Page 6 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

I wait for an explanation, but none comes.

Instead, he looks past me toward the fresh mound of earth where Mrs. Fenwick now rests beneath a blanket of rain.

"You honored her well."

His words are so unexpected that they leave me momentarily speechless.

"I only brought flowers."

"You brought remembrance."

The compliment settles somewhere deep inside my chest.

Before I can think of a response, Father Boldin calls my name from the church steps.

"Lavinia! Thank you again for the arrangement."

I glance over my shoulder and lift a hand in acknowledgment.

When I turn back, the stranger is already walking away through the rain.

He doesn't hurry, doesn't look back, and somehow disappears into the drifting fog long before he should have reached the tree line.

I stand there for another minute, watching the empty path and listening for thoughts that never come.

For the first time in my life, I'd met someone whose mind I couldn't hear.

I wasn't sure whether I found that comforting . . . or terrifying.

CHAPTER 2

GRIM

Ihave been called many things in my time—most of them unkind, some accurate. Only once did someone look at me and simply say, "I see you." She was not the first to glimpse past the surface, but she was the first to do so with such matter-of-fact acceptance. There had been no awe, no fear, no bargaining. Only a quiet, hopeful warmth, as though the simple act of being seen was something worth celebrating.

Hours have passed, yet the memory refuses to leave me.

Rain drifts steadily through the streets of Blackthorn Bay, drumming against awnings, peppering windshields, and washing the sidewalks until the whole town seems wrapped in a quiet gray hush. I have always preferred weather like this. Storms encourage people to stay home with those they love, and the world grows smaller for a little while. My work does not lessen, but it slows enough to allow the living a few more peaceful moments together.

Not that rain changes the nature of endings.

It merely softens their arrival.

I pass Hex & Honey, where warm cinnamon escapes every time the front door opens. Clover is outside attempting to corral an enthusiastic sheepdog puppy through a maze of stackeddelivery crates, laughing as though she has never imagined the world could end. I have always admired people capable of that kind of certainty.

I continue down the street.

There are others waiting.

There are always others.

The next name entrusted to me is Kilian Vane.

He is an elderly Mothman whose wings have long since faded to muted shades of gray, their edges worn smooth by time. I find him kneeling in his rain-soaked garden, carefully straightening a vine that tomorrow's storm will almost certainly undo. There is something deeply human about tending things you know you cannot keep forever.

He knows I am here.

Most do, eventually.