Ethan came into Lucy's room without warning, without knocking. He always did whatever he felt like. She didn't even see or hear the door open; she had her eyes closed and her earphones on. Before she knew he was there, Ethan was beside her bed, leaning close over her and breathing bad breath into her face as if he was trying to say something, and he had his hands around her neck.

Ethan had been missing for a long time. Everybody knew he was dead.

Lucy slapped his hands away and pulled back from him against the wall. "Ethan!"

This wasn't a dream. She had lots of weird dreams about her dead brother Ethan; in some of them, he tried to kill her because what had happened to him was somehow her fault. In the dreams, and for a while before and after, Lucy believed it was her fault, even though she couldn't understand how, even though Ethan was the one who'd kept getting in trouble, who'd gotten into drugs, who'd run away and not come back. The times when she believed it was her fault weren't as scary as the times when she knew she couldn't have done anything to keep her brother safe, and neither could Mom or Dad.

This wasn't a dream. She wasn't asleep. It was the middle of a drizzly Saturday afternoon in May, and she was taking a break from chores and lying on her bed listening to the Top Forty Countdown, hoping she'd get through to number one before Mom or Dad found her and made her finish dusting. Maxx Well the deejay had been just about to announce number three when Ethan showed up in her room.

She took the earphones off and laid them in the sheets. Now the music sounded funny, voices without mouths. Ethan was still leaning over her, still had his mouth open, still had his hands raised and cupped to choke her. He could still reach her if he just straightened out his arms, and she couldn't move any farther back. She drew up her knees, crossed her arms over her chest. "What are you doing here? What's going on? Are you in trouble again?" That was a dumb question. Ethan was always in trouble.

He didn't say anything. She turned off the radio. Now she never would know what this week's number one was. Ethan's mouth hung open. She could see his tongue, coated white, and his dirty teeth. His breath made her sick to her stomach.

"God, Ethan, don't you ever brush your teeth?"

He still didn't say anything. He was trying to; his mouth twisted and awful choking sounds came out. But she couldn't understand him. He leaned and shook till she thought for sure he'd fall on top of her.

She longed to hug him again, like when they were little. She'd dreamed about hugging him, about punching him for all the stupid things he'd done, about holding on to him so he couldn't run away again. But she knew Ethan was dead.

"I'm going to get Mom or Dad." She scrambled to her hands and knees on the bed and started to crawl toward the foot, thinking she could circle around him. He put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her down.

Lucy screamed. "Mom! Dad!" She covered her head with a pillow, pulled the bedspread over her. When Mom came running into her room and Lucy opened her eyes again, Ethan was gone.