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By Root 329 0

alley. There was a pub hidden down there, and the stage exit of a theater. Then we passed under a brick arch, and the alley got narrower, and suddenly we were on a street that was like something out of Dickens and really out of place with the area around it. Cars couldn’t come down this way—the path was only about six feet wide. The houses were all made of brown brick, with old gaslights in front, huge windows with black panes, and shiny black doors with big brass knockers. You could tell that it used to be a little street of shops, and these were all the old shop windows. The sign on the wall said Goodwin’s Court.

Stephen stopped in front of one of the doors and opened it by entering a code into a number pad. The building was small and quiet, with a very modern but plain entryway and a stairwell that smelled strongly of new carpet and paint. A series of lights came on automatically as we went up the steps to the third floor, where there was just one door. I could hear a television on inside—some kind of sports coverage. Cheering.

“Callum’s home,” Boo said.

Stephen made an affirmative sound and opened the door. The room we walked into felt large, considering the smallness of the street. It was sparsely furnished with two old sofas, a few lamps, and a battered table covered in papers and files and mugs. Everything looked like the cast-off pieces from someone’s grandmother’s house—one floral sofa, one brown. Floral mugs. The rest was IKEA or cheaper. I could tell that the place itself—its size, its newness, its careful maintenance—was well above the price range of its occupants.

The occupant was sitting on one of the sofas, watching a soccer game on television. I saw the back of a head, with black, closely cropped hair, then a heavily muscled arm with a tattoo of some kind of creature holding a stick. The owner of the hair and arm raised himself up from a slouched position to peer over the sofa. It was a guy, one in a tight polo-neck shirt that stretched across his chest. He was probably about my age. It also appeared he knew exactly who I was, because he said, “What’s she doing here?”

“Change of plan,” Stephen said, tearing off his coat and throwing it over a chair.

“Kind of a major change of plan, wouldn’t you say?”

“Turn the television off, will you? This is Callum. Callum, this is Rory.”

“Why is she here?” Callum said again.

“Callum!” Boo said. “Be nice! She just found out about you know what.”

Callum held his bag of food out to me. “Do you want a chip?” he asked. When I shook my head, he dug in and retrieved a burger.

“Are you going to eat that now?” Stephen asked.

“I was eating when you came in! Besides, it’s not going to help her, letting my food get cold. What are you going to do now, exactly?”

“We’re going to explain,” Stephen said.

“Well, this should be interesting.”

“It wasn’t my decision,” Stephen said.

“She needs to know,” Boo cut in.

Their conversation spun around me. I didn’t even try to follow it. Callum switched off the television, and I was planted on one of the sofas. Boo sat with Callum, and Stephen got a kitchen chair and sat directly in front of me.

“What I’m about to tell you is going to be a little hard to accept at first,” he began.

I giggled. I didn’t mean to. Stephen looked over his shoulder at the others. Boo nodded to me encouragingly. Stephen turned back and took a deep breath.

“Have you recently had a brush with death?” he asked.

“They should really include that question in job interviews,” Callum said.

Boo elbowed him hard, and he shut up.

“Think,” Stephen said. “Have you? Has anything happened to you?”

“I choked,” I said after a pause. “A few weeks ago. At dinner.”

“Since that incident, you’ve been seeing people . . . people that other people don’t see. Am I correct?”

I didn’t need to answer. They already knew.

“What’s happening to you is a rare but far from unknown condition,” he said.

“Condition? Like a disease?”

“Not a disease . . . more of an ability. It won’t hurt you in any way.”

Callum was about to interject again, but Boo reached over and punched the underside