The Chapel House was much rger than Marcie expected. When she’d walked down the long hall, she found several interconnected rooms and walkways. All of it was decorated like the only interior decorator was an extremely catholic abuelita. Various effigies of Jesus on the cross hung on the walls, little baby angels smiled down from shelves, and there were enough portraits of Mother Mary to fill a museum. There was a dusty kitchen, several bedrooms, and the entrance to the titur chapel with pews and a statue of the crucifixion. Outside the windows, she saw a vast open field of lilies, bordered by tall grass. It was as if this pce had been plopped down in the middle of that famous Windows XP computer background and forgotten. But she didn’t linger on the sight, making her way through quickly, knowing she needed to be well out of the way when Annabelle walked through the house.

  Marcie flew through the halls until she heard Hunter’s voice. She cracked open in the bedroom door without knocking and stepped in.

  Hunter turned, anxiety written on his face. “Okay. Yeah, understood. Three days. Yes. Yeah she’s here with us. I’ll let everyone know. I gotta go. Thanks Basil.”

  He hung up and flopped backwards onto the bed. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling and he id there, wordlessly.

  “What was that about?” Marcie asked.

  “Can I just take a sec?” Hunter buried his face in his hands and was taking deep breaths.

  Marcie sat down next to him. “Of course.”

  She knew this tension between them. It wasn’t the romantic kind or the kind that led to anything fun. Looking at it pinly, the situation they were in was insane. Inevitably, bringing your dead girlfriend back from the dead was bound to flip his world upside down, but surely he never could have expected it'd turn out like this. Marcie never expected her uncle, or a solid third of the adults she grew up with, to be some sort of werewolf. They never could have expected for demons to exist, let alone the fact she'd royally pissed one off and that Marty fuckin Gillman would be one of them. Marcie was sure Hunter never expected to have Grant in his life again.

  But some feeling within Marcie felt like this was all making sense, like pieces were finally coming together, no matter how crazy all this really was. Hunter didn’t seem to feel the same.

  “What do you remember about Annabelle?” Hunter sounded grave when he asked.

  Bile rose in Marcie's chest. That was a new feeling. It came out of nowhere and then sank back into her gut like a stone. “Not much. I got some memories back after the beach. They were of her. I think it was ‘cause I was holding onto this.”

  She took out the hair clip with the red bow that Annabelle had given her the night of the Lovett yacht party. It’d been kept safely in her pocket, though the bow had a crease in it now. The red color was far more faded than in the memories she had of it.

  Hunter stared at it for many long moments. His silence only made her worries worsen.

  “I recognize that,” he said at st, “You were wearing it during a couple of our calls.”

  His simple statement of fact threw Marcie's thoughts into a hurricane. Everything twisted around this feeling that she shouldn’t be telling Hunter any of what she was about to tell him. But she was too tired to obscure the truth, and tired of the truth being obscured. “Annabelle gave it to me. And that dress you really liked.”

  Hunter nearly jumped up from lying down. “I told you!–” But he quickly cut himself off and started again. “I asked you to stop hanging around her,” he said, clearly trying to show some restraint.

  “You did. I know you did,” Marcie admitted, as the memory of it crified in her mind.

  “I know you don’t remember the st year, but are you certain you remember the four years before that? Huh?” Hunter had gotten up to pace at the foot of the bed.

  “Of course I remember! Ach! Hunter, I’m just as confused as you are. I don’t know why I got close to her.” She was shaking.

  Hunter was getting more and more worked up. “Well you had no qualms hiding the fact that you did from me! That night you wore the bck dress and that clip—be honest with me—were you with your family?”

  “N–No.” She came clean. It was about then that she really wished she could fucking cry.

  “Where were you?”

  “…”

  “Mar, where were you that night?”

  Marcie couldn't look Hunter in the eye anymore without feeling like she might fall apart. “The Lovett family yacht party. Annabelle invited me.”

  “The Lovett family yacht party?—Do you not remember how she practically tortured you. How they all practically tortured us!”

  “Well apparently I moved on!” Marcie yelled.

  Hunter stopped in his tracks. He seemed to lose himself looking bnkly at the carpet beneath them. Whatever that look on his face was made Marcie so angry and unsure. She knew he was stressed, she knew it was just the situation, but it was never supposed to fall on her.

