Now I pour some milk into a cup, squirt in some seltzer, and drizzle on some chocolate syrup, then take a sip. Still gross.

“You eating into the profits, Ippie?” a voice calls over the counter. “Mr. Pi would not be pleased.”

I take another sip and roll my eyes. Bret works at Gyro Hut, across the food court, but the food there is borderline inedible. He’s constantly coming over here to eat into Mr. Pi’s profits. I scoop a cone full of rocky road, his favorite, and hand it to him. “Don’t you have a lamb to slaughter or something?”

“Oh, my little tzatziki,” he says, grinning. He usually uses the word “tzatziki” a hundred times in one conversation at the food court, because he likes it, which makes food court conversations with him especially annoying. “You know I don’t slaughter lambs after noon.”

“How can I forget?”

He stands there idly in his white paper hat and hummus-stained apron, reading the menu, I guess. It appears he has forgotten his ice cream, because chocolate trickles down his wrist, and he doesn’t seem to care. I find myself wishing I had a customer, but the mall is pretty dead today. “So … what’s up?” he finally says.

“Um … not much.” Scintillating conversation. Only then does it strike me just how weird things are with Griffin gone. Like Griffin was the central link in the chain that held us all together.

“Ippie … you’re like a ghost now.” His voice is playful.

I stare at him as he licks the ice cream. “Huh?”

“Like, I rarely see you.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. I saw him at school two days ago, and at the track meet yesterday, and here today. Does he want to hang with me when I use the bathroom, too? Okay, so our interactions have been kind of short compared to when Griffin was around and we’d spend hours at his house, goofing off. But Griffin is gone. And I can’t say I’ve been pining for time with Bret the past few days. If I hung out that much with him, it would be like we were together. I’m about to make a remark like that when I see the way he’s looking at me. It’s not a normal Bret look. It takes me back to the track, when he pulled me so close I could feel his breath on my cheek and smell his cinnamon Mentos. It’s a look that kind of makes me think “together” is exactly what he has in mind.

I put the egg cream down and grab the edge of the counter. Suddenly, I can’t breathe. This creepy-crawly sensation finds its way to the back of my neck.

“We could, you know …,” he is saying. “Hang out together … later.”

My mind screams, No! And suddenly I’m feeling hot. I’m not sure why. After Griffin, Bret is a natural choice to fill the void. He’s cute. And we had Griffin in common. Who knows, two shadows together might even make one real person. He’s the only person left in the world who treats me like Julia, not Front-Page Julia. But … “It’s just too soon,” I whisper, and it’s the truth, even though it sounds so pathetically cliché. I know that my face is flushed, so I turn around and chant You don’t care to myself until I feel it return to normal.

He backs away. “I didn’t mean that kind of hanging out,” he says, clearly confused by my reaction. After all, he’s never seen the old, weepy Julia. “I meant, I dunno. Get together. Play some tzatziki. And not strip tzatziki, either. Purely grandmotherly tzatziki.”

“Oh,” I mumble, embarrassed. Luckily, a woman with two children steps up to the counter. I muster a smile. “I’ll catch you later.”

His voice turns playful again, and he’s back to the regular Bret. “Catch you later,” he says, and turns toward Gyro Hut, lapping away at his rocky road.

I turn back to the whitewashed cabinets and the harsh fluorescent lighting, then take a long sip of my egg cream, even though the seltzer stings my tongue. Things might have been normal with Griffin, and they could be the same with Bret, but maybe there’s more than one definition of “normal.” Maybe that kind of normal is not the one I’m looking for anymore.

CHAPTER 8

Eron

The rain filters through the trees, weighing down the leaves, making my branch wet, but I cannot feel the dampness on my skin. Sandmen are not affected by the weather, or so Chimere tells me. Yet just as I did as a human, I find rainy days to be gloomy. So many years have passed since I would arrive at the mill looking like a drowned rat after trekking the four miles through the city of Newark, and no longer do I have to endure the water seeping through the soles of my well-worn shoes … yet there is still something utterly melancholy about gray skies and softly falling raindrops.

Or perhaps it is just that with the passing days, the weight on my mind grows heavier. Before, it was only the apprehension of once again being human. Of finding my unfinished business. Now I have even more worries to contend with.

“Oh, my pet,” Chimere says softly. “You are a sight.”

I don’t realize until she appears that I’ve been chewing my bottom lip raw. “I have much to think about.”

She nods. “The training has been difficult,” she says. “But of anyone, I knew you would be the most patient.”

Chimere always uses flattery to motivate us. “I seem to be losing my patience with him.”

“Yes. He is the challenge, isn’t he?” she says with a giddy, schoolgirl laugh. As if I should be roused by this. I know how she, above all, loves challenges, but I do not. “I must admit, he does fascinate me,” she says. “You are still making progress, in spite of it all.”

I give her a doubtful look. “It took me nearly all night to convince him to try the seduction on a cat. I’m not sure he will ever learn to put his charges, even Julia, ahead of himself. He’s quite self-absorbed.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve spoken to him about that. He should be more amenable now.”

“He’s bitter.”

She laughs. “And you were not, when I stripped you of your human life?”

She does have a point. It can be difficult to comprehend. “Did you explain to him that if it weren’t for you, he would still have died, and had no chance of resuming his life? It was his time, and nothing could change that. You selected him for a greater, more fulfilling purpose. Did you explain that you were his savior, not his murderer?”

“Of course, but in any case, all that he once knew is gone. Though he may not show it, I’m sure he is very distressed. And understandably so. You must be patient with him,” she warns, fluffing the skirts of her gown. “Give him time to get with the program.”

I squint at her. “Get with the program?”

She smiles. “That’s one of Mr. Colburn’s phrases. I quite like it.”

I shudder; no doubt I’ll need a dictionary when I rejoin the world. “When will my transition to human begin?”

“It will start when Griffin performs his first human seduction. The more comfortable he becomes in that role, the more human you will become. As I said, it will happen slowly.”

I find my hands quivering. Yes, I knew this, but the full reality of it suddenly hits me.

Tomorrow, for just a few minutes, I will be something I haven’t been in a hundred years.

Human.

It’s after twilight. A branch bows and my student appears among the leaves, clearing his throat. The arrogance is gone from his face, and even if that is only a facade for Chimere’s benefit, at least he is punctual. Chimere is right. I should be more understanding. “Are you ready, my friend?” I say to him as cordially as I can.

“Yeah, bring it,” he answers, eyeing me suspiciously.

Chimere giggles; no doubt she will be telling all the Sandmen she commands to “bring it” for the foreseeable future. She smiles approval at me, then turns to the boy. “I will catch you later,” she says to him, rather stiffly. Another Griffin Colburn term, I am sure. Then she fades.