Chapter 10

I pushed myself to my feet and walked down the tunnel, the mice easily weaving out of my way as I went against their current.

“Where are you going?” Rigel called after me as I rounded the corner.

Speeding up, I tried to see if I could make it to the source of the mice before they disappeared. But after a few tunnels, they petered out, and eventually, the trail went dry. There wasn’t anything notable, just more books, so it clearly wasn’t the source.

“What are you doing?” Rigel panted as he caught up with me.

I don’t know what it was, but now that I knew Professor Faun had been guiding me away from this, I felt more open to investigation. Like he’d given Rigel’s insane theory credence.

“Don’t follow the mice,” I muttered. “That’s what my note said.”

His eyes went wide. “That’s interesting.”

“What did yours say?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I scoffed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

As I walked, tunnel lights flared to life and pointed me in the right direction as I made my way up and out alone.

Once I was back in my room, I pulled off my foot and chucked it against the wall like a shoe, forgetting it still had feeling. After spitting expletives, I threw on more comfortable clothes and pulled myself into bed.

That was where I stayed until I had to extricate myself from under my blanket ten minutes before Intro to Transparency on Monday morning.

***

When I stumbled into class five minutes late, foot flopping loosely in my trouser leg, I couldn’t even look Professor Faun in the eye. I chanced a look at his face as I took my seat, only to catch the tail end of a curled lip before his face relaxed.

On some level, he was probably amused—if not gratified—by my predicament. I mean, it was karma in its most basic form, was it not? I ran screaming from him, likely embarrassing him in front of a new class, only to have the tables turned on me. I couldn’t even blame him for sneering.

The class was mostly discussion based, debating the utility of Stage 2 Transparency and the best ways to implement it. So, I was relieved of the need to interact, much less look up at the front of the room. The shape of him in my periphery was just about all I could endure.

I worried that I no longer had the mental storage for coursework. When I wasn’t stressed about my eternal footlessness, I was stressed about the prospect of not being given my history at the end of the year. I tried to convince myself that the latter was baseless, but the prospect alone confirmed something I was terrified to admit. My death had not just been unfortunate but nefarious enough to follow me to the afterlife. And if Lindy’s circumstances were so similar, would our fates not follow suit?

When class was finally over, I went to stand but was stopped by Professor Faun. “Agnes, can you stay behind for a minute?”

And just like that, I knew my day wasn’t about to get any better. I’d thought I’d gotten off lightly, but he was waiting for the opportunity to get me alone so he could rub it in my face.

I slid back down in my chair and kept my eyes on my desk, while everyone else shuffled out without me. And once they were gone, Professor Faun came to stand in front of me.

“Sorry for being late. I—”

“Do you need help tying up your leg?”

My eyes went down to where my foot peeked out from under my pants, pointing unnaturally to the side.

Assuming he was prodding me, I tried to keep my cool. “I’m just getting used to it, I guess.”

To my surprise, he kneeled and guided my leg to him, where he demonstrated how to best tie it and explained that wearing a knee sock over the ties would keep them in place.

Once my foot was comfortable and secured, he had me do a couple laps around the room, and I was surprised to find it was much easier to walk. In fact, I felt downright normal, with only the lack of mobility in my ankle to tip me off that it wasn’t completely healed.

“It feels great,” I said, sounding giddier than I’d intended. “Does this count as my first tutoring session?”

“If only.” He sighed. “No, you’ll just have to consider this a favor. We can’t have you falling apart in the middle of campus. It’s bad for student morale.”

“Oh, okay, sorry,” I said, grabbing the strap of my bag to leave.

“You’re learning relatively quick, though.”

His tone implied this was surprising, as if taking up time was a regular habit of mine.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling the elephant in the room breathing down my neck. “I bet it’s kind of funny that I’m the one missing a limb now.”

He seemed taken aback by the statement, and if I were being honest, I felt the same way. I don’t know if I’d meant it to be cutting, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t satisfied by his shaken expression.

“I don’t revel in the misfortunes of others.”

“Why not?”

“Do I really seem like that kind of person?”

I had to bite my tongue not to immediately insult him but only because I knew I needed his help. He didn’t deserve my kindness if he had no interest in giving me any in return.

“Well?” he asked, after my long draw of silence.

