“I can’t wrap my head around this,” Tayen said as she stared up at Barry. She reached to touch his face, but Barry gently grabbed her hand to stop her.

  “You think I can? I’m the one that died.”

  They stood at the dining table. Dione sat on a chair, Fallon stood in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee.

  “Is it weird that you’re older than your dad now?” Tayen asked Fallon.

  Fallon turned to her. “Duh. How would you feel if I was younger than you all of a sudden?”

  “Weird,” Tayen answered uncomfortably. She turned back to Barry. “But, you knew Grandma, right?”

  Barry gave her a confused but amused look while Fallon laughed.

  “I’d hope so, I was married to her for twenty-three years.”

  “Did you really ask my dad if he knew my mom?”

  Tayen glared at Fallon with an embarrassed blush. “I—shut up, my brain’s confused right now! As if you never have your moments!”

  “And you make fun of me just as much.”

  “But, what was she like?” Tayen asked Barry.

  Barry tensed a little. “She was nice. She liked to draw. Oh!” He remembered the sketchbooks from yesterday. “Did they ever show you her sketchbooks?”

  “No?”

  Barry grinned as he eyed Fallon, who was taking a careful first sip of his coffee. “There’s lots of baby drawings of Fallon in there.”

  Tayen gasped excitedly. “Oh my god, I wanna see!”

  “No!” Fallon protested.

  “Why not?” Tayen complained. “You know what I looked like as a baby—”

  “Well yes, I’m your father.”

  “—why can’t I know what you looked like?”

  “He was fat,” Barry audibly whispered to Tayen, making her laugh.

  “Stop!”

  “Where are they? I have to see that,” Tayen demanded from Fallon.

  Fallon let out an exasperated groan. “In the basement somewhere.”

  Tayen hurried to the basement.

  Barry watched her go with a smile, then looked at Dione, who had only been observing the interaction, seeming delighted. Fallon was grumpily drinking his coffee with a red face.

  “Has Fallon changed much?” Barry asked her.

  “Hm? Oh.” She grinned at Fallon. “Not really. He’s matured a little.”

  “A little?!” Fallon got offended.

  Dione snickered.

  Hyde and Rune came through the front door. They entered the living room. Hyde dropped his bag on the floor as he said, “Hey, we’re back.”

  “What’s in the bag?” Dione asked.

  “My clothes from the village.”

  “Do you know what happened?” Barry wanted to know. He’d been waiting for hours.

  “Ehh.” Hyde rubbed the back of his head. “It’s hard to believe.”

  “Is any of this easy to believe?” Barry retorted.

  “Fair point. Well, you know that witch that I talked about, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Apparently, she died and is now a lingering soul. And she’s continuing her research by stalking us and bringing more people back and using our families as test subjects. She picked you, because you weren’t buried in the ground, which means she could reach you.”

  Barry let that sink in for a while. “So, I was just a convenient test subject?”

  Hyde shrugged. “You’re not the only one. When Rune was dead, she also called him ‘the perfect test subject.’ Seems like that’s simply what she sees people as. Including herself.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Barry glanced around. “Is she haunting me now?”

  “Maybe, but there’s not much we can do about that.” Hyde looked past Barry at Fallon. “Why’s your face red?”

  “I don’t like being embarrassed.” Fallon glared at Barry.

  “Twenty-eight years with no parents to embarrass you? It was about time,” Barry teased him.

  “When was the last time you were embarrassed by your parents, then?” Fallon asked in an accusing tone.

  Barry tensed. All these years with no mention of them and now he asks?

  Fallon squinted as he seemed to realise the same thing. “Wait, you’ve never even mentioned your—how am I only realising that now?” he asked as if he was accusing himself of being stupid.

  “That—uh…” Barry wasn’t sure what to say. “Let’s leave that for another day, there’s enough going on as it is.”

  “I found it!” Tayen yelled as she ran back upstairs.

  Hyde jumped around to her, startled. “Fuck—what?”

  She held a sketchbook, her fingers between some pages, her face beamed. “Grandma’s baby drawings of Dad. Look!” She showed Hyde a drawing of Fallon as a toddler. Barry recognised it, Fallon was two years old in that one.

  “Holy shit, that is adorable!” Hyde called out as he yanked the book from her.

  Barry was curious for Fallon’s reaction. He was turned away and hid his face in his hand. Barry snickered.

  “You guys have baby drawings of each other? I wish we had that,” Rune whined.

  “Would you like to see Hyde’s? I know I loved seeing Fallon’s, too.” Dione asked, making both Hyde and Rune turn to her.

  “Oh—”

  “Yes!”

  “—god.”

  Dione chuckled and stood up. “I’ll grab them.”

  She came back into the living room with a stack of sketchbooks. She sat at the dining table with Rune next to her and Hyde across from them. Hyde didn’t want to see his embarrassing baby drawings, but he at least wanted to know what Rune had seen.

  Dione flipped through the drawings. Several of Hyde as a baby, and then a toddler.

