They were laughing. Jacob and Jan were laughing. I felt my heart fly in my ribs. It was the first time I’d heard them laugh.

Then I was watching Anna. She was sitting next to Jan, bent over his little body, teaching him how to put on his shoes. She moved his small hands for him at first, then she waited as he tried to do it himself. Off again. On again. She talked to him the whole time. She talked like she knew everything. Sometimes it drove me crazy. Sometimes it was comforting.

Then I was in the garden, proudly gazing at the shoes I’d put on myself. I heard Anna call my name. I looked up. She and Jacob were waiting for me. He was carrying the weeds. She was carrying the basket with a few early vegetables laying in the bottom.

I jumped to my feet and ran over to them. I grabbed their hands, one from each of them, even though the door to the house was only a few feet away.

Then I was there with all three of them.

If I wasn’t them, who was I?

I blinked and looked around to orient myself.

We were on the great landing. The small Christmas tree in front of us glowed with hundreds of tiny lights. My favorite quilt was wrapped around my body. Jan sat beside me. Anna was next to him.

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Jacob sat on the floor in front of the couch.

“I like it,” Jacob said.

“Yes,” Jan said.

I couldn’t turn my head to look, but I heard Anna’s voice:

Thank you, Emerra. For everything.

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I thought I felt someone beside my cot. I groaned and twisted in my sleep. My eyes opened only a crack. It was enough for me to see white and black. There was something in his hand.

“Jacky?” I muttered.

“Go back to sleep, Emerra.”

His whisper carried an undertone that rang through the words. It wasn’t a suggestion—it was a statement of what would be.

I couldn’t fight it. I didn’t want to. My eyes closed.

They flew open hours later. I jerked upright, then got to my feet long before I was ready. I stumbled over to my bed and stood there, one hand on the frame, swaying as my groggy body got used to being upright.

The bed was empty.

I ran into the hall and over to the great landing. It was empty. The tree was dark.

Everything was empty. The whole house felt empty.

I ran down the front stairs. I didn’t call their names. I didn’t want to wake anyone, and some part of me knew it would be useless.

When I went into the sitting room, I found Noctis standing by the fireplace.

“Jacky, where are my ghosts?”

There was a long silence. Then he said, “A solution presented itself.”

Before he could say anything else, I bit both my lips and fled.

The crawl back up the stairs took much longer than the descent. Conrad found me a few minutes later on the couch in front of the small tree. The Christmas lights were bright enough he could easily see the tear tracks on my face—if he needed to see them. He probably knew I was crying because of the ugly, blubbering sniffles I let out every other second.

“Mera?”

“They’re gone.”

He sighed and sat down on the couch next to me. I put my head on his arm and blubbered into his fur.