The first time I swam I was three . My pudgy fingers reached forward in a stroke I barely knew , wrapped in salt water , happier than I had ever been . My parents pulled me from the water hours later but I never really left . Most teenagers slept in , but I went back to the water every day at four in the morning and four in the afternoon . Swim team captain , champion swimmer , the water is my home . It makes the doctor 's words hard to take . Thanks to the ear infections I 've spent weeks listening to muffled , unclear speech . His words boom into me . I put my hands over my ears , trying to block the sound . " So loud . " I start to hear the whispers in math class . They follow me to history , scratches of sound , like someone talking behind you or in the hall . I haven 't gotten used to the tubes . Chewing blocks out every sound . Running makes my breath as loud as a rock concert . But when I 'm not doing that , when I 'm sitting or reading the whispers come back . Frustrated , I say what I 'd been saying for almost two months . " I 'm sorry , I can 't understand you . " Every time I say it , people speak louder and slower , a look of pity on their face for the seventeen year old who acts like an old man . The whispers stop . A bliss of relative quiet falls over me . I hear the noise of my teeth rubbing together , the sound of locks clicking open on lockers , and a thousand conversations in the hall but I can 't hear any whispers . They 're wrong . It stings anyway . They keep it up all day . I 'm nothing , useless , I 'll never get in the water again . They 're wrong and I don 't believe them , but the more I hear , the more I think about it . If I 'm not a swimmer , if this thing with my ears doesn 't get better , who am I ? When I couldn 't hear the gun , I started from the block just a second after the other swimmers . Not enough to hurt me in meets but enough that I couldn 't get my best time . I haven 't set any records , haven 't seen any improvements since the infection started . On the third day I can 't take it anymore . Every hallway , every classroom , every where I go in the school I hear them . Over and over again , repeating the same terrible lies . ( I 'm sure they 're lies . Really . Except what if they 're not ? ) The whispers have me half convinced . I break my word to my parents and head for the deserted pool . There , with ear plugs and water between us , I don 't hear them . But I can 't swim forever . Two hours in my arms burn . I 'll get caught for cutting class soon . Does it matter ? If the whispers are right , nothing matters . I swim another few laps before I get out . The whispers start again in the locker room . I 'm not going crazy and the weekend proves it . Two days away from school , and I don 't hear them . I hear the water in my mouth and the rustle of the newspaper when I fold it . It should be a gift but the only thing I 'm grateful for is getting away from the whispers . On Monday - For a second , just a split second , I think about taking that advice . How I might do it , how it would make people feel . Instead I add lying to cutting class and call the doctor 's office . I pretend to be my Dad . The whispers tell me I 'll never be as good as he was , never have it together the way he does . I talk over them , asking the receptionist to change my appointment . She gets me in that afternoon , and when I check in I lie some more about why he isn 't with me . I 'm shocked it works . I remember what the whispers said . He tells me a lot of things , but I 'm focused on how I can 't hear the air coming through the vent anymore . There 's only one class left in the afternoon , and I might as well miss it , but I go back anyway . The whispers are gone . I walk the halls , check the locker room . Nothing . I 'm in the auditorium back stage when the drama club starts to file in . I can hear them but nothing else , no lies , no threats . Are they there , still trying ? Still talking to me ? Just in case I tell them , " Doesn 't matter if you 're there . I don 't have to listen to you anymore . " A movement behind me makes me jump . I would 've heard it a few hours ago , but now the girl surprises me . Pale , tired , she looks half dead with dark circles under her eyes . " You hear them ? The whispers ? " When you 've been working with a manuscript on and off for years , you develop quite a collection of files . The folder for Mallory Mors , a death witch who works for the Baton Rouge Police Department , and her partner , Detective Danny Gallagher , has grown to include dozens of short stories . These little side plots were meant to move things along while Mallory waited for evidence to be processed . Instead I 'm going to share a few with you while I work on getting Mallory 's ( and my ) first novel , Under a Blood Moon , ready for the editor . Monday morning started with a banana . Sure , I wouldn 't have bought it on my own but when fruit was in front of me I liked it . I ate on my way to the train thinking about how good my weekend had been . It lightened my step and made me think everything in life would go my way . I took that confidence right to my desk and started to sit down . By ten o ' clock we stood outside the Way of the Ancient Ones shop . Inside the display windows artfully arranged crystals , geodes , various rocks and jewelry promised to heal , help , and keep safe from harm . I thought the alliteration was a bit much , but I liked the way the purple quartz crystals looked . On the drive over I 'd talked about Jakob . Like a good partner , Danny hadn 't told me how annoying it was . Now that we were here I realized I knew nothing about the case . " Uh , so what 's the deal ? " I stepped out of the car . The strip mall that held the shop was anchored by a 7 - 11 on one end and a liquor store on the other . I wasn 't too impressed . " Problems started a couple of weeks back . The owner would drive by and see the lights on . He 'd park , get out of the car , get to the door and the lights would go off . " Danny leaned over the car and looked at me . " No pranksters . They installed motion detectors and an