Billy didn't take much notice of Brandon's empty desk when he walked into class that morning. The flu was on the prowl, and it had already left a tenth of his classmate's desks abandoned. Even his teacher was out that day, and in her place was a bleary-eyed substitute who was sorting through a stack of DVD's at her desk.

That morning he'd eaten blueberry waffles drowning in syrup and freshly squeezed orange juice. By the time he left for school, the sun had been high, and it was seventy-four degrees. Once gym rolled around, he could only hope it hovered around that same number. He'd packed sunscreen in his gym bag, at least, though he hoped it didn't leak onto his change of clothes like it had the week before.

They'd watched some documentaries about dinosaurs and the origin of numbers for half the day. A few kids had fallen asleep, but Billy was so engrossed in his doodles that he was able to keep his eyes open and ears half in-tune. All the while, one of the Ramones songs he'd been listening to on the drive to school with his father played on an endless repeat in his head.

Why these minute details about the day stuck with him even as the sound of his best friend's voice slipped from his memory like sand between his fingers, Billy could not be sure.

With Brandon gone, he had to carpool home with Mrs. Verano. She was okay, at least as far as parents went. When she got into his car, she greeted him with a smile and a chocolate chip cookie. Though her daughter sat beside him, her nose was too deep in a paperback to notice him.

It was about three-fifteen when he got home. The phone rang about five minutes later. His babysitter was late, so Billy got the phone himself. Behind him, the refrigerator was left open.

The phone rang once, twice. By the fourth ring, he had it up to his ear.

"This is the Sivana residence. Who's speaking?"

"William?"

Billy bit his lip. He recognized the voice but couldn't place a face or name to it. "Yes?"

There was a heartbeat long pause. "This is Mrs. Andrews."

Oh, Brandon's other mom. She worked as a contractor for a construction company, with hours that varied by the week. They knew each other the way most kids knew their friend's parents – in passing, only because social customs dictated they had to.

"Do you need my dad? Because he's not here." It was a stupid question (just what did she care about his father?), but right then Billy suddenly wanted to fill the silence around him.

"Look, Will - can I call you that?"

"Billy."

"Billy, did you hear anything at school today about Brandon?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am. He was out sick, right?"

"You could say that." She took a deep breath. "My wife and I debated about calling you about this. Right now, it's very difficult to say this. But I'd rather you know before some wild rumors get out. My son cared a lot about you, so at the very least you deserve the truth."

Billy's heart was hammering in his chest. "What do you mean?"

Another stupid question, though he wasn't a stupid kid. Parents didn't call their kid's friends unless it was an emergency, unless they had a damn good reason to pick up the phone.

"Brandon died this morning, Billy."

The phone hit the floor with a crack, pieces breaking off and bouncing across the floor. All the same, Mrs. Andrews' voice came through from the other end of the line.

"Billy, Billy?"


He packed two changes of clothes, a toothbrush (but no toothpaste – right then his brain had been shut off to conserve energy), the whole of his allowance, and some comics. As he was about to exit, he noticed the magic eight ball sitting on his desk and shoved it into his backpack as well. Maybe he'd come up with some questions for it later.

He went out the apartment's back entrance without looking back. Hurrying past the parking lot, he made his way to a trail that led to a nearby park. There were families out, but most were walking or jogging at a safe distance away from him to not notice the tears dotting his eyes. He rubbed them away with the back of his hands. This could all just be a mistake, maybe even some big joke. Brandon was a nice enough guy, but he could be an asshole when he wanted to be. Oh, and if it was, what a right hook Billy was going to give him!

But I'm not going to.

He knew that the way that he knew that he could never touch the moon no matter how far he stretched his arm. The way he knew that his father would sooner discuss the world ending then let Billy so much as say the word "grandfather."

The causes ran through his mind. Car accident, cancer (just what that was beyond the big scary word adults used when discussing the end, Billy did not know), eating too fast and choking. There were too many possibilities, and right then none seemed as possible as Brandon simply stopping. Blinking and being no more. Being hit by lightning beneath a clear sky and vanishing in a stream of smoke.

If he walked a few blocks past the park, he'd reach Brandon's house. Maybe Billy would find the answers there, or maybe even find Brandon himself. Would he look the way that bodies did in video games, all stiff and colorless, like mannequins left forgotten on the ground? Or would there be a whole pack of police cars around his house, their red and blue lights flashing?

Billy turned, heading down a different path. Trees rose overhead, temporarily shielding him from the sun. In the distance, he could hear children laughing, couples talking, and birds crying out. Bugs skittered beneath his feet. He clutched his backpack tighter, pushing the world and its sounds away until there was nothing but the path before him.

Wherever Brandon was (because he had to be somewhere, anywhere, even if Billy didn't know where), had he seen Billy's mother? He'd never enjoyed entertaining the idea, but anything could happen. How could be find a Marianne Batson if there was no longer one to find? The question screamed itself at him now. His mother had left the carnival and something could have happened to her too. One of those somethings that adults didn't like to talk about. It could have happened to her, just as it had happened to Brandon, sudden and without consideration to Billy's thoughts on the matter.


