To Avery's relief, the rest of the ride was in silence. Ada didn't say anything, didn't push anymore. And Faz... well, in terms of sound, it was as if he wasn't there at all, which Avery was thankful for.

He wasn't sure how much time passed as he ruminated in his rage, slightly soothed on the inside by Faz. Ada grunted and groaned as she hovered over the passenger seat, more transparent than usual to avoid detection. But invisible or not, quiet or not, Avery felt her beside him and his insides boiled.

Faz, though silent, was a more comforting presence than he'd anticipated. Something about his energy relaxed Avery, put him more at ease.

After a while, he learned to ignore Ada's shifting about, and concentrated on the road.

Once they rolled into the forest clearance, he parked, exited the vehicle, and stretched. He watched as Ada flurried off, disappearing behind the trees. Without Avery having to ask, Faz slipped out of his bloodstream and appeared in his regular blue form before him, an apologetic look on his youthful face.

"Forgive her," he said softly, head dipping down. "She may not be forthcoming or speak the truth when necessary, but she has her reasons. She's kept this world safe for millennia. Her secrets are sometimes indispensable."

Avery wanted to acknowledge her hard work and perseverance, but he was still too riled up to give her a break. And without Faz's soothing bursts of energy on the inside, he was on the brink of an explosion again.

"I just..." He swept a hand over his forehead, gritting his teeth. "I don't want to hear excuses, from her, or from you, in defense of her. She knows what she did." He let out a heavy breath. "I need to bury Jamie. That's all I want to deal with right now."

As he marched to his trunk to grab a shovel—he always had one on hand, for digging into graves; not something he was proud of—he noticed the house containing the ghost portal had been fully rebuilt. He'd only been gone maybe half a day, but there it was, in all its new, modern splendor. A sleek, gray exterior with a dark charcoal roof, lofty windows with balconies, a large front door painted a whimsical shade of blue. All the windows were boarded up on the inside, of course, and a faint cerulean glow came from the top floor, where he presumed the attic was.

The Guides Headquarters, he was going to call it. The place where they'd lured him and Jamie, told him about the prophecy, changed his life—for the worst—forever.

"Shouldn't you be up there?" Avery jutted his chin towards the house, talking to Faz, who hadn't budged from his side. "I'm sure Ada will join them all soon, and she'll need you to support her in telling the tale of the Nevada portal." He couldn't help the snark in his tone, because he couldn't imagine Ada would give her followers all the details they'd need for a full story.

Faz shrugged. "She'll be awhile, resourcing in the woods. And in any case, she asked me to watch over you, and I assume that extends to now, too." He peered towards the blacked-out attic window. "She can tell them by herself."

"Fine." Avery rolled up his sleeves after removing the shovel from the trunk. "If you're going to stick around, then you'll help me with carrying Jamie's body out of the car? Because," out of reflex, he flexed his arm muscles, "I'm a strong dude, but Jamie is... was... heavy."

Faz nodded, and they got to work—though Faz insisted on doing most of the lifting. Avery opened the door, and Faz used his energy to heft Jamie's covered corpse off the back seat and out into the fresh, forest air.

Avery wasn't sure where to bury him; he glanced about the clearing, noticing nothing that would be of significance to him and Jamie. Nothing but the atmosphere of dread, the reminder of the pain they'd experienced, the loss of everything they held dear.

He walked around, taking in the scenery, wondering if maybe he should take Jamie out of the area, farther from Ada. Farther from all this chaos, and in a place where his soul could truly rest. A tasteful cemetery in town. Or somewhere close to where his parents lived?

To get him out of here without Ada noticing, though... it wouldn't happen. She might have wandered off into the forest, but she wasn't far, and she'd know if the car was starting and getting ready to leave.

Dejected, he spotted a few chopped trunks to the far left of the house, near the trees. He chuckled at the sight, remembering how one evening, years ago, when they were on a camping trip, Jamie had sat on a log and pretended to be a lumberjack. They were drunk; they'd gotten done with a difficult case, and Amy was already asleep in her tent, but the boys weren't done with the night. They cracked open a few—a lot of—beers and shared silly stories around the campfire, like teenagers. Jamie had admitted how most of his life he'd been compared to a lumberjack, but as of recently, some women had taken to calling him a hot lumberjack, because of his overgrown facial hair and his gruff demeanor. He loved it.

This was the spot, Avery knew. Between two tree trunks, in a patch of bright green grass, with a few stray flowers growing in a sort of circular pattern. He could drop some wood chips over the dirt and write "Lumberjack Jamie" on a makeshift tombstone, if he found anything to make one.

"Over here," he said, waving to Faz, who brought the levitating body closer. "I want to bury him here."

Faz deposited Jamie's corpse on the ground. "You'll have to do the digging, though, because I can't help with that." He raised his transparent arms. "Can't touch the soil."

With a moan, Avery rolled his sleeves up higher, trying not to smirk at another memory from that campfire night. "That, I have no issue with."

He and Jamie had dug up their fair share of graves, drunk or sober. It wasn't some sick fascination with decayed bodies, or some obsession with bones; it was to test out theories they'd seen in sappy supernatural TV shows and experiments they'd read about on the dark web. Not sorcery, per se, but means to ease a spirit's soul by burning its remains, or heating them up. Or to toss ice onto the body, to see if its ghost would react. Avery had stolen glances at some of Louise's books over time, and some had interesting tests to try out to connect with the dead, many of which involved bones and DNA.

