This is how it is to be dead, she thought. This is how the dead feel if they could feel. The body rotting from the inside out, brittle bones, translucent jelly flesh, the brain festering, the skull pressing against the stretched skin of the face, trying to break through and grin.

Faintly something was saying it was sorry, it hadn’t meant to do this, it was all a mistake. But the slow death continued, and Rose could hear the moaning winds of limbo. She was putrefying.

The bathroom door opened and in spite of her fear at what was happening, she felt embarrassed, worrying that whoever was coming in would think she’d caused the foul smell that now hung in the room like a dense fog.

Hesitant footsteps. Then Grace’s voice. “Rose? You in here?”

She drew her feet up so they wouldn’t be visible under the stall door. But Grace rattled the door.

“Excuse me, but is that you in there, Rose?”

The smell was all Rose could think of, how terrible, how humiliating.

“Answer me, Rose! Jerram is worried, too.” She opened her mouth, in good faith, she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. “I’m gonna get somebody,” Grace said.

Rose made a sound, like something a half-dead animal might make, a death gurgle. She unlocked the door with fingers that felt swollen with fetid blood.

“Sorry,” her skullhead said for her. “I don’t know where that smell is coming from. I mean, I was only sitting here thinking.”

Grace was looking at her with grave concern. “What smell? What are you babbling about?” “Can’t you smell it? The stink of death.”

“You have a fever. You need to go home.” “You think I’m delirious. Maybe I am. Something weird is going on inside.” Rose clutched her arm.

Grace was alarmed but kept her head. She helped Rose out to the hall where Jerram was waiting.

“Why didn’t you come in, too?” Rose asked and laughed. “Since when do you stand on ceremony?”

Jerram and Grace exchanged glances.

“Rose,” Jerram said, taking her face in his hands. “We’re going to take you home, okay?” “I think we should call an ambulance,” Grace said.

Jerram didn’t think so. They stopped and had a debate about who to call; Mom, Dad, an ambulance, the school nurse. Rose leaned against the wall, observing it all as if from a thousand miles away. Oddly, she began to feel better. Whatever had been inside her was easing itself out, and the fresh air of life was blowing back in.

“Hey, listen,” she tried to say.

Grace’s head seemed to swivel on her neck. She grinned at Rose, and blackened lips worked with greenish spittle as some words croaked out. “Look in Ladyvale Caves,” the cadaverous mouth said. And then suddenly it was Grace again, asking if she was okay.