Chapter Thirty-Five

As the New Days Rise

There were few things Sam loathed more than an anticlimax. Movies, books, television shows… Sam absolutely hated feeling let down by an ending. It wasn't necessarily a lack of satisfaction that did it—there were plenty of books that left off poetically, leaving a reader thinking and wondering—but a true, anticlimactic ending, where the writer simply played at cleverness but really couldn't wrap things up… that was the worst. It was, Sam felt, unforgivable. No matter how ardently Josh tried to justify it, media like Lost just seemed inexcusable to her.

So, as she trailed along behind Melinda, she found herself growing increasingly annoyed, which was the absolute last reaction she'd anticipated. Nothing here felt the same. Not that she wanted it to feel the same, exactly, but that ominous air of foreboding she'd felt from the very first time they'd all arrived, the whole pack of them, still in high school and beautifully naïve, was gone.

The snow seemed almost oppressively silent. The occasional birdcall rang in the air and made her twitch. It was out of place. The only thing that should be here, she felt, irrationally, were ravens and the odd squirrel or deer. Not actual, normal birds.

Samantha Giddings: Nature's Judgmental Bitch.

She snorted to herself and tried to summon a bit of the certainty that had led her here. Ahead of her, Hank helped Melinda over a fallen beam as they headed towards what had once been the lodge's kitchen. The smell of acrid smoke had faded since Mike had lit it on fire, Sam noted, and felt a pang of loneliness at the thought. She still hadn't talked to him, even at the impromptu wake they'd had at Emily's house. Or at least, not real conversation. Not the kind of conversation she needed or wanted.

Not that she even knew what to say at this point. Right now, it didn't matter.

Her fingers felt empty and she once more grabbed the necklace, letting the pendant press in against her palm hard enough to leave an indentation of its shape. It did little to calm her, but the slight pain of it broke through her numb irritation. After everything, how was it that now Hannah was nowhere to be found? Beth had only shown herself rarely and Josh… Sam still wasn't sure that her own addled, exhausted brain hadn't invented seeing him. But Hannah had been a certainty. Almost everyone had seen her. She'd even come close to killing some of them. She had to be here, somewhere.

"Hannah?" Melinda called again. Sam had lost track of how many times she'd called out for her children now. "Beth? Josh?"

Nothing. Still nothing.

They all moved through the house. Hank's eyes growing sadder and more pitying by the minute. As much as she liked the man, it made Sam want to shake him. That didn't help. As Melinda opened the door down to the basement, Sam flinched, half-expecting a monster to spring out at them, but there was nothing.

Sam wandered along behind them, noting all the marks of what they'd been through with a kind of detached curiosity that should have bothered her more than it did. It felt like wandering through a museum of trauma. And on our left, you can see the dollhouse rigged by Joshua Washington. The last written record of Hannah Washington can be found in the attic. Our experts have… Sam shook her head, hard, trying to rid herself of the absurd urge to giggle. What the fuck was wrong with her? And more importantly: "Where the fuck are you guys?" she mumbled, rubbing a hand over her tired eyes.

The weirdest part was seeing the blood of her friends all over the place. Hank had managed to get Chris's body out of there, but no one had gone through to scrub the place. Why would they bother? No one was supposed to come up here again.

She realized with a jolt that Melinda was heading towards the old hotel and, more specifically, towards where they'd had their final attempt with Josh. It made sense, in a way. Where else would you expect to find a ghost than in the place where they died?

"Melinda, I—"

The woman turned, her face calm and unsurprised. Before she could say anything, Hank spoke up, softly. "Sam, his body is gone. We got it out of there. You won't see anything."

That wasn't what she had been about to protest, but his reassurance was so simple, so reasonable, that Sam shut her mouth with a snap and continued to follow them, mute. Melinda hadn't told her about that, but it made sense all the same. They wouldn't very well have an elaborate funeral for someone who was already presumed dead. They passed by burned and blackened bookshelves, brown stains that had been Emily's blood, and Mike's, and countless others. The building creaked ominously around them, but seemed more or less stable.

The dining room seemed smaller than she remembered. Patches of oily residue still patterned the wall and floor. The broken glass of the blood jar crunched under her boots as she made her way to the table and trailed her chain-tangled fingers along its surface. It was almost too easy to remember the way Josh's eyes had emptied as he released his last breath. He'd deserved better than that.

"I'm… I'm going to head back upstairs. Is that okay?" Sam hated this fucking feeling, this sense of inadequacy and near-boredom. She needed to do something, itched to just get out of there and run, run until she found them.

Hank opened his mouth—likely to protest—but Melinda cut him off. She didn't look happy about it, but she nodded. "Just stay close, okay? And if you need anything, yell."

Sam had every intention of keeping that agreement and staying close. Or at least, she told herself she did. Though she tried to keep her pace even, as she left the club, she found herself almost jogging. It was strange how small all of this seemed now—not just the dining room, but all of it. It had seemed monumental and maze-like before, but now? She knew it so well that it seemed she could navigate it in the dark with ease, no harder than going from her dormroom to the communal bathroom at 3 a.m.

She stumbled to a halt just past the dollhouse and turned to look at it, to survey the whole area: the water heater where she'd fucked with Josh, playing a dumb prank that she'd actually felt guilty about afterwards, where she'd left the baseball bat she'd later hit him with… And here is where Samantha Giddings hid, shivering in her towel, as she believed she was being stalked by a psychotic killer.

