When Isobel woke up, she felt off. She knew something was wrong, she just couldn't place quite what it was. She did all the usual things—checked her planner, checked her stack of finished homework from the night before. She cleaned up her laundry and her side of the dorm room, and thought really good and hard about what could possibly be making her feel like this.

In the end, she decided she had no idea what it could be.

She gathered her things, showered, dressed, and brushed her teeth.

Walking out of her dorm, she spotted a pair of green eyes. When she did a double-take and looked back, she saw that the person had already walked away, and it wasn't anyone she knew.

She heard the tinkling sound of bracelets, but when she looked, she saw that it was just a wind chime which she could see through someone’s open door.

Isobel went to the cafeteria to get coffee and a muffin. In line to pay, she thought she heard a familiar husky voice, but when she looked around, she found that Evan wasn't there.

She drank the coffee faster than she should have, but she needed it. She was seeing them everywhere. In her textile history class, the professor showed a slide of an ancient Greek statue swathed in cloth. The clothing was interesting, but Isobel couldn't help but find something eerily familiar about the figure and his muscles, his sinuous figure, his lithe hands.

Evan was everywhere, and Glory was too.

Glory followed her around in the smell of perfume and the red of someone's coat. It surrounded her in the way someone's voice sounded as they smoked, or the smell of lunch when she went to go get a quick bite to eat. If this was how she was going to go insane, well then she would rather it happen quickly so she didn't have to second-guess herself all the time.

Tanya texted her and asked if she wanted her nails done. She had an opening. Isobel said yes, and offered to even pay this time, for which Tanya was grateful.

After her classes, she walked across the campus. Isobel kept her head down, looking only at her shoes marching across the grass. She had a low-key fear of Rodney coming and finding her again, but she was also fairly certain that it wouldn't happen again. He had probably gotten what he'd wanted from that whole experience, which was a scared Isobel and an angry Evan.

The car took a long, terrifying minute to start. It turned over, and over, and over, until finally it roared to life. Isobel sighed, grateful that she could squeeze a few more days out of it.

When she got to the nail salon, Tanya was waiting at her usual workstation. Isobel paid ahead of time for a gel polish, but when she got over to the station, she found that Tanya had quite a lot of equipment.

"I'm going to give you acrylics."

"Falsies?"

"Yep."

"I don't know if I . . . I mean, I just paid for a gel polish."

"So you get acrylics for free. I will do them shorter, don't worry. I just want to practice. Besides, they will make you feel dainty and I don't think they will make spinning or anything more difficult. Why, do you not want me to? I don't have to, I just thought it would be fun. You didn't seem like the kind of girl that would ever have had it done before."

"Yeah, no! If you want to, I'm not gonna say no."

"Sweet! Sit down."

Isobel did, and a thrill of excitement went up her spine. She wasn't sure exactly how she was going to feel about this when it was done, but she also knew that Tanya hadn't let her down before.

She gave Tanya her hands, and Tanya got to work. She started removing the old polish as she talked. "So, what's going on? How's Evan? I haven't seen him in a few days.

"I haven't either."

"What? Why?"

"Well . . . We kind of had a disagreement."

"What about? Something to do with . . . with Glory?"

"Kind of. When I went over there the other day he still hadn't made plans for her funeral or a memorial or anything."

"What? Seriously?"

"Nope."

"Wow."

Tanya's hands were busily at work; it was almost as if she wasn't distracted at all. She had probably done this a thousand times.

"So I went over there, and we hung out and he was all trying to put the moves on me, but he couldn't like, y'know . . . Get it up? And I was like, no big deal, but he got all sorts of mad about it, and he was saying how he just wanted to forget about everything. I kind of felt like I was being, like used a little, y'know? And then I kind of laid into him about how he was being a slob, because he was, and how he wasn't doing what he needed to do. He did end up doing it. It's Thursday at six."

"Good to know."

"Yeah. So I haven't really talked to him since. It's just been kind of hard to think of him quite the same way, I guess."

Tanya nodded and scuffed the top of Isobel's nails with a file, and went over it with a brush to clean the dust off. Isobel watched the entire process with fascination, although if you asked her what the steps had been individually that ended with her having a two-inch long plastic nail on her finger, she couldn't have really told you.

"What shape do you want?"

"Can you do the kind of pointy ones? But short?"

"A short witch tip? Yeah, I can do that."

Tanya trimmed the nail down until Isobel was happy with it, and then she put on the dip stuff.

"Is there any particular reason that you did this?" Isobel asked.

"Yes."

"Am I allowed to know what it is?" Isobel asked.

"Nope."

After a minute, she said, "It's not an Evan-related reason, is it?"

"I said you weren't allowed to know what it was. Now what color do you want?"

Isobel considered this, before she said, "I've never had red nails before. Like, dark red."

"Ooh, I have the perfect color. Hang on, I'll go get it."

