Who wrote this? I mean the book." "In a way, you did. You were the first person I met when I started to remember the story, and now I see you every night, here, with us." She looks out the window and says, "It's too late now. It'll never work. They'll never let you in." She goes to the door. "They'll have you thrown out." "You were at my trial," I tell her. "I remember seeing you there. That's how I found the apartment. I was looking for you." She turns, her face full of tears. "I remember. I was there, and then you didn't remember me for years." "That's why I had to find you," I tell her. "I thought I'd killed you," she says. "That's because of what I was like when you met me," I say. "Not who I am now." "I thought I had killed you," she says. "It took me a while to understand." "It took me a long while to understand, too," I tell her. "Especially when I saw who the man was who was holding a gun on me. It scared me to death. It's hard to believe." "I can imagine." "You knew him. You were with him when I was shot. Or close to it. There's only one way you could know him. He'd have to have been my neighbor, you said. You must have been friends." "Yes," she says. "Very close friends." "You loved him," I say. "I thought I did." She turns and looks out the window. "You look at this differently now." "Yes," I say. "There's a lot I had to accept before I could." "Are you going to tell me?" she asks. "I had to know what happened first," I say. She looks at me, the tears in her eyes. "That was always your problem," she says. "It's never enough for you to know that a person has been bad. You always want to know why they were that way." "Was I that way?" "You don't need me to answer that," she says. "Then why are you here?" I ask. She turns to face the window again. "It's too late for us," she says. "There's no reason for you to go in." "I'm going in," I tell her. "I owe it to them." She turns back to look at me. "There's more to this story?" "I think there is," I say. "But you have to start telling me how it was. I need to know where it all started." "I don't remember," she says. "But you do. They don't know that. You know that they don't know that, or they wouldn't have taken you away from me." She looks down at the floor. "I guess you're right." "The jury didn't know either. They didn't know you were the same girl." "I'm not," she says. "I'm different. Not the same anymore. I'm trying to be. That's what I've been doing here." "That's right," I say. "That's what you've been doing. You've been helping all of us." "Yes," she says. "That's right." "What happened when I came out to you in the hallway?" She looks at me again. "I asked if you were going to hurt yourself. You said that you were doing okay, that you weren't sure you were going to do it." "It's good that you asked me," I tell her. "But if I'd told you that I was going to do it, you wouldn't have done what you did." "I had to," she says. "I was afraid if I said anything about it, you'd just do it. That's how you were back then. You'd be gone." "There's more, isn't there?" I ask her. "There's more to the story. That's how they got you out of here. That's why they let you come." "I don't know," she says. "It's like you're bringing me out of a fog, one moment at a time." "They didn't let you come until I stopped coming here. I never got that before." She laughs, as if she has made the joke before. "That's me," she says. "I remember everything, but I forget. Do you know the kind of day it was yesterday? I don't think I ever knew. I must have been dead." She laughs again. "Actually, it didn't matter to me. I'm alive now, and I remember things now that I never did before. I'm no longer afraid of the dark. You see?" "You were afraid before?" She nods. "I used to have terrible dreams. Terrible nightmares. One in particular." She stares out at the lake. "I still have it in my head, that feeling of being surrounded by darkness and the feeling that you can't get away." "You're doing well," I tell her. "I guess so," she says. "It doesn't feel that way, though." "And that's something you've learned to do, too. To be comfortable here. It's hard, though, isn't it?" I look at her, watch the smile slip from her face. "Don't give up, though. Don't give in to them. They have to go through you, too." She looks out at the dark water. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like I'm in any pain. I'm just . . . just trying to understand. I have no idea what you're talking about." "Don't you have some idea?" I ask her. "They don't know, and I don't know," she says. "I don't understand, and I never did." "Why don't you tell them?" I ask her. "Why do they need me to find it?" "They did," she says. "But you see, they're all dead." "So they're gone?" I ask her. "They can't hurt you anymore?" "I'm dead too," she says. "And they can't hurt you?" She looks away. "That's not fair," she says. "I'm here, aren't I?" She turns to look at me. "They can't get through me." "That's why I have to go in," I say. "I don't understand, but I have to." "What's the matter?" she asks me. "Is that what the people out there need to hear? I'm already dead." "I guess you are," I say. "You've been dead for more than twenty years. We thought that you were the one that killed us." "I can't be blamed for something I didn't do," she says. "You were there," I say. "I know you were." She looks at the window again. "You've been here the whole time? The whole time?" She turns back to me. "I remember you, but it wasn't you, was it?" "It was," I say. "I was there the whole time. You didn't know that, though, or you would never have come to the apartment." "But there were people in your place before me," she says. "I've heard about them." "Yes, there were," I tell her. "But there was another couple after that." "He was the last one?" she asks. "I think so," I tell her. "I don't think he stayed around long after me." She stares out the window again. "I'll let you go in," she says. "I think that's what you want." "Thank you," I say. "I'm going to try to do something to get you out of here." "That's what I said to you," she says. "It's too late for me. I can't stop them now." "No, it's not too late," I tell her. "We have an opportunity now. There's a chance. There never was before. I have to at least try." "That's what the little girl says," she tells me. "What do you mean?" "I see her sometimes, out there in the shadows. I can't see you, but I see her. I can see the same things you can see, and she's here, too. She's here a lot." "But she isn't here now?" "No," she says. "She's not here now. You have to hurry up, and you need to talk to her. She's the only one who can help." "I need to know her name," I say. "