The next few days went by in a blur. Quinn still went to class, but only participated half-heartedly while they tried to come up with any place they hadn't searched that might yield answers as to where something of Vincent's could be found. It was to no avail.

They had turned Alphie's entire shop on its head two more times, until the old man had told them in no uncertain terms not to come back if they didn't intend to buy anything. They searched the cemetery again to see if they had somehow missed a headstone. They visited every single place in town that Vincent could recall ever spending time in. Nothing.

(Their grandmother hadn't responded to their message. It was a fact they tried not to think too hard about.)

What they had found was an artifact for Caleb and Josie. Valerie had taken on most of the responsibility of hunting down one of their possessions and had emerged victorious. It was a children's picture book that the siblings had forgotten at the daycare center the day before the fire, and that had since then sat in the drawers there, their names still scrawled inside the cover. Valerie had bought it off the rather confused teacher for ten bucks.

A Walkman, a ring, a doll, a picture book. Four items that would send five ghosts to the other side the next day.

"Quinn." They were ripped out of their thoughts by Vincent's chiding voice. "What was rule number one for tonight?"

It was Monday, the 31st of January. Quinn, Vincent, and Luis were sitting in their usual classroom, scattered across three different desks. When they'd asked Vincent how he wanted to spend the last evening before Imbolc, he didn't have any wishes aside from two: he wanted to spend it with Luis and Quinn, and there was to be no moping.

"I'm not moping!" Quinn protested. "I was just zoning out. Quit moving your head."

Vincent narrowed his eyes at them but did as they said.

Shaking their wrist out, Quinn focused on their sketch again. They were drawing Vincent—had been drawing Vincent, over and over again, for the last few days. And not just him; by now, their entire sketchbook was filled with ghosts. It had to be. They needed something to remember them by when they would all be gone.

By now, sketching Vincent was as easy as breathing. Quinn had a feeling they could have done it with their eyes closed at this point, his features as familiar to them as their own, their hand easily mapping out the well-known lines of his slim frame.

They hoped the muscle memory was going to stay with them for a while.

"Stop frowning," Luis scolded.

When Quinn glanced up, they found him studying them, his own sketchbook in his lap. "Are you drawing me?"

"Obviously," he stated, the corner of his mouth ticking up. "Now go back to how you were before."

"If I'm drawing Vincent and you're drawing me, who's drawing you?"

"You already did," Luis pointed out. By now, he was full-on grinning, leaping from his desk to stroll over to them. Before Quinn could stop him, he was already snatching the sketchbook from their hands and leafing through it to the very beginning.

"Luis, no!" Quinn tried to grab it, but he avoided them with a quick side-step.

Holding the book out of their reach, he hummed appreciatively. "Oh, I look good in this. Is this the way you see me?"

"No. I see you as an eldritch horror abomination. Now give it back."

Vincent's quiet laughter crackled through the spirit box.

Ignoring Quinn's protest, Luis climbed onto the next desk and flipped the page. With a raised eyebrow, he turned it around so Quinn could see the beginnings of an unfinished figure drawing. "What happened here?"

Quinn's whole face was burning up by now. "I was distracted."

"By my irresistible eldritch horror charm?"

"No." Clambering onto the desk with an eighth of Luis's gracefulness, Quinn unsuccessfully tried to wrestle the sketchbook from him. "By Joy yelling at me like some kind of demon from hell."

"She does tend to do that," Vincent mused, clearly entertained by their squabbling. "Please be careful up there."

"Give it back," Quinn said, glaring up at Luis. He was so tall he was blocking out the overhead lights as he held the sketchbook above his head like some kind of cartoon-ish elementary school bully.

"I'm not done looking through it yet, though." Luis took another step back, only to falter as his heel slipped from the end of the desk.

Instinctively, Quinn's hands shot forward, reeling him towards them by the lapels of his coat. Pupils blown wide, Luis blinked down at them. Quinn tried hard not to notice the way his eyes lingered on their lips. "Good reflexes."

Exhaling, Quinn let go of him and finally snatched their sketchbook from his hands. After they'd leaped from the table, they strode towards where his sketch still lay open. Vincent followed suit, tilting his head as he studied the page.

