Anna and I talk all dinner. She tells me about all the different times Roy broke parts of the house or scorched it with his pyrokinesis, and how the house would make the walls in his room creak and the floor shake until he got up and fixed them. I tell her about Liam’s addiction to reality television and list the army of pop culture facts taking up residence in my brain.

I barely even notice the time passing the next few days. I train and help Anna with her chores, getting to know her family as we prepare for Samhain. The air grows crisper, the lawn blanketed with crunchy golden leaves. Wisps dance through the trees and crows gather in the grass and on the branches, scattering with angry caws when Max goes bounding through them.

We drink hot apple cider and sit wrapped in knitted blankets in the library as Roy regales us with stories from Ireland. He talks about how he met his husband—who runs a farm in Ireland and is planning to visit for Samhain—and tells us stories from how they both got lost in a castle ruin to the time he nearly followed a kelpie into the sea.

And through it all, Liam’s absence is a physical presence.

I’ve spent a few mornings sitting alone in the Charger, breathing in the familiar scent of the old pine air freshener. Though the car belonged to my mom, it’s Liam I associate most with it. He was always outside fixing it up, washing it, detailing it. Whenever we had an errand to run, Liam would volunteer, just so he could drive it.

Some of my best memories are driving in that car with him, like the time we escaped our latest motel to drive through a big redwood forest on the California coast. We parked up in the mountains and hiked all day, and Liam bought me ice cream on the way home. When we got back, Mom and Dad were furious at him. They shut the door so I couldn’t hear, but I remember Liam’s voice to this day.

“He needs to do something normal once in a while!”

“Pay attention!” Elaine barks at me during training that morning. “We don’t have time for you to daydream, Colin. Samhain is only a few days away.”

I flinch, having been distracted by the house’s wide-brimmed hat, the edges decorated in orange and gold flowers. It’s the kind someone would wear to a horse race or a tennis match.

It’s Saturday, and Anna lies in the grass by the sloping hill, resketching the same drawing of a pocket dragon she’s been practicing for the last few days. She looks so relaxed, and I envy her a bit. I’m exhausted.

“Oh, cut him a break, El,” Roy says. “We’ve been at it for hours.”