antitheft system . There are no people inside , things just fall over or fly around . " " Hey , " he called to us . His braces made his mouth move funny , I tried my best not to stare . " Doug 'll be here , like really soon , until then you can look around . " We nodded and headed inside . The store was narrow and long , neatly made wooden shelves held books in one aisle , herbs in another , farther back a curtained off room held secrets . I wandered through the shelves , hearing a whispering noise , something quiet . I glanced back at Danny but if he heard it he didn 't give any sign . " What 's behind the curtain ? " I asked as I walked toward it . The whispering got louder with every step . In a horror movie I 'd draw back that curtain and find someone with a large knife ready to spring at me . I felt along my hip for my service weapon , just in case . " The really dark magic stuff , " the kid answered before he went back to opening the cash drawer for the night . Danny glanced at me and I pulled back the curtain . The display sat on a low wooden hutch , scared wood with mismatched door pulls on six drawers . " Yeah , sure , whatever , " the reply came back to me like I 'd stepped into another building , not another room . When I put my hands on the wood , the whispering got louder . The dead whisper to us , but I didn 't expect to find them in a cabinet . I was wrong . The top of the hutch held feathers and beads , little statues I didn 't recognize . Inside the drawers were skulls , lots of skulls . A wide bottom drawer held a steer , its long horns gracefully curved up . A smaller side drawer contained at least five tiny skulls , maybe they were birds . None of those whispered at me . I swung the middle doors open to reveal not drawers but a shelf . In the center a perfect human skull grinned at me . I wanted to touch it , but I knew I shouldn 't . " Hey Danny , " I called , knowing it needed to be tagged for evidence . Then somehow , without even thinking , I held the fragile bone in my hands , surprised by the weight of it . The round cap filled my palm and then some , the jaw hinge worked with an empty mechanical creak . Touching it made the whisper turn into a wind , the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard , a thousand bad sounds all at once . The room swirled a little around me , but I couldn 't put it down . The skull wanted me to know something . The wide open eye sockets looked up at me , and I focused all my concentration on the face that had once been there . For a minute nothing changed and then I started to see it , hair , spilling over my hand , curling around my fingers . Deep brown hair , and when I looked back there were eyes looking at me in the same shade of brown . I froze with terror , watching as more of the face came into view . Full red lips and high cheekbones , she looked at me and I didn 't know what to say . " Hey , you the cops ? " I jumped . A guy with long hair and an scraggly beard appeared in the back doorway . When I looked away from him the face had turned back into a skull again . " I 'm Doug . " I heard Danny and the kid walking toward us , but I didn 't say anything . I don 't know what I was waiting for , the skull to grow her face back again , or maybe to speak to me ? Nothing happened . In another second I found my voice , and then without putting the skull down I confronted the man . " Most of them come from hunters or hikers . I buy them off people . " He gave me the brush off . " The rest are fake . That one 's from a medical catalog . " " Exactly she left . Check my place , all of her stuff is gone , her car , she 's gone . " Doug jumped into the conversation . " The skull is a fake . " We were joined at the scene by a forensics crew , then a group of uniformed cops . Eventually the whole shop was filled with people and I waited on a ratty love seat in the back holding on to Jessie 's skull . Someone in a white lab coat asked me for it , for her or what was left of her . I didn 't want to let her go , but I knew it was the right thing . " Someone else will build a case , see if there are other fake things that aren 't , that sort of thing . " He shook his head as he watched the skull disappear into an evidence bag . " And we 'll do paperwork . " The worst nightmares were memories and the worst dreams were a little bit true . She dreamed of living a life away from her family , just her and her cat . She dreamed of sun beams and Charlie , stroking his fur and never feeling afraid . The nightmare - memories came from every time her father hit her , except in them she was denied the mercy of blacking out . She was five . Charlie went missing on Thursday , and her world nearly ended . Without him , the screaming and the tears , were so much worse . She tried hard to be good , but it was easier to avoid doing something wrong when you could come home from school and hide in your room with a white cat . Charlie 's body wasn 't really big enough to hide her , but he was big , and she imagined he could . With Charlie in front of her father wouldn 't see what she did wrong . He wouldn 't get angry , and she wouldn 't have a new nightmare - memory . Except that Charlie wasn 't found until Sunday morning . His soft fur hadn 't changed , but his body was cold and stiff . Her mother was dressing for church , too busy to offer an explanation . Father only said " It 's dead . " with a shrug . She knew what dead meant , gone forever , but Charlie couldn 't be gone forever . She needed him too much . She thought she knew how much she could cry , how much she could hurt . Holding him in her arms without the hum of his purr , she felt a new depth of pain . It tore out of her , and something came with it , grief or maturity , or maybe something else . She wouldn 't let Charlie go . Father slapped hard against her head but she wouldn 't let him go . Finally her mother intervened and supplied a box . They would bury Charlie in the churchyard and one day he would rise again with Jesus and live forever . But when her mother said it , her eyes looked the same way they did when she said your father isn 't angry anymore , he 's sorry he hit you . She knew the people of the church loved her . Sometimes she dreamed that she and Charlie left to live with them . The family with three teenage boys who held her up to the basketball hoop so she could slam dunk . The old woman who always had candy in her purse . A hundred of them , maybe more , she couldn 't count so high , that all loved her and never hit her , and still they didn 't add up to one Charlie . Every time she peeked under the box lid he hadn 't moved . She cried , but after a hard look from Father she did it silently . After church there was a potluck supper , but the thought of food made her sick . How could she eat when Charlie never would ? Father insisted she get a plate . Her fingers couldn 't quite hold it though , and it splattered on the ground , splashing macaroni and cheese on top of green bean casserole . Father shouted , grabbing her arm . She broke away , peeling from his grasp for the first time , her mind fixed not on the inevitable but on Charlie . Two steps later she realized her mistake , and knowing the beating would be worse because of it , cowered on the floor . The beating didn 't come . When she opened her eyes in tiny slits , everyone , all the people who loved her , were watching . They looked from her to Father , and his face changed from red rage to embarrassment . It would go worse for her later , but now she felt their love . She scrambled from the floor and ran to her chair . She took Charlie 's box on her lap , and while she basked in that love , she felt the box move . Under the lid Charlie stayed stiff , but his back paw jumped . Was it the love ? Was it that other thing , the thing that felt hard in the back of her throat , the thing that welled up inside her when she thought about Charlie never playing with a feather or curling up beside her . Maybe it was both , love and the other thing , and she reached into the box to pet her only friend . Father grabbed her hand but she peeled away again , turning her wrist . The box lid fell to the floor and her fingers rested on soft fur . A second passed , and then another , Father 's eyes going wide with fear . In the box , Charlie purred . The little girl would die with her face stuffed into a pillow . Or she would grow up to be a school teacher . Or a scientist . Or there would be a car accident when she was twenty . Cassie shook her head , trying to clear the images and come back to the here and now . It was no good . There were too many of them . The futures , the possibilities , and the things she could see . Path over path interlaced with the reality in front of her . The little girl was three , then she was eight with two missing teeth . She was dead on a pink blanket , no she was ten winning an award at school . Bits of cotton stuck out of her teeth , no , no , she won a science fair project . Dead or some other future , they kept coming up in pairs . Dead or a good life , dead or this , dead or that . Like rolling a pair of dice and always getting a six on one of them . Cassie felt the pressure behind her eyes . There would be flashes of light next , starbursts , and then the pain . She had to do something about this future . Her knee ran into a park bench . She focused on that while she sat down , taking deep breathes of air . People were starting to stare at her . She had to get it together , to stop the pain from coming . Stop the future and you stop the pain , her mantra spooled out in her head . Steadying herself , she focused on the futures . They ran through her mind like someone flipping through channels on the television . Flickering images of one life , then another . With concentration she could slow the flickering , and look for details in the background . The pink coverlet was a mess , balled up in a big hand . The scene shifted , the little girl as a grown up with a microscope . Cassie waited , it went back to the murder . The little girl wore a blue dress . Cassie squinted , sunlight making her head throb . In front of her , in the real world , the little girl wore the blue dress . It would happen soon . " Ma ' am ? Is there a problem ? " The police officer wore a concerned expression . Cassie nodded , then looked back at the little girl . He 'd broken her concentration and the images became a jumble again . A spike of pain lanced through the right side of her head . That hand reaching for the pillow , taking it out from behind the girl . It wore a heavy silver ring . Cassie fought to stay in that future , the one that came just hours from now . " You hurt your knee ? " Tears of frustration began to form in her eyes and she felt her nose start to run . . If she told him and he didn 't believe , the little girl would die tonight . She needed him to believe . This couldn 't be like the other times . All those futures no one believed in . She gritted her teeth . " Let me take a look . " He dropped to examine her knee , and over his head she saw the flash of the ring in the sunlight . The heavy silver ring , on the hand attached to the hairy arm . The one the little girl would see just as the man smothered her . Without thinking she let a cry slip out , the future hurt . The cop misunderstood . " Yeah , you smacked the bench pretty good . " " It doesn 't matter . " Cassie leaned forward , putting her mouth close to his ear . " The man with the cotton candy , to your left , do you see him ? " " He 's going to kill her . " She could see it , the whole scene now , staggering forward with each pound of her head . " He 's going to murder that little girl tonight . " She steadied herself with a hand on the cop 's shoulder . They must have looked so intimate . But really , all she saw was the room , with the pony dolls by the bed , and the little girl 's fingers in the shaft as sunlight as she reached for air . " Before sunset . He 'll smother her in her bed . You have to stop him . " Cassie pulled back , memorizing everything about the soon - to - be murderer , the thick black hair , the expressionless eyes . Wetness hit her lip , tears or from her nose . She scrubbed at it with a hand , not caring because it was stopping . The cop got up from his kneeling position , walked over to the man , hand on his gun . Cassie watched at the way his head tilted to the left , talking into the box on his shoulder , calling for more men . And just like that her headache evaporated . Cassie indulged herself in the scene for a few more seconds , watching not the people in front of her but the images in her head . The girl and science , the girl getting married , the girl teaching children , the girl winning awards , the girl struggling to pass classes . So many futures , she let herself smile for a minute , there would be death eventually , but not today . He adjusted the gravity suit , playing with the knobs that kept out temperature and forces of physics while he waited for his turn to come . She was there again , working , the way he always saw her . Thick black braces covered each wrist , synthetic material coating steel , all wrapped tight with velcro . He wondered how her wrists would look without it . Would they be thin and delicate or permanently lined , thick with work ? " Morning , shifty . " She smiled at him , eyes lighting up in her moon shaped face . She was pretty , not exactly beautiful , but each time he climbed down off the great machine he though she was the best looking girl he 'd ever seen . Her hair wasn 't just shaved off or pulled back , but set into elaborate braids all around her scalp , dips and swirls of them that sometimes drew pictures and sometimes spelled words . Today it was a star , probably for Founder 's day . He 'd ask her to the picnic when he got down , if he got down . " Morning , climber . " She watched his smile for a while . Normally all she had to watch was monitors and cursors , lines upon lines of code telling her the great machine needed a shift or would need one soon . Then she 'd start the program to determine how much , what kind , where . Math . She did math and ran math programs all day . She thought big thoughts , and talked about concepts even bigger than that : planetary alliances , orbital patterns , the need to keep the universes spinning in just the right direction , how a small shift could cause a big reaction . This guy - she gave him a glance up and down - with his meaty arms and squat stature , he didn 't know big thoughts . Just climb the machine , fix the problem , climb down . Maybe because if he thought too much he 'd think about the number of climbers who fell each year , or the numbers that caught in the gears each day . " Ready to get started ? " " Sure . " He knew lots of climbers that didn 't have an arm or a hand , a few that were in tongue - operated wheel chairs , lots of lucky ones that were just plain dead . " Do you understand how it works ? " A lot of shifters thought so , but she only laughed . " It 's the 9th gate again . Stuck open . I 'll try to hold the shift , but once you pop it in place things will move pretty quickly . " " They always do . " Maybe this time he 'd be too slow , spring out of the way a second too late . His suit would stop him from hitting the ground too hard . It would seal the pressure down around the wound . Lots of guys made a living one handed . Losing the arm would be worse , but not impossible . He just needed to fall right . He latched the suit on to the heavy wire line that ran up the side of the great machine , a wedge of metal seven stories high and stuck into the earth 's crust . The machine hung at the bottom of the world , upside down when you looked at the globe , but streaking into the sky above him . Now he hung with it . " Well if we want to see winter I 'd better get going . See - ya , Shifty . " " Hey wait . " She looked at him and he half turned back , one leg already moving against gravity as he went up the side of the machine . " The Founder 's Day parade . You up for it ? " " Sure . It 'll give me something to look forward to . " She watched his grin while he climbed . It faded away after thirty feet and she gave her attention back to the monitors . After all , someone had to make sure the Earth moved . My uncle 's hair sticks out of his head like wiry cotton balls over his workbench . The top is littered with tools I remember from countless Christmas presents . In our family , you might want coloring sets or toy cars , but you got book binding supplies : supple brushes , powdery glue waiting to be mixed , even sharp exacto blades no matter how young you were . " We start young , " Uncle Gus reminds me . He is really Gustav , not Gus , because all of us are named after long dead relatives with old fashioned names . " We start young and we remember the rules . " " Good . " He nods , talking to himself more than to me . " So it should be good . I wouldn 't leave you like this but it 's a government job and they never take no for an answer . It 's an emergency really , no one else can do it . Besides , I 'll be back in a few days . " The lock on the bookstore door fights me , but once I get inside the scent embraces me . It 's vanilla , old pipe smoke , paper , glue , and ink . The smell of my childhood summers , spent here in Seaside , the smell of my life before I went off to college . The shop is small but orderly , used books in three rows , well aired and tenderly loved antiques in another . Our money doesn 't come from those . It comes from the square sign in the window ' Expert Diary Repair ' . I 've never actually done it , not on a real diary , not alone . I 've practiced with newsprint books , I can smear the cheap soy based ink with the flick of my wrist , but words written in a spidery crawl worry me . My first customer comes in wearing a stylish coat in a size too large . Fine wool , monogrammed , and the letters match his name , so a wealthy man and maybe he 's lost weight . There 's not too much you can judge just by looking at him . Only that his perfectly bald head shines under the shop lights . He fingers the pages of his book , red leather , the initials stamped on the front . He 's counting the pages , flipping them slowly while his head barely nods . Every diary in Seaside is the same , a new day always starts on the right hand side , the date