“It’s not like you can claim to be exceptionally kind.”

“I must have missed when exceptional kindness was a requirement for teaching.”

“It isn’t, but unfortunately, it is a requirement for people thinking you’re a decent person. The two aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.”

“And does my agreeing to tutor you not count in my good favor, or do you simply feel entitled to my efforts?”

“Don’t act like you had a choice. Last time I checked, it was Ephraim’s idea. But if you’re saying you’d prefer I didn’t learn, then that’s fine with me.”

I pushed myself to my feet, annoyed my balance was so much better than it had been before.

“You’re an adult, Agnes. You need to act like it,” he called as I hurried out of the room.

The regret hit me pretty quickly. I’d allowed my embarrassment to make me lash out at the man for no good reason. But I stuck with my plan of avoidance, hoping I wouldn’t have to do the tutoring.

I spent the rest of the day distracting myself with Arlie, going through our practice work for Professor Beck’s class and exploring the library. Occasionally, my eyes would travel to the clock looming from the ceiling, watching as the hour between six and seven slid by, its significance lost on everyone around me. But once the tutoring time had elapsed and nothing awful happened, I could breathe again.

It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I found the red envelope waiting for me on the floor.

Agnes,

I’ve been told you didn’t attend your tutoring with Professor Faun. He tells me that you’ve been struggling to adjust, and it was clearly an accident. Consider this a friendly reminder that your tutoring is to take place Monday through Friday from 6 to 7 p.m. These extra classes are imperative. If, for some reason, you choose not to attend, we will have no choice but to expel you for your own safety.

Wishing you the best,

Ephraim

I tossed the note back on the floor in irritation. I could read the threat between the lines. The only mercy I got was that underneath it was a note with a massive warning label at the top.

Notice!

Morning classes will be canceled today, and everyone is advised to stay in their dorms until they are given the all clear. This is no cause for alarm, just a natural side effect of purgatorial life.

We appreciate your understanding,

Ephraim and faculty

Curious, I peeked out the window, finding the day sunny and unblemished. I couldn’t even begin to understand why we’d need to stay indoors. But across the footpath, I found the windows of the Messor dorm opening.

Two floors up, I saw Blair and Arlie’s heads appear, so I opened my window and called up to them.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, having to raise my voice.

“Blair said we have an intruder!” she called back.

My stomach dropped. “What?”

Blair pointed toward the center of the campus. “Look!”

Every head turned as Stacy rounded the Ultor dorm, holding a massive dodo egg in front of her as she walked backward. Her curved back was stiff, but she wasn’t walking quickly, so it made little sense that she would be afraid of whatever she was luring.

But I ate those words, silent as they were, when I saw what followed her around the corner. It was so massive that its arrow shaped head rivaled the size of her torso, but it moved with an unworried, ancient slowness.

Green scales glinted in the morning light as it slithered from the shadows, revealing its massive thick body, seeming to unspool endlessly from the darkness. I wondered if the monstrously large snake had any end point. Stacy was nearly out of view again by the time the tail curled from around the dorm.

Shocked murmurs came from every side of me as the creature slithered and coiled through campus.

“It comes for the eggs,” I heard Lindy say in a bored voice from the window next to mine. “It happens at least a couple of times a year. The bastard is so big that even the gate can’t keep it out.”

I leaned out further, finding Rigel and Lindy’s heads. “Does it attack people?”

“Since I’ve been here? No. It just wants the eggs.”

“Then, what’s the problem? It’s not like it could kill us anyway.”

Lindy laughed. “That’s exactly why you want to stay away from it. Would you want to be swallowed by a snake if you had to be alive the whole time? The thought doesn’t really appeal to me personally, but I’m not one to judge.”

They both laughed, but I was stunned speechless. It hadn’t occurred to me that something like that would be possible until she said it, but I was immediately convinced there could be no worse fate.

Everyone waited at the windows in nervous silence, listening for the sound of the main gate to screech open as the creature was escorted from campus.

By the time Stacy reappeared, she was blowing into a loud wooden instrument that echoed off all the buildings.

“All clear!” she announced, and the building above me shuddered as everyone inside moved simultaneously.

Checking the time, I realized my only class of the day was nearly over, so I tucked myself back into bed until further notice.