* * *

Isobel came in the early afternoon for the memorial. He hadn't expected her, but then again, he wasn't sure what to expect today.

She packed up a bunch of Glory's things while Evan showered and dressed, shaved and gathered his strength. He felt like a broken man with no heart to hold him down. He was so tired. His feet were heavy.

Isobel suggested they ride together to the church, and he nodded. They took Glory's SUV. It was technically Isobel's now, anyway.

They met Tanya there. The music inside of the church had a tangible physical weight that set Evan on edge. He felt like it only added to the burden of what he was carrying. There was a lot of bass, because it was supposed to be sad, but mostly it was just burdensome.

There was no casket, and for that, Evan was grateful. It would have been too much. A reminder of the person that was leaving him. Like everyone else had.

Instead, Isobel helped him set up this little altar area, with a simple gold urn holding what was left of Glory. Her ashes were light, like she had been in life.

They had laid out a white cloth on a little table, and around it they had placed fresh flowers and a rosary. They had laid out Glory's crystal jewelry, which Evan had never realized was a symbol of her witchcraft. He felt a little bad for having her memorial in a church, but they let him do it for free, and Glory would have killed him if he'd spent money on this. He wasn't sure what he would do with the ashes, but he'd figure it out later.

Not many people were there. Tanya and her children were there, Isobel was there, Craig and Maura had even made it, along with a few other people they knew. Evan felt a little isolated.

Isobel sat beside him and looked on as the preacher gave a little eulogy. He had kind of known Glory and he had known Evan's grandpa better, so he had offered to do it. Evan was grateful that when he needed it most, people came out to help him.

He wondered how long it would take for them to disappear too.

Isobel held his hand. She rubbed the back of it with her thumb, and her calm, mousy energy helped him stay calm too. Her nails were bright red. Tanya's handiwork, no doubt. That red stayed with him. He couldn't stop staring at it. He always tried to look forward and stay focused, but he always went back to that bloody, bright red. Her nails also seemed longer. Looking at them was something altogether more unsettling than really anything else that had happened so far. He couldn't help but imagine those nails against his skin. He wasn't sure how he felt about that idea, but it definitely wasn't G-rated.

He looked over at Tanya, who was smiling an evil smile. He should have known she would have had something to do with this. He was not in the mood to feel aroused, and the context was entirely inappropriate—although given who his grandmother had been at her core, she probably would have approved.

Once the whole thing was over, Isobel loaded up the altar into the box and taped the lid to the urn shut so that everything stayed together. She apologized to it as she did so, which he couldn't help but think was kind of horrible and adorable at the same time.

In the car, he looked out into the red sunset, with that heavy dirge music stuck in his head. It rumbled and rattled his skull, staying dark with him.

At home, Isobel set up the altar again in Glory's room. She smudged the room like Glory had told her to, and lit an incense.

Evan ordered a pizza, which the two of them shared.

He felt so empty. So hollow.

The pizza was good though, so that was a plus.

Evan cracked open a beer. Isobel stared at it like it was poison.

"Well, I had better get back," she said, standing up.

"Yeah. Thank you," he said. "For today, I mean. I really appreciate it."

"Anytime."

He walked her to the door. She turned and looked at him.

"You are different already, Evan."

He shrugged.

"I just . . . I guess I just needed some hard words. I'm sorry I put you in a position to be the one to give them to me. But I'm grateful that you aren't afraid to say things like they are. I was using you. And I won't anymore."

Her big eyes were on him. She walked over and touched his face, gently pulling him down to her level. They kissed softly. Evan's hands reached up and carefully caressed Isobel's face. Her hair was soft and thick in his fingers. She wrapped her arm around his neck. He could have stayed here forever, and he would rather have done so than ever let her go. He would rather stay right here than do anything ever again. He never wanted to fight, or leave her ever again. But he knew that it didn't work that way.

She had a future. A future of teaching and trying and learning ahead of her. Isobel would meet someone who hadn't thrown his future away like an idiot because he was impatient to start making dirty money. He wouldn't have quit architecture college because he had something to prove.

But her mouth was soft against his, and she smelled so sweet, and her embrace felt like the definition of coziness and love.

When they parted, she looked up at him. He rested his forehead against hers with his eyes closed. He knew she had to go. He said, "I'll see you around, Isobel."

"Catch you later, Evan."

She turned, and slipped away from him, walking out into the cold night.

He swore he heard her sniff and saw her wipe her eyes, but that could have just been the cold making her nose run. He watched her, standing in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb.

She turned and looked back at him. He wished she hadn't.

Isobel got into the SUV and started it. She backed out of the driveway without turning the lights on. She stopped in the middle of the street and turned them on before pulling away.

Evan looked around outside. Snow had left a light dusting on the ground. The world was cushioned and quiet, and to his own surprise, Evan felt something like peace.