Today, on my first day back, we passed each other in the hallway. He’d trimmed his hair down to short spiked waves, probably to fit in. He looked so guilty when he saw me. I felt kind of bad for him, but then I didn’t.

Kieran is still gorgeous, even without the hair. Beautiful and fragile like a porcelain tea set. It seems impossible to turn something so pretty so ugly, but it’s not. Everything turns ugly after it’s dead.

Jake

An avenue is all that separates Matteo’s house from mine.

Our houses are like faces in a staring match, and all the other houses form parallel columns from here to there, like watchers on the sidelines, waiting for a showdown.

It’s 6:55 and dark for the day. October is sleepy and sad, and I’m in the swivel chair by my window, just observing. That house is blue, with two stories and a garage. Rectangular windows on the bottom floor, square on floor two, and a circle at the top.

I drew a picture of the house, but the angles were ugly. I balled it up and tossed it. The current sketch in my lap is of Sawyer Doon—long hair, distant eyes, lips barely lips. More like receding lines.

How could you?

A black Mercedes cuts its headlights around the corner at the end of the street and parks at Matteo’s house. I throw the sketchpad aside and poke my binoculars through the blinds, catching gray-haired Mr. Mooney in the scope, bunched between the seat and wheel. The car goes still, and he sits there, sad bags like worm sacks under his eyes. The aura of grief leaks like waste gas from his ears, filling the car with an indigo smog.

He opens the door, swings out a leg. His business slacks are choking his thigh to death. There’s a ghoul by his mailbox, tilting its head at him, but in the binoculars, it looks like a vanishing shape in the fog. Mr. Mooney and his ghoul . . . they’re mirroring each other. Caught in this moment of What’s it gonna be? Life or death?

The dad stands up, twitchy and forced. The ghoul stands too, tall as the house, casting its shadow in the man’s wake. He walks inside. The ghoul watches, like a silent titan, an omen of bad things to come.

I slide back from the window and light the wilderness incense on my book cart, pick up my rose quartz ring, and slide it over my finger.

If only I could wear this gorgeous pink stone in public. It’s soft and protective. But someone would laugh at me.

I pour eucalyptus oil into my diffuser and pull my ceramic elephant to my chest.