The other voices were still going, too.

“For a newbie, you got a lot of opinions.”

“Leave her alone, Sandra. She’s a child.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You can’t avoid me forever.”

“Hey. Newbie. Tell Alice to buzz off.”

“Shut up, all of you!” Trenton didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until there was a sudden silence. He had been trying to count. Now he had to start over.

There was a knocking on the bathroom door. “Trenton?” his mom called out. “Trenton, are you all right?”

“Fine.” He shook all the pills back into his palm and began a recount.

“You’ve been in there a long time,” she said.

“I have to dump,” he replied.

He heard his mom sigh. “Language,” she said, and moved off.

The ghost went on as though nothing had happened. “I’m not a child,” she continued. “My birthday’s in July. My mom said we could go anywhere I wanted. I asked to go to Six Flags.” She was quiet for a moment. “Do you think . . . do you think my mom misses me?”

“Please,” Trenton said. His head was going to burst; the voices were like insects burrowing through his brain. “Please.” He didn’t want to care but he couldn’t help it; the world was f**ked.

Nine. He had nine pills so far.

“That isn’t enough to kill you,” the ghost said. She was suddenly next to him. He hated that, how quickly she could move. And her touch was like a shiver, like something going wrong in his stomach. “You’ll just throw up.”

“How do you know that?” He was annoyed because she was right. He’d looked online and realized he needed at least twenty, to be safe. But he couldn’t take too many from Minna at a time.

“I saw a story like that on TV.” She paused. “It’s not fair,” she said. She was trembling. They weren’t touching anymore, but he could feel it—cold air, the hair on his arms standing up.

“No,” he said. He longed, suddenly, to touch her—this fragile, needy, broken child, to kiss the top of her head and pull her down into his lap, as he did with Amy when she was having a bad dream. But she wasn’t Amy, and she was only half a child. And, of course, he couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t even see her face clearly: just shifting patterns of light and shadow, a faint impression of hollow prettiness.

“When you die,” she said. “We’ll be friends, won’t we?” She hesitated, then said shyly, “We can be together all the time.”

He felt a sudden wave of panic. He hadn’t thought about it like that. He’d thought only of sleep, and of Minna sobbing and blaming herself; and the kids at Andover lighting candles in his name. What if death turned out to be just as awful and depressing as life? What if he was just as powerless?

“Don’t count on it,” Trenton said. “I’m not planning to stick around.” But he had trouble pouring the pills back into an empty bottle of calamine lotion, where he was hiding them, and dropped two. He had to get down on his hands and knees to retrieve them.

“You’ll stay,” she said. “You’ll stay, and then I’ll always have someone to talk to.”

She grew quiet, and Trenton felt her withdraw, saw her shadow-self shifting across the cold tiles, and the old shower curtain, spotted with mold. Soon, she wouldn’t even be a shadow. She would be nothing but a voice, telling stories no one could hear.

“I’m lonely,” she said, in a whisper.

He placed the bottle in the back of the medicine cabinet, which smelled like old Band-Aids and nail polish and the bubblegum scent of kids’ Tylenol. It comforted him. He thought of Katie leaning forward as she reached behind him to light a candle, her breast bumping his shoulder.

“Me, too,” he said.

SANDRA

Trenton, Minna, and Caroline are locked in separate bathrooms. And not one of them is even taking a piss.

Trenton’s shaking out pills into his palm again, like maybe the number magically doubled in the past two hours. Caroline dials and hangs up. Dials and hangs up.

And Minna is in the bathroom with the FedEx man.

It reminds me of an old nursery rhyme I used to like: The king was in his counting house, counting out his money; the queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden, hanging up the clothes  . . .

I always thought it was kind of a fun story. All those people, busy with different work, happy—except for the poor maid, who gets her nose pecked off by a blackbird.

But really, they’re all just shut up in different rooms, trying to keep busy so they won’t notice they’re alone. Just like the Walkers in their big old house, everyone locked up behind closed doors and only speaking to each other through the walls.

Everyone waiting for a blackbird. Or for the roof to collapse.

Yes, Minna says. Yes. Yes.

ALICE

“Close your eyes, Vivian,” I say—an automatic command, and a stupid one, since I know she can’t. Minna’s backside, bare, is cupped in the sink; the FedEx man’s fleshy fingers are squeezing her skin. I wish I could give her a sharp poke. But I don’t have that kind of control. Not yet.

“My name isn’t Vivian,” the new ghost says. “And I know what sex is.”

“Newbie,” Sandra says. “Tell Alice to stop being a prude.”

“I’m not a prude.” I’m tired of Sandra’s abuse. Tired of Minna’s feet kicking in the air, and the sight of the FedEx man’s navy blue pants. Tired of all the Walkers, and the constant buzzing presence of their needs and smells and voices and aliveness—a sensation like mosquitoes zapped to death in our light fixtures, ants running over our cabinets, termites chewing us slowly, from the inside out.

I came so close to release. Never, in all the years of my death, have I been closer than I was in those few minutes, with the flames spreading, building warmth through our body, and the smoke like a gentle hand, pushing away memory, pushing away thought.

“Everyone needs a little action sometimes. You know, they used to treat women for hysteria by setting them up with vibrators. A little orgasm now and again . . . ”

“Ew,” Vivian says.

If only the fire had spread. “It amazes me,” I say, “that your stupidity only seems to increase with time.” I say to Vivian, “Tell Sandra that her stupidity—”