At 6 p.m. sharp, I was stepping over the threshold to the Transparency classroom with a scowl on my face.

“Look who remembered this time,” he said, barely glancing up at me as he shuffled papers on his desk.

I closed the door behind me. “Why did you lie to Ephraim?”

He tipped his head up, eyes following, but I got the sense he wasn’t really looking at me. There was a curious glaze he was trying to blink away.

“He’s a decently forgiving man, but he doesn’t necessarily take well to outright insubordination. But I’m sympathetic to momentary lapses in judgement.”

I scoffed. “At least if he’d expelled me, I’d be out of your hair.”

He kept his face neutral but required a deep, practiced breath before replying. “This is my job, and if I let my personal feelings dictate my performance, then I would be poorly suited to it. I’m not an Ultor. My job isn’t punishing students who irritate me. And I don’t avoid important aspects of my job, even if I happen to find them inconvenient. Are we understood?”

“Whatever,” I mumbled.

It was clear he didn’t want me to perceive his actions as kind, and I was happy to oblige him.

“Take a seat.” He motioned to a chair scooched up to the corner of his desk, and I plopped down into it.

“Since I know you buried the lead on our hand exercise, I would like to see you do it.” He leaned in closer, his eyelashes dancing as he forced his eyes to focus on me.

When I’d practiced by myself, making my hand disappear was easy, but the weight of his full attention was stifling. I was desperate for his apathy to affect the way my body reacted to his presence, but it was no use. My hand shook as it wavered awkwardly in and out of view.

“Try again,” he said, unfazed by my failure.

I did but was met with the same flickering.

Irritated, I asked, “Is there any way you could give me some breathing room?”

“I need to be able to see.”

“It’s making me . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to admit to being nervous.

“If you truly don’t want to be here, might I suggest funneling that energy into making yourself disappear? It sounds like a convenient motivation.”

I refused to respond, sure he was antagonizing me. But after I concentrated my nervous energy into trying to disappear, I was surprised to see my hand flickered before wavering out of existence.

“Holy crap,” I said, my hand popping back into view as I exhaled the words.

“Very good.” He nodded, face and tone still rigidly neutral. “Try again.”

By the time the tutoring session was over, I was surprised by my ability to control the level of corporeality in my hand. It wasn’t necessarily smooth, but I was further ahead than I’d expected.

The tutoring the following day was better, probably because it didn’t start off on such an antagonistic note. When I put all my nervous energy into my task, I barely had any space in my brain to waste on a certain preoccupation.

After a few weeks, my advanced abilities became clear to my peers. I eliminated sections of my body for minutes at a time, while the other people in my class still struggled to keep their hands invisible for more than a few heartbeats. I refused to register Rigel’s existence, but if I had, I would have bet my left toe he was glowing green with envy.

My improvement seemed to open me up to lighthearted scrutiny, specifically from the band of Reapers that had adopted Arlie—and, by extension, me.

“He’s kind of handsome,” a Messor, Icy, giggled one day, trying to lure me into admission. It had become a delicate game I had to play when I wanted to hang out with Arlie. Most of the time, at least a fraction of the group flocked around us and crowded me into the business end of the dining hall booth. “Too bad he’s so grumpy.”

“Mhm,” I grunted, keeping my eyes on the thick waffle I was trying to convince myself to eat.

Professor Faun was a conversational tightrope I did my best to avoid. I couldn’t be too critical, lest I protest too much, nor could I be too defensive, lest I appear cloying. It only made me painfully aware that the equilibrium was likely obvious to people who weren’t actually attracted to him.

“He’s not grumpy. He just doesn’t give a fuck,” Tom said, eyes meeting mine quickly.

Their attention shifted away from me, feeling like a physical weight leaving my shoulders.

Arlie spoke this time.

“What’s the difference? He could at least act like he likes his job.”

“I don’t think it’s the job he doesn’t care about, just the students.”

Icy curled her lip. “Lame.”

“What, you want a creep who’s only here to fuck students?” Arlie asked.

“I wouldn’t mind it if he gave it a try every now and then. That’s why I think Agnes should try and show a little more skin so I can live vicariously through her.” She affected a wispy Transatlantic accent and leaned hard into the Reaper next to her like a damsel. “Oh, Professor Faun, my poor leg has been torn off. Please kiss it better.”