  “Seems like you're already buddy-buddy with Grant.” She said, with enough bite to pierce skin.

  Hunter whipped his head to face her. “May I remind you, we've basically cut his life expectancy in half now that he knows about all this occult shit, the least you could do is give the guy a break!”

  “Do–you–not–remember–how–they–all–practically–tortured–us.” Marcie put in air quotes.

  “Okay! Okay! I see your point.” Hunter acquiesced. “It’s just—it’s just been one thing after the next and I’m doing my best to keep up. I really am. But I can’t keep up. Not like this.”

  She loved and hated at the same time how candid he could be. His stupid puppy-dog eyes cut into her conviction and made it impossible to keep fighting. “Well, what do you wanna do about it?”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “What do you even mean by that! There’s nothing?”

  Hunter exhaled deeply. “Ya know, one of our st calls we had before you died was about Annabelle. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was.”

  Marcie was speechless.

  “You said that you understood that I was busy with csses and making new friends and trying clubs, but that you were really struggling and I wasn’t seeing it. You said I wasn’t doing enough. Sure, I missed a few calls here and there, but I centered my routine around the next time I’d get to talk to you and I still wasn’t doing enough. But then suddenly it was all fine! You made new friends and then you were the one who was too busy for me. So I’m sorry if it’s hitting me a bit hard that the whole time I felt like I wasn’t being a good boyfriend, you were hiding things from me…”His eyes held no tears, but he still wiped at them with his shirt sleeve. “You said before that we’re a team, but you’ve really been the one driving the bus on all of this. And I know it’s not your fault. You’re missing an entire year of memories and it’s totally understandable that you’d want answers and I know when you get your sights set on something, you’re unstoppable. I love that about you! I just feel like I’m losing you again. So I’m sorry if I’m still not good enough, but there really is nothing I can do.”

  “Hunter. Baby. I—” Marcie was about to say she’d never tell Hunter he wasn’t enough for her. But even as she was about to, the memory returned. That call did happen. It was so clear, it hurt. Her, crying in her childhood bedroom, Hunter calling from his dorm at Berkeley. How could she ever say that to him? Sure, they fought like all couples do, but even in her feistiest moments, she never felt that way. He was always trying his best. “I’m so sorry—”

  The door to the room flew open, snapping them both out of this awful atmosphere.

  Mrs. Ruiz looked furious. “Aye! Both of you! Esta casa grande, pero no es tan grande! What do you think will happen if that girl hears you?”

  “Perdón,” said Marcie, her face flushed with shame.

  “Sorry,” Hunter followed. “I should go anyway…sorry.”

  “What? Why?” Marcie reached out to Hunter as he walked towards the door. Panic was overtaking.

  “My dad is getting on my ass about this stupid fucking chores list. I need to go home for a bit and get my shit together. Mrs. Ruiz, this house will be attacked three nights from now by both the Void and the Sea-Demon. I’ll expin everything to Milton, but please make sure everyone knows. My source is reliable. I’ll be back before then,” he said.

  “Hunter, wait!” Marcie cried.

  “I’ll be back, Mar. I just need to cool off and figure some things out. I love you.”

  That was the st thing he said before he walked out the door, past Mrs. Ruiz who was giving him a piercing gre. She couldn’t do anything but just watch as he went. What right did she have to stop him?

  Mrs. Ruiz’s face softened when she came up to Marcie and rubbed her back. “Marcel, are you okay?”

  Marcie noticed the glowing cuts along the woman’s face. They must have been searing and yet here she was, asking her if she was okay.

  “Yeah,” Marcie managed.

  “I swear, men can be so infuriating.”

  “Yeah.”

  The woman lifted her from the bed. “Come on. We have the other girl across the house. Jesse’s been cooking. You need to eat, ahh? You’re so skinny.”

  Many of the rooms in the Chapel House had only one door in and out. The only exception to this was the chapel room itself, which seemed to be the hearth of the structure. Mrs. Ruiz led her through the chapel where she saw the room being used primarily as a medical bay. Members of the watch sat in the pews or id on cots around the floor while others held out glowing golden hands all while big wooden Jesus watched over them.

