“I wrote back with a quick message: How do you know about 24601? I refuse to believe you read the book. You saw the musical, right?I hit send and received a response back from him almost immediately.SparkNotes.”

“Old Marsh wore a look of sorrow upon his face. “You called him, miss. You called him. You must send him back now. You must send him back. He won’t be the brother you remember. It ain’t his spirit comes back. I told you that. It’s the soul of death comes back, that’s what it is, miss. The soul of death in disguise like your brother. Only the one who called him can send him back. I saw the bird in the cellars, in the bowl, miss. I know what you done. I know what you called.”

“You know how I love talking about books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments.”

“At lunch I turned my phone on to check my messages. Georgia always sent me a few inane texts during the day, and sure enough there were two messages from her: one complaining about her physics teacher and a second, also obviously sent from her phone: I love you, baby. V.I wrote her back: I thought I told you to buzz off last night, you creep-o French stalker guy.Her response came back immediately: As if! Your beet-red cheeks this morning suggest otherwise ... liar! You're so into him.I groaned and was about to turn my phone off when I saw that there was a third text from UNKNOWN. Clicking on it, I read: Can I pick you up from school? Same place, same time?I texted back: How'd you get my number?Called myself from your phone while you were in the restaurant's bathroom last night. Warned you we were stalkers!”

“Books. The more I thought about how to stop and get myself back together as one sane, whole person, the more I thought about books. I thought about escape. Not running to escape but reading to escape. Cyril Connolly, twentieth-century writer and critic, wrote that “words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.” That was how I wanted to use books: as an escape back to life. I wanted to engulf myself in books and come up whole again.”

“Do it. Before they send those mutts back or something. I don't want to die like Cato," he says.“Then you shoot me," I say furiously, shoving the weapons back at him. "You shoot me and go home and live with it!" And as I say it, I know death right here, right now would be the easier of the two.”