Everyone besides me laughed, only to be abruptly cut off as someone popped into view at the end of the table.

“Not to intrude, but I could have sworn I heard my name.”

My body tensed, and while every other head swung in his direction, mine stayed fixed on my plate.

Blair was the one to speak up.

“Oh, no, sorry, Professor. We were just talking about Agnes’s tutoring.”

“Were you guys planning to request some extra tutoring for yourselves?” His head swiveled, scanning the table in my periphery.

“No, we were just . . .” Blair looked to everyone else for help. “We were just curious.”

“Agnes has the unfortunate luck of requiring it for her safety, but I’m sure she mourns the hours of titillating conversation she misses out on with the lot of you.”

I wished I was a quick study and had the ability to evaporate on the spot.

After a painful draw of silence, Professor Faun glanced at his watch. “Actually, Agnes, I was just coming to look for you. I have a meeting this afternoon and was going to suggest we move up our tutoring session.”

“Okay,” I said in a small voice, grabbing my bag and cane as Blair and another Messor slid out of the booth to let me out.

People muttered nervous goodbyes as I headed toward the exit. Professor Faun held the door for me, and I waited until it was firmly closed behind us. “Thanks.”

“For what?” he asked, keeping his eyes ahead as he slowed his steps to keep pace with me.

“Nothing, I guess. Actually, you know what? I’m calling bullshit.”

While my initial instinct was to mirror his apathy, something occurred to me as we walked in silence toward Corporeality Hall. If he’d really needed to change our appointment time, he wouldn’t have left it until the last minute like that.

He stopped, looking at me with raised eyebrows. “About what?”

“You did something nice for me. Admit it,” I demanded.

His head tipped slightly to the side, a subconscious movement that threw off the balance of his head, making him catch it before it could roll off. “What are you trying to prove by asking that?”

I still had the opportunity to back down, but I decided this man wasn’t allowed to make me feel crazy. “Because it’s obvious and your insistent refusal to admit it is . . . strange.”

“Right,” he said, eyes narrowed. He studied me for a painful moment before turning his attention back to the building. “You’re welcome.”

At first, I was worried confronting him would make him intolerable to be around. But to my surprise, it had the opposite effect. While he wasn’t a teddy bear, he unclenched, as if suddenly self-conscious of how unnecessarily chilly he’d been. But even in our newfound truce, I spent every lesson begging the odd swimming sensation in my stomach to dissipate.

Once, while I was practicing, he leaned in, and I’d gotten a whiff of his hair as it fell from behind his ear. And, startled, I’d popped back into reality so aggressively he’d jumped in surprise. On another occasion, he’d rolled his sleeve up to demonstrate with his arm. I’d been so distracted by the coarse hair on his forearm that I’d needed him to repeat his instructions.

The only downside of our new peace agreement was that he’d grown strangely captivated by the landscape of his classroom when we were alone together.

I could easily have sent Arlie in my place, and as long as she had my cane in her hand, he’d barely notice the difference. I’d even run the idea by her, but she had an actual social life, so I had no choice but to face the man alone every weekday.

I eased myself back into the weekend social scene to relieve some of the strain. I was so tense that, if you plucked me, I would sound an awful lot like one of Arlie’s mandolin cords.

Everyone around me was gearing up for a mysterious and exciting Halloween celebration. But I couldn’t imagine it was significantly different to the weekly round of binge drinking and necking. The upperclassmen were intent on keeping it a secret until the last possible moment.

At 6 p.m., the Friday before Halloween weekend, I found Professor Faun up on a chair, tearing the fake cobwebs from the massive window frames.

“You might be jumping the gun on cleanup,” I said, sliding my bag off my shoulder.

“Not soon enough if you ask me,” he said, tossing the fibrous wad into a box in the corner.

Since I was in an exceptionally good mood, I decided it would be funny to mess with him.

“You know, I’ve been practicing a lot.”

“Really?”

His voice was dubious as he wrestled with a fake spider, whose long plastic legs were tangled in a curtain.

I set my stuff down and tiptoed to the edge of his desk. “Yeah, in fact, I think I’ve figured it out. I probably don’t even need these lessons anymore. I should probably just go and start enjoying myself now.”