  The whole scene drew her in. She needed to take her mind off Hunter and everything else. So, transfixed by the magic taking pce in front of her, she paused to indulge her curiosity.

  “You all have healing powers, right?” She asked.

  “In varying amounts, yes. Some of us are better healers than others, but we all have some ability,” Mrs. Ruiz confirmed.

  Marcie wondered at that. “Then, why do you heal each other? Wouldn’t you just be able to heal yourself?”

  “Ahh, yes, that is a good question mija,” Mrs. Ruiz said, the same way she used to congratute Marcie for counting out the right amount of coins when she was five. “When you get hurt and go to the hospital, doctors give you medicines and other things your body needs like blood or vitamins or antibodies. Your body makes all this stuff by itself, but when you’re hurt or sick, it’s best not to wait to produce them on your own. We do heal faster than the average person, but we're not immortal or naturally regenerating like yourself. Our healing takes energy, energy someone hurt or sick may not have. So we rely on each other.”

  “Wow, that actually makes a lot of sense.”

  Mrs. Ruiz smiled proudly. “I was a nurse before Ricky and I opened the shop, you know. I miss it sometimes when the shop gets hard. It was good money!”

  It was comforting really, even though people were injured and in pain, that all these people were so organized. So…there for each other. It’s how it should be. After Tío went away, she lost that for a long time.

  Her dad made his choice to become a cop knowing full well the bck sheep it would turn their family into. He made that choice knowing Redwood Cove’s history of encroaching gentrification and how it marginalized and criminalized their people, people they called family, to make room for the people that the Cove really cared about.

  She felt at home with Mrs. Ruiz, and Milton, and Tío, and all her other tíos and tías in the Watch. But did she really deserve to? It’s not like she said no to Ridgeview despite knowing that every brick of that pce was made with old racist money. It’s not like she ever suggested that she and Hunter go to La Chuda instead of Vinny’s.

  Damn it. She was thinking about Hunter again.

  “So…not to be rude,” Marcie prompted. “But what are you…exactly? Like werewolves?”

  Mrs. Ruiz snorted, amused. “No. No. You’re so funny.”

  “Oh…okay.”

  “We are servants of Xolotl,” she answered. “To the Aztecs, he was the Lord of Fire and Lightning, Master of Monstrosities, and the Guide for the Dead. He gifted humanity with Xoloitzcuintli as intermediaries between the realm of the living and his realm in the afterlife. We, like him, help oversee life and death.”

  “Woah,” Marcie marvelled. This little dy, who used to teach her simple math, was a guide to the afterlife?! “So you’re like Hellhounds?”

  “Nothing so dark.” Mrs. Ruiz shook her head. “This is your culture too, you know. There’s no werewolf rules with the moon or getting bit. We’re not scary fming beasts dragging people to Hades. We’re protectors. Being a servant of Xolotl is a responsibility that we accept when it calls upon us. Like Jesse…he was so lost when he came to us…”

  Mrs. Ruiz trailed off like it was painful to talk about. Even if Marcie wanted to know about her uncle, she didn't want to press her for more. Maybe it wasn't her story to tell.

  “So you're serving a pagan god in a Christian chapel, isn’t that like…bsphemy?” Marcie asked.

  “Whether the man who walks with us after death goes by Xolotl or Christ, this is a pce of faith and sanctuary. We will help protect his children and lead the dead to the gates either way.” Mrs. Ruiz sounded so determined.

  Marcie remembered what the afterlife was like. Empty and vast yet custrophobic, blindingly white yet frighteningly dark, everything and nothing. Was that really it? “You’ve seen the afterlife…have you…have you led anyone to heaven?”

  “We walk with people to the gates, never past it,” she said.

  Marcie needed to know. “Who walked with me?”

  Mrs. Ruiz looked at her with a smile that held so much pain and kindness and care. “I did….Vamos. Your friend Grant told me how feisty you can get when you’re hungry.”

  “His words or yours?” Marcie inquired, cracking her knuckles.

  “Mine. Mine,” Mrs. Ruiz ughed and patted her shoulder.

  “Good. Otherwise I would’ve had to kill him,” Marcie said, feeling a little lighter.