Page 46

Nate turned him toward the light. Low on his side, near the flipper, the fox’s teeth had ripped a small hole in the material.

The stuffing was coming out of him.

“Am I leaking?” the ghost asked.

“A little.”

“Put it back.”

“I will.”

“Put it back NOW.”

“I need a needle and thread. Stop wiggling. You’ll make it worse.” Nate pressed the tuft down with his thumb and cupped his palm over the tear, and that was how they went home: the seal held against the medium’s chest, one large hand clamped over the hole.

They came out of the overgrowth into the yard. The house stood at the top of the drive, gold in the late light, the front door hanging open from where Nate had come through it at a dead run.

He hadn’t even closed the door.

The ghost stored that fact somewhere very small and very deep.

“I hope you realize,” he heard himself say, “that this is entirely your fault.”

“Is it?”

“You put me outside. Unattended. In fox country. Everything that happened out here happened because you locked me out of my own house.”

Nate walked a few steps in silence.

“Fair,” he said.

The ghost had been assembling his next argument. He had several prepared. Pressed against the medium’s warm chest, he didn’t know what to do with agreement. “Well,” he said. “Good.”

“I’ll sew you up before we go to dinner.”

“You’ll sew me up immediately.”

“Immediately,” Nate agreed, and carried him up the porch steps and into the house.

The sewing kit lived at the bottom of the toolbox, under the spare utility blades. Nate dug it out, set it on the kitchen table, and put the seal down next to it, tear side up.

“Is that it?” Leo asked. “That’s your equipment?”

“It’s all I need.” Nate picked through the tin for thread. Black, white, a red he’d bought for a canvas repair years ago. No gray. He held the white against the stuffing, decided it would show least, and reached for the needle.

“Did you sterilize it?”

“You’re stuffing.”

“You don’t know what I am. Nobody knows what I am. Sterilize it.”

Nate suppressed a sigh as he fetched his lighter and passed the needle through the flame. “Happy now?”

“How many times have you done this?” Leo asked.

“Sewn him up? Twice.”

“What happened the other times? Was it bad? How big were the — show me the needle.”