Something is wrong.

I can’t feel physical sensations of any kind. But emotions - I can very much feel those. Right now, I am just aware enough to be terrified.

I am dissolved, shapeless, and formless. The bonds that hold me together have been given over to a higher purpose. One that I can no longer recall.

I know enough to remember that I exist, but little more than that. My thoughts can’t form into coherence before I lose my grasp on them. I see flashes of everything, and then nothing. I can hear, but can’t understand the sounds, or even recognize them as sounds before they’re gone again. I forget everything that happens to me within the same moment that it does. As if I am skimming over the ocean of the real world, occasionally coming close enough to graze my reaching fingers along the surface.

The only thought I can clearly understand is that I should not be experiencing this, that it isn’t normal. I am trapped in a strange, prolonged, slow nightmare.

I can’t think well enough to discern how much time I’ve spent like this. Someone told me that I’m usually gone for three days. But who could have said that? No one speaks to me.

Days, nights. Have I gone through twenty of them, or has it only been a few minutes? There’s no way to tell.

A dreadful, gut-wrenching possibility strikes me - that it’s been years. No, not years - decades. Centuries. The people who were trying to help me, they’re long gone. Their great-great-grandchildren are starting to grow old, and they know nothing about the lost soul their ancestors once tried to save, all that time ago.

There are people trying to save me, aren’t there? From what? I was in trouble. I am in trouble.

Missing Will, though, someone says. The name Will strikes me as vaguely familiar, but I don’t know why, or from what.

Well, he’s dissolved, right? someone else answers. So isn’t he kind of everywhere, right now? Including here.

Who am I hearing? I open my mouth to shout for help, but I have no mouth, I have no form, no means to get my voice out. I’m suffocating on them, all these words I can’t speak.

Will, it’s me. I’m waiting for you. Are you back yet? You’ve been gone longer than normal.

Am I Will? Why can’t I remember myself? I rake through my memory, desperately trying to think what came before this. I’m about to land on something, and it slips through my fingers at the last moment, my mind seconds away from grasping it. Over and over, this happens. Each time, I think - this is the one. I remember something.

Each time, I come up empty-handed.

The terror is mounting relentlessly, the longer this goes on. I am reaching the point of blind panic.

Will. Where are you? I’m waiting for you. I’m right here on Benton Street, where we always find each other.

Benton Street. A memory that kept slipping away before I could catch it - I suddenly grab hold of it. Streetlights, their muted orange glow. Rows of houses, dark and silent. A late night. I was there.

A woman. Caught between worlds, just as I am. On her back, in the street, letting the cars pass right through her. Her eyes defiant, unflinching, watching the sparks fly.

Yes. I remember.

I am struck with the sensation of falling a very long way and from a very great height. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact, then realize - my eyes. I... can open and close them. I do so, several times, and find myself blinking up at a starscape. Not a kaleidoscope of incomprehensible dark and light. It’s that same, familiar night sky that’s stretched over my head every evening for the past two hundred or so years.

I hold very still for a few breaths, grateful for the simple, static existence of the earth beneath me and the sky above me. Grateful like the survivor of a deep-water shipwreck is grateful for his lifeboat.

I sit up, looking for my body, and don’t find it. Right. It’s not there. But I can touch it again. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to touch, since I came to this form. I press my fingers to the bones of my face, run my hands through my hair, knock my knuckles against the soles of my boots.

Satisfied that I’m all in one piece, I look up, and stop.

Before me, sitting on the sidewalk, is a woman. Moonlight gilds her raven hair, which falls only just below her jaw. She’s barefoot, her silvery jacket tossed aside. She turns her head, and I see her face. Long, dark eyelashes, full lips, and a very anxious expression. A halo of soft light surrounds her.

Kasey.

Everything comes flooding back at once. My life, or what I remember of it. My afterlife. My name, who and what I am. The team trying to help me. Kasey, changing everything. It all flashes through my head, and I know it again.

If ghosts could cry, I would weep with relief. I genuinely thought it was all lost.

Normally I can’t recall what I experienced, during these long blackouts. This time is different. I don’t remember the specifics, just the overall sensation, but that alone is enough to chill me to my core.

Why would it be different, this time?

I give Kasey a quick touch to her wrist, in part to inform her that I’ve returned, and in part because I need to share in her warmth, if only briefly. The place I came from was so... nothing. Infinite nothing.

