The bones don’t belong here in the stale, mealy air. They were brought wrapped up in something soft and left in a darkened corner. The person who carried them stayed silent. The cold silence of guilt. The frantic silence of trying to forget.

It was raining, raining.

At least it’s dry in here.

“What are these?” the second voice asks, drawing close. There are soft hands. Searching fingers. Someone picks up the bones, one at a time. It feels wrong. Bones are not meant to be touched. They are meant to be buried. First in bodies. Then in dark earth. Or they can be burned, and then the spirit that clings to them like ragged skin will learn to fly.

“Those are not animal bones,” the first one whispers. “Not even a little bit.”

“Humans are animals,” says a third voice, softer than the first two.

“Imogen, Sebastian, now this,” says the first. “Do you think Imogen’s in danger? More danger?”

The name Imogen means something. It feels like grabbing at the past and coming up with empty hands.

“We need to take these,” says the third voice. It trembles, balanced on the edge of some great sadness, trying not to fall.

“We can’t exactly carry them up to the cashier,” the first says. All three voices are becoming clear. Each one distinct to the spirit that keeps watch over its bones. “What if the police get involved? We’re the weirdos of Tempest, California, and we’ve already found one dead body this week. I’m not interested in playing witch hunt.”

“So we take them,” says the second one. “Nobody will miss them, not in this place.”

The bones are picked up again, carried with fear and reverence, tucked under clothes and pressed close, not to be seen. They are only pieces of the story, broken and brittle.

The bones don’t remember who they used to be.

It takes longer than anyone alive will admit, to grow into who they are, to feel it deeper than skin, to know.

It is easier than they believe to forget.

Danny: Now

As we walk out of the shop, the bones make a sound that knocks against my nerves. Like dice that we rolled, dice that won’t stop chattering and settle down long enough to tell us if we won or lost. We have the better part of a skeleton stuffed in our bags, in our pockets, under our clothes, next to our skin. Lelia put the skull in her messenger bag. We scramble all the way back to the high-school parking lot, where Rush and Lelia swing their legs over their motorcycles. I’m left standing in an empty parking space like an idiot.

“We need Hawthorn,” Lelia says. “And possibly her mom.”

“What does her mom have to do with anything?” I ask.