Cian

After Vinny's memorial had been made, I started trudging into the woods that bordered the highway, hoping to find something that might help me in this whole Dempsey case. I flipped my hood up despite the fact that the drizzle had long since ceased. There was something about wearing it that gave me some sort of solitude, a place within myself to clear my thoughts.

I don't know.

I guess I'd never thought Vinny felt forgotten. I mean, he had a grave in the cemetery across town that the whole family still visited, including him. That wasn't enough for him? It was selfish of me that I hadn't noticed it, that for the past two years I'd gone about thinking everything was okay—well, not okay, but not as bad they could be—when Vinny was silently suffering. Somehow I couldn't shake the dazed look on his face from my head.

"Cian! Cian! Wait up!" came Lucie's voice, then her footsteps behind me as she approached, jogging to catch up. She glanced behind herself as she fell into step beside me, sticking her closed Swiss army knife into her pocket. The crunch of grass underneath her feet was almost rhythmic, as nature often was. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Where's Vinny?"

She gestured vaguely in the spring air. "Around."

I sighed. "What is it, Lucie?"

"I don't think you heard me at the coffee shop," she murmured, and I looked sideways at her. Her expression was a bit anxious, which blended with the trembling of her voice. She was afraid, but of what? Of me? I didn't know what to think; this girl was never consistent. One moment she trusted you and the next she wanted nothing to do with you. "I'm sorry. I really am. I'm a jerk."

I dropped my gaze and kicked a pile of leaves, watching them scuttle away from me in the wind. I furrowed my brow. It wasn't fall, yet some patches of the ground were still covered in dead leaves. How long had these been here, I wondered? A year back, maybe two? Like Vinny, they were a memory of what used to be and what wasn't anymore, and the realization struck me. No matter how much I wanted to believe he was here, Vinny would always be somewhere I couldn't reach.

I stopped walking.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Lucie asked.

"If you're asking me to deny that you were being a jerk," I said, " then no."

"I'm not asking that."

"Good."

There was a silence, as if she was waiting for me to add to that. When I didn't, Lucie just exhaled in exasperation and ran a hand through her hair, pushing some of it behind her ear. "What else do you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything. I told you that apologies aren't cures, Lucie."

"That doesn't mean they're useless," she argued, turning to me. Sun filtered through the canopy of the trees, falling down in shafts of gold that lit in her eyes like embers. Foliage rustled around us; the air smelled like pine and it smelled like the sea. Despite the words between the two of us, everything was tranquil. "Would you rather I not apologize, and just go about thinking I did everything totally fine? Because I didn't. I pried into your life, you know, without even thinking about it, and if that isn't the jerkiest thing to do in the history of jerky things to do, I don't know what is. So I don't know, Cian. I don't know what I'm supposed to say, but for God's sake, let me start with a damn apology."

I was listening to her, but I wasn't looking at her. I was crouched at the pile of leaves I'd just kicked, tracing the ground with my fingers. There were scuff marks, and they didn't look like any marks your Plain Jane squirrel would make. These were unusual, out of place, like a sudden stench in my nose. I stared at them, trying to decipher what exactly they meant.

"Cian? Are you listening to me?"
"Mm."

"Cian!"

I looked up swiftly. "Where's Vinny? Find Vinny. I need to ask him something."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly an expert ghost hunter," Lucie muttered, then noticed the concern on my face and leaned forward, bending to see what I'd been looking at. Her desperate tone from before had evaporated, and just like that, the subject of what happened at the coffee shop was pushed off the schedule.

Fine by me.

"Did you find something?" she asked me. "A lead, maybe?"

"Kinda," I muttered, and motioned her over. She crouched beside me, and I pointed to the scuff marks, thick lines in the mud. "Check these out. It's almost as if someone was dragged."

"Dempsey," she breathed, and there was slight horror on her face, as if she was trying to be strong but it was harder than she expected. She reached out, pushing more leaves out of the way. The lines continued, and we both looked at each other in wonderment. "Should we follow them?"

I nodded. "Vinny can track it better. If there's any spirits around here, or if they were here, he'll know. If not..." I shrugged. "Dempsey may have been kidnapped, or something."