“What are you going on about?” he sighed, not even bothering to turn.

I took the last few silent steps and ducked behind the edge of his desk. “See, I’m totally invisible.”

A beat of silence lingered before the chair creaked and he finally glanced in my direction. I expected him to, at the very least, tell me to stop being annoying. Instead, I blinked, and he was right in front of me, arms crossed.

I gasped in surprise, losing my balance and falling backwards on my ass.

“Damn.” I coughed. “I forgot you could do that.”

“Are you proud of yourself?”

“It was a little funny.”

His face didn’t move, but he extended his hand out to me. I stared at it like a coiled snake. Surely, it would be acceptable to take it with the same carelessness with which it was offered. But the idea of touching him had me spooked like a rabbit.

My pause was enough to irritate him, and he impatiently curled his fingers, prompting me to reach out for him before I could think about it any harder. When our skin met, I felt an odd pressure inside of me, like my veins were threatening to bust my arm like a hot dog.

He pulled me up, retracting his grip the moment my feet were flat on the ground. “Are you ready to get started, or do you need to get anything else out of your system?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were busy ruining the holiday spirit,” I said, throwing myself down in my usual chair. “And I’ll have you know, I actually have plans this afternoon, so I’m not staying late just because you needed to be a killjoy when I arrived.”

“Is that so?” he said, brow arching. “What’s emboldened you to believe you can make this demand?”

“What are you going to do, make me stay out of spite? You can’t punish me without tormenting yourself even worse in the process.”

“Excellent point.” He crossed his arms. “Why not just cut out now? You’ve been working hard. Go and have fun.”

My eyes went wide.

“Really?”

His mouth stretched into the first smile I’d ever seen on him, though it still looked dangerously close to a frown. “No.”

“Whatever. I’m still not staying past seven.”

“Merciful.”

I tried to practice a few more times, but my heart wasn’t in it. My brain couldn’t focus, and I felt giddy enough to pester him.

“Do you have any plans for the holiday weekend?” I asked, giving up on trying to make my arms disappear after the fifth failed attempt.

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“You need to try again before we move on.”

I jabbed my thumb toward the window looking out over the edge of campus where pumpkin vines wove through the iron gates and spilled out onto the grass. “You’re not even going to carve a pumpkin?”

Most people already had them displayed in their dorm windows. Since the weather had been trending consistently toward early fall, I’d propped my window open, and Arlie and I had been using the smiling jack-o’-lantern mouths as delivery spots for our notes.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Am I going to get any actual effort out of you today?”

“It’s such an easy question to answer.”

“Think of it this way,” he sighed. “If I did happen to partake in any extracurricular activities, a student is the last person I’d confide in.”

“Are you embarrassed?”

“Did I say that?”

“I just don’t know why you’re being so cagey. I have it on pretty good authority that you’re not a literal robot.”

“Because I’m not your friend, Agnes. I’m your professor. You’re not entitled to know anything about me.”

“So, you are embarrassed?”

He let out a long, unnervingly even breath and checked his watch. “You have eighteen minutes left. You need to try a few more times before you leave.”

Relenting, I kept my eyes down as the light outside turned into a dark orange, drunken laughter filtering through the windows. I managed a few more relatively successful attempts before I was finally given the green light to go.

As I pulled my bag over my shoulder and grabbed my cane, I was surprised to see his attention still on me as I readied myself to leave. Usually, he would return to his own business before I even got to the door.

“You don’t plan on doing anything questionable tonight, correct?”

“I thought we weren’t entitled to know anything about one another’s personal lives.”

I hoped my mocking tone adequately disguised my genuine but irrational bitterness.

“I didn’t say we. I said you’re not entitled to my personal life. You, on the other hand, are someone I have invested an exceptional amount of time in keeping alive, so I feel I should have some input.”

“I wasn’t planning on dangling any more limbs over the fence if that’s what you’re asking.”

He remained unamused.

“Just behave.”

I walked to the door, and just before I rounded the corner, I leaned back inside and said, “Just for you, Professor. If anything catches me, I’ll make sure it finishes me off for the sake of convenience.”

I left before I could gauge his reaction, but I got the sense it wasn’t positive. All I felt was the thrill of knowing for the first time he might think about me after I’d left his eyeline.

