Remy laughed out loud. "You see that? He looks like one of those stupid bobbleheads. For your dashboard?" He bent his knees to be face-to-face with the kid, and palmed his skull. Then he started rocking it up and down and side to side, laughing the whole time.

"Yes, yes, yes… no, no, no… yes, yes, yes…"

Then, just as fast, he twisted the head halfway around with a crisp snap and let the boy fall to the ground like a broken toy.

"That's it? Break his neck?" one of the other two asked. "That's what we wanted him alive for?"

"Oh, it's jus' fine," Remy told them, pushing the accent a little. "I got an intuition about this stuff." They both shook their heads like he was some ignorant redneck, which Remy took as a compliment to his acting abilities.

"Hey, you fellas want to stick around for a drink? I've got some good stuff out back."

"We've got to keep moving," said the dark-skinned ghost. "Thanks for the offer. Maybe some other time, Remy."

"Suit yourself. No problema."

In truth, there wasn't a drop of alcohol anywhere on the property. The only thing Remy drank besides bottled water, which he bought by the case, was the sun-brewed iced tea he sometimes made from it. Alcohol was poison to the system. He just liked letting these sanctimonious pricks think what they wanted to think about him anyway.

They were typical government issue, those two, the way they saw everything and nothing at the same time. If they looked a little closer, they'd know when they were being tested, and what they were up against.

"One other thing," he added. "No more pickups." He prodded the dead boy with his foot. "That part ain't been working out so well, you know? I'll do the disposals, starting with him."

"Agreed. He's all yours."

They drove off without even a good-bye wave. Remy waved, then he waited until he couldn't hear the car anymore, and got to work.

The kid was just skin and bones, and it didn't take any more cutting to get him ready than it would have for a girl. Two at the knees, two at the hips, two at the shoulders, one at the neck. Then one long swipe down the middle of his skinny little torso. It was messier with the knife than it might have been with a chainsaw or an axe, but Remy liked wet work, always had.

Once that was done, it took only about ten minutes to get the Philly Flash through the machine and into a plastic bag. It was amazing how light the bags always felt – as if it was something more than just foam and residue that got left behind inside the chipper.

He took a shovel and a flashlight from the cabin and threw the bag into a wheelbarrow. Then he started walking into the woods. It didn't matter which way. Wherever this kid landed, he was going to disappear forever.

"Never to be seen or heard from again," Remy muttered to himself. He bobbled his head up and down and side to side as he walked, and started to laugh. "No. No. No. No. Never. No. No. No. No."

A LOUD NOISE woke me in the middle of the night. Something had fallen and broken downstairs. I was almost sure of it.

I looked at the clock. Saw it was just after four thirty. "Did you hear that?"

Bree raised her head off the pillow. "Hear what? I just woke up. If I'm awake."

I was already out of bed and pulling on a pair of sweats.

"Alex, what is it?"

"I don't know yet. I'll go see. I'll be right back."

Everything seemed quiet from where I stopped to listen in the middle of the stairs. I could just see the sky going to blue outside, but it was still dark in the house.

"Nana?" I called in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

There was no answer.

Bree was up now too, and at the top of the stairs, only a few feet away. "I'm right here."

When I came down into the front hallway, I could see straight back to the kitchen.

The refrigerator door was open, and there was just enough light from it that I could see Nana lying on the floor. She wasn't moving.

"Bree! Call 911!"

NANA LAY THERE on her side, in her favorite old robe and slippers. The pieces of a mixing bowl were on the floor around her, and her face was contorted, as if she'd been in terrible pain when she fell.

"Nana! Can you hear me?" I said as I hurried into the kitchen.

I knelt down and felt for her pulse.

It was weak, but it was there. My own was spiking like crazy.

Please, no. Not now. Not like this.

"Alex, here!" Bree ran in and handed me the phone.

"Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?"

"My grandmother has just collapsed. I found her unconscious on the floor." My eyes scanned her face, her arms, her legs. "There's no sign of injury, but I don't know what happened before her fall. Her pulse is very weak."

Bree started timing Nana's pulse off the kitchen clock while the operator took my name and address.

"Sir, I'm dispatching an ambulance to your house right now. The first thing you want to do is make sure she's still breathing, but try not to move her. It's possible she injured her spine when she fell."

"I understand. I won't move her. Let me check."

Nana's face was angled toward the floor. I leaned down and held the back of my hand to her mouth. At first – it seemed like forever – there was nothing, but then I felt a faint movement of air.

"She's breathing, but barely," I said into the phone.

A soft rattle came from Nana's chest.

"Please hurry. I think she's dying!"

DISPATCH TALKED ME through something called a "modified jaw thrust" to help open Nana's airway. It was all nightmarish and surreal, in the worst way I could imagine. I took hold of the curved part of her jaw and pushed it forward and up, using my thumb to keep her lips open.

Her breathing picked up, but only slightly, and not a regular cadence.

Then Ali's voice came from behind me, soft and scared. "Why is Nana on the ground like that? Daddy, what happened to her?"

He was standing in the kitchen door, holding on to the frame as if he didn't want to be pushed any farther into the room than that.

Bree put a hand over mine on Nana's cheek. "I've got her," she said, and I went to talk to Ali.

"Nana's sick and she fell down. That's all it is," I told him. "An ambulance is going to come and take her to the hospital."

"Is she going to die?" Ali asked, and tears flooded his gentle eyes.

I didn't answer, but I kept my arms around him, and we stood in the doorway to the kitchen. The one thing I couldn't do right now was leave Nana. "We're going to stay right here, and we're going to think about how much we love Nana. Okay?"

Ali nodded slowly without taking his eyes off her.

"Daddy?"

I turned and saw Jannie in the hall. She was even more shocked and wide-eyed than her brother. I motioned her over, and we all waited together for the ambulance to arrive.

Finally, we heard a low siren outside. In a strange way, it seemed to make everything worse.

Once the EMTs got there, they took Nana's vitals and started her on oxygen.

"What's her name?" one of them asked.

" Regina." The word almost stuck in my throat. Nana's name means queen, of course, and that's what she is to us.

" Regina! Can you hear me?" The tech pushed a knuckle into her sternum, and she didn't move. "No pain response. Let's get a heart rhythm."

They asked me a few more questions while they worked. Was she on medication? Had her condition changed since we called 911? Was there any history of heart trouble with her or in the family?

I kept a hand on Ali the whole time, to let him know I was there, but vice versa too. Jannie stayed right by my side as well.

Within minutes, the EMTs had started a saline lock. Then they slid a collar around Nana's neck and put a backboard under her. Jannie finally buried her face in my side, sobbing quietly.