The day was not over.

All I wanted was to take a long hot shower, put my dirty clothes in a pile, light them on fire—if they’d light; they were still damp—and crash on the avocado-green couch next to Conrad to watch anime on his phone.

But that was not to be. And it wasn’t a lack of internet or lighter fluid that stopped me.

It was Olene Durand.

When we reached the top of the hill and were standing level with the motel, Conrad grabbed my elbow.

I stopped. “What is it?”

“Someone’s in our room,” Conrad said.

I tried to call Kappa back, but he was zig-zag hopping across the dirt road letting out a happy “la!” with every landing. He couldn’t hear me. It was only when the door opened that he realized something was wrong. He scuttled back a few inches and flattened himself against the ground.

Jasper came out first. He didn’t bother poofing himself up—although, given his natural poof, I wasn’t sure I’d know if he did. He opened his mouth, drew his lips back to show off his needle teeth, and let out a loud, long hiss.

Olene backed out of the door and turned to see what Jasper was hissing at.

I don’t think she ever saw Kappa. Her eyes landed on me and Conrad, and they stayed there.

Her face lost what little color it had. She lifted her shaking hand from the knob and crossed herself. There was a second where no one moved and the only noises were swamp sounds and Jasper’s moan of infuriated disapproval. Ms. Durand crossed herself again.

Daniel Vance was a prophet.

I stumbled toward her while Conrad stayed where he was. Durand’s eyes never left the wolfman. I scooped up Kappa and stuck my tongue out at Jasper to show him I wasn’t impressed.

“It’s okay, Ms. Durand,” I said in a soothing voice. I went back to Conrad, handed him Kappa and the black box, then turned to Olene. “It’s okay. He’s with me.”

Still staring, she said, in a loud trembling voice, “I wasn’t snooping.”

I had been walking toward her, but when I heard that, I stopped. After shaking my head to clear it of all those pesky suspicions that had inexplicably popped up, I finished crossing over to Durand, took her by the arm, and put my other hand on her back. “It’s fine. Right?”

I tried to pull her away, if only to get her to stop staring, but despite the fact she was nothing but skin and bones, I couldn’t make her budge. Maybe she kept big rocks in her cardigan pockets. Maybe that’s why it was so droopy.

“I wasn’t snooping,” she repeated, “I was cleaning.”

She didn’t have any kind of cleaning cart with her, but she did have a feather duster clenched in one hand. I’d seen better justifications, but at least she was trying.

“Good. That’s good. Thank you.” I had slipped into my “encouraging mom” voice—the one that you used when you were talking to a toddler. I didn’t want her to think I was being disrespectful, so I cleared my throat and adjusted my tone. “Ms. Durand,” I motioned to the wolfman, “this is Conrad Bauer.”

Her head whipped toward me. I could see the whites all around her irises.

“He’s a rougarou.”

“He’s not—” I cut myself off.

My eyes darted over to Conrad, still standing across the road with Kappa in his arms. Kappa was looking around at all of us, but Conrad kept his eyes on a rock at the side of the road.

Body of a man. Head of a wolf. That fit Conrad’s description pretty well. I could tell Ms. Durand that he was a lycanthrope, but he was a wolfman to me, and he’d probably still be a rougarou to her.

I decided to stick with the facts that might be more helpful. “Look, Mr. Bauer was sent here with me.”

This did not have the reassuring influence that I hoped it might.

“What have I done to you?” she screeched. “I’m a good Catholic!”

“I believe you!” I protested.

“I was cleaning your room—that’s all!”

That I didn’t believe. But I had more important things to worry about. Like the fact that Conrad wasn’t supposed to be standing around a lit driveway where anyone coming down the road might see him.

I forced myself to sound cheerful and nonchalant. It’s more difficult when you’re gritting your teeth.

“You know what? You look like you could use a drink. Let’s go to the lobby and get you one.” I called over to Conrad, “You can take Kappa inside and relax. I’m going to stay with Ms. Durand until she’s calmed down.” I glanced at her face. “It might take a while.”

Jasper hissed at me.

“And you shut up,” I told him.

I took Ms. Durand firmly by the shoulders and turned her away from Conrad. She allowed me to walk her along the front of the building. It was like shoving a clockwork figure. She could lift her legs, but all the forward momentum came from me.