I hurried to the spot in the courtyard where Arlie and the Messors were waiting for me with jugs of cider under a craggy old tree.

I landed on the blanket with a huff and grabbed the cup extended to me.

“Rough session with Professor Personality?” Arlie asked, her voice forming a small cloud in front of her face.

She was huddled under another blanket with Blair, and they passed a shared drink between them. The intimacy of it had me averting my eyes.

I glanced at Tom, who was scanning me expectantly. I felt nothing when I looked at him. He might as well have been an extension of the tree overhead. But I wanted to play the part of someone who might want him, at least for the evening.

“Let’s just say he’s not one for the holiday spirit.”

“He’s not so bad,” Blair insisted. “I think the constant air of youthful ignorance exhausts him.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m very aware, aware that he’s an asshole for no reason,” Arlie retorted.

She’d made the unfortunate mistake of making the wrong part of her body disappear during drills and had been publicly corrected. I didn’t think it had been exceptionally harsh, but it killed any favor she might have had for him.

They both looked to me, and I wasn’t sure which side to take. It didn’t feel like a distinction I could make without saying the wrong thing.

But then I felt an arm come around my shoulders, and Tom leaned in to say, “Leave her be.”

It was clearly a ruse to touch me, but I was willing to accept it.

“I mean, just look at him.” Arlie nodded toward the front of Corporeality Hall.

I turned to see Professor Faun walking down the path, books in hand, headed toward the cathedral. He seemed to sense our eyes because his head swiveled to us, and I ducked as the rest of them waved stiffly.

“He just looks so miserable,” Arlie continued once he was a safe distance away.

I redirected the conversation once the drinks started flowing, and they decided to finally let me in on the plans for the evening.

“We’re going to the mortal world?” I asked, nearly choking on the words.

Blair shrugged as if that wasn’t the craziest thing we could do. “Everyone does it today. We like to go and mess around in graveyards for a bit of fun.”

“Won’t there be—you know—people there?”

“Yeah, that’s like half the point. They want to be scared, and we get to have a fun time doing it. It’s a blast.”

“The school allows this?”

All the reapers scoffed.

“Of course not.”

“Right. Why even ask?”

We drank until nightfall, waiting for the cover of darkness before exacting our plan. Meanwhile, people raced around us, jumping in piles of leaves and throwing handfuls of pumpkin guts at each other. Others popped bright candies into their mouths, but I couldn’t begin to guess where they got them.

When it finally became dark and the lanterns lining the walkways flickered to life, it was finally time to sneak away.

Most of the other Reapers dispersed to their own shenanigans, shooting us winks as we circled Corporeality Hall to the tree encased in an iron cage.

“Nervous?” Tom asked, purposely keeping pace with me.

Nodding, I tried to disguise the tremor in my voice as a chill. “Only a little.”

“Don’t worry, this is the starter cemetery. It’s the only one that’s accessible on school grounds. Most people go off campus, but we decided to go easy on you newbies.”

“Kind of you.”

He grinned, seemingly oblivious to my sarcasm. “We do care about you girls, you know?”

Ahead of us, Blair and Arlie walked close together, fingers tangled but tucked out of the way, as if it was some kind of secret. Despite their coy attitudes, I had no doubt there was genuine care between them. It felt cheap for Tom to lump us together, as if our mutual tolerance had actual substance. I wondered if he thought I was dumb enough to believe it.

We approached the iron cage, and Blair pulled out a set of slender metal picks before working on the lock.

“Is it really that easy?” Arlie whispered.

He stopped just long enough to smirk at her. “Yeah, they haven’t bothered replacing it because they don’t really care if you sneak through here. They’ll only stop us if we’re dumb enough to get caught.”

The lock clicked and popped open with one deft twitch of the picks. Blair held the door as we filed inside the cramped cage, Tom leading the way. He felt around the edge of the tree, seeming to prod through the open space until his hand suddenly disappeared.

“Tally ho,” he said, pushing himself through until the darkness swallowed him whole.

