It was nearing the end of summer. It had been a few months since Eddie tried to take over my body, and since I'd died. We were the same again.

In those few months, Eddie and I had started up a new never-ending card game of war. This time, I hoped there would be no more cheating from either of us. The Skin-Taker had slowly started to retreat. He was still here, somewhere in this odd "Candle Cove consciousness" Eddie created, but he'd been hiding in the shadows... where he belongs. Sometimes I feared Eddie would call him back. The sheets of skin hanging around the room slowly dissolved, revealing something reminiscent of Eddie's old bedroom. And the TV Eddie used to watch the outside world, the one he'd smashed just as I died, had somehow seemingly fixed itself.

And the day our mom got out of the hospital, my wife and daughter visited her. By the way Eddie kept glancing at the TV, I could tell he was up to something.

Mom and Erica had left Lily alone in the living room for a moment. Lily finished drawing me and her in Bravery Cave and looked up at the TV across the room from her as Eddie started to broadcast an episode of Candle Cove. I let her see me as she'd known me, not as Eddie always remembered me, as I turned the TV off. She smiled, then ran off to join mom and Erica out on the porch.

And my intuition was right. Eddie was up to something again.