Chapter 3

Willow let out a soft, "Oh dear," dabbing at non-existent tears with a handkerchief. "Please, don't upset yourself. We know you loved Stella. But... facts are facts. The police have evidence... the route was leaked from Stella's encrypted channel. She's the prime suspect now. Dylan is just doing his job. Defending her like this only encourages her down this wrong path. Who knows? Maybe she's hiding somewhere right now, watching you suffer for her..."

The malice in her words was almost tangible.

She was implying Grandma was lying.

She was implying I was heartlessly watching from the shadows.

She was splashing the filthiest mud on my name, denying me even peace in death.

"Willow. Shut up."

I glared at her, my spirit burning with the urge to tear that hypocritical mask right off her face.

How had I ever thought she was kind and innocent?

Dylan, clearly buying into Willow's narrative, looked at Grandma with even greater impatience and suspicion. "A grave? Faking death to escape? I'd seen that trick too many times. Stella... even if she were truly ashes, I'd recognize her."

He pushed the courtyard gate open violently and strode toward the house, clearly intent on searching it himself.

"No. Dylan, please. Don't go in. Don't upset her."

I begged, floating after him as he roughly rifled through the things in my old room. Items holding my past memories were swept to the floor without a second thought.

Grandma stumbled in after him. Seeing the wreckage of the room, tears streamed down her wrinkled face. Weakly, she repeated, "She's dead... really dead... Stella came to me in a dream... She said she was cold... She said she was in pain... If she were alive, how could she not come back to see me... We only had each other..."

A dream...

That was because my spirit had nowhere else to go, hovering at the edges of her sleep, conveying fragments of what I felt.

Dylan's movements paused. He picked up a framed photo from the nightstand, me in uniform, smiling brightly, eyes clear.

His fingers gripped the frame until his knuckles turned white. A flicker of something complex passed through his eyes, but it was quickly buried under deeper hatred.

"A dream?" he sneered, slamming the photo face down. "Ghost stories. Stella, you'd better never show your face again. Otherwise, I'll bring you in myself."

Willow stood in the doorway, watching it all. A faint, triumphant smirk touched the corner of her lips. In a breathy whisper only I could hear, she spoke to the air, as if addressing me directly.

"Stella, do you hear that? The man you loved wishes you were torn to pieces. Just stay dead and carry the blame. That old woman won't last much longer. She'll be joining you soon."

In that moment, my spirit nearly shattered.

Hatred roared through me like wildfire.

Dylan. Willow.

How dare you?

How dare you treat a frail old woman like this? How dare you drag my name through the mud like this?

But I could do nothing.

I could only watch as Dylan left in a fury, having found nothing. I watched as Willow offered Grandma a few fake words of comfort before turning away, undisguised malice and contempt on her face.

The courtyard fell back into a deeper, more profound silence, broken only by Grandma's low, suppressed sobs and the wreckage left behind.

Dylan was gone, taking his rage and his conviction of my "escape" with him.

Willow was gone too, her parting glance like a cold, slimy snake coiling around my spirit.

The little yard was dead quiet again, but the silence was heavier now.

Grandma didn't move. She stood in the middle of the cluttered room, her hunched back looking like a stone statue about to crumble to dust in the dim light.

She wasn't crying anymore. She just stared blankly at the mess of my old things Dylan had left behind, her eyes empty, as if the last flicker of life had been drained from her.

"Grandma..." I drifted in front of her, uselessly trying to block her view, trying to hug her.

But her clouded eyes looked right through me, fixed on nothing.

After a long time, she slowly, painfully slowly, crouched down. She reached out with those calloused, wrinkled hands, trembling, to pick up the photos and books scattered on the floor.

Her movements were slow. Each bend seemed a tremendous effort.

She picked up a photo of the two of us, carefully wiping nonexistent dust from it with her sleeve, mumbling softly, "Don't be afraid, Stella. I am here... I will clean up... and wait for you to come home..."