Look around and name five things you can see. One: the cracks in the stone floor. Two: the raindrops trailing down the window. Three: the crystals on Valerie's bedside table. Four: the specks of dried paint on Quinn's sleeve. Five: the drawing of the boy.

Quinn closed their eyes. Opened them. Stared down at the sketchbook in their lap again. The sketch was still there.

Not a dream, then.

It was what they had thought when they'd woken up in their bed after maybe two hours of sleep that morning. Then, they'd been late to a seminar and hadn't been able to confirm, but after they were done with classes, the first thing they'd done was frantically scramble for the sketchbook on their bedside table.

From the page, the boy looked back at them. Quinn couldn't place the feeling that welled up in them as they studied it, tracing the lines with their finger; his hunched shoulders. His hands, protectively cupped around the pocket watch in his hand. His expression, at once wary and hopeful, patient and tired.

Those devastating eyes.

They had sat in silence for hours the night before, until the sky had turned from black to grey and Quinn's hand had started to cramp. It had been the most focused they'd been on any piece of art in months. There was a place of calm inside of them that they had learned to withdraw to in order to create, but every since it had all started—since that night in October when they'd learned that they could command water and heard a dead woman's voice for the first time—that place had been firmly locked away. They still drew and painted and sculpted, but only when there was something to be handed in, something to be graded, something to be checked off a list and forgotten about. It was fear of failure that motivated their art, nothing more and nothing less.

Until the night before.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Quinn's head snapped up as Valerie's cheery voice tore through the quiet in the room, accompanied by a loud banging sound as she kicked the door shut behind her. In her arms were two full tote bags, which she dumped onto her desk while Quinn hastily flipped their sketchbook shut and slid it under their pillow.

"Hey," they said. "What's all this stuff?"

"Rhia and I went shopping." Valerie blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes as she surveyed her haul. "She needed some baking ingredients. I stocked up on some snacks, and there was a discount on these really nice ballpens..." She paused while she dug something else out of the mess on her desk. "I also bought these. Thought you might like them."

Quinn hesitantly accepted the box Valerie handed them. It was a set of watercolors that looked fancy. "Valerie," they muttered, "Aren't these really expensive?"

Valerie gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "My dad just sent me my monthly allowance. Plus, I'm barely spending money on food now that I'm eating dinner at Rhia's place every day, so..." She rocked back and forth on her heels as Quinn studied the different colors. "Do you like them?"

"I've never really gotten into watercolors," Quinn admitted.

"Well. Never too late to start, right? You're young." Valerie spread her arms and, in a poor imitation of Mrs. Conti, exclaimed, "Art is a playground! Play! Fall face-down in the mud! Get back up and keep playing! What is creation if not failing until you fail a little less each time?"

To Quinn's surprise, a small smile crept onto their face as they turned the box over in their hands. "I'll try them out. Thanks, Val."

"Don't mention it," Valerie responded, a pleased grin on her face, and turned back to her desk. "Oh, and I also got this."

This time, she tossed the item into Quinn's lap with much less care.

"Hair dye?" they questioned, staring down at the familiar brand label.

"Yeah. Yours has faded a little." Valerie leaned back against her desk, her face growing a bit more serious as she studied Quinn. "Or did you mean for it to grow out?"

Quinn wordlessly shook their head. They couldn't remember the last time they'd done a touch-up. They hadn't even known their roots had grown out; for that, they would've had to look in the mirror.

"Want me to help you?" Valerie asked.

Quinn's throat went a little tight. Valerie had never helped them dye their hair before. No one ever had. Since the first time they'd chopped their hair off and used the cheapest store-bought product they could find at age fifteen, it had always been a one-person mission.

Quinn knew that Valerie knew this.

They also knew that dyeing Quinn's hair wasn't really what this was about.

They nodded. "Okay."

And that was how, ten minutes later, they found themself stepping through the bathroom door, which Valerie held open for them with a flourish.

"Welcome to Valerie's Hair Palace," she announced, locking the door behind them while the light flickered on. "Please, get comfortable. Right there is perfect."

Quinn obediently let Valerie tug them over to the toilet and sat down on the closed lid. Valerie hummed softly to herself while she draped a fluffy towel around Quinn's shoulders and mixed the dye in a small bowl that looked like she'd nicked it from the pottery classroom.

Brushing a stray curl out of Quinn's eyes, she asked, "So, how are we doing today?"

"Fine," Quinn said. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and a painfully obvious one at that.

Valerie raised a brow and, taking up the color brush, sectioned off a few strands of Quinn's hair. It had grown longer than they'd worn it in a while, curling around their ears and at the nape of their neck. At some point, they'd have to get a haircut. At some point, they'd have to do a lot of things. Like call their parents. Clean their room. Maybe see an exorcist. It was hard to stick to a to-do list when you were being haunted.

"What are you thinking about?" Valerie asked, tapping a finger against Quinn's temple.

"Nothing. Just... classes."