  “Oh!” Dione stopped at one. “This was when he shifted for the first time, when he was five.” She let out a squeak. “He was so confused and scared, he clung to Fallon all night.”

  The drawing itself was of shifted Hyde sleeping on his dad’s lap on the couch. His ears were huge.

  “Is the first time not during a full moon?” Rune asked.

  Dione shook her head. “No, the first time is random. Thankfully, he wasn’t at school.”

  There was a drawing of tween Hyde playing a board game with Fallon. Most of the others were Hyde sleeping at various ages.

  Hyde still didn’t like this, but at least it cheered Rune up.

  Things had calmed down in the house again after over an hour of gushing over baby drawings. Fallon had gone upstairs for some silence, Dione went with him. Tayen had left to go home. Hyde was in the basement, looking through his grandmother’s art.

  Barry was left alone in the living room with Rune, again. Rune sat on the couch, reading a book. Barry observed him from the kitchen. Still, something about him was so familiar. Especially with him reading that book. Specifically that book. Barry recognised it.

  He approached the couch. “Good book?”

  Rune flinched and looked up from the book as Barry sat down on the other end of the couch.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s my grandad’s.” Rune mindlessly flipped to the first page to the written name, not necessarily to show it.

  Barry glanced at the name. He squinted. Did he read that right? He reached to grab the book. He retracted his hand a bit. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Rune let him grab the book with a confused, raised eyebrow.

  Barry read the name again. He did read it right. It was even his handwriting.

  Thomas B.

  Very cute.

  “Thomas B. is your grandad?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “What’s his full surname?”

  “Brightbold.”

  Barry was in disbelief. “You’re Thomas Brightbold’s grandson?”

  “Yes, do you know him?”

  Barry flipped to the next page to see the other written message.

  Happy 25th, you little rascal!

  He pointed at it. “I wrote that.” He closed it to see the cover. “I’d recognised it before, but I can’t believe this is the exact copy I had bought all those years ago.” He looked at Rune’s face again, he noticed the earring in his left ear. He squinted. “I bought an earring for him, once.” He pointed at it. “Exactly like that one.”

  Rune grabbed at his earring as he stared at Barry in disbelief. He knew his grandad? Was he that old friend Thomas had mentioned? He must be. Thomas had said he was probably dead by now, but most likely had no idea how right he had been.

  “Did you live in Veritas at some point?” Rune asked.

  Barry nodded with a frown. “I did. For six years. How many years ago is that by now? Fifty-six?” His eyes widened. “Oh, he’s in his seventies now, isn’t he? Not that he’d look that old.”

  Rune jumped off the couch and ran to the stairs to the basement. “Hyde!” he yelled.

  “Huh?” Hyde called back.

  “Come up here!”

  He heard some noise, presumably Hyde cleaning things up. Hyde came up the stairs. “What is it?” He frowned. “Why do you look so freaked out?”

  “Your grandad knows my grandad.”

  “What?”

  “I had this book with me from my grandad, that had a message written inside it from someone else. He said an old friend.” Rune pointed into the living room. “Now he’s telling me he’s the one that wrote it! Your grandad is my grandad’s ‘old friend’.” He realised something. “That must be why he had such a weird reaction to your surname! It’s the same as his.”

  Hyde was quiet for a moment. “Our grandparents are friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ve known each other since before our parents were even born?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “What the fuck—”

  “What are the odds of this?” Rune finished for him. “On opposite sides of the continent?”

  Hyde went into the living room to Barry, who still stared at the book. Rune followed him.

  “You know Thomas?” Hyde asked.

  Barry nodded. “Vampire, pale brown hair, red eyes, loves books, has the personality of a cat?”

  Rune let out a startled chuckle. He hadn’t thought about his personality like that, but it felt accurate.

  “You’ve met him?” Barry asked Hyde.

  “Yeah, we lived in the same house for six weeks.”

  Barry seemed like he was going to ask a question, but Hyde waved it off. “Long story, doesn’t matter.” Hyde asked Rune, “Should we tell him?”

  Rune shrugged. “I bet he’d like to know.”

  “I could write him a letter,” Barry suggested. “I haven’t seen him since I was twenty-one, but we always wrote to each other, several times a week.”

  Rune hummed as he considered it. “Might be a bit jarring to get a letter from someone you haven’t heard from for thirty years.”

  “Doesn’t he know I died?”

  “He said you were probably dead by now, but he didn’t seem sure. So, I don’t think so.”

  Barry frowned. “Oh.”

  “He seemed quite bitter about it.”

  Barry sadly hummed.

  “We could both write him a letter? I could explain what happened to prepare him for your letter. Then put them in the same envelope.”

  Barry shrugged. “I guess that would work.”

  “Oh!” Hyde perked up at an idea. “Why don’t we take the opportunity to invite your whole family to come meet mine? They’d have to stay at a motel or something, but it could be fun.”

  Rune smiled. “Good idea.”