Luna had no frame of reference for the selling of a house and the buying of another, but she still knew that what happened in a couple of months was outside the norm.

Whatever her thoughts on the matter, Ungle’s funeral came and went, a couple showings were had, and Bob’s yer uncle she, Ant, and Georgia were off to live in an Amish paradise. She knew that was a little dramatic, it wasn’t that backwoods or electricity-free, but it felt like it and things kept getting worse because Ant was dressing them both in florals and lace and putting their hair in pigtails with ribbon and teaching them cursive! Georgia wasn’t going to school anymore and Luna was hardly dreaming at all these days because she was usually beaten into the ground by sunset. Ant went all out with the hobby farming and they had goats and chickens and ducks.

More responsibility than she ever wanted or asked for, but she was still taking it better than Georgia who resented not being allowed to sit still all day long like she did at school. If they weren’t up and moving, Ant would find something for them to do. It was good for Georgia’s weight, but Luna didn’t think her own metabolism needed any help.

As for Ant, her life as an influencer was flourishing. It was an inspiring tale of a woman reborn.

Exactly like Luna meant it to be except not at all.

“What did you think she would do?”

“I don’t know,” she groused. “Not this.”

“Nothing,” Donner said. “You thought nothing about how it would impact you in the long run. You didn’t want to deal with her grieving and pushed her through it yourself. I hope you learn a lesson from all this.”

There were definitely lessons. Definitely. She couldn’t put her finger on any one in particular but she had to have learned something.

“Maybe the lesson is that I won’t learn lessons.”

He didn’t respond.

“I haven’t seen Ink Pen for a while,” she told him, changing the subject. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“I still don’t understand what Ink Pen is, so it's no loss to me.”

“Ink Pen is the monster at the end of the universe, like a void things will eventually fall into and disappear. When the termination of all things comes, it will be because of Ink Pen. I don’t know what exactly Ink Pen is though because it doesn’t make sense. It wants to end itself along with everything else and doesn’t that violate some rule of existence?”

“Natural law would assume a sentient being avoiding annihilation rather than seeking it out, yes.”

“I imagine Ink Pen’s existence must be one of pure torture.” She looked to the night sky; a view undisturbed by the pollution of city lights. “In the unforgiving vacuum of space, no one can hear you scream.”

It was easy to get outside in the dark, as Ant and Georgia slept like logs with all the effort they put into living. Georgia because her mother made her and Ant because it was coping. The whole phoenix thing was a catalyst, but she still had shit to work through.

As for Luna, she was mostly busy trying to do as little work as possible by using magic whenever she could. It was good practice; she was determined to be ahead of the crowd when she finally went to Pinewood School of the Arcane Arts.

Donner had to complain about a lot, but that was nothing new. He said she would get too good, that it would raise suspicions and call unnecessary attention. She said she didn’t have to go full blast at school, but she wanted to be known to be a little better than the rest.

She’d never been popular before.

“And you’ll never be if they take you for a know-it-all.”

“I won’t be.” Even if she really was.

Sitting outdoors in the winter air in a nightdress, for example, was easily accomplished with the harnessing of ambient heat.

“That is energy, Luna, and it comes from somewhere.”

“Not around here apparently.”

“If you find your aunt dead one morning you’re going to regret it.”

“I’d know if she was dying.” And she would. She could tell things like that now. Ant was a thin yellow glow and Georgia pinky hues. Their colors were steady. The animals were all fine, too.

Ungle’s would remain unknown and so would Pink’s. Unless she could find their souls.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Necromancy is frowned upon, to put it lightly, no matter where you go.”

“So, 10 out of 10 would not recommend?”

She was beginning to side with Donner on the afterlife issue. Snowman sounded sure of himself when he said the dead passed through that place, but she hadn’t seen anyone else there and he never talked about seeing others, even when she asked.

The road was empty no matter when she showed up.

She had a hanging tree now. It was out in the woods, in its own clearing. Old, she could feel it. A special thing and that was why she chose it for her mode of death. Donner said the place was magic in and of itself; though he didn't know the source for sure, he had suspicions that it had to do with sacrifices in ages past. If they dug, he was pretty sure they’d find bones, but that would disturb the magic so he told her to leave it alone.

There was a lot more to magic for most people than there was for Luna, a fact that upset Donner, but there was nothing he could do about it except insist that she was somehow wrong.

