Then he said, simply, “You remember her.”
I swallowed hard.
“You remember her as she was,” Gideon continued. “Not as a ghost you can summon to make your pain behave. You remember her in the living world. In your son. In the way you still flinch when someone says her name like it might shatter you.”
My throat tightened so hard it hurt.
I looked away.
Gideon leaned back, studying me. “You want to honor Anna?” he asked.
My throat tightened. I nodded.
“Then stop using her memory as a cage,” Gideon said quietly.
My eyes burned again. I nodded once, stiff.
“Supplies are behind you,” Gideon said. “And Michael?”
I stood slowly, the world still tilted but… maybe less.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Next time you feel like visiting the clearing alone at night,” Gideon said, voice back to gruff, “tell someone first.”
I wiped my face again, more embarrassed than I wanted to admit. “Is that more cryptic advice?”
“It’s common sense dressed up in spooky language,” he said dryly. Then, after a beat, he added, quieter, “You got lucky once.”
My chest tightened. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” Gideon muttered, eyes dropping to his paperwork like it could save him. “I’m protecting myself as much as you.”
I grabbed the box of supplies—heavier than I expected, or maybe my arms were just tired from carrying too much for too long.
I paused at the door. “Gideon.”
He didn’t look up. “What.”
“You said you did it once,” I said, voice low.
His hand stilled on the page.
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then, without looking at me, he said, “Death magic has a way of circling back.”
My skin prickled.
“The last thing this town needs,” Gideon added, voice like stone, “is more ghosts.”
I stepped back into the garage, letting the door close behind me.
The noise hit me like warmth—tools, laughter, music, life.
Cal appeared at my elbow as if he’d been conjured. “Everything okay? You were in there a while. Gideon do his whole mysterious sage routine?”
“Something like that,” I said, and my voice sounded different. Thinner. Realer.
