And now I am wearing her clothes and I'm assaulted by her memories. I know that she was taller than I am because her gowns sweep over my bare toes and trail on the dusty floor. I know that her breasts were larger than mine, perhaps from the children. I know that her arms were flabbier than mine because her sleeves swallow my wrists.

But I don't know what dreams she imagined as she twirled in this dress. What man put his warm hand against the small of her back, making her skin tingle and her eyelashes flutter.

Suddenly, I'm dizzy. All my thoughts collide inside me at once and I must know these things. I run back to the platform, still wearing this woman's dress, and I kneel down and scout the Unconsecrated below. I examine each woman's arms, her waist, her hair, her wrists.

Which one of them slipped her head through this dress? Which one smoothed her hands over its fabric? Which one of them had the baby, raised the children, slept in the bed I sleep in now?

The Unconsecrated are almost impossible to differentiate in their unending hunger and drive, their slack skin and expressionless eyes.

None of the women below seems right and I run to the ladder, climb back down to the bedroom and look out each window. But it's too hard. They are massed too closely together; they crawl over each other, kicking up dust with their need to get into this house, to get to me and Travis.

Not even bothering to lift the skirt of my too-long dress I dart downstairs and grab one of the long-handled spears, startling Travis. I don't hear what he says as I stumble back up the stairs, the spear banging against the walls of the hallways. Its sharp rusty tip trails behind me, scraping against the scarred wooden floors as I race back to my window. I lean out over the edge of the ledge, straining against the seams of the dress and extending the spear out as far as possible. It's just long enough that I can reach into the fray from the second-story window and I prod apart the Unconsecrated, trying to get a better look at each woman's face.

It is like a hunger that I cannot satisfy, an unquenchable thirst: I have to know who lived in this house, whose life I have taken over. Which one is the wife and mother? I am almost convinced that I'll be able to tell just by looking into her eyes which one is banging on her own house, is seeking entrance back into her old life. The life I have stolen from her.

I'm in a frenzy, shoving my spear at the Unconsecrated with tears clouding my eyes, when Travis finally limps into the room, his breath heavy from the arduous climb up the stairs.

He puts his hand on my shoulder but I jerk away. Blindly I jab at each body, shouting, “Which one! Which one of you?”