Drawn in Luis's exaggerated style, Quinn looked... soft. He'd portrayed them bent over their sketchbook, their hair flopping into their face and their lips slightly parted as they worked with singular focus, the sleeves of their oversized sweater pushed up to their elbows. The idea that this was the way he saw them—the idea that he'd studied them closely enough to notice the little details like the mole right below their left ear—made their heart stumble through a few beats.

"Luis," Vincent said. "This is really good!"

When Luis smiled this time, it wasn't teasing anymore, but the same nervous grin he'd given Quinn when he had first shown them his sketchbook, half hidden behind his knuckles. "Thanks, Casper."

"I didn't know you could draw."

"Most people don't." Luis drummed his fingers on the desk he was sitting on. "In another life, I maybe would have sat here and not posed at the front."

Vincent turned to look fully at him then. "Why in another life?"

"Ah, you know..." Luis gave a vague wave of his hand. "My dad wants me to work for him. With him, I mean. Take over the shop and stuff."

Vincent was quiet for a moment, studying Luis and then his sketchbook. Finally, he said, "That's bullshit."

Both Quinn and Luis jumped in surprise. "What?"

"Is making caskets what gets you out of bed in the mornings, or is it art?" Vincent asked.

"Uh... Art, I guess. But that's not how it works, right? Not everyone can do what they love. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any accountants."

Ignoring the joke, Vincent shook his head. "Luis. You're only twenty years old. You have every freedom to choose what path you want to take. If you already feel like the one you're currently on isn't the one you really want to walk, then step off while you're still at the beginning."

"It's not that simple." Luis sank down on the edge of the desk again. "My dad..."

"This isn't about your father," Vincent cut him off. It was the firmest Quinn had ever heard him speak. When they glanced over at him, they found him looking at Luis with an intensity that made their heart skip a beat. "Listen to me. Both of you. I barely lived. I don't want the same thing to happen to you."

"You're right," Luis murmured. "I know you're right. It's just... hard. I know he'll be disappointed. Every time I've thought about telling him I want to study, I have this image of him having to redo the shop's logo, scratch out the Son, and I... I always end up chickening out."

"I know how hard it is to try to stand up to a father who doesn't understand you. But you have to," Vincent said. His lips quirked into a tiny smile as he met Quinn's eyes. "Someone told me recently that love shouldn't have to mean sacrifice. If he loves you, he'll understand."

Quinn had never seen Luis as vulnerable as he looked then, his eyes glazed, his lip bitten raw. Without thinking, they sat down next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "This world isn't kind to dreamers," they said, looking up at Vincent while Luis rested his head against their shoulder. "So we must hold onto as many as we can."

"The bolder, the better," Vincent softly finished.

They were quiet for a moment. Quinn could feel Luis's curls tickling their neck, the faint tremble of his shoulders. Somehow, even though they still hadn't really talked about the kiss or what it had meant, holding him like this was easy—just like being held by him had been.

Vincent was the first one to speak again. "I want you to remember it too, Quinn," he insistently said. "I want you to wear the jacket Luis made. And to take part in the art contest. I want you to ask for help when you need it and to paint in screaming colors and to never try to be invisible again. Can you promise me?"

"I don't know if I can promise that."

"Promise me you'll try, then," Vincent said.

Quinn nodded. "Okay."

"Man," Luis said. "For someone whose biggest rule is not to mope you sure know how to make people cry."

"Sorry," Vincent sheepishly chuckled. "It's the air of tragedy that follows me everywhere, you know? Kind of hard to shake when you're dead."

Luis was quiet for a moment before he lifted his head from Quinn's shoulder. "What does dying feel like? Do you remember?"

"I'm not sure," Vincent honestly answered. "I... I think it was nice. Peaceful."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Dying is the easy part. What came afterward was harder."

Quinn shifted a little so they were sitting cross-legged, their knee pressing against Luis's. "Did you see anything? A light, the tunnel, or whatever?"

Vincent shook his head. "No. For that, I would have had to pass through this stage first, I think. I was never even close to reaching the other side."

It occurred to Quinn then that, for all their talking about the other side and trying to work out a ritual to make it happen, they had never seriously thought about what the other side even was. "What do you think it's like?"

"I don't know," Vincent said. "I was raised Catholic, so I think I'm supposed to say heaven."

"But?" Luis prompted.