"Ah." A small grin tugged at Valerie's lips as she moved on to another section of hair. "A figure drawing class? Perhaps one with a certain male model?"

Quinn blinked up at her. "What?"

"He was kind of pretty, wasn't he?" Valerie said in that drawn-out, teasing voice of hers. "Luis, I mean."

"Oh." Quinn's ears felt warm. "I don't know. He had... nice proportions."

"Mh, yeah. His arm to torso ratio is exquisite," Valerie snorted.

At that, Quinn came the closest to laughing that they had all week.

Even though they had to crane their head back uncomfortably far for Valerie to get all of their hair and the cold of the toilet lid was seeping through their pants, they felt more relaxed than they had in days. Valerie's hands were gentle and warm as she methodically worked the dye into Quinn's hair, her voice smooth and familiar as she filled the silence for them. With her, it was easy to forget about everything else and focus on nothing but the pleasant scratch of her fingernails against Quinn's scalp, the grounding weight of the towel around their shoulders.

Breathing in the familiar scent of smoke that always clung to her, Quinn let Valerie move their head, allowing their eyes to drift shut...

"Quinn?"

Their head snapped up with a gasp. Valerie was staring at them, her face ghostly pale under the fluorescent bathroom light.

"Sorry," Quinn rasped, abruptly straightening. Their neck hurt. "Sorry. For how long was I out?"

"Twenty minutes. I... thought I'd let you doze for a moment."

Quinn rubbed a hand over their eyes. They'd lost twenty minutes. They'd fallen asleep sitting up, while Valerie had been talking to them, and only startled awake when Valerie had woken them. For how long would they have stayed like this if they'd been alone?

"Quinn..." Leaning against the sink, her fingers curled around its edge, every trace of amusement was gone from Valerie's face. "When was the last time you've had a full night's sleep?"

"I don't know," Quinn said.

They were lying. They did know. It had been in November.

"Do you want me to stay here more often?" Valerie asked. "Would that help?"

Quinn knew just from looking at her that Valerie would've spent every night in their dorm if Quinn asked her to. It made them sick to their stomach. "No."

"Do you want me to talk to the Greenbrooks? I could ask them for a sleep potion, or maybe Rhia can—"

"No," Quinn said again, firmer this time. The idea of some witch's brew dragging them under and rendering them unconscious while the girl or the boy or some other apparition could enter their room at any moment was more terrifying than the prospect of spending every night of their life awake. "I'm okay. I promise."

"You aren't," Valerie said. "Quinn, I can see that you're not doing well. Please, just talk to me. Is it nightmares? Insomnia?"

"I can't," Quinn whispered.

"Why not?" By now, the air around Valerie flimmered with heat the way it sometimes did when she was agitated. The tiny bathroom felt even more claustrophobic as the temperature rose. "I'm here. I want to help you. But I can't if I have no idea what's going on."

"Valerie," Quinn said—no, pleaded, pulling the towel tighter around their shoulders, as if it were the only thing keeping them from shaking apart. They couldn't talk about it. Talking about it would make it a thing. Talking about it would make it real. "Please, can we... Can we just rinse out the dye?"

Valerie stared at them for a moment that seemed to stretch endlessly, her jaw working, her green eyes swimming with worry. Her fingers, white-knuckled where they were still gripping onto the sink, were stained with dye; Quinn had rubbed off on her, turned her blue where she hadn't been before. Why was that all they ever did? 

Valerie jerkily turned on the tap. "Okay."

When the temperature dropped, Quinn was left feeling even colder than they'd been before.

***

Going back to the empty classroom that night felt like a foregone conclusion. Quinn couldn't sleep; they caught a glimpse of last night's sketch of the boy; they gathered their things and left.

It was surprisingly easy. Being with the boy was better than being alone. He was already blue. He was dead. Quinn couldn't let him down even if they tried.

Their feet carried them towards the art building, and there he was, sitting on the same desk with his pocket watch cradled between his hands, as if he had never left. (Something inside of Quinn settled at the familiar sight. It was a feeling they didn't want to look at too hard.)

They crossed the room in a few strides and sat down. It wasn't the same desk as last night but the next one, a few feet closer to the boy, so they could see the details when they got to work.

Quinn carefully laid out their sketchbook and pen while the boy got into the same position he'd been in the night before, and there they were, two lonely creatures in a liminal space, once again suspended in their nightly dance.

When had this begun to feel so familiar?

Quinn brought their ballpen to the page—and frowned. "You're not wearing your hat."

The words slipped out without a second thought, ringing loudly in the thick silence. For a few seconds, the boy only stared at them, his eyes wide. Then, the corners of his mouth ticked up ever so slightly into a smile. "Your hair is bluer."