in top right corner . The pages are never numbered . He thrusts the diary out for me . Someone made this well , with space along the spine for additions and the leather cover slotted in snuggly . No pages will fall out of this book . I think I recognize Gus ' hand in it , but it 's only a guess . " A hundred , no two . At least two . " It 's a big decision for him , but not for me . At the work bench I put the pages in with no trouble , then flip through the rest . I 'm not reading , just … looking . We never read . It 's a third unspoken rule . We keep secrets , and we only have one of our own . My father tried to tell me once , what it meant to do what we do , but he was dying by then and the words didn 't make it out . I 've always been too ashamed to tell anyone , so I finger these pages , trying to see why some pages were glued together , others not . The man returns , anxious for his diary back but then no one comes in all day . I search the internet for the dates , there 's a car accident , an obituary , and nothing . My family 's secret stays hidden . The girl comes in three days later . Her hair falls past her shoulders in a cascade of deep brown color . She 's the same age as the girls at college with me , but with a ring in her nose and a look that tells me she wouldn 't share their views . She 's not local but she knows Gus . " He and I talked about music . I 'm a bit of a musician . I work in the music shop down the way . Do you like music ? " Her hands are moving , picking at the skin around her finger nails . One of them starts to bleed and she puts it in her mouth for a second . The finger leaves her mouth , a smile . " Leslie . " She starts to hold out her hand , but then draws it back . I take it anyway , a quick shake just to touch her palm . " It 's a family thing . " I try to make light , not to let her know how odd it is to be a family that coverts only books and gives only book tools as presents . I think of my mother surrounded by printed words and how Leslie would cringe at the stacks and stacks of books . " Gustav told me . " She smiles , bright and sweet like the sun in the spring . " He and I were talking about something , and I 've decided but he 's not here . Can you help ? " " Oh . " A blush climbs into her cheeks , it 's adorable but I can see her nerves . " There 's a song , I heard it about a month ago . It 's stuck with me , like a broken record . The notes ascend , and then they blend and go down . " She sings for me , not words , just tones , then catches herself , maybe a little embarrassed . " When I try to write my own music , I end up writing that . Every time . " Her unsure voice changes my world . We glue the pages together . An obituary . A car accident . Blur the words and glue the pages together , make it a secret . " King and Queens , by Samantha Jett . " She pulls the book out of her bag . Moleskin , mass produced , the cover stamped with musical notes on a plum background . Nothing custom made , nothing showy . She 's too young for that , but not so new to Seaside that the dates and days don 't line up as they should . " I heard it on the fourth . " Her finger marks the page and she tells me she 'll be back tomorrow morning . It 's on the tip of my tongue to ask her out , to learn more about her , but now isn 't the time . When she leaves I lock the shop and head to the workbench . Her fourth of March is in front of me . She went grocery shopping , and heard the song in a store , called her mother , thought about buying clothes but worried over her budget . My hands shake , letting the glue powder plume into the air , then I mix it too thick . I 've done this with newspaper pages , blank pages , with practice books , but I never knew what I was practicing for . The brush quills are white , tipped with gray . They soak up the glue like they 're eager . The first words I blur are the date , dragging the brush from the left to the right , eventually covering the whole page in a thin film . There 's guilt when I take away the call with her mother . Was there something important there ? But she 's asked me for this . It 's not a choice I made on my own . I realize the power as I do , and know I will never make that choice on my own . To do it once would be to open a cell and let the monster out . She 's back the next afternoon , all her anxiety gone . " Sorry I 'm late . I 've been fiddling with a new song on the guitar . I sorta forget everything else . " " Chords , notes , you know . " She pays me while she thinks about it , her eyes moving off to the side . " What 's any song like ? " I pause to consider my next words , to wonder if I 'm about to undo all my good work . " You know that song , what 's it called ? Kings and Queens ? By Samantha somebody ? I can 't remember the last name . " " Well , don 't it 's not that good of a song . " Her book goes into her pocket . The secret is glued together forever , the words blurred until they don 't exist . And if there 's no entry in your diary , no record that a thing happened , did it happen ? " Have you eaten lunch ? " " Let me take you out . " I push open the shop door , leading her to the café . I 'll write about her in my own diary tonight , page after page . Enough that no one can ever glue them together . " Hey ! " I picked up the soccer ball after it hit the house for a third time . " I 'm your new neighbor ! They didn 't tell me the yard was the local soccer pitch . " I smiled and held the ball out , a gang of eight or nine kids looked at me in terror . " I don 't mind , just don 't hit the house so much . I don 't want it to fall down . " " What are you kids doing ? " The child 's guardian came over , obviously upset . " You get away from that house now . Play in the yard but not up on the porch . You know better . " His eyes popped out against his skin , going wide with surprise . " They let you buy it and they didn 't tell you ? " He shook his head at the elusive ' they ' . Who were ' they ' I wondered ? My real estate agent had told me everything about the house , 1930s construction , built to last but not updated since the 70s . A gem that needed