I folded up the morning paper, sinking into the chair next to Liv. “Book of Moons. That’s all it says. I don’t know why I keep reading it. If I read this thing any more times, I’m going to burn a hole in it with my eyes.”

“You can do that?” Link looked interested.

I wriggled my fingers in front of him. “Maybe I can burn more than just paper. So don’t tempt me.”

Liv smiled at me sympathetically. As if the situation called for anything like a smile. “Well then, I suppose we have to think. Those are three rather specific words. So it seems the messages are changing.” She sounded precise and logical, like a British version of Marian, as she always did.

“And?” Link sounded irritated, like he always did lately.

“So what’s going on… over there?” Where Ethan is. Liv didn’t say it. Nobody wanted to. Liv pulled the three crossword puzzles out of her notebook. “At first, it seems like he just wants you to know he is…”

“Alive? Hate to break it to you—” Link said, but John kicked him under the table. Amma dropped a pan behind me, sending it clattering toward where Link sat on the floor. “Oww. You know what I meant.”

“Around,” John corrected him, looking from Amma to me. I nodded, feeling Amma’s hands slip down to rest on my shoulders.

I touched her hand with mine; her fingers curled tightly around it. Neither one of us wanted to let go. Especially now that it was possible Ethan wasn’t gone forever. It had been weeks since Ethan had started sending me messages through The Stars and Stripes. It didn’t matter what they said. They all said the same thing to me.

I’m here.

I’m still here.

You’re not alone.

I wished there was a way I could say it to him.

I squeezed Amma’s fingers harder. I tried to talk to her about it right after I found the first message, but she just muttered something about a fair trade and how it was her mess to sort out. How it was what she aimed to do, sooner or later.

But she didn’t doubt me. Neither did my uncle, not anymore. In fact, Uncle Macon and Amma were the only ones who really believed me. They understood what I was going through, because they had gone through it themselves. I didn’t know if Uncle Macon would ever get over losing Lila. And Amma seemed to be having as hard a time without Ethan as I was. They had seen the proof, too. Uncle Macon was there when I saw Ethan’s crossword for the first time. And Amma had all but seen Ethan standing in the kitchen of Wate’s Landing.

I said it out loud again to everyone, for the tenth time. “Of course he’s around. I told you, he’s going somewhere. He’s got some kind of plan. He’s not just sitting there, waiting in a grave full of dirt. He’s trying to get back to us. I’m sure of it.”

“How sure?” Link asked. “You’re not sure, Lena. Nothin’s sure, except death an’ taxes. And when they said it, I think they were talkin’ more about stayin’ dead, not comin’ back again.”

I didn’t know why Link was having so much trouble believing that Ethan was still there, that he could come home again. Wasn’t Link the one who was part Incubus? He knew as well as anyone that strange things happened around here all the time. Why was it so hard for him to believe that this particular strange thing could be happening?

Maybe losing Ethan was harder on Link than it was for the rest of them. Maybe he couldn’t let himself risk losing his best friend all over again, even if it was only the idea of him. No one knew what Link was going through.

Except me.

While Link and Liv returned to arguing about whether or not Ethan was actually gone, I felt myself slipping into the fog of nagging doubts that I worked so hard to push out of my mind.

They just kept coming.

What if this whole thing really was my imagination, like Reece and Gramma kept saying? What if they were right, and it was just too hard for me to accept my life without him? And it wasn’t just them—Uncle Macon wouldn’t try anything to bring him back either.

And if it was real—if Ethan could hear me—what would I say?

Come home.

I’m waiting.

I love you.

Nothing he didn’t already know.

Why bother?

I refused to write, but the words were hard to even think now.

words same as always

same as nothing

when nothing is the same

There was no point in saying it to myself.

John kicked Link again, and I tried to focus on the present. The kitchen and the conversation. All the things I could do for Ethan, rather than all the things I felt about him.

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Ethan is—around.” Liv looked at Link, who kept quiet this time. “Like I said, it seemed he spent all his energy trying to convince us of that a few weeks ago.”

“Right around the time you measured the energy spiking at Ravenwood,” John reminded her. Liv nodded, flipping pages in her notebook.

“Or maybe Reece was just usin’ the microwave,” Link muttered.

“Which was the same time Ethan moved the button at his grave,” I said obstinately.

“Or maybe it was just windy.” Link sighed.

“Something was definitely going on.” John moved his foot closer to Link, the threat of another good kick shutting Link up for a while. I thought about slapping a Silentium Cast on him, but it didn’t seem right. Plus, knowing Link, it would take more than magic to shut him up.