Emilie had been there before.


    The person lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until with a long exhale, they closed their eyes. Emilie moved closer to look down at them. The room was a mess, even if it had been tidied up from the disaster it had been last night. There was no cleaning some things. Now the worries and cares all sat on the chest of the person on the bed, gathered up like a stone, crushing them, heavy and insubstantial all at once.


    Emilie decided to use her power, little as it was, to help them.


    She entered into the person, settling back into them in waves, copying their breathing pattern until she was fully inside of them, looking at the back of their eyelids.


    Then she recalled, sending her memory as images, trying to be understood.


    He is coming. He will be here. He will find me - you - us. Get up. Get up, and find the others. Find the source of the crying, and take it with you. Leave this place. Nothing matters so much as that you simply leave - and live.


    There was a stirring in the person, around the area of the dark green stone on their neck. Emilie cupped her hands around it - moving the person''s hands too; she hadn''t thought she could, yet up they came - and tried to reach the danger-sense within. Yes, someone was trying to reach the person who wore this, trying to amplify her warning to them. The spirit on the other side of this was an ally of hers, even if they did not speak the same language or have the same level of presence here.


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    Emilie repeated her message: Listen to me. Listen to this stone of your ancestors. Leave now, while you still can.


    She was in the middle of trying to move the person''s legs when she heard the footsteps.


    Sinking back into the person on the bed, she kept as still as possible. The top floor of the house creaked with the weight of the new arrival. Maybe he would ignore her, if he couldn''t see she was here. The pace and the heft of his boots were all too familiar. He was coming. He was here.


    When he filled the doorframe, he was not solid, and yet he was there, an emptiness in the air which magnified the room around him and through him. Emilie held her breath - what her spirit remembered as breath - and did not move from inside the person on the bed.


    Her husband''s shade stalked closer.


    He had the axe in his hands.


    He raised it.


    She could stay still no longer. Her presence endangered the person she was inhabiting. Emilie flew out of the person''s skin and at her husband''s face, clawing at him. She erupted through his revenant presence, and kept going, out into the corridor, crashing down the stairs and landings, fleeing for the misty lawn.


    Her only regret was that, in order to save herself, she couldn''t look back to see if the person on the bed had survived the encounter.