She startles. Her eyes widen, and then her face crumples in relief. I am struck with a ludicrous urge to kiss it.

“Oh my god, Will! Where were you? It’s been more than three days! I was starting to think…”

“Kasey.” I drop to sit in front of her. “Something is happening to me. Something is wrong.”

“Don’t spend any heat! I don’t have the ouija board. I’ll go tell Jamie that you’re back. Or no - he’s at work. I’ll go tell Aiden, and we’ll come back later tonight, okay?”

“Wait, no, Kasey, please!” I reach for her hand, but she hesitates, halfway through standing up.

Slowly, she sits back down.

“Actually… I feel like we haven’t gotten to just talk in a long time.” She considers, tapping her rosy lips in that way that I love. “I’ll go tell them in a minute. I’ve been trying so hard not to let on how nervous I’ve been. Jamie can tell, of course. He can always tell. He’s clearly been trying to cheer me up. I just - I thought it was a given, that it’s three days for you to recharge. When we went this long without hearing anything… I was starting to wonder if - I don’t know. I don’t even know.”

“It felt different, this time,” I tell her. “I think... I might be wearing myself too thin. Maybe I’m not supposed to break the bonds over and over again, like this.”

In fact, it’s impossible for me to die, and no one is trying to release me, so - what happens if the bonds dissolve and fail to reform? Will I be trapped in that stasis, that place that I just came from? Forever? Until the team summons me?

What if they can’t?

The terror I felt, when I was unbound and scattered, aware of it but unable to do anything - that was something else. I have not feared death since my last breath, but I fear that. That is a fate I simply cannot accept for myself. I would rather be released.

I told Kasey (though she couldn’t hear it) that I would do this one thousand times over, if she asked me to. I meant it. But if I crumble apart irreparably - that won’t serve either of us any good. That would leave me lost, and her alone.

What can I do? Stop sharing my warmth? What will Kasey think - what will the team think? Could I use the ouija board to explain what’s happening to me? I try to think of short words and phrases, ones that could communicate what I need to say.

Too much. I am breaking. Can’t answer. Need time. I’m scared.

None of it will do. They’re all too long, and I’ll burn up before I can get them across. Can it be one word? What word would suffice?

I wrack my brains for the right one, but there’s nothing. No clean, simple answer.

I sit there and listen to Kasey talk, watching her face. I can’t believe I had forgotten her so completely, only minutes before this. How could I ever forget? Her voice, her spirit, her words. The most important things in the world to me, and yet - they slipped away like it was nothing. I may as well have been trying to hold onto a fistful of air.

She updates me on the progress they’re making, tells me that they’ve identified the museum. She reminds me that the team only needs one more find to make the map work.

“So - okay, I’m gonna go get the boys. It might be a minute, Jamie probably still has some time left in his shift, but. We’ll be back soon with the ouija board. Meet us at the lot? Same place as last time.”

I walk there alone. Reach the lot and step through the fence. Stop in the middle, where we met before, when I told them of the museum. This is where they will set up the ouija board again. They’ll want to know which item they need from the collection. I will have to answer, or they will have to go in blind. The chances of success dwindle significantly, if that happens.

I will have to do this at least one more time.

I realize that I’m trembling. I can’t go back there. I can’t go back to that place. I can’t risk forgetting her again.

Eventually, familiar voices rise up. Aiden, Kasey, and Jamie approach the lot, chattering away, keeping the conversation hushed to avoid attracting attention.

“No, I absolutely will not hold it for a second, Aiden! Just tie your shoe when we get there. We’re like one minute away.”

“Jamie. You bought this ouija board from a website. It’s made out of plastic. It only works because Will makes it work.”

“First of all, that’s real wood, not plastic, and I’ll thank you to get that detail right, because it was ten extra dollars.”

“Will you two morons please get a move on?”

“Yes, we will!” Jamie shivers, zipping up his jacket. “It’s so cold out here. Why did we walk?”

Two of them hop the fence; one coasts directly through it. I need to decide what to do, and fast.

“Okay, I’m gonna skip asking if he’s here,” Kasey says. “If he is, he’ll stop us on one of the letters, so. Let’s save that heat.”

I watch them get ready, my heart hammering.

“Ready, Will?” Kasey asks, when they’re all seated around the board. “What’s the object that we’re stealing?”

