I had to interrupt. "I'm sorry, Heather, but everything was not just fine before I got here. You know how I know that? Because you're dead. Okay? You are dead. Dead people don't have lockers, or best friends, or boyfriends. You know why? Because they're dead."

Heather looked as if she was about to start screaming again, but I headed her off at the pass. I said, smoothly and evenly, "Now, I know you made a mistake. You made a horrible, terrible mistake – "

"I'm not the one who made the mistake." Heather said, flatly. "Bryce made the mistake. Bryce is the one who broke up with me."

I said, "Yeah, well, that wasn't the mistake I was talking about. I was talking about you shooting yourself because a stupid boy broke up with – "

"If you think he's so stupid," Heather said with a sneer, "why are you going out with him on Saturday? That's right. I heard him ask you out. The rat. He probably wasn't faithful a day the whole time we were going out."

"Oh," I said. "Well, that's just great. All the more reason for you to kill yourself over him."

There were tears, sparkling like those rhine-stones you buy and glue to your fingernails, gathered beneath her lashes. "I loved him," she breathed. "If I couldn't have him, I didn't want to live."

"And now that you're dead," I said, tiredly, "you figure he ought to join you, right?"

"I don't like it here," she said, softly. "No one can see me. Just you and F-Father Dominic. I get so lonely...."

"Right. That's understandable. But Heather, even if you do manage to kill him, he probably isn't going to like you for it much."

"I can make him like me," Heather said confidently. "After all, it'll just be me and him. He'll have to like me."

I shook my head. "No, Heather. It doesn't work that way."

She stared at me. "What do you mean?"

"If you kill Bryce, there's no guarantee he'll end up here with you. What happens to people after they die – well, I'm not sure, but I think it's different for everyone. If you kill Bryce, he'll go to wherever it is he's supposed to go. Heaven, hell, his next life – I don't know for sure. But I do know he won't end up here with you. It doesn't work that way."

"But – " Heather looked furious. "But that isn't fair!"

"Lots of things aren't fair, Heather. It isn't fair, for example, that you have to suffer for all eternity for a mistake that you made in the heat of a moment. I'm sure if you'd known what it was like to be dead, you never would have killed yourself. But, Heather, it doesn't have to be this way."

She stared down at me. The tears were frozen there, like little tiny shards of ice. "It doesn't?"

"No. It doesn't."

"You mean … you mean I can go back?"

I nodded. "You can. You can start over."

She sniffled. "How?"

I said, "All you have to do is make up your mind to do it."

A scowl passed over her pretty face. "But I already made up my mind that that's what I want. All I've wanted since it … since it happened … was to get my life back."

I shook my head. "No, Heather," I said. "You , misunderstand me. You can never have your life – your old life – back. But you can start a new one. That's got to be better than this, than being here all by yourself forever, storming around in a rage, hurting people – "

She shouted, "You said I could get my life back!"

I realized, all in a flash, that I'd lost her. "I didn't mean your old life. I just meant a life – "

But it was too late. She was freaking.

I understood now why Bryce's parents had sent him to Antigua. I wished I were there – anywhere, really, if it would