NATE

I’M DRIVING FAR TOO FAST.

If I get pulled over by the police, it will all be for nothing, and I’ll be in trouble with Sprague for leaving the house when she instructed me to stay put. But then again, I am already in trouble with Sprague. If I go to that police station, I will likely never leave.

It’s still raining, and my Honda only has front-wheel drive, so I need to slow the hell down and be more careful. Eve always told me to get a car with four-wheel drive, but I was stubborn. In spite of everything—in spite of what might happen to me if the police catch up with me—I do not want to be killed in a fiery car wreck tonight. Death is worse than prison.

Before, I was driving aimlessly, roaming the streets and willing to go anywhere but home. But now, I know exactly where I’m going. I’m going back to that pumpkin patch.

It’s risky, but I need to do this. I need to prove to myself that my wife is truly dead and buried among the rotting pumpkins. If I get to that patch and find her grave intact and her body rotting in the earth, that can only mean her soul has returned to haunt me.

Because there is nobody but Eve who would plant a raven in my kitchen.

It takes me over an hour because it’s raining, and because—unlike during the wee hours of Saturday morning—there is some amount of traffic. While I am making the drive, my phone rings several times. I am certain it is Detective Sprague, but I allow each call to go to voicemail.

At long last, I reach the narrow road leading to the pumpkin patch. Unlike on Saturday morning, when the road was dry and crumbling, the rain has turned the soil moist, and my tires slip on the fresh mud. But even so, I drive until I can go no further.

And now I have to go the rest of the way on foot.

At least I thought to bring my boots, and I’m wearing a waterproof coat. I tug on my beanie and put up my hood as I climb out of the car. Immediately, my feet slip out from under me, but I manage to catch myself before I fall.

My fingers are tingling with anticipation. I should never have left Addie here alone. I should have helped her finish burying Eve’s body. I thought she could handle it alone, but now I realize I made a terrible mistake.

But Eve was dead. I saw the life drain out of her with my own eyes. I couldn’t feel a pulse in her neck. She wasn’t breathing.

At least I don’t think she was. I’m hardly a doctor.

I squint through the rain until I can see the sign for the pumpkin patch, overgrown with weeds and now covered in mud and rain. My boots sink into the mud with every step, and it feels like it takes half an hour to traverse the small distance to the patch, and when I finally make it there, I’m breathing hard. But I can’t stop. I’m too close.

I know exactly where we buried her. I walk across the pumpkin patch, stepping over rotting pumpkins that look much like what’s in my kitchen. I chose the space right by the old chicken coop. I step closer, expecting to see an irregular mound of dirt. But that’s not what I see.

I see a gaping hole in the ground, roughly two feet by six feet.

My heart is pounding. Christ, I don’t want to drop dead of a heart attack in this pumpkin patch in the middle of nowhere. I step over to the grave we dug two nights ago, and I lean forward, squinting into the darkness. I expect to see the navy sheet that had covered my wife’s body. Or perhaps animals have chewed through it, and instead her partially decomposed corpse is lying at the bottom of this hole. But none of that is there.

The grave is empty.

I fall to my knees, sinking into the mud, as tears prick my eyes. Aside from the sound of the pouring rain, the pumpkin graveyard is silent. The silence is unbroken, and the only word spoken is my own whisper:

Eve…

And as I wait for an echo to murmur back the word, something slams into the back of my head and everything goes black.