Before she realized she was doing it, she had opened the dollhouse and pulled out Hannah's diary. It was dusty and smelled of mildew, just as the rest of the basement did, but it also had a slight lingering edge of lavender. Was that really an echo of Hannah from more than a year ago? Or was that another cruel layer Josh had added just to fuck with whoever found it? Either way, Sam closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing Hannah to appear behind her, even to try to kill her again.

Nothing. Still nothing.

Sam stowed the Journal in her waistband and climbed the crumbling stairs. She had every intention of staying in the damaged living room as Melinda had implied, but staying still made her feel itchy and impatient. The afternoon light filtered through the pine trees and near-destroyed walls of the lodge. Carefully, she once more climbed what was left of the stairs. Every climb had made them creak more under her weight and she knew she was pushing her luck, but it still seemed like the strongest possibility so far. Melinda would never have allowed it.

At the upper landing, she glanced towards Hannah's room and considered, then headed the other way, to the locked door of Josh's room that she'd been so determined to avoid violating previously. "'No secrets between best pals or potential future in-laws,' eh, Josh?" she muttered, jimmying the lock with her penknife. "You can't even be mad about this. You taught me how to do it. If you were just around like any decent, self-respecting ghost, I wouldn't have to—" The door swung open.

Josh's room was remarkably undamaged. The walls and ceiling were intact, which meant that the only weather had been what made its way under and around the door. His bed was neatly made and the room still carried his scent strongly: a mix of his deodorant and sunscreen and metal and who-only-knew what else. The books on film theory were all in their place and Sam shifted the large calendar writing pad on the desk to reveal several pages of scribbled notes that she didn't bother to read. More of his planning, undoubtedly. The bookends they'd found at Buttercup Thrift were on the mantle, holding his mirror in place, and a huge television set took up a good portion of the far wall.

There was no Josh, though. No familiar faces to greet her except for those looking out from the pictures pinned to the wall above his desk. He hadn't bothered to frame any of them, and they came in formats of all sorts, from a few Polaroids taken with what was probably Beth's camera to a printed eight-by-ten of their whole group at Winter Formal. She smiled at Josh's awkward, overly-formal grin and her own half-laughing, half-smirking expression as she'd posed with her hand on his arm.

"Are you sure you don't want to just, y'know, come say 'hi'?" she asked the room at large, a bit plaintively. "It would make this way easier on me."

She rolled her eyes at the ensuing silence. "No, of course not. It's not like you ever made anything easy on me ever."

The climb back down was even less stable. Sam wondered vaguely if she should apologize to the house. They'd certainly put it through enough shit to last a lifetime. All it had wanted to be was a house. A grossly large, opulent house built on land that, according to Flamethrower Guy, the Washingtons didn't really have any right to… Nevermind. Fuck you, house.

Sam wasn't entirely sure how Melinda managed to talk Hank into letting them spend the night, but she didn't really care. It meant more time here and another chance to find them. Hank had enough emergency supplies in his helicopter to keep them warm that night. He'd insisted that it was just a happy coincidence and that they truly were meant for emergencies, but Sam counted three sub-zero sleeping bags, assessed the amount of gear, and drew her own conclusions.

It was roughly one in the morning when Sam gave up trying to sleep. Hank, who'd been keeping watch, had dozed off and was sitting slumped with his chin on his chest. It wasn't hard to put her boots back on, zip up her coat, and slip away.

If it wasn't so cold, if the sharp edge of moonlight wasn't so crisp and clear, if, if, if… If it weren't for any one of a dozen things about this, Sam might almost think she was asleep, dreaming this climb. There was stupid and then there was stupid, Sam thought as she awkwardly hurdled a downed tree and continued up the snowy path. Coming back had been stupid. Going upstairs had been stupid. Wandering away from Hank and Melinda and the house and the helicopter was stupid. Like, leveled-up stupid. She was at least level four stupid at this point. She'd put all her ability score points into stupid and now got a +6 bonus to doing stupid things.

"Shut up, Sam," she muttered. It was nerves. It had to be. Her brain kept circling and circling in random and wildly unhelpful loops of nonsense as she headed out towards—

She stopped, looking around. She didn't even know where she was heading. It certainly wasn't towards anywhere particularly familiar—not towards the shed or the guest house or the main mine entrance. She'd just felt a driving urge to walk away, away from the lodge and her friends' empty bedrooms, away from Hank and Melinda's breathing.

"How did you get here?" Sam hadn't meant to say it out loud, but she did, her voice startling her. Automatically, her brain filled it in. I talked to Melinda in a coffee shop. We flew up and then took a bus to town. Hank flew us up here. We slept. I walked off into the woods like a dumbass. It really wasn't that complicated.

But, of course, that wasn't really what she was asking herself.

How did you get here? By not being fast enough or strong enough or smart enough. By forgiving too easily and not being cynical enough. By being too cynical and not loving enough.

By loving too much.

The ground beneath her gave way. There was a scant moment where she seemed to hang in place, feeling the echo of her mistake deep in her chest. She'd been so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn't watched the changing landscape, hadn't seen where it dropped off, hadn't stopped in time…

She fell. Instinct kicked in and she grabbed for something, anything to break her fall. Her hands scraped against rock and ice, catching here and there for a moment, but not enough to hold her. Adrenaline surged and it almost felt like she was falling in slow motion. She felt a brush of something organic against her palms and she snatched at it, catching the root for a second before it tore free and she fell once more, finally striking the ground hard. Pain flared through her hip, her shoulder, her head; her vision swam, massive shadows of subtly varying grey and black shifting and pulsing in front of her.

