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It hasn’t. Neither has she. Not completely.

I finally find one stocking. The other has apparently joined my underwear in the afterlife.

Fuck it.

I shove my feet into my boots. One stocking it is. I look like I lost a fight with a Spirit Halloween store. “Kai.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” I point at the woman. “She said sown.”

“Yes. I heard.”

“I know.”

“That word has implications.” The woman says.

“Yes.”

“Stop saying yes!”

The woman’s smile widens.

Malakai’s shoulders tense.“Don’t listen to her.”

“Kind of hard when she crawled out of the ground specifically to talk to me.”

“She isn’t what she was.”

The woman looks at him. Something passes across her face. Pain? Maybe recognition.

“Malakai.”

His entire body stills.

I stop. She knows his name. Not Tiller. Malakai.

Her voice sounds wrong. Like several voices layered beneath one. But the name is clear.

Malakai closes his eyes.

“Kai?”

He doesn’t answer.

The woman pulls herself farther from the Earth.

I instinctively step backward.

Roots stretch from beneath her dress into the soil. Not wrapped around her. Growing from her.

Jesus Christ.

Her legs don’t emerge. There might not be legs anymore.

My stomach rolls.

She looks at Malakai. “You came back.”