work for less than a quarter of the price of the rest of the neighborhood , cheap because of some local legend , which I suspected I was about to learn . " Let 's move away from here , out to the yard . " We walked across lush grass to the detached garage . I 'd been told the door was stuck shut , but the local kids hadn 't noticed . They used it to store soccer balls , bases for a baseball game , and at least one football . Apparently I 'd bought not just a house but custodianship of the local park . " Mary Alice was born too late you see . " My neighbor balanced on a cane with a crooked handle . An older gentlemen with distinguished gray hair , I suspected this wasn 't the first time he 'd told the story . " Her parents were older , today we 'd get it checked out , know if it was Down 's or Asperger 's or what have you . But then , all we knew was she seemed to have a connection to the other side . She 'd go up to someone and hug them and love on them , crying the whole time , then the next day they 'd be dead in a car accident . It was like she knew . " The other kids tried to ignore it at first . Her papa was so proud of her he threw the best parties . You wanted to be Mary Alice 's friend , to play with her toys and eat her fine ice cream . But eventually none of the girls could take the way she was , just not right , not normal . She 'd look up in the middle of a game and say , now you get home , get home right now , and then you 'd get home and your mother would say she was just wishing you were there . It was eerie . " " They 're still there . " I 'd found them this morning , in the upstairs bedroom , Mary Alice 's bedroom probably . The house was half museum , when the old couple died nothing changed . There were patterns for horrible 1960s knitting and 70s macramé , along with a collection of dolls all lined up . " I 'm getting the collection appraised , the antique dealer comes tomorrow . " " She never had another friend ? " I felt sorry for her , the picked on little girl . She 'd have known she was different , and wished more than anything that she could be the same . " Oh no , there was one … the devil . Ruthie . " He shook his head and spit on my lawn , a caricature of an old man . " Ruthie had the devil in her . When she saw that Mary Alice was different , she wanted to know how she could use it . Ruthie was the worst thing in the world for Mary Alice . Whatever her gifts were , Ruthie turned them into terror . She told kids your Mama 's gonna die tonight or if you don 't give me that toy I 'll make Mary Alice hurt you . Ruthie used that girl like a whip to make the world bend to her will . It killed her but it was her own fault . " " Killed her ? " I prompted . He 'd gotten to the meat of his story but now he seemed reluctant to tell it . He shifted from one foot to the other . " My father was working in the kitchen that day , fixing the old stove . The girls were upstairs playing , he heard them every once in a while , but let Mrs . Ginther deal with them . He didn 't hate Mary Alice , not like us kids did but he steered clear of Ruthie . But when he heard Mrs . Ginther screaming , he ran up those stairs . " He said he didn 't notice the quiet when it happened , just afterwards , when the police asked about it . He got up there and Ruthie was stuck to the couch . Have you seen it yet , a big red velvet couch ? " " Mary Alice would pile her dolls on it . Ruthie got uppity about it , and said she wanted to sit there . She shoved the dolls on the floor and sat down . Only she couldn 't get up . She said the couch was squeezing her , and begged my father to get her up . He grabbed her hand and he pulled but even though there was nothing around her she stuck fast . He was giving it all his strength when he saw the dolls there in a heap . He said it was like a hundred eyes staring into his soul . He could just tell they knew every mean thing he 'd done and they were going to get payment for it . He wrapped his hand around Ruthie 's arm and he closed his eyes tight to stop them from looking at him . " Mrs . Ginther was looking at Mary Alice . Mary Alice was crying . But even with that Ruthie couldn 't have slipped away . They 'd have seen her . " " And nothing . If you don 't want to be swallowed up you 'll sell that house , or at least stay the hell away from those dolls and that couch . " He shook his head at me , angry again . This was the part where the kids got scared and swore they 'd never go near Mary Alice 's house . But it was my house now and I wasn 't scared . " Thanks for the warning . Let the kids know not to hit the house with the soccer ball , okay ? " I gave him a good - natured smile but he returned it with an angry jut of his chin . Inside I marveled at the complexity of the story and how he saw it from one side . I kept thinking of Mary Alice , with all her dolls and just one friend . A friend she probably didn 't like much , who was mean and sassy . I took switch plate off the wall , the floral wall paper needed to come down , tropical flowers the size of my head hadn 't been in style for years . The wall needed to be prepped but … But I found myself in the upstairs bedroom , Mary Alice 's room , talking to the air . " I 'm sorry you didn 't have a good teacher to stop the bullying . It 'd be different today , in my classroom . " The dolls were still there , store bought and handmade arranged side - by - side , dust on their eyelashes and coating their hair . They were arranged on a hope chest , watching out the window for Mary Alice to come home . She 'd probably died a few decades after Ruthie 's disappearing trick , years before I was born . I lifted up some of the dolls and found it , the tiny red velvet bench . Maybe it was modeled after the one from that day , only small , so small only four of the best loved dolls could stand on it , skirts brushing up against each other . I put the ladies aside delicately for a closer look . I ran my hands along the edges , thinking about the Ruthie 's trick . Had she slipped into the cushions and then run away when no one was looking ? The story made the kids seem like they were