Wrong or right didn’t matter. What mattered was the reality that while students and adults alike waved sticks through the air, chanted beneath the light of the full moon, and cast stones, Luna required none of that to make things happen the way she wanted them to happen. And her results were aligned with her will. To hear Donner tell it, everyone else was lucky if ten percent of their desire made it through the mist between the unseen and the discernable.

He was choosing to ignore most of her oddities now, at least for as long as he could stand it. Then it would burst out of him in an onslaught of denunciations that could be sustained for up to twenty minutes so far. Luna was keeping track. That was his record and she wasn’t sure he could break it because the straw that broke that camel’s back was a big one. The one that saw her keeping warm, as it happened, because that required directly borrowing from the local power stores. What bothered him was that he didn’t know where she was getting the warmth from.

“There should be patches of dead grass, fallen squirrels, or something to evidence its use. Instead, there is nothing and that isn’t right. Something is being used, Luna, though we don’t know what it is. No doubt it will be noticed!”

“Yeah, right. I’m using hardly anything. Who would care about some brown grass in the middle of winter?”

“It is not the middle of-”

“Oh whatever! You argue about everything.”

The farmhouse was small. Two bedrooms so she and Georgia shared and Ant thought it was perfectly perfect to have them in one big bed with a floral quilt that someone who read her blog sent them. Her career change worked out, at least. Luna thought she deserved a win like that after Ungle left.

“People die all over the world every day, Luna. No one deserves anything. They get what they get.”

“If I say she deserves it then she does.”

“Your aunt had the benefit of you. Others have a rich grandfather. Most are dirt poor and living in squalor. Do they deserve any of that?”

She clenched her teeth.

“Exactly. Life is unfair.”

“Life’s trying its best.”

“And you say I argue,” he grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the one insisting that the end of everything is a certainty.”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean life doesn’t matter while it’s here.”

“Think what you want, but no matter what you do, the end is coming. Be it the end of everything or the end of a single butterfly. Death must stand as the great equalizer since life seems to have favorites.”

“You must have been one of those,” she told him. “Or else you would be all the way gone, like Ungle and Pink.”

“Doubtful. More likely my precautions were somewhat effective.”

“You think you cheated death? That’s dumb, especially since you think it’s inescapable.”

“That is what I now believe. Not long ago I was trying to outrun it and I will avoid death for as long as I can, but I am no longer foolish enough to think that I will be immortal. I do believe it is impossible.”

“The sun will explode,” she said, “and everything will burn with it. But that still won’t be Ink Pen’s time. Life could keep going and going.”

“I’m not giving up living. Unlike you, I’m not regularly suicidal, however, I may not attempt to make it to Ink Pen’s revenge.”

“But if you don’t then I’ll be all alone at the end of everything.”

They fell silent.

Luna felt sure she would make it that far, not because she wanted to but because she couldn’t help it. She was alone on the train at the edge of the universe, pushing back the Ink Pen black, and she would be alone at the end if Donner didn’t make it that far.

“Like I said, I won’t be seeking death.”

He made no promises to stay alive, though, and she supposed that was fair. He couldn’t promise not to die.

“I’m going to keep you alive.”

She could promise though.

“You tried that with your uncle and it didn’t work.”

“That was different.”

Another sigh. “Think what you want, try what you will. I can hardly stop you. As it stands, I can’t even get away from you.”

They were no closer to finding a way to give his consciousness a body of its own. She’d wanted to try using dead animals as they came across them in the woods, but he was stoutly against it and refused. If he couldn’t be human, he would be nothing. It was too bad they hadn’t found a body out there yet. She thought it was a good place to dump a murder victim.

“I don’t want to be the walking dead, Luna. I will not take a place in a corpse. My own body is what I will have one way or another." He was frustrated. "I recognize my hubris now. I did not have a plan in place for my death because I assumed I would never face it and the longer it goes on the higher the chance of issues arising. The real question is who, if anyone, is aware of what happened. No one should have been alerted to my demise. I assume my body is still where I died, but there remains the problem of how to transfer my consciousness.”

“You don’t know how you got here?”

“No. I was suddenly aware of being outside my own body and on the bridge. I didn't notice anything beyond the immediate shift.”

Well, that was no help.

“Nothing you remember is good for anything.”

The quiet was huffy on both accounts.