Lucie stood up again, itching at a spot on her calf. "You can't pull some super cool angel tricks, or something?"

I smirked at her, raising an eyebrow. "In this case, they won't help me, no."

She made a sad face. "Aw."

Just as the word left her mouth, Vinny appeared suddenly beside her. She jumped to the side, a spontaneous yelp escaping her throat. I managed to stifle a laugh, but couldn't fight back a smile. Lucie's face was now more russet than chestnut, a hand held to her chest, as if assuring herself she still had a heartbeat at all. She leaned over with her hands on her knees, shaking her head at the ground. "Vinny, I hate you."
I asked him, "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," he said.

"One doesn't know the value of privacy until their brother's a ghost, now do they?" I said with a sigh, then stood up and pointed the marks out to Vinny. "There. Follow them, loyal bloodhound."

Vinny gave a less than graceful salute and started down the path as Lucie and I watched him.

Beside me, Lucie was bouncing on her toes, gnawing at her lip and plucking at a fray in the denim she wore. Her eyes were like a child's, alive with hope and glee and imagination, and I understood why. For a second, I'd thought Vinny was gone two years ago, and when I found out their was a way he might come back—though it was a selfish want—I'd felt just how Lucie probably did.

Turns out it wasn't my decision, but that didn't make me feel any better then, and it doesn't now.

"Thanks for doing this, by the way," Lucie said into the silence then. "I know I was against it at first. I think I might...trust you now."
I hid my face in my hand, groaning. "Don't bring this up again, please. The coffee shop—I'm over it. When I bought you a cappuccino, I was over it."

"I'm not saying it as an apology," Lucie countered, "since you seem to hate those. I'm saying thank you. Really. I know there's a slim chance Dempsey's out there somewhere, so the fact anyone would want to help at all is something I took for granted at first. So thanks."

I was a bit stricken. This, from Lucie's mouth? I hadn't known her for long, but I knew she was not easily grateful. She had a rigid shell that was difficult to break, but somehow I felt as if I was getting through, melting the metal around her and freeing her from her bubble.

Oddly enough, I was beginning to enjoy her company.

My smile was shy. I was not shy. "You're welcome, Lucie. My life's kind of boring anyway; this is something I'm more than happy to do."

She let out a laugh. It was milky and honey-sweet, like rain on someone's tongue. "Your life, boring? You have a brother who's not even alive, and you yourself work for, like, I don't know, God."

"Well, yeah, I do work for God, but I'm not what you think of when you think of the word angel. White-winged with a halo and flowing white toga-like stuff all over them...that's not me," I told her, and realized this was the most information I'd given her about my identity since meeting her in the high school's courtyard. It's not like it was classified, I suppose. She was part of this world, too, I just didn't know how yet.

"Then what are you?"

Vinny was coming back this way; I saw him in the distance, moving across the ground but not scuffing the leaves as he did. "I'm an angel of death, to make a long story short. A common misconception is that we kill people and take people's firstborns, which the latter I guess one of us did once, but that's not actually our job. I prepare people for death, send the souls either up or down, if you know what I mean."

Lucie's brown eyes went round. "That's kind of dark."

I shrugged. "Not in the practical sense."

"Sure," she said with a smile in my direction, then looked towards Vinny, who had reached us by now. The hope in her eyes was back. "So? What's the verdict?"

Vinny shook his head assertively. "No spiritual activity whatsoever, which means either Dempsey's still alive or his spirit is just somewhere—"

I cleared my throat to cut him off, and he gave me a strange look, which I decided to ignore. Turning to face Lucie, I said, "Well, Vinny is my cell phone. You need to speak with me, talk to him first and he'll report back. Best thing you can do is relax for now, and I'll keep looking. I'll try to get us a lead, maybe."

"You're going to try to do this by yourself?" Lucie said, folding her arms. "He's my brother."

"And I'm sure he wouldn't want you stressed about this while trying to juggle other things, like school. You told me I had your trust, Lucie, so please don't tell me that was a lie," I replied. I shrugged my jacket off and slung it over my shoulder, starting the walk back to her Subaru. My tone was more mournful when I said: "You don't deserve to worry, okay? Vinny will check on you, but I assure you:

"I've got this in the bag."