eight or nine , but if they were really teenagers , in the 70s , well Ruthie might 've been ready to run away and practice her manipulation elsewhere . My fingernail felt a crack , and I pulled it up . The bench had a storage space , just over a foot long and less than a foot wide . It held only one thing . Dusty and old , a single doll arm sat in the center of the space . I started at it from the top , not at the molded porcelain shape , the chubby arm itself wasn 't threatening . No the problem were the fingerprints , greasy like a man who 'd been working on a stove , and shrunk down , like he left them on the arm when it was life size . If your mother made dolls for you , it wouldn 't be odd to have a spare arm lying around but why would you put it away ? And where would it get those fingerprints ? I looked up at the doll collection . Had the yellow - haired one moved ? I thought she 'd been to the left of Bo Peep , but now she was on the right . Dolls don 't rearrange themselves , except that a feeling in the pit of my stomach told me they had . The glass eyes stared at me , questioning me , demanding to know what I would do next . I put the four dolls back in place , making a point of remembering which one went where so I didn 't trick myself into thinking they 'd moved again . Then I walked out of the room , deliberately ignoring the noise , like the clicking of porcelain as it moved . He missed chocolate the most - the rich velvety smoothness across his tongue , missed the warmth of hot chocolate in the morning sitting by his bed in its chocolate service . In the beginning of his fall from grace , those first painful years without any food and barely any drink , it was easy to avoid his longing . There were so many other things to miss , a good steak or warm bread thick with butter . Later he realized above all else he missed chocolate . Just after the Germans became Huns but before they were Nazis , there came a new torment , chocolate mixed with nuts and raisins . A new taste he could never enjoy . By the end of World War II chocolate taunted him whenever he entered a corner market , from every restaurant menu , and at any hotel . Chocolate had been rare when he was alive . It was the drink of the rich , more expensive then wine . Today it littered the streets . People tried to give chocolate away for free . On any day he passed 5 or 6 delicious torments , luxuries he could not enjoy . Chocolates on his pillow at night , chocolate mixed with coffee for breakfast . That the offers were so off - handed , so casual , made it all the worse . To love a thing and see it treated as valueless when he could not enjoy it was to be cut in some small way . While he did not bleed , it still hurt . Once , his grief had come through and a street vendor said ' What , it 's just chocolate ? ' He left the man intact , shaking his head thinking ' he jests at scars that never felt the wound ' . He missed women too . Missed the desire a man could have for a woman and the way it felt to fulfill that most basic human need . He failed to understand the modern need to make sex something vulgar , something so wrong . He had watched pornography race from sensual enjoyment to extremes of degradation . He felt pity for any youth that could not be aroused by the hint of a breast or the curve of a thigh , who found pleasure instead in the most base of acts in domination or the destruction of feigned innocence . He wished he could understand this need for more and more brutal erotica but , he was dead . In the end , the dead never truly understand the living . He floated , it seemed , between the world he had once inhabited , a bustling city filled with men in suits and women in gloves , and the current world . Sometimes when he walked down a street he could remember so clearly the theater goers in their revelries and the homeless that were the ghosts . He had met others of his kind ; ones who had not fared so well , who saw only the ghosts , never the real people . He did not want to join them , yet when he passed the window of a chocolate shop , filled with golden boxes he could never again open and enjoy , he envied them . He had seen her then , standing in front of that window with its bright lettering spelling out the name of a long dead noble . Would a modern woman know the story behind name of Godiva ? Would she care ? A warm pool of chocolate sat inside a baptismal font , ripe strawberries fresh from prayers lined up by the side . Opposite them , coolly bathed in the grace of God and chocolate were lined their predecessors . The scene brought him to such rapture he nearly devoured the woman . Watching the reflection of her eyes in the glass , in that last moment before the thing inside him made him more beast then man , he saw himself . Her desire was as deep and as unfulfilled as his own . He felt a single emotion , a sudden clear drop of charity . It rushed through his soul and cleansed him of any need to eat . He turned to her . " Both , neither , I don 't know . " Her words came out in a rush while she shook her head . " I can 't afford any of them , and I don 't need the calories anyway . Thank God window shopping is free ! " She began to walk away . Salvation slipping through his fingers . " Wait ! I can afford it , but I can 't eat any of it . Let an old man buy you some chocolate . " She hesitated , skittish . He reached out his hand , suddenly sorry he wore gloves . " Please , it would really be my pleasure . " With the last , he let a touch of himself shine through his voice . She smiled and put her hand in his . " Oh ? " His voice held an amused lilt " I think you 'd be surprised . " They stepped out of the swirling snow into the bright warmth of the chocolate shop . Her name was Maggie . She was young , but old in her soul , a tenth of his age merely 28 . She had spent too much time doing without , helping someone else . They sat in a corner booth of a slightly battered diner . Between her and the wall where no one could steal them was a heap of golden boxes ; too many for such a small woman to carry , not enough to soothe the desires of an old man . They