No one could be possessed by a ghost without some form of brain damage. Veronica was lucky; she'd been under for a bare few minutes. For a month afterwards, she felt a psychosomatic chill, a constant frost that shivered inside her blood and bones no matter how warm she really was. Heather McNamara lost her fine motor control, but relearned enough skills in time to return to cheerleading before the end of the school year. Heather Duke lost her ability to speak, and was too badly damaged to return to school. Martha sent her care packages in the hospital, mostly consisting of books, although Heather never wrote back.

The story they ended up with cast J.D. not so much as a suicide or murderer, but an imprudent hunter who tried to end a dangerous ghost with extreme and terrible means. After a lot of questioning and partial truths mixed with downright lies, Veronica found the opportunity to steal into the gymnasium alone and take down the packs of thermals. She broke into the Dean house one last time, putting the explosives back where they'd probably been stored before. On impulse, she took the hamster home with her.

Martha was sad that the boy she'd tried to befriend and then quarreled with had died trying to save her life, perhaps in a misguided way. But although her feelings were sincere, she'd never really known J.D. as a person, and she had newfound confidence in herself and her friends to make her resilient. As soon as her twice-broken bones healed, she walked to the town hospice and persuaded the seer and hunter there to give her a part-time job. She knew she had the ability to be a hunter and save lives, and adopted it as her destiny.

Heather McNamara had a scar across her face from the blast that never quite went away, but it was amazing what you could do with makeup. Veronica and Martha tutored her in math, and she passed out of school with flying colors.

Veronica moved forward. She signed up for student council, made a special effort to talk to the Westerburg bullies and Westerburg victims and those who were both at the same time, and used all the strategies she had on hand to act like a decent person. After she left high school behind her for good, she applied to attend the same removalist academy as Martha.

Veronica wrote in her diary again.

Take what you want and pay for it, says God.

I wanted to be in the shadow of power all my life. I hid behind Heather, I watched J.D. lose control, and I hid from myself. Now I have power and I understand it.

I tried Ms. Fleming's way, I tried J.D.'s way, and they didn't work. Now I'm trying my own way. Sometimes soft power and sometimes hard power works. There is no simple answer. I'm honest with myself and move forward.

I found out that I am the sort of person who will forge a suicide note, shoot a man, or drive an old friend to attempted suicide to protect herself. I don't want to be that sort of person, but I've learnt what power means. You can't give power away or ignore it. You always have to use it, for better or for worse, and even not making a decision is a decision.

I thought that what J.D. did was the only way to destroy the monster we created. He killed without remorse, and I played a role in sentencing him to death.

Would he have killed again if it had gone down another way? I think the answer is 'probably'. In any case, I chose to pull the trigger, and I have to live with the consequences. I sent Martha to re-break her bones in order to destroy Kurt Kelly's ghost, and never told her that he used to be the boy she loved. Then I used J.D. to stop Heather, once and for all, and I was the one left standing at the end.

I've never suffered fools gladly, and Martha suffers fools too much. I use her as a balance. She's forgiven me for my actions, and believes that J.D.'s extreme solution was only because we had no other choice. Did we? When people say there was no choice, they generally mean either that they couldn't think of anything else at the time, or they have a desperate need to believe any other choice would have been even worse.

I truly believe that the shade that rose from Heather's death was different to what she was in reality. When she lived I know I magnified her image more than I had to, like so many others around her did. She was Heather the magnificent giantess, who shook the world with a single word or pout or petulant toss of her golden curls. Who really knew her other than herself? I'm still not sorry that the others are dead, but nor do I know what they might have become if they lived.

If we were all free from Heather, what would we choose to be? I'll ask and keep asking that question.

It's much easier for me to sleep now. I don't know if I'm driven by wanting to give back in some way; not by undoing my mistakes, because I can't do that, but at least by going on in the opposite way. Or maybe I want to stay by Martha's side. Either way, I have work to do. Midnight is over, and I will be there for the next dawn.

Sometimes Veronica dreamed of the possibility of a dark figure in a black trenchcoat walking through her walls into her bedroom, materializing out of thin air with a twisted smile and a ghostly quip. But hunters could never become ghosts, as the stuff they were made of was wholly opposed to them. And in the end he had made a choice.