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Engraved beneath the words was the crest of a s on the first line I heard ular and quick, like the sound of so down the stairs I had to find a shovel On my walk here I had passed a worker’s pickup truck on the side of a path There could have been a shovel there Standing up, I retraced my steps

The truck was only a little ways back Beside it sat a collection of garbage bins and a few tools: a pitchfork, a rake, and a shovel

I hesitated before touching the handle of the shovel I despised it I didn’t want to touch it But tonight I had no other option Its shaft felt rough and splintered as I ranaccusto it over my shoulder, I carried the shovel back to the nameless headstone

here it is laid to rest

I focused on the words as I planted the shovel fir Themy forehead, I stepped back to look at o any deeper I’d have to lower an to pace around the hole I could try I could stick one foot in and see what happened It wasn’t even close to the six-foot erous…Slowly, I lowered ling feeling passed throughMy toes curled inbefore they went nurass I couldn’t It was impossible My body wouldn’t letfor some other way There wasn’t one Why had I not foreseen this? Why had I been so unprepared? My grip on the shovel loosened, and it dropped to the ground beside me with a soft thud

When I woke up, I found any walls of Dr Newhaus’s office I was lying on a sofa, an itchy wool blanket draped overmy eyes, I kicked it off me and sat up My hair was still da at the far end of the rooazed out theWhen he hearda maroon suit vest over a shirt and tie

"Miss Winters," he said, holding his fingers together, his lids heavy as one eye gazed at me, the other at the plant on the sill "You’ve returned froy"

Before I kneas happening, I had a thermometer in my mouth, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and the cold nose of a stethoscope pressed to ular," the doctor said as he countedsee, and fetched me a towel from a supply closet "You baffle me"

I thanked hilasses "Can you tell y and Prediction, about the boat, about hohen the headmaster mentioned the cemetery in Mont Royal, I blacked out and fell into the water

"Do you re after that?"

"I had another vision," I said "I was digging up sorave, but I stopped halfway"

Dr Newhaus squinted "Whose grave was it?"

SOEUR, I thought, but instead said, "It was na proraph, a phrase…"

I said nothing He was right, partly, but I kneasof fear, of dread, of hate, of disappointment

"Could you detect any other connection between this vision and the one you experienced previously?"

I hesitated There was the second part of the riddle, which I should have beenelse Why couldn’t I have jumped into the hole? Why had my foot reacted in that way? Why had I not wanted to touch the shovel?

"Renée?" Dr Newhaus said, trying to catch aze "Any connection between your visions?"

"U parched The only reason why I wouldn’t have been able to jump into the hole was if I were Undead But I wasn’t Undead I could go underground; I had been in the Montreal tunnels

The doctor wrote so on his pad, and I wondered what it was If ? There were hundreds of them out there, but only one person made sense

But no--it couldn’t be When I’d told Dante about nized them, had he? He’d even asked ht be dangerous

"Have you been taking the medications I prescribed for you?"