Slowly, Sam shifted, her arm screaming in protest as she rolled over onto her hands and knees. Her stomach heaved and she vomited, what little of Hank's wilderness rations she'd been able to eat emptying themselves out onto the frozen ground.

Something flashed white in her peripheral vision and she jolted upright, ignoring the flood of pain and renewed gush of nausea. It had been there. She knew it had been—the edge of white fabric, moving in the slight eddies of air—but she found herself staring at nothing but rock and ice.

There was something dark and hulking next to her. She reached out, unthinkingly, and her hand met something cold and hard. It came slowly into focus: a big can—oil drum, her dazed brain supplied, though she wasn't sure that was accurate—made of rusted metal that stung her scraped skin. She clutched at it, using it to pull herself up to her shaking feet. Looking up, she could see the path of her fall. The moonlight from above cut against the jutting stones and smooth stretches of packed snow. It was nearly vertical. It wouldn't be an impossible climb, but it would certainly be challenging, and just looking up at it made her head swim all over again.

The mine. She'd fallen into the mine. She must have, though it wasn't part of the mine that she'd been in before. Somewhere nearby, she could hear water and the familiar creaking of the water wheel, so she wasn't completely lost. That was good. It would serve her right to have survived everything only to die because she wandered off and got lost.

Gingerly, she felt along her leg, her hip, her arm. Although it all hurt, there was no sharp, fresh spike of pain, which was reassuring. If she'd broken something, she knew from experience, any touch would make that very obvious. She would have wicked bruises, but if that was all, then she was very, very lucky. What if she'd broken her leg?

At the thought, she froze, her heart pounding. A broken leg. Broken limbs. Being trapped. She looked around again, taking a stumbling step in closer to the barrel she had used to stand. A ragged scrap of thick paper, half buried in snow and severely discolored, was barely visible in the cast-off moonlight. She fumbled to pick it up and turned it over, barely choking back a sob. Hannah. She had taken this picture. She knew this picture. It was Hannah, posing, showing off her butterfly tattoo and beaming at the camera.

Emily had told her about this. Emily had told her about all of this. Sam dropped the picture, hardly noticing it flutter to the ground. She staggered towards where she could hear the water and found boards leaning against the stone wall. Long gauges were dug into the rock, marking days. She should stop. She knew she should stop.

Instead she kept moving, kept walking, rounding the ruined wooden wall and staring into the small alcove behind it. She didn't have light, she told herself. She wouldn't be able to see—but her hand had found her phone, the screen cracked but still functional, and turned on the flashlight before her brain could catch up with her fingers. The stark white light caught a familiar, if desiccated profile, and the fell to clatter on the ground.

Sam's knees hit the ground and she heaved again, her stomach trying to turn itself inside out.

This, Emily hadn't told her about, but she had learned of it through the others: the makeshift cross, the… the head… The search and rescue crew had told them it was too dangerous in the mine to try to recover it, though perhaps that had simply not believed Emily's story enough to pursue it.

Beth and Hannah's coffins were empty. They always would be.

She'd found Beth's grave, she remembered, found the familiar watch. Why were there two graves? Why two ramshackle markers, clumsily fashioned out of broken boards and scavenged nails? Why was Beth's head set up like this, on display for anyone who came by? "Why?" she whispered, letting her head fall to rest against the freezing, packed-dirt ground. Her tears felt overly hot on her cheeks, burning along her lashline before falling.

Slumping to her side, she curled into a ball, her shoulders shaking. Cold seeped into her, numbing her injuries somewhat. She hoped it could numb her mind, let it stop its wild, spastic scramble.

She slept.

Gentle hands stroked her hair. Sam kept her eyes closed for a few minutes, savoring it. The fingers were slender and lightly calloused, but still soft. They traced along her hairline and combed through her hair. It made Sam's headache fade. She wasn't sure why her head hurt in the first place. Maybe she was dehydrated. She'd been trying to be better about drinking water, but she often forgot.

She shifted and sighed contentedly. A quiet laugh made her open her eyes and look up into Beth's amused eyes. "What?" Sam said, pouting. "Are you laughing at me?"

"Absolutely."

"Rude." She couldn't hold the pout and smiled, reaching up to lazily brush a strand of Beth's own hair back behind her ear. "And you woke me up, too."

"You weren't supposed to fall asleep. I thought you wanted me to read to you."

"I did!"

"And yet you fell asleep. You're the rude one."

Sam smiled. "It isn't my fault. Your voice is relaxing. I'm tired. The book is boring. It all led to naptime. I couldn't help it."

"It is not boring!"

"Um, it is a book about the Sweet-Harley Davidson Act. It is intensely boring."

Her girlfriend huffed. "The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. It's important."

"To you and doing well on the exam, maybe. To me? Not so much."

"You are an ignorant cretin and I don't know why I even like you."

Smirking, Sam pushed herself up to sitting and leaned forward. Her fingers slid along Beth's jawline and into her hair, pulling her into a kiss. Beth's lips were so soft. Sam hummed contentedly and deepened the kiss, feeling the thrill she always did as Beth melted into her. When she broke away, she couldn't keep the grin off her face. "That is why you like me."

Beth laughed again. "One of many reasons, you jerk."

"You also like my modesty."