"But... believing in a higher power gets a bit difficult when you're stuck in some strange liminal space for decades." Vincent rubbed at his neck, almost abashed—as if Quinn and Luis, out of all people, were going to call him a blasphemer. "We've talked a lot about it over the years. Jun thinks that once we're no longer a physical being, our spirit returns to this big energy pool that all of us belong to. He views all of humankind as a collective—energy made into individual, physical bodies for a short period of time before coming together again."

Luis nodded along, a furrow between his brows as he tried to follow.

"Joy thinks there's nothing after this. Some people find that scary, but I think it's comforting to her, in a way. Jun hates that possibility."

"What about you?" Quinn inquired.

Vincent thought about it for a moment before he said, "I like the idea of reincarnation, I think. You know, having a chance to start over. To make more of my life than I could this time around."

"But didn't you say you wanted to meet your mom and sister again on the other side?"

"I think they would wait for me. Or maybe I would meet them again in another life." He gave them a small smile. "Maybe the three of us have known each other in a past life as well and I was supposed to get stuck here so we would meet."

"I like that idea," Quinn said. They tried not to think about what else it implied: that they would be reborn into a cycle where they would never meet Vincent again.

"I read that some people believe that the places where you have moles or birthmarks are the spots where you were kissed the most often in a past life." Luis flushed an impressive shade of red as soon as the words had left his mouth. "I don't know why I remembered that."

Quinn's hand instinctively wandered to the mole on their neck, right below their ear—the same spot that Luis had pressed his lips to in the lake. His eyes followed the motion before quickly darting away.

Before either of them could respond, Jun poked his head through the door—literally—and exclaimed, "I thought we might find you here! Can we join?"

"Of course," Vincent said, smiling softly when, one after the other, all the ghosts entered.

"What were you talking about?" Hannah curiously inquired as she sat down next to Vincent, poking his leg with the tip of her shoe.

"What happens once you get out of here," he answered. Then, he suddenly looked at Quinn. "Wait. Didn't you say you could communicate with people on the other side if you held one of their possessions? That means, theoretically, you could find out what it's like over there, right?"

"I... guess." Quinn frowned. "That somehow feels like cheating, though."

"Who knows," Luis said, barely holding back a laugh. "Maybe they make you sign an NDA once you pass over. Some kind of spirit confidentiality clause to keep the element of surprise intact, y'know? They can't have you ruining the experience for everyone."

"Wait." Jun abruptly spun to face Joy. "But that also means that there is something else! Your stupid death-is-the-end-of-everything theory is disproved!"

Joy froze for a few seconds, taking in this information, before she gave an exaggerated eye roll and plopped down on a chair. "Ugh, whatever. Can't be worse than this."

"It also means you could talk to all of us when we're not here anymore," Josie added. "Because you have our stuff. Right?"

"Yeah," Quinn quietly said. All of you, except one. "If you'll still want to talk to me, that is."

"Of course!" Caleb said, suddenly excited. "We'll be like pen pals! Well, without pens. But with the pals!"

Looking into his round little face, Quinn suddenly felt like crying again. When they met Vincent's eyes, he gazed back at them with that look he always wore, full of so much fondness that it made Quinn's heart ache. It was his last night with his family, and yet he didn't seem sad—only a tiny bit melancholic, but most of all relieved that, at least for them, all of this would end tomorrow.

Quinn themself hadn't yet fully come to terms with the fact that this was the last evening that all of them would be gathered like this. They felt like they ought to make some sort of grand speech, say something meaningful, find a way to express that they missed them already, even though they weren't even gone yet.

Instead, they held up their phone and asked, "Do you guys want to listen to music?"

Two minutes later, they were dancing the Charleston again, this time with Luis stumbling over his feet next to them and Hannah's bright giggles in their ear. If they had to say goodbye, then at least they could do it right and take everything they could with them.

Greedily, they collected details to remember later: the way Caleb and Josie jumped around without a trace of self-consciousness; the way Hannah's dress swished around her legs when she spun, lost in her own world, for once not thinking; the way Joy and Jun looked at each other as they slow-danced, each convinced the other had hung the moon; and Vincent, always Vincent, in the center of his makeshift family, gentle and compassionate and far too selfless, and for once looking totally and utterly happy.