I opened the lobby door, drew her inside, and left Jasper yowling on the other side of the glass. Since we were in a state of near emergency, I ignored the “employees only” sign and led her behind the front counter, over to her stool. She resumed her imitation of a mannequin the moment she was perched on it. I started hunting around for some alcohol.

The low desk on her side of the counter had piles of papers and some pens. None of the piles were straightened, but there weren’t enough papers to make it look cluttered. It was a tidiness born from scarcity. The papers I had filled out were still lying out. They were the only ones with any writing on them.

How many visitors did this place get?

Under the desk was a second stool that probably hadn’t known anything but cat paws for years, and a garbage can with a few empty pods of coffee creamer. Along the short wall beside us, I saw a mini-fridge and some cupboards.

People like to keep alcohol in the fridge, right? Or was that beer?

I made a mental note to have Igor teach me the basic rules of bartending when I got home.

There was nothing in the fridge except a small open carton of 1% milk and half of a homemade sandwich wrapped in tin foil, but in the cupboard beside it, I found two short glasses and a glass bottle half full of a dark brown liquid.

The label read Cognac.

I took off the lid, sniffed, and jerked my head back.

Yup. That had to be alcohol.

I pulled out the squat glasses. One had a light coating of dust. The other was clean. I put the clean one down in front of Ms. Durand and poured her some cognac.

She downed it before I’d finished pulling the second stool out from under the counter.

“Another?” I asked.

She nodded.

I sat down and poured another measure for her and one for myself.

I did that so Ms. Durand wouldn’t feel alone. I had no intention of actually drinking the stuff. From the smell alone, I could tell I wouldn’t like it. Besides, I was close friends with Special Agent Darius Vasil. I loved that vampire, but I knew there was a chance that if he found out I’d been drinking under age, he would find a way to prosecute me, just to make a point.

Then there was Circe.

She was a wise old witch who lived over in England and the only other seer I’d ever met. She’d told me to avoid alcohol. She also told me that when I was dumb enough to ignore her advice, I should only drink in a safe place.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Even now, tucked behind the reception desk of a dreary and unimpressive motel, I didn’t feel safe. There was something in the air—or I imagined there was. A sense of unease. It worked its way under my skin.

“I’m a good Catholic,” Durand muttered to her glass. “I observe Lent every year.”

She slammed back the second helping as fast as she had the first. She didn’t even make a face.

Maybe it tasted better than it smelled.

I poured her another glass. “Uh-huh. And you go to mass every Sunday.”

A spicy silence crept into the room while I put the lid back on the bottle. When I looked up to figure out what had happened, I saw Ms. Durand glaring at me. Her small mouth was pulled so tight that her lips had disappeared.

“Ain’t no church hereabout I can go to. There ain’t many of us left.”

I hadn’t meant to offend her. If I wasn’t careful, my mouth fidgeted with words the same way I fidgeted with my fingers. I had assumed she wouldn’t notice my thoughtless comment, but there was a difference between being drunk and being stunned—which, come to think of it, was why I was trying to get her drunk.

She went on, her accent the thickest I’d ever heard it.

“My grandfather raised me, and he raised me right. We’re Catholics. Even if we can’t make it to mass every week.”

A second later, I threw back my head and laughed.

I knew it was rude. She was giving me her finest glare! And I had the gall to laugh. But I couldn’t help myself.

I put my hand over my mouth to try to hold back some of the outburst.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m so sorry. It’s just—” I chuckled. “It’s been a weird day. But here we are!” I grinned and, with the cognac bottle still in hand, opened my arms wide, welcoming the whole lobby, and every shadow in it, to the party. I lowered my arms and motioned to her with the mouth of the bottle. “You’re the first person who’s ever worried about what I think.” I leaned toward her. “And I mean really worried.”

Her expression wavered between the glare and a look of confusion.

I nudged her glass toward her. She picked it up but only drank half of it this time.

“You don’t have to worry about Conrad,” I said. “He’s my best friend, you know.”

There was no hint of glare now. Only confusion. “That thing?”

Any other day, I might have bristled, but I was too tired, and seeing Olene’s terror had touched my sympathy.

“He doesn’t eat Catholics,” I assured her. “He says Protestants taste better.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Durand grumbled as she turned back to her drink.

“Maybe a little bit. It’s nice to laugh.”