He began shoveling as the sun swept across the sky. It was a hot day, and he'd be drenched in sweat by the time he was done, but he wanted to get his hands dirty. Jamie was—had always been—his best friend, and he deserved much, much better than a spade-dug grave near a magical house filled with weird blue beings. But it was this, or let him rot in the back-seat of a car.

They'd only met a decade or so ago, but to Avery, it felt like centuries. They'd hated each other at first; Avery was a preppy boy, and Jamie was shy and soft-spoken. But as they kept bumping into each other while investigating haunted spots, as amateurs, they soon realized they had way more in common than they'd thought. They started going out for drinks, going to the same movies, coordinating their travels to the same spooky locations. Eventually, they were texting each other almost every night, and planning to shoot videos together to show their ghostly findings.

When they met Amy, tension developed in their group. Jamie instantly had the hots for her, but Avery snuck in and slept with her before Jamie grew the courage to ask her out. It created a slight dent in their friendship, for a time, before Jamie understood he deserved better and didn't wait around for Amy to notice him. He loved her from afar, while she was head over heels for Avery... who wanted nothing more than her body.

"Jeez, man," said Avery, nearly done digging, perspiration pouring down both sides of his face. He glanced at his friend's body and grimaced. "I played you dirty, didn't I? Getting you involved in all this shit. Getting you involved in my life, damn."

Avery had always been a womanizing jerk, partying and fooling around with gorgeous ladies and ditching them the next day. Jamie was a romantic, a fool with a huge heart who doted on the women he met and cried for days when they left him. But the more time he spent with Avery, the more he transformed into a solid stone wall, rarely letting anyone—male or female—into his heart. He never got as bad as Avery, but he started having one-night stands to nurse his emotions, to ignore his lingering love for Amy. His reputation had been slowly deteriorating before Amy's disappearance.

"It's my fault," said Avery, heaving another load of dirt to the side of the wide hole he'd dug. "And then I got you into all this," he waved around himself with the shovel, "and I shouldn't have. I should have made you go. Even when you insisted, I should have insisted right back."

But Jamie had put his foot down. There'd been no convincing him not to stay. He'd still be alive if only Avery had put his foot down, been firmer. Long ago he'd promised himself to not be a dick to Jamie, to not walk all over him; he should have ignored that rule, for once. He should have used everything he could to make his best friend go home and not participate in all this madness.

Jamie had accepted Amy's disappearance. He'd almost anticipated it, applauded it. "Good for her, she got away from us. We're toxic," he'd said one night, while Avery was tearing the internet apart to figure out where Amy had gone, based on her social media. "We should let her be, man. She didn't need to be all mixed up with us and our bullshit."

He was right, Avery knew; yet Avery had lost his mind with worry, a hunch telling him Amy hadn't vanished of her own accord. That something dangerous and paranormal was involved, and he had to solve this mystery. So he'd shared her disappearance with the news.

"Oh, fuck." He stopped digging and tossed the shovel aside. "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck." He dropped to his knees and massaged his sweaty temples. "The news. The reporters. I'm gonna have to talk to them all, aren't I? I know the truth now. Amy is dead, Jessamine is gone, Jamie is dead. That's three people I have to explain, but only one body to show for it, since Jessamine is lost and Amy's body is who-the-fuck-knows-where."

Faz had rushed off elsewhere, having told Avery to yell for him when he was ready to toss Jamie's body into the hole; but someone else had been nearby, listening to him talking to himself.

"She's in the forest," said Ada, cautiously coming over to float above Jamie's future burial site. "She's a ghost in Limbo, in the house. The portal hasn't opened for her, so she's still around."

Avery frowned at her, then gestured at the hole. "Can you help me get Jamie in there? Faz was going to help, but he buzzed off."

Ada nodded, and together they got Jamie situated, his back pressed against the packed dirt. Avery, who'd hopped down to get him settled, placed a trembling kiss on his best friend's forehead, then climbed out.

As he picked up the shovel and proceeded to fill the hole up, he glared at Ada. "I want to talk to her."

Ada blinked at him, jittering about as if to fix her clothes, and clearly pretending not to know what he was talking about. "Who?"

"To Amy," Avery seethed, "I want to talk to Amy."

Ada froze. "I don't know if that's—"

"—I don't care what you know or want or feel. Amy was always the wisest, smartest, most educated of our bunch. She knew a shit-ton about the paranormal and I want to speak with her, right now."

"About what?" Ada crossed her arms, and her near-translucent face twitched as if unsure whether to frown or laugh or remain neutral.

"About this," he motioned at Jamie's half-covered corpse, "and everything we've been through so far. Is that allowed? Will you make an exception considering all that I've done for you in so little time?"

"I," Ada gulped, "don't know. This is unprecedented, you have to understand. Ghosts can appear to people if they really want to, under specific circumstances, and with the right amount of energy. But Amy... she's not like a normal specter, Avery. She's in Limbo, and she hasn't been able to manifest much since her death."

"I saw her," said Avery, glowering at Ada's levitating form. "Remember? When you were preparing to communicate with the other portals, and I was getting closer to a cluster of ghosts in the forest; she was there. No doubt about it. So she can manifest, and you will help her, if necessary. You might have stopped us from communicating before, but not this time. I need to see Amy."

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