Page 86 of Grave Matter

“I woke up in the middle of the night and Amani led me outside to the field, where it started snowing. She threw a snowball at me.”

“When did this happen?” he asks carefully.

“I don’t know. Time is a blur. A week ago?”

His gaze sharpens, the grey becoming flint. “And you never told me. You know you’re not supposed to keep secrets from me.”

I laugh. “Oh, how the tables have turned. Sorry I didn’t tell you, guess I was distracted by a million other fucking things happening that I have no explanation for.”

He stares at me for a moment, the wheels turning behind his eyes. “It’s interesting.”

“Oh yeah, snow in June and having ghosts wallop snowballs at you is realinteresting.”

“Amani isn’t a ghost,” he says. “As far as I know, she’s not dead. She was here and then she went home.”

“So then what? I’m hallucinating her?”

“Yes. That is the most logical explanation. Same as when you saw her before.”

“Then the snowball was a hallucination too?”

“It can be.”

“And snow in June?”

“We’re too close to the ocean for that to happen. On the surrounding mountains? Sure, if a strange cold front moved in from the north. But not down here.”

Well, fuck.

So I really did just imagine the whole thing.

Wait.

Or did I?

“What happened with Clayton?” I ask suddenly.

His gaze thins. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” I tell him. “One minute he’s harassing me, the next he’s being sent home on a seaplane.”

“I thought that would have made you happy,” he says stiffly.

“Happy?” I exclaim. “You did that for me?”

“Of course.”

I can’t help but stare at him. “You put Clayton on the seaplane and sent him home? For me?”

“I did.”

I can’t decide if this is terribly romantic or something else.

“What…” I begin. “And he went willingly?”

He nods.

But I don’t believe him.