Durand threw back the last of her drink and put the glass on the desktop. When I pushed my glass toward her, she absently picked it up and swirled the drink.

Hey! If I could get a two-glass system going, she wouldn’t even have to wait for me to pour.

As I took the lid off the bottle, I wondered how strong cognac was. There were numbers on the label. They meant nothing to me.

“I take it that they didn’t warn you that Conrad was a wolfman,” I said.

The drink was finally starting to get to Durand. When she lifted the glass to her lips, the movement was wide and slow. She sipped before she answered.

“Lily would’ve told me. She must not have known.”

It took a second for my brain to connect the dots. Lily was Mrs. Lily Carver. The sad lady at the grocery store who’d been kind enough to help me get my groceries home. The second town representative who worked on the committee that took care of the preserve. The woman who made our reservations at the motel.

But if she hadn’t known, that meant Gladwyn hadn’t told her.

That seemed like a glaring oversight to me, but maybe the mayor couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject. I could understand that. Since my death, whenever I was forced to say some bizarre and unbelievable thing, I relied on the “blurt it out” method. I imagined that politicians would find that difficult.

“Are you and Mrs. Carver friends?” I asked.

“She helps keep track of the preserve,” Durand said, “so she comes by here a lot. She always stops in. I think she gets lonely.”

I tried to hide my incredulity.

Lily Carver stayed in town and commanded enough respect that the men tipped their hats to her. Olene Durand was an old maid who lived alone at the end of the world, next to an off-limits swamp, and ran a motel that nobody visited.

Who was supposed to be the lonely one?

I, the bastion of well-articulated expression, went, “Um…”

I could tell by how Ms. Durand’s eyes slid over to me that, if she wasn’t already drunk, she was well on her way. Mission accomplished.

“Lily didn’t get married until she was older,” Durand said. “She and her husband thought they’d never find someone, but they found each other and fell madly in love. One of those late-life, first-marriage miracles. He died two months after they got back from their honeymoon. Car accident. It broke her heart.”

Durand took another swallow.

“How long ago was that?” I asked.

“Ten? Fifteen years ago? I think that’s how long she’s been here.”

“She moved here?”

“She said she couldn’t stay in her old town. It was too painful. So she moved here and the swamp found her. No surprise.”

Either this woman was drunker than I thought, or there was some deep lore there. Whichever it was, I was lost.

“What do you mean ‘no surprise?’” I said.

“One drink to keep the ghosts at bay,” Olene said.

She drained her glass. I passed her the one I had waiting.

“That’s what my granddad always said,” she mumbled. “This cognac was his.”

I glanced at the bottle. From how good she was at it, I had assumed that Ms. Durand was a heavy drinker. Maybe she drank less than I thought. Or maybe the old man had left behind a shelf full of the stuff.

She went on, “There are ghosts in the swamp. The people we can’t let go of. Lost children. They get caught there. Everything gets caught there. Rots away. When people lose someone, they come to find them”—she nodded to the lobby doors and the preserve beyond it—“right out there.”

There were no ghosts in that swamp. I would’ve seen them.

It occurred to me that humans might have created a different kind of ghost.

Ms. Durand interrupted my thoughts: “Granddad loved the swamp. He built this motel facing the damn thing because he was sure that everybody would want to see it when they woke up. He was always talking about how beautiful it was.”

“Do you like the swamp?” I asked.

Olene finally made a bitter face while drinking—but I didn’t think it was the cognac. “I hate it. Haven’t stepped foot in there since Granddad died.”

“Why don’t you move?”

Her movement slowed, then stopped. I waited. A few seconds later, she offered me a sluggish headshake.

“No money,” she mumbled. “And no one would buy this place.”

She put the glass down suddenly. It made a loud clink on the desktop. She pushed it away. “That’s the liquor talking. I have a home, free and clear, and it’s a business too. I make enough to keep myself fed when I don’t feel like fishing, so I ain’t got no reason to complain.”

But she did. This was a ghost I could see. An emptiness haunted her, sweeping away wisps of her life with each hour of solitude. She moved like a mannequin because her body was all that was left of her.

My eyes ached, but I kept them on her, trying to understand. I had—for lack of a better word—“seen” emotions in other people’s faces before, but not like this. This was bigger than that. More complete. Solidified. This was no temporary state; this was who she was. Empty.

