When at last she dares to look, she is alone in the forest. Night has come again. Dee looks about her in terror. Where is she? How long has she been walking? She sinks to her knees. What has it all been for? Where is Lulu? Where are the answers that are her due? Dee screams out her horror and her sorrow. But her screams are no louder than papery whispers against the patter of rain. Her cheek is cold. She is lying on the forest floor, slick with rain. Her arm is swollen dark and heavy as a block of stone. I’m dying, she thinks. I just wanted there to be some kind of justice in the world.

As her vision clouds to black and her heart slows, she thinks she feels the lightest touch on her head. She seems to catch the scent of sunscreen, warm hair, sugar. “Lulu,” she tries to say, “I’m sorry,” but her heart stops beating and Dee is gone.

The thing that was once Dee lies far from any trail. The can of yellow spray paint is still held in what was her hand, swollen black with venom.

The birds and the foxes come, the coyotes, bears and rats. What was Dee feeds the earth. Her scattered bones sink into the rich changing humus. No ghost walks under the spreading trees. What’s done is done.

TED

I am not dead, I can tell, because there is a strand of spaghetti on the green tile floor. What happens after death may be bad or good but there won’t be spilled spaghetti. The white hospital bed is hard, the walls are scuffed, and everything smells like lunch. The man is looking at me. The light glints on his orange-juice hair. “Hi,” he says.

“Where’s the woman?” I ask. “The neighbor lady? She was saying the girl’s name. She was sick.” Her arm looked snake-bit. I think she used the kit from my bag, but everyone knows those kits don’t do anything. I don’t know why I carry it. The memories are very confused, but there was something wrong with the neighbor lady—inside and out.

“You were alone when I found you,” he says. The man stares at me and I stare back. How are you supposed to talk to the person who saved your life?

“How did you find me?” I ask.

“Someone had been blazing young trees with yellow paint. I’m a park ranger up in King County, so I didn’t like that. It’s toxic. I followed the trail, to tell them to stop. The dog got a blood scent. That was you.”

The doctor comes and the orange-haired man goes into the hall, out of earshot. The doctor is young, tired-looking.

“You seem better. Let’s take a look.” He does everything gently. “I want to ask you about the pills they found with you,” he says.