met week after week as the Christmas decorations lost their newness and the crowds became less kind despite the season . Maggie wore the same shabby coat turned gray from overuse . He bought boxes , gift towers , custom pounds and any other thing her eye rested on . He spoiled her only in this , only in chocolate . He never offered her money or even a meal . He only sat across from her in the diner as she opened the gold foil to slip a piece , furtive and delighted at once . He learned she lived alone . Her Mother , who had forbidden chocolate in their home , had recently died . She learned he spoke 7 languages , though some not very well . She watched him watch her eat but never asked why he didn 't or why he felt the need to shower her with chocolate . Perhaps he thought she suspected the answer and didn 't want to ruin the chocolate . Vampires had always been there . He remembered stories of them when he was young . Terrible hideous monsters who could not stand sunlight or the touch of the faithful . He wasn 't that kind . These were more open times , people wanted to meet vampires . People read vampire novels , dressed in vampire clothes , and danced at dark night clubs drinking wine they pretended was blood . He went to the clubs , he tried to understand them , but in the end he was still dead and they were all still living . People in New York , people all over the world acknowledged that vampires existed . Some of them would say ' you mean people who think they 're vampires ' and others would say ' they 've been here all along ' . For the first time in centuries he could tell someone what he was , tell them his real birthday or his whole name and not expect to be branded insane . Like most of the vampires , he didn 't like it . He would have rather lived in the shadows , rather lived a half life filled with lies and loneliness then to be loved but misunderstood . And to be misunderstood so badly ! How many times could he hear the same phrases ? Listen to the same mindless patter of " I know you think you feel but " or " I know you think you know everything but " as if someone else could crawl inside his mind and see what it really was to be him . Still , other vampires had made the decision . They had come out , made themselves something more than a horror movie staple , asked for a life when truly they had no right to one . He wondered what they thought to gain . Wondered what the few that had slipped into the spotlight really wanted . Perhaps they were young and hopeful , new to his world . Perhaps they were old and tired of the chase , running out of shadows big enough to hide them . There were only a handful of them after all . Two or three celebrity vampires , sitting on talk shows debating the correctness of the latest horror novel . He didn 't pay enough attention to the interviews to know if they lied . Did they ever claim to be able to turn into bats ? He would like to see one of them try . He would like to see one of them proven completely and horribly wrong . That way he could go back to hiding , seeking out the others like himself for quiet company when the loneliness got to long . Of all the decades in his long un - life , he preferred the ones without public acknowledgment the best . But Maggie . She might know , she might watch the television and lust after a demon lover . She might dream of a dark prince to save her from life . There was too the chance that she might know and be repulsed . Not find his fine yellow hair or his bright blue eyes enough to bare his cold touch . So for now he left this secret unsaid between them . All they had was chocolate but that was all he needed . He had a routine . It worked for him . At least , he grinned to himself , it had worked the last seven times . Two women , a pair of senior citizens , and four men - mostly truckers - it had worked for all of them . The pair of senior citizens were only a month ago , a loving older couple . Different from the singletons , he couldn 't take the passenger seat and sink his knife in his victim 's side , taking the wheel as they looked at him , shocked and suddenly dying . He 'd had to slice the wife 's throat and the husband jerked the wheel . So much blood , the windshield got coated with it , like it was raining red inside the car . He walked along the side of the highway , his breath starting to come out in white smoky puffs . He 'd have to stop for the winter soon . After Christmas it got too cold and there was no more charity left in anyone 's heart , no more softening at the sight of a hitchhiker . This would be the last time he followed the routine this year . The thought left him sad , and excited . A car slowed , a station wagon , a family car . His breath caught in his throat . Maybe that would be how he could survive the coming winter . Take three now , stock up . A giggle escaped his throat . He 'd stock up for winter . " Oh neat . " It was a stupid thing to say , but little Johnny worried him . He 'd been hoping for a car full of teens . Hoping for a bunch of girls . Now a six year old with chubby cheeks looked up at him . Dad locked the car door almost before it shut . Locked the predator inside , he smiled . The little boy wouldn 't be a problem . " Thought we couldn 't . " Dad nodded . It was a personal question , Dad should 've been upset or scared . The Predator hadn 't even thanked them for the ride yet . He turned toward the unnaturally still child , and studied it . Little Johnny did not blink . Sweat popped out on the Predator 's forehead , the hands that gripped the big knife felt clammy . He pulled it out , as Johnny watched , unblinking . His slid his knife into the child 's side , like going into butter instead of flesh . Didn 't hit anything hard , didn 't see the bright red blood . This was wrong . All wrong . " We 're lucky you came along . Our little boy needed his dinner , " Dad said . The father 's eyes never left the road , the Predator 's eyes couldn 't tear themselves from the knife , stuck so far into the boy 's side that he couldn 't get it out , couldn 't go for Mom 's throat or slash at Dad . Couldn 't protect himself .