A gross white tide of fear rose through me.

Humans weren’t meant to be like that. We were supposed to flit from thought to thought, our emotions trailing along with them. Seeing someone so…concrete…was like looking at the dead.

I blinked.

The impression was gone, leaving me with a splitting headache. I put a hand to my forehead and shut my eyes.

“Nightmares tonight,” I muttered.

“D-joo say som’in?” Ms. Durand said.

I opened my eyes. She looked human enough now. She was swaying on her stool with two empty glasses in front of her.

“Are you drunk, Ms. Durand?”

This time she put some effort into making her words less slurred. “I suspect so.”

“Then let’s call it a night.” I put the lid back on the cognac. As I stood up to return it to the cupboard, I said, “If you have a headache tomorrow, I’ll consider us even.”

“I don’t drink,” Ms. Durand insisted.

I put the bottle away and went back to help her to her feet. “You seemed pretty good at it to me.”

“I only started drinking a few months ago. One to keep the ghosts away.”

“Then five was probably excessive.”

She furrowed her brow. “Was it five?”

“I don’t know. I lost count. Where are your rooms from here?”

“I have to stay out front in case the customers need something.”

“The only thing I need is a set of waders.”

“I threw them away. They were old. The rubber cracked.”

“That’s fine. Would you like to lay down?”

Olene shook her head. “I haven’t had dinner yet.”

Ah. Yes. Five plus servings of cognac on an empty stomach for a thin woman who was not used to drinking could be a problem.

There was a sitting area to our left, in front of the large wall of windows that Grandpa Durand had installed so he could appreciate the beauty of the swamp. I led Olene over to the mid-century hideous couch and had her sit down, then went to retrieve the sandwich and milk that I’d seen in the mini-fridge. After I delivered the food safely to the end table by her elbow, I went back for the drinking glasses. I washed them out in the lobby’s bathroom, filled them with water, and took them to Durand.

By the time I got there, she’d finished eating the sandwich and had fallen asleep, curled up in the corner of the couch.

I smiled as I looked down at her. A touch of lightness slipped into my chest.

She looks so small like that.

As quietly as I could, I put the glasses down on the table beside her and snuck back to the front desk. I found the phone, picked up the receiver, and, after a long hesitation, I dialed.

I always had at least one phone number memorized. It was a habit I’d picked up as a child, when I couldn’t count on having my own phone to make calls. It was like a security blanket. No matter what kind of ballistic shenanigans destroyed, caused me to lose, or bricked my phone, if I could find, borrow, or swindle my way into possession of another one, there would be someone I could call for help. I even knew how to use a pay phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Iset.”

“Emerra? Did something happen to your phone? I didn’t recognize this number.”

I grinned when I heard the concern in her voice. It was nice to have someone worry about me.

“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “I haven’t been brave enough to try turning it on.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like you’ve had an adventure.”

I idly turned toward the front windows. A thin layer of mist poured over the top of the hill, rolling and fading when it reached out too far. It looked like the faint fog that emerged when you breathed out on a winter day. Maybe the swamp was exhaling.

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Alligators, kidnappings, some fighting, wandering through a snake-infested swamp—oh! And I had to get our motel manager skunk drunk because she thinks Conrad eats Catholics. No big deal.”

“And your phone?”

“It’s wet. Do you have Mayor Gladwyn’s number? I’d like to call and ask him for a favor.”

“I’ll look it up right now.”

While she did that, I gazed out the window. The mist had risen far enough that the edges where it faded were beyond the motel. It had become a low white cloud, milling around the drive, glowing between the darkness and the motel lights.

My eyes were drawn to a crowd of shadows creeping over the rim of the hill. They looked like moving holes in the cloud. At first I thought they were children, but then I recognized the way they moved. The lurkers were heading toward Fort Rive again. The mist parting over their backs flashed, as if the droplets were igniting on their skin, creating tiny white sparks.

Iset said, “Is Conrad’s phone wet?”

“No.” I turned away to focus on what she was saying. “He’s smarter than I am. Why?”

“Because I don’t know what the long-distance plan is for the phone you’re calling from, and I’d like to know what’s going on.”

I looked back out the window. The mist had already rolled in to fill the channels created by the lurkers’ passing.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”