"Oh definitely. Best quality. You're so humble."

"The most hum—" Beth kissed her again, effectively shutting her up. Sam let her hands wander, tracing the familiar curve of Beth's waist and trailing along the narrow sliver of skin where her shirt rode up. She—

A sharp, rapid knock interrupted them. "I am going to count to five and then I'm coming in and I better not see a single thing I don't want to see!" Hannah's voice was louder than it needed be to sound through the door and Sam winced. "One! Two! Three!" As she finished counting, Sam scooted back, putting a respectful amount of space between her and Beth, who still looked a little dazed and flushed.

The door banged open and Hannah burst in. "Good! Keep Jesus between you two!" She glanced down at the history book on the bed and pointed at it. "Or US history. That works too. Nothing to deaden a sex drive like that."

"Did you want something?" Beth asked sharply.

Hannah's smile widened. As Sam watched, it grew wider and wider still, wider than any human smile should be. Had her teeth always been so sharp? And she looked so skinny—had Hannah not been eating much lately? How strange.

Her friend caught her staring and raised her eyebrows. "Do I have something on my face?" Hannah ran her hands through her hair, as if pulling it back into a ponytail, and large chunks of hair fell free, dropping to the ground and leaving her scalp looking sparse and bare. She pulled a butterfly barrette from the pocket of her jeans, hanging loosely from bony hips, and clipped back her remaining hair.

Sam glanced back at Beth, uncertainly. Something was off, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "Did we all have plans this afternoon?"

Her girlfriend hummed thoughtfully, thinking, her head tipped towards her shoulder at a crazy, unnatural angle. "I think Josh wanted to do something. I don't remember what, though." Something thick and red was leaking down from her ear, shining slightly on her teeth as she spoke. The air of the bedroom smelled like vanilla and lavender and copper and dirt. Just as Sam thought it, Beth wrinkled her nose. "Hannah, did you step in something? It smells gross in here now."

Hannah's grin didn't falter. It should have been impossible for her voice to be so clear with her teeth clenched in their vicious smile, but it was. "Wow. Rude. You know, she who smelt it, dealt it."

Something pierced through Sam's chest, hard and cold and fierce. She gasped, looking down at the protruding tip of a long needle. The shiny metal of it shone red with her blood and a viscous clear liquid dripped slowly from the hollow end.

"Jesus, Josh. I thought you were supposed to inject it into her, not spill it all over the quilt," Hannah complained.

Sam craned her head back to look over her shoulder. A familiar chuckle rolled out from behind the mask, half made up of the Psycho's bared, broken teeth and skull-white skin and half Josh's own, twisted, monstrous face. She heard Beth laugh too, then speak, voice amused. "You look so dressed up. Where are you going, brother-mine? Big date night?"

The needle hurt. The piercing ache of it was spreading, creeping through her torso and along her limbs, pain crawling like a spider through her veins and along her bones. "Why?" she said, finally, looking around at all of them. "Why are you doing this?"

The needle shifted. Pain shot through her head, her shoulder, her side and hands and legs. "Josh?"

He didn't answer, just moved the needle again, wiggling it from side to side as she fought to keep breathing.

"I mean, you did kill him," Hannah offered, leaning in closer. The barrette fell to clatter on the floor as what was left of her hair dropped away. Her skin had taken on a greyish tint, scummy and filthy in the warm California light streaming through Beth's windows. "It kind of seems like you have this coming." Beth patted her hand conciliatorily on Sam's knee, nodding.

It hurt more than the needle. She had killed him.

Fuck.

She had killed Josh. She had laid him out on a table, cut him, and watched as he bled to death. She had basically just finished what Josh had tried, years ago. Beth had been wrong when she'd… when she'd…

Sam slowly turned her head, fighting the pain and the screaming of her vertebrae, to look at Beth. Her head was still broken, her eyes strangely glazed. "I killed him."

"You did. I can't believe you did it, but you did. I thought you loved us. But it makes sense, I suppose. You let us die. You killed Hannah. Why wouldn't you kill Josh?"

That was wrong. This was all wrong. Beth had been the one to tell her it was different. Hannah had reassured her that death was preferable to existing as a monster. Josh had… Josh had forgiven her. She knew he had. She could feel it in the soles of her feet, in the hollow of her collarbone, in all the strange small places on her that certainty seemed to come from. How did you get here, Sam?

By loving too much. By giving in. By giving up.

"This isn't real." The pain wasn't coming from the needle. She wasn't an expert in stab wounds, of course, but the way the pain covered her whole being couldn't possibly be coming from the one injury. It felt like cold, like blunt trauma, like a migraine or something worse. Hannah leered at her, her face fully twisted and monstrous. From the corner of her eye, she could see the Psycho-wendigo-beast-Josh tip its head curiously to the side. "This isn't real."

"Sam?" Beth touched her cheek gently, then warm lips brushed against her skin. She jerked, startled, and stared into Beth's kind, sad eyes. "Are you okay?"

Was she okay? No, of course not. She looked around, trying to focus, but they were alone. There was no dead girl, no monsters, no needle. She still hurt, though, the fierce pounding in her head growing worse with time. "Where did they go?"

"Who?" The other girl looked around, then sighed and sat down besides Sam, the bed shifting under her weight. She pulled her legs in and crossed them, leaning on her knees. "Oh. The nightmares. Yeah. They're gone."

"Gone?"

"I can't say they won't be back, but that's all they were. Just nightmares."

"And you?"

Beth sighed. "I'm… something else. Not new. I'm whatever I was before, the last time we talked. A ghost, maybe?" She made a face. "I hate that word, though."

"Where are we?"

Her late girlfriend's face grew very still and solemn. "You're asleep. And as much as I want to keep talking to you here, where I can actually move my facial muscles, such as they are, you need to wake up."

She shook her head. "No. I don't want to. I want to stay here with you." Fear gripped her, hard. What if she never saw Beth again? This might be the last time she'd ever get to speak with her. "I'm not leaving. I'm not going."

"Sam, you have to." Beth took Sam's hand between both of her own and squeezed hard. "Please. I can't… you are going to die if you don't wake up."

"Good," Sam said fiercely.

"You don't mean that. Don't say that."

Sam looked down at their joined hands. She considered. If she died, would she get to stay here? She still believed that Chris hadn't, so why would she be any different? Would she get to be with her friends, with her family? Though there was a surge of longing at the thought, there was an equally powerful rush of grief as she thought of Jess, of Matt, of Emily and Ashley and Mike. She had more friends and family than she'd realized.

"Wake up, Sam. Please? I promise I'll be there. It won't be the same, but I promise." Beth leaned in to rest her forehead against Sam's shoulder. "I love you, Sam. Don't let yourself die here."

She woke up.

The mine was freezing. She was freezing; every part of her that wasn't numb screamed with pain. Her muscles didn't want to move, but she slowly dragged one hand up to press it against her head and winced at the sticky, matted mess she felt. How could she have been so stupid? The last thing you ever wanted to do with a concussion was fall asleep. She could still feel the echo of Beth's lips on her skin and imagined she could smell her lotion. It was a cruel trick for her mind to play on her.

It took her several minutes to sit up fully, dragging herself over to the nearby wall and leaning against it for support. Her phone was still on the ground and she pulled it into her lap, shutting off the flashlight function. It might be important to keep the battery alive, but it was more important that she not see the head again. She didn't think she could bear it.

"I thought you said you'd still be here," she said aloud, her voice cracking from disuse and cold. It had just been a dream. Another stupid dream, without even a butterfly to signal it was anything more. "Liar," she muttered bitterly.

"That seems uncalled for."

Sam nearly jumped out of her skin, groaning as her sudden, jerking movement reminded her once more of her injuries. She turned and saw, in the faint, cast-off light provided by the moon far above, Beth. Her face was a calm mask, serene and unfeeling, but her voice was amused. "Am I hallucinating?" Sam asked her.

"Possibly, but I don't think so. I'm real, at least. Or as real as I can be, if that makes sense."

"Are…" Sam hesitated, then plowed forward. "Are the others here somewhere too?"

Beth nodded, slowly, as if considering the question. "They are. It's harder for them. I have practice," she said, drily. "I'm the most tenured of the three of us. I never thought that would be a good thing."

"Melinda?"

"It's easier in sleep. They didn't say much. I know they wanted to see y—" Beth's impassive face twitched into the slight semblance of a smile. "Speak of the Banana!"

"Hannah?" Her friend was there: flickering like a faulty film reel and looking strange and nearly translucent, but there. A rush of relief so overwhelming it almost made her dizzy swept over her. "Hannah, you're here."

Although her face was steady, she sounded like she was smiling. "And I even promise not to try to kill you. Though it seems like you're doing a good enough job of that on your own."

Sam shook her head. "No. I'm not."

"You will be if you don't get out of here soon. Trust me," Hannah's voice took on an edge. "I know what it's like to be injured down here. And you didn't even bring snacks." Beth scoffed and her twin looked over. "Too soon?"

"I think it might always be 'too soon' for that joke."

"Sorry." It was strange, hearing Hannah sound truly apologetic. Hannah had rarely been like that; she'd always been one to stubbornly hang onto her decisions and refuse to admit she'd made a mistake. Her voice was small and more than a bit ashamed. "I don't know what to say anymore." It was like listening to a radio station fading in and out of range.

Sam looked at Beth, panicked. "Is she—"

"She's trying," Beth said softly. "It's hard. It takes time. She was angry before."

"You aren't now?" Sam asked Hannah's unstable image, desperately. "Han? Can you—can you forgive me?"

Her best friend suddenly popped into perfect clarity. "I wasn't, but that question kind of makes me mad. Does that count? Sam, I could never… I don't need to forgive you. There's nothing to forgive."

Where was she even supposed to start? "I let you die. I gave up the search too soon. I—Mike—" She faltered, glancing back and forth between Hannah and Beth. How could she ever hope to explain any of it? She should beg forgiveness from both of them. There was a strange, echoing sound and it took her a moment to realize it was laughter: two voices, laughing together. She stared at them.

"Sam, you did nothing wrong," Hannah said.

"Although, I think your taste in men might be questionable," Beth chimed in, voice still laughing.

"But you did nothing unreasonable, nothing bad. Hindsight is twenty-twenty." Sam could almost have wept at the kindness and understanding in Hannah's voice. It was her friend, her best friend. Not a monster. Not an insane spirit bent on hurting others. Just Hannah. "If anyone had known, they would have kept looking. That's no one's fault."

"Josh—"

Beth cut her off. "You couldn't have known that either. No one could have known. The moment you realized, you came back in a blaze of glory to do everything you could do to save him. And, Sam? We were talking about it and—"

"We don't think you could have saved him," Hannah said, finishing the thought. "We've felt the things that are up here. Makkapitew was a part of both of us. We felt him. We felt what he was, what he did to us, what we did to ourselves. And all three of us have felt that other monster. There are more things, too, Sam. More things up here than you could imagine or understand. It had to be like this. We have to be here, now."

She didn't understand. "You were supposed to die?" It didn't make sense. If she'd stopped the prank, if they'd kept looking, if she'd realized Josh had gone off the deep end, if, if, if. She hated how much the word dominated her thoughts, parading through her mind in an unending loop of possibilities.

"Not exactly." Beth and Hannah shared a look before Beth continued, speaking slowly and choosing her words with great care. "We don't know, precisely. But what we did—when it attacked you and Matt just before you all left—I could never have done that on my own, or even with Hannah. Together, though, we were able to actually do something. I'd watched for so long. Hannah and Josh knew it in a way that I can't even imagine.

"I don't know about destiny or fate or any of that stupid shit—" Sam laughed, despite herself, at the familiar, beloved annoyance in Beth's voice. "—but we can actually do something here. We might be able to actually do something to make this mountain what it's supposed to be. Or at least try to prevent more death up here. That man, with the armor and the gun and the fire, he tried to help Hannah and I, but we were too freaked to listen. He helped you all the first time. He's helped others, too, but he was just a man. Just a normal, mortal man. I'm not sure exactly what we are now, but I know that we're more than that."

Hannah appeared next to her sister and they looked at each other. Hannah's hair was longer, but without her glasses, in identical white shifts, they were near-perfect mirrors of each other. Something stirred longingly in Sam's chest, something that told her that she couldn't go with them, couldn't stay here. She wasn't a part of what was happening now. Salt stung the scratches on her face and she realized she was crying.

"I don't want to leave you alone. Not again."

Both girls looked at her. "Sam, don't you see?" Beth said gently. Hannah's form flickered again, and Beth reached down to take her hand. Steady fingers entwined with unstable ones and squeezed. As if it had pushed new energy into her, Hannah solidified once more. Both girls smiled, the sweet, intimate, real expressions that Sam had always found so beautiful. "We aren't alone. We have each other. We have Josh. He's new and uncertain and this is too hard, but he's here with us. We're Washingtons."

The corner of Hannah's mouth quirked up a hair in amusement. "We always were at our best when we were together."

Sam nodded, through her tears. "Then I'll come back and visit."

The twins shared another look and then shook their heads. "I don't think it's a good idea," Beth said. "At least not for a long time. We need to figure this all out. It's going to take practice and time. It's still not safe up here. It may never be."

"Ten years," Sam said fiercely, pointing at her. "I will give you ten years, then I'm coming to visit."

In a sudden, almost startling break from her sweet, sad serenity, the ghost rolled her eyes. "Oh fine. God, you are ridiculous." Her face dropped back into near-expressionlessness and she raised a hand. "Now you need to leave, Sam."

"But—"

"You're hurt. You need to get out of here. You need to get warm and have someone look at your head."

"I—"

"Sam…" She knew that voice. It was Beth's I'm-the-only-sensible-one-on-this-fucking-planet voice. It was the voice that would allow no argument, because it knew it was right. "Go."

Before she could think to protest again, the twins vanished. "Always have to get the last word," Sam muttered in mock irritation, hoping they could hear her. "Always have to be the smartest one in the room." She didn't look back at the grave and its gruesome marker. It wasn't Beth anymore. It didn't matter.

"Josh?" she called, hopefully. From what Beth said, she didn't expect much, but it would have been impossible to not try. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure what she would say to him if she had the opportunity.

After a few minutes, she sighed and made her way over to the metal barrel she'd found earlier and slipped the photo of Hannah into her pocket. It caught on something and she pulled out the necklace. She had never had the chance to give it to Hannah.

She considered leaving it as some kind of offering, but hesitated. "I suppose you can't wear it now," she said quietly to the empty air. Carefully, she undid the clasp and put it on, letting the pendant slip down under her jacket to rest against her breastbone. It felt right. It wasn't just Hannah's. It was part of all three of them: a treasured gift that she could carry with her. "The alternative," Sam said, louder, "would be getting a tattoo, but we've all seen where that leads."

Only silence and the faint sound of water met her comment, but she liked to think that somewhere, Hannah was laughing. Or at least trying not to laugh.

The mine was cold and seemed emptier than she remembered. There was no sign of the wendigos, though from what Beth said, at least one was still around here. There are more things, too, Sam. More things up here than you could imagine or understand. That was a chilling thought. What else might be lurking down here, ready to pounce on an injured, freezing girl?

She sped up a little.

The only upside to being chased through the mine so many times was that it was easy to navigate. It was hard to imagine being lost down here, though she knew there were plenty of passageways she'd never been down and might be able to get her twisted around. Especially with her head the way it was.

As she rounded a bend and began heading up a slight incline besides a set of mine cart tracks, something made her stop dead.

Something was moving in the darkness ahead.

Her eyes had adjusted somewhat, but there were limits to what human vision could accommodate. She squinted into the shadows, trying to make it out, keeping herself as still as possible, just in case. Something had happened while she spoke to Beth and Hannah and the desire to lie down, to sleep forever and stay in this place, had vanished. She knew she wouldn't be able to stay here with them, and that thought terrified her more than death alone could.

A shadowy shape made its way forward, low to the ground and moving at a brisk pace. It seemed to spring suddenly into focus and she let out the breath she'd been holding in a soft huff of laughter.

Wolfie sat back on its haunches and tipped its head to the side. Affection and relief welled up inside her and she found her eyes welling with tears again. She hadn't devoted much thought to the animal, but she'd wondered what had become of it. The last she'd seen, it had been attacking the wendigo in a valiant attempt to protect her. She owed Wolfie her life.

Squatting down, she held her hand out and it thrust its nose against her palm. "If I weren't so sure you were a wolf, I would think you were someone's lost pet," she told it, ruffling its ears fondly. "I'm glad you're alive, pal. I was worried."

She straightened and smiled down at it. "Want to keep me company?"

It moved around to stand beside her, then abruptly its head jerked to stare forward into the darkness. It growled, low in its throat, and then bolted forward, vanishing once more. Sam swallowed hard. "I guess I can take that as a 'no,' then." She took a cautious step forward, then another.

The darkness was intense. It was the right way, but it must have been more closed off to the world above than some other areas of the mine, since there was almost no ambient light filtering down. She pulled out her phone and turned the flashlight on, then yelped and almost dropped it.

There was a figure ahead of her, perhaps ten feet away. Her heart thudding painfully in her chest, Sam took a step forward. She could hardly see him. If Hannah had been a failing film, this figure was static, his outline barely there. She had to be wrong. She knew she must be wrong. "Josh?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper and she hated the fragility of it. "Is that you? You're here?"

The voice that came, in all its dry, sardonic glory, was enough to make her hands shake. "Well, I considered going to Milan, but you know… the air fare is just ridiculous this time of year." The longer he spoke, the clearer his words came, as if he was gaining momentum. "I suppose I could have gone to New York or somewhere closer, but—" His face, when she could see it, was as impassive as the girls had been most of the time. Even without expression, though, it struck Sam as beautiful. There was no sign of the transformation he'd been suffering through.

"Josh," she said again, not quite believing her senses. "You're here."

"A bit repetitive, but I like it. It has the cadence of a haiku. Simple, but the rhythm is nice."

"Shut up." The words came out before she could stop them, an automatic response to Josh's nonsense born of long experience. She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh no. I don't mean that. Don't go."

His outline continued to stutter uncertainly but didn't vanish. "Telling me to shut up does no good. Everyone knows that. Come on, Giddings. Like you could ever shut me up."

"I'm sorry." She had to say it. She had to tell him, while she had a chance. "I tried to help you."

The teasing tone dropped out of his voice. She wished she could see his face properly and consistently, but she knew him well enough to imagine. "I know. I wish I'd had the chance to thank you."

"I shouldn't have done what I did. I should have thought about it more. I should have found another way. I should have—"

"Look, I have trouble with this whole talking thing. Always have. Now, I suppose, it's a bit more literal, but—"

"Josh," she interjected, trying to cut off his rambling.

"Anyway. I was there. Earlier, when you were talking to the girls. I couldn't manage… I don't know. I couldn't… Not with them watching, looking at me. They're probably listening now anyway, but it's easier without seeing them. Look. You did the right thing. You set me free from that monster under my skin. I was a total bastard to you, but you still came back for me. Over and over again." His voice faded a bit and took on an edge of confusion. "I don't know why you did that. It doesn't make sense. You didn't have to."

Sam took another step towards him. "I did."

The outline shrugged. Or at least, she thought that's what the movement was. "You really didn't. I didn't deserve it. But you did it anyway." Josh laughed. "Listen to me. Death! Better than antidepressants! Clears the mind! Try some today!"

"No thanks."

"Good." He sighed. "I don't know what I meant to accomplish here. I guess I just really needed to thank you. And to apologize."

She thought about it and smiled slightly. "You know, you haven't actually apologized yet."

He grunted, sounding annoyed. Though she doubted he would truly be able to, she imagined him glaring at her. "You're right. Apologizing implies I was wrong. That there was a flaw in my perfect, immutable plans. So…"

The figure vanished.

Sam stared at the empty tunnel where he had been in disbelief. "Seriously?"

When a few seconds passed, and he didn't reappear, she clenched her jaw and started moving again. She was close to the exit now. It wouldn't be long.

As she finally spotted the opening ahead and felt the cold sweep of mountain air against her face, she paused. Quietly, almost inaudibly, she thought she heard a voice on the breeze.

"I'm sorry, Sam."

"I know," she said. She wasn't sure if she had actually heard anything, or whose voice it even was: Josh or the mountain itself. In the end, she supposed, it didn't really matter. "I know."

She didn't make it all the way back to the lodge before she ran into Hank, who had been sweeping the forest with a flashlight and calling her name. Sam half-expected him to smack her, given the look on his face, but instead he had simply relaxed.

They were a quiet, awkward party in the lodge. Sam couldn't quite meet Melinda's gaze evenly. The woman must have suspected something, but perhaps was too afraid to ask Sam about it directly. Sam, in turn, was too uncomfortable to tell Melinda what had happened to her. Melinda was their mother. Sam already wondered why she had been granted a visit when Melinda hadn't.

Ultimately, Sam thought, it did none of them any good to lie. They had at least learned that much.

"I saw them," she said, simply.

Hank started, opening his mouth, but Melinda raised a hand and he stayed quiet. Instead, Melinda spoke. "All of them?"

She nodded, miserably. "They're all here."

The older woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then another. Finally, she opened her eyes again and, to Sam's shock, smiled broadly. "Thank you, Sam."

"What are you thanking me for?" Sam asked, confused. "I didn't do anything."

"You confirmed that they're here. I was so sure before, but was starting to doubt. Now I know that they're here. It's real. They're real."

"But you didn't talk to them. You really believe me?"

Melinda reached over and rubbed Sam's arm comfortingly. "Of course. After everything, how could I not? I'm glad you got to see them while you were here."

"They're not very… I don't think 'strong' is the right word…" Sam fumbled for the right way to describe what had happened. "It's hard for them to appear and talk. I'm not sure if they'll be able to do it again before we leave."

"…and you're worried I might not get to see them?" Behind and out of Melinda's gaze, Hank sighed silently. It was clearly a concern of his as well. Melinda just kept smiling. "If I don't see them this time, I'll just come back."

Hank coughed. "You'll what?"

She laughed and waved a hand dismissively. "It hasn't been announced yet," Melinda said, her smile turning a touch sad. "But Bob and I are separating. I'm not going to fight him over much. I don't really care about most of our more ridiculous assets. In return, I get the mountain."

"You what?" Hank's voice cracked slightly. "Mel, you can't live up here."

The look she gave him could have leveled a building. "I'm not an idiot. I don't plan to 'live up here.' I'll live in town. But I won't let him sell this off to developers, not now that I know what's up here. Would you want that?"

"Of course not."

Sam stared at her, trying to process. Her exhausted, injured brain couldn't quite fathom what Melinda was saying. She hadn't thought about what would happen to the land. It was valuable and full of painful memories. Bob would try to sell it. It only made sense. A flood of gratitude, deep and profound, washed over Sam and she leaned over to hug Melinda awkwardly. "Thank you," she mumbled against the woman's shoulder.

Her hand smoothed over Sam's hair, carefully avoiding her injury. "No, Sam. Thank you."

"Sam? There's someone at the door for you!"

She sat up with a sigh. Staring at the ceiling wasn't particularly interesting, but the air conditioning was relaxing and she had nothing better to do. Reading seemed pointless and television seemed too loud. When it cooled off a bit, she reasoned, she'd go for a run.

Returning to California felt even stranger this time than it had the previous. She said goodbye to Melinda at the airport and climbed into her Dad's car. There wasn't much she had to say to him and he didn't press. Her parents had adamantly refused to let her go back to the dorm immediately and she hadn't fought them on it.

It was just too bizarre. All of it, from the first moment of horror in the woods to saying goodbye to ghosts, felt unreal: a story that had happened to someone else. Even so, it seemed impossible to go back to doing normal things, like going to class. She could do things on her own, like run, but interacting with people who knew nothing about what she'd gone through? It was unthinkable.

They were all gone. Beth, Hannah, Josh, and Chris were all gone. She'd texted everyone upon her return to let them know she hadn't died, but either they had no interest in what had happened on her last trip or they'd had no idea how to ask her. Her money was on the latter, though there was an odd reassurance in knowing that she could count on Emily at least to pretend to the former. What could she say to them? The conversations she'd had with the siblings had all been so private. Sam felt like she owed the group answers but had none she was at liberty to provide.

"Sam!"

Sam groaned. She kept doing that; she kept zoning out, losing herself in her own thoughts. She'd been avoiding the others, but now, it seemed, her time was up. It was probably Ashley, impatient with waiting but too nervous to text or call.

She headed down the stairs at a trot and opened the door, trying to summon up her patience.

Mike stood on the front step, looking like he was torn between smiling and bolting for his car. It was still funny to see him clean-shaven, though that was how he'd been for most of their acquaintance. The scruffy, shaggy version of him was so imprinted on her mind that it blocked out any other version of him.

When she didn't speak, he shuffled his feet, glancing around. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Um… hi." The moment the words left his mouth, he closed his eyes in frustration and she could practically hear him berating himself for his distinct lack of cool.

She realized she was fighting back a smile and gave in to it. It felt good to smile, like a weight was lifting from her face. "Um… hi back?" she offered, realizing she had nothing wittier to say herself. He looked good, although she suspected that, like the rest of them, he could never truly look his age ever again. They had all been aged by what they'd seen. It was hard to believe that none of them were old enough to legally drink. "It's good to see you."

Mike opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. He pulled his hand from behind his back and thrust something forward. She took it automatically, her hands closing on something organic and chilled and slightly damp. Looking down, her brow crinkled in confusion. "Lettuce? Am I… what?"

"You said it—" He fumbled for words, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "In the mine, you were talking to Jess and— Oh fuck. Fucking fucksticks fuckington. This was stupid." He shook himself and straightened. "I thought… I thought it would be funny. I wanted to bring you flowers or something, but then I remembered the thing with the lettuce, and I asked your Mom what your favorite kind was, so I went and got the red leaf because—"

Sam giggled, startling both herself and Mike. It was… god, it was perfect. "You…" She couldn't even say it, her laughter renewing with a vengeance. Mike started to grin himself, watching her. He brought her lettuce. What an idiot. What an amazing, brilliant move of total dumbassery.

The hot sun beat down on them and she clutched the head of lettuce to her chest, feeling the moisture on the leaves seep through her thin tank top to touch her skin with its freshness. Nothing was ever going to be the same again, Sam thought, absurd tears stinging her eyes even as she reached forward and leaned against Mike's chest, trying to breathe through her laughter. Nothing would be the same.

But perhaps it would be good, all the same.