Arlie motioned for me to follow him through, so I stuck my hand out, feeling around in the air until I felt a light pop, and my hand disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed forward, following that sensation until it engulfed my body. When I opened my eyes next, I was in a graveyard. But it didn’t feel the way purgatory felt. It was oddly distorted, like I was looking through a pane of glass. The night breeze didn’t bite at my face, and the crisp leaves didn’t crunch underfoot.

“How do you feel?” I heard next to me, and when I looked up, I found Tom waiting, drinks in hand.

The moon was massive and bright in the sky. I’d almost forgotten that the moon existed, no less that it was so big. It painted the headstones a pale gray, and when I finally looked at Tom, I realized that he almost looked attractive for the first time.

I took the drink from his hand and pulled from it until my neck arched back painfully. Once the bottle was drained, I smiled coyly. “I feel spooky.”

He traded my empty bottle for his full one, and we went to join Arlie and Blair. Maybe it was the disorienting nature of the mortal world, but we all seemed to descend into slurring inebriation at a record pace. We danced through the headstones and played hide and go seek, which we discovered was unfair when half the players could become properly invisible. It began to feel not that we were in the mortal world but a quiet place all our own. That was until we heard slamming car doors.

We ran to the edge of the graveyard to find a huddle of teenagers spilling out of a car, adorned in half-baked costumes.

“We should do a seance,” a sexy cat in black Lycra said, eyeing a pirate with a cardboard sword.

The pirate scoffed. “Are we twelve?”

“We’re already here,” the cat retorted.

I was so fixated on them I didn’t notice Tom grabbing my arm until he yanked me behind a headstone.

“What?” I hissed as I landed in the grass.

“They’ll see you if you’re not careful.”

“Really?”

“Unless you’re suddenly really good at turning invisible, yeah.”

“I thought the whole point was to scare them?”

“Plausible deniability.” He tapped his temple. “We don’t want too many people coming back next year. Which they will if people report seeing full body apparitions.”

I wrinkled my nose. “So, we just have to hide the whole time?”

“Of course not, but you’ve got to learn the subtle art of haunting.”

He pointed across the cemetery to where Blair and Arlie crouched. As the mortal teenagers traversed the headstones toward the center of the cemetery, Blair got up and ran ahead of them before turning invisible.

Then, as the teenagers crested the hill, rustling roused from the darkness. A flurry of leaves jumped out at them, making them all squeal in fearful delight.

I looked to my side but found Tom was gone—or, more likely, invisible. When the teenagers continued their walk, an odd, theatrical weeping caught my attention.

“What was that?” the sexy cat asked, sounding genuinely terrified.

Someone dressed as a cowboy in a pair of thin polyester chaps rolled his eyes. “It’s just the wind.”

Arlie and I hung back while the boys antagonized the teenagers, drinking and amusing ourselves as their fear slowly escalated.

“There’s so much energy out here tonight,” the sexy cat insisted. “We definitely need to do a séance.”

The group sat on the grass and pulled out scented candles from a backpack.

“Enjoying the show?” Tom whispered, appearing next to me and pulling me close to him.

I could tell by his eyes he’d been imbibing as well. When I shifted, my head spun, the alcohol from the evening catching up with me.

Before I knew it, I was being pulled to the ground behind a mausoleum, and Tom’s weight was coming down on top of me. My head was swimming, but when his lips met mine, rough and desperate, I leaned into them.

He could have been anyone, really, it didn’t matter. There seemed to be a dually apathetic indulgence going on that was kind of a relief. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever kissed someone I actually craved, but it sounded stressful.

Against my will, a certain unwelcome professor entered my mind, seemingly just as displeased to be there as I was to have him. But the harder I tried to push him away, the more he solidified. The way he’d scowled at me hours before was so vivid in my mind he might as well have been present. Because, in that moment, his eyes, usually glazed and distant, were trained on me. It was a rare, lucid moment, and it had been in the name of warning me against my own stupidity.

As Tom worked his hand up under my sweater, I got the oddest burst of Professor Faun’s scent. He very well could have been standing right next to us. But I knew it was only because he was occupying my cruel mind. The smell only lasted a split second, but just as Tom’s fingers skimmed my bare nipple, an odd sound akin to a lightning crack froze us in action.

Above, the sky was dark and calm. But the noise hadn’t even been distorted in the way the other mortal sounds had been. It was like it was happening on the same immortal plane we occupied.

Then the screaming started.