Quinn's breath caught in their throat at the sound of his voice. This didn't fit into their routine. This was supposed to be a silent affair, a fragile, dream-like thing that Quinn could always pretend they'd made up in their sleep. This was supposed to be—

The boy shifted slightly, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against the back of his pocket watch. "I'm sorry about the other night," he said. There was a slight echo to his voice that Quinn hadn't noticed the first time they'd heard him speak; something that made him sound a little far away, as if he were talking to them from the end of an empty hallway. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

This was actually happening, then. They were having a conversation with a goddamn ghost. "It's... it's fine."

"I'm Vincent," he said. He was so soft-spoken that Quinn had to lean slightly forward to understand him.

"I'm Quinn." Shaking their head, they lifted a hand to rub over their burning eyes. "Were you... Were you here all the other times as well? Last semester, I mean?"

Vincent gave a small nod. Quinn wasn't sure if they were imagining it or if he truly did look a little bit flustered. "I like watching you draw," he said. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. "You didn't see me then, though, did you?"

"No. I've only started seeing... people around December."

He gave a small hum, his head tilted as he studied them with mild curiosity. "Is that normal?"

Quinn's gaze drifted down to the empty page in their sketchbook. "I don't know," they told the paper, "I haven't met anyone like me."

"Oh." He was silent for a moment, the quiet only interrupted by the steady tick tick tick of the clock. "I don't think I have, either."

"For... For how long have you been here?"

"You mean how long have I been dead?" he asked. He sounded so matter-of-fact when he said it. "Since around 1932."

Quinn's head snapped up. "That's almost a hundred years."

For just a second, his form seemed even more translucent, the moonlight filtering through him and spilling onto the desk where he sat. Then, Quinn blinked and he was back to normal. Well. As normal as the spirit of a dead boy from the era of the Great Depression could look in a modern art classroom. "Yeah," he rasped.

"And you can't— Do you know why you're still here?"

"That's the big question, isn't it?" he murmured. To Quinn's surprise, there was no bitterness in his voice. He just sounded... tired. His eyes, when they met Quinn's, looked even wearier than they had all the nights before. "Our working theory is that each of us has some kind of anchor keeping us here. Something from our life that we can't let go of. Something we couldn't finish, a person we couldn't say goodbye to..." He shrugged, but the jerky movement didn't hold a trace of nonchalance. "Something a sudden death cut short."

"How..." Quinn broke off, unsure whether they could ask the question that was burning on their tongue. Somehow, it felt horribly impolite—then again, no one had handed them a Handbook for Communicating with The Dead before cursing them with their abilities. Gathering all their courage, they asked, "How did you die?"

"I don't know." Vincent's voice sounded choked up. "I can't remember."

Quinn fought the urge to close their eyes, mentally noting their first rule: Don't ask ghosts about their death. The look on Vincent's face hurt to look at, frustrated and terribly lost. It once again struck Quinn how young he looked with his big blue eyes and unruly hair. He couldn't have been older than nineteen when he'd died, the same age Quinn was now. If they were to die a sudden death, they were sure they would get stuck as well. Nothing was finished when you were nineteen. How were you supposed to move on from a life you'd barely lived?

Before they knew what they were saying, Quinn asked, "Is there a way I can help you?"

Vincent sat up a little straighter, his eyes brightening. "Do you think you could use your magick to get me to the other side?"

Quinn could feel the blood draining from their face. "What?"

"I... I heard the girl with red hair talking about it to her girlfriend." Now he sounded uncertain. "And I thought, since you can see me, you might be able to—"

"I'm not," Quinn cut him off. "I don't have control over my abilities like that."

Vincent's shoulders sagged a little. "Oh."

"I was thinking I could maybe help you find out how you died? You know, reconstruct the last few days, before you... you know," Quinn trailed off before adding, "Maybe that way you can get closure and move on."

"Yeah," Vincent softly agreed. "Maybe."

"I-I think I'm going to head to bed now." Gathering their things, Quinn slowly got to their feet. "But I'll try to work something out. I promise."

Vincent nodded, but for the first time since Quinn had encountered him, he didn't meet their eyes.

They'd been wrong. Somehow they'd managed to let down even a dead guy.

"Hey, Vincent?" Quinn asked when they reached the door, turning around once more to look at him. "What's your last name?"

He stilled, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows as he thought about the question. A few seconds passed in silence. Finally, relief washed over his face and he said, "Baker. My name is Vincent Baker."

"Okay. I'll... see you tomorrow night?"

Even as Vincent's lips curved into a smile, his eyes still looked so sad. "I'm not going anywhere."

Quinn gave a small nod and left without another word. They had almost made it to the exit when, from the corner of their eyes, they spotted a silhouette. On instinct, they glanced over their shoulder, only to freeze when they realized what they were looking at: sitting on the staircase that led up to the second floor was a little girl hardly older than twelve. The skirts of her baby blue dress pooled around her, her small hands lying folded in her lap as if she were posing for a school photo. On her head sat Vincent's newsboy cap.

When her eyes found Quinn's, they widened, lips parting to speak, but whatever she said got drowned out by the sound of the door slamming shut as Quinn stumbled outside.

One conversation with a ghost was more than enough for one night.