Page 70 of Lost

“She talks to his gravestone?”

Stark shook his head. “No. She leans against his gravestone, but she stares to the side of it, like he’s sitting there—beside her—somewhere close, and by close I don’t mean Nyx’s Grove.”

“Well, okay, so it’s weird and sad, but maybe that’s how Z deals with her grief. You know it took a long time for her to even go to his grave. She’s never even let me go with her. She told me once that it was something she needed to do by herself, and that I should just leave it alone. She said she likes to think there ’cause it’s real quiet. Maybe that’s all there is to it. Z wants some alone time. What do you think?” Stevie Rae shook her head, making her blond curls bounce around her face. “Part of this is my fault. I’m sorry that I’ve been so dang busy that I didn’t realize she’s depressed or whatever.”

Stark waved away her apology. “This isn’t on you. It’s on all of us. I think we’ve left her alone too much since Kevin went back to the Other World.”

“But we’re givin’ her space. Hey, I do know that she’s been talkin’ to her brother. This world’s Kevin. The one who isn’t a red vampyre. I thought that was helping her deal with Other Kevin not being here.” Stevie Rae sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “I haven’t asked her hardly anything about how she’s been feelin’, especially after she kept tellin’ us howfineshe was, in spite of that dang Old Magick messin’ with her and Other Kevin. Like Kramisha always says, it’s not cool to be all up in Z’s business.”

“Yeah, well, space time is over. Since she’s started‘talking,’ ” he air-quoted, “to Heath, she’s stoppedactuallytalking to me. And, obviously, you.”

“Z’s not talkin’ to Damien or Aphrodite either?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Oh, sure. Z talks to Damien and Aphrodite, you and me. But she never says how she’s feeling—except to say she’sfine. Stevie Rae, she’s pulling away from me. And from you, Aphrodite, and Damien. She’s onlyreallytalking to dead Heath.”

“You seriously don’t think this is just Z dealing with her grief?”

“No, because this dead-Heath-talking crap didn’t start untilafterKevin came from the Other World and—”

“And told her about Heath being alive over there,” Stevie Rae finished for him as her eyes widened with understanding.

“Exactly,” Stark said.

“And then she felt Kevin using Old Magick.”

“Yep. Which happened again today. Right before she took off in her bug, even though she told me we were meeting for lunch.”

“Ohmygoodness,Z’s gonna go to the Other World!” Stevie Rae said.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m starting to think too,” Stark said.

“Ah, hell!” Stevie Rae said.

* * *

Zoey

I checked the time on my phone as I pulled my bug off Seventy-First Street onto Aspen, and then took the immediate left to enter through the somber gates of Floral Haven Cemetery. I was pretty sure I could make it back to the House of Night without being too late to meet Stark for lunch.

“I should just tell him that I like to come out here,” I muttered to myself. “He’d understand. Right?”

Um. No. I did tell him—once. Almost a year ago. And he asked me a zillion questions and said that maybe I should talk to someone. As in ashrinkkind of someone. About my grief.

“I tried to explain that’s kinda what I do when I visit the grave. I talk. Sure, it’s not to a shrink, but talk is talk, right?”

Apparently not to Stark it wasn’t. Not that I really blamed him. Losing Heath had been horrible. Worse, even, than losing my mom, because the truth was that I’d been way closer to Heath than anyone in my family except for Grandma Redbird.

As if it knew the way without me steering, my little aqua-colored bug wound around the curving roadways to what had become a familiar section of the graveyard. I stopped where I always did—by the big juniper tree that marked the beginning of the path I’d followed countless times over the past year.

I always felt sad when I first got there. Floral Haven wouldn’t have been Heath’s first choice. Not because it was a bad cemetery or anything like that. I just knew that Heath would have liked somewhere more… well… colorful. Heath had liked crazy, and Floral Haven was immaculate, structured, organized, and well regulated. The opposite of crazy.

But as I walked down the path that led to the Luck family grave, my sadness lifted a little—then more than a little when I caught sight of my neighborly addition to the Luck plot. I went to Heath’s proper, modest,boringtombstone and sat right on top of his grave, which I knew he would’ve appreciated. I leaned against the cold gray stone that said in block letters:HEATH REGINALD LUCK—BELOVED SON, and looked to the side at the next family plot closest to the Lucks’, where there was only one tombstone—the one I’d purchased immediately after I’d purchased the family plot. It was as unboring as the very proper rules of the cemetery had allowed. I’d commissioned a stone made from smooth blue marble, the exact color of a perfect fishing hole. On it I’d had the artist carve a scene of Heath sitting on a small wooden dock casting his rod out into the water. I’d had them make it so that Heath was looking right at me, grinning like he always did when he went fishing.

“Hey there. How ya doin’?” I asked the carving of Heath. “Yep, it was one of those awesome Oklahoma winter days today when it’s not too cold to be outside, but also not hot enough yet to bring on the Okie triple threat: ticks, ragweed, and snakes. I’ll bet you’d say it was good fishing weather, but then again you thought every day was good fishing weather.”

Okay, let me be clear. I hadn’t lost my mind—at least not totally. I was not under any delusion that Heath was actually there, listening to me. I knew where he was… or at least one version of him. I’d been with him there—in the Goddess’ Grove—after he died and my soul had shattered from grief. He’s probably fishing up there somewhere right now.

But I liked pretending to talk to him.