I am faced with an impossible choice, but it requires a decision.

“L,” Kasey says, when I tap her arm. “O. C. K.”

I can already feel the threads coming undone. There are two more letters I need to share, and I know that doing so will throw me back into oblivion.

But I’ve overlooked an option, haven’t I? Can I give them half the answer, and trust them to understand the rest? Surely they’ll know I don’t mean a lock? They got museum from mus, last time. That was an accident, giving them the partial word, but - I could do it on purpose.

I have to think that they’ll understand. It’s not so far of a leap. They’ve solved tougher puzzles in the past. This should be easy, by comparison.

On the other hand, they won’t expect me to have owned a locket. That… may throw them off. They will be thinking of things a burly beat crew bloke with scarcely a dollar to his name would have had in his possession. That’s the problem, the locket wasn’t actually mine.

Aiden moves the planchette over C, D, and... E. I hold my breath, then let him slide it past, hoping that I didn’t just make a disastrous mistake.

He gets to the end of the board, then stops, quirking an eyebrow at Kasey.

“Is that it?”

She frowns. “I don’t know. Try again?”

I have another chance, but again, I let it pass. Please, whatever god or gods or forces of the universe are out there. Please don’t let this be the wrong choice.

“Lock?” Jamie asks, sitting back.

“That can’t be it.” Kasey’s frown grows deeper. “We must have used up all of Will’s energy, already.”

“That was only four letters.”

“I know that, Jamie! Lock… it has to mean something else.”

They argue over it for some time, then gather up the ouija board and walk away, still debating.

I don’t like to feel creepy, don’t like following people around without their knowledge, but - after what just happened to me, nothing sounds worse than being alone.

Which friend to go with?

I decide to follow Aiden home. Of all the team members, he's the one with the calmest, steadiest presence, and I could use that.

He steps from the sidewalk onto a gravel pathway, at the end of which is a charcoal-grey house with white trim. Aiden unlocks the door, and I follow him into a cozy living room. He stops to pull off his shoes; I take a look around, and discover that we are not alone.

A man and woman are asleep together on the couch. I recognize them: they were at the flower shop where I tracked down Jamie. Kent and Gabby, wasn’t it?

A child is nestled between them. Her head is on a pillow in Gabby’s lap, one of her toes poking into Kent’s ribs. Gabby has an arm tucked over the little girl, and Kent, in his sleep, is holding one of her feet. His glasses have slid halfway down his nose.

The television is on, playing commercials. A bowl on the table suggests that they were having some popcorn. Only the kernels are left.

Aiden pauses, looking at the inhabitants of the couch with a little smile on his face. He carefully works the remote from Kent’s hand, mutes the TV, then turns and heads through a door at the far end of the room. He doubles back a moment later, removes Kent’s glasses, and sets them on the side table before leaving again.

I intended to follow him, but I linger in the living room. This arrangement on the couch speaks to me of peace and safety, two things I'm desperately craving right now.

Besides, muted though it may be, the TV is on. I almost never go into people’s homes, so I rarely have the chance to watch.

I sit down on the floor next to the couch, leaving the little family their own space.

“Don’t mind me. I’m just a friend of Aiden’s. Mind if I watch your TV?”

No one answers, but at least this time I can pretend it’s because everyone is sleeping.

I like commercials the best. They’re a flipbook of the world, quick glimpses of all the things the living get to experience. Burgers and coffee, cars and candy. Watches, sneakers. Credit cards that give you airline miles, whatever those are. Cell phone plans and face creams.

America runs on Dunkin’, the TV informs me, in bold letters. What actually is a Dunkin’? I don’t think we have any in Ketterbridge. Surely they don’t mean those donuts currently displayed on the screen? In my day, America ran on timber. I’m hard-pressed to think a change so profound as that has happened. I shall have to ask Kasey about it, if I’m ever summoned.

Kasey. My heart twists at the very thought of her. I hope she’ll understand why I’ve gone silent. I have no idea how long it will take for me to feel some semblance of whole again, strong enough to answer without fear of falling apart. Even those four letters took so much from me.

I close my eyes and do my best to send her a message without using any heat.

I’m not gone. I promise. Only waiting. I would give you everything, but I have nothing left to give. You can save me without my help. I know you can, because I know you.

Please hurry.