellow ribbon dancing in the gentle breeze.

“Myriam?” Her name left my lips as a whispered wish—a prayer that both asked for and knew it to be truly her.

My little sister, whom I had thought of and longed to see every day of my death, offered a small, close-lipped smile. She squeezed my fingers in hers, and then she spoke.

“The curse,” she said. “It’s not broken, brother. You cannot come home yet.”

A short laugh escaped me. Because, while the sight of her brought such happy tears to my eyes, her response struck me as absurd. I had existed so long under the impression that I would never see her again, let alone any other “home” outside of Moldavia. Rarely, as well, had I allowed myself to entertain the idea that there existed a future in which I could go on to something better—no matter what prattle Rastin spewed. My crimes. Had they not been too heinous?

“Yet?” I asked her.

“You can’t come home without your heart,” she said.