He was running down the stairs after his little sister, ready for breakfast. He'd been wearing slippers and hadn't been using the handrail. As he was reaching for a step, his foot went a little too far out and he missed the next step and started toppling forward. At least that was what his other mother had told Billy. The rest was a crossword puzzle that Billy had to fill in for himself.

Had it hurt? Or had it been so sudden that Brandon hadn't even been able to notice anything besides his face tumbling towards the floor?


The boy's dead and now yours is too.

Even on their best days, the sins were never much help. Now, Thaddeus would have sooner had them rip off his toes one-by-one than say another word.

"Yes, William Sivana, ten years old, a fourth grader at Polk," Thaddeus spoke into his cell phone. The man on the other end's voice was clinical and detached, as if he spent eight hours every day listening to nothing but the same complaint. "I called home earlier after receiving word from his friend's parent, but he never picked up. When I got back, he wasn't home."

His babysitter had actually been the one to call first. She had been screaming when he'd picked up, barely able to put one word in front of the other. The door had been unlocked when she'd arrived, and the house phone broken on the floor. William's backpack was gone, as was the boy himself. By the time she hung up, Thaddeus had been out of his office as if the devil were at his heels.

The problem was that William could have been anywhere. A few blocks over or halfway across the city, in a neighborhood he'd never seen before in his life or at the bottom of a ditch.

He'd gotten the other call right as he was hurrying into his car. The area code was familiar but the number itself was not.

"Mr. Sivana, I apologize if you're busy at work, but I figured if your son was going to know this then you might as well hear it too." A nice of a hello as any. The woman on the other end of the line spilled the story, her voice cracking by the time she got to the end of it. "I just had to call him. It's all so unreal, but I just had to let him know. I-I…"

"Have you seen him? His sitter called and said that he wasn't home."

"N-no. He didn't even say goodbye when I called."

"Did he say anything else to you after you told him?"

"No."

Oh, what a champion Thaddeus was. Almost forty years of scratching symbols and no closer to discovering the power he'd almost grasped as a child. Oh, what he could have done if he'd had it then! If he'd just had it…

You're racing home for nothing. He's gone, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

"Oh, could you all shut up for once?"

Thaddeus turned the radio up as he drove home, hitting the gas like his foot was tied down with cement blocks.

A policewoman was sent down soon after he called the police. She greeted him at the entrance to his apartment, a thin black woman looking to be in her early fifties. A small notebook was in her hands.

"I received word from dispatch that your son is missing."

Thaddeus repeated everything he'd told 911. The more he said it, the less the words made sense. Individually the words had some definition but strung together he might as well have been reciting gibberish.

"Has something happened to him?" There was a desperate tone to his voice, a plea to the gods of the unknown to give light to the questions that ate away at his brain.

"So far I haven't heard anything. I'll call in to let the station know some more about it, and then go looking myself."

Thaddeus straightened his back and bit down his tongue until he could open his mouth and speak straight again. "May I ride with you?"


William hadn't said anything that night. His eyes looked down at his dinner, his fork moving mechanically through it, but the macaroni never reached his mouth.

They'd found him a few blocks away from the park near their apartment complex sitting between an alley. His face had been red and puffy, his clothes dirty. Some neighbor had called complaining about a youngster hanging near her house, sure that the kid was taking part in a gang initiation.

Thaddeus would have laughed at that in other circumstances. Now, though, he could only sip at his coffee and try to think of something to say. Something appropriate, at least. Right then, a million stupid answers fluttered through his brain but never reached his tongue.

Oh, Thaddeus could have apologized. But that would come in a few days during the funeral service. Why tell William that now when he could hear the same thing soon from countless strangers?

"You really scared me tonight." He could have yelled. If he were more like his father, he would have. Thunder would have cracked with his every word. But just as the fear had melted from him when they'd found his son, so too had anger and just about everything else. Even relief was gone. With the sins quiet, there was barely anything left in him. "I thought you were-" He stopped himself before he could finish the rest.

"I," Thaddeus continued when the boy met his eyes, "I can't really blame you for what happened. If I found out something happened to you, if something did go wrong… Well, I don't know what I'd do."

Maybe he was just talking to himself while William sat in the same room with him. All the same, his shoulders felt a little lighter once the words were out.

"Thanks, Dad." Billy ate one forkful of macaroni and threw the rest down the trash. He gave his father a quick, light hug, which Thaddeus returned much tighter. When he finally let go, William hurried down the hallway to his room, the door clicking shut behind him.


Funerals were a waste of time in Thaddeus' opinion. They were nothing more than a way to shove grief into peoples' faces. If William thought the same thing, he didn't say it.

Following the burial, they skipped the reception. Thaddeus would have sooner eaten his own fingernail clippings than some well-meaning casserole. William was out of school for the day, and even if Thaddeus could find a sitter, right then he didn't know what he'd do if he got to work.

"Why did Brandon have to die?"

Because someone with the great power to see everyone and everything in the world didn't care enough to stop it. Because someone who would have prevented it, had he been able to, couldn't.

"I don't have an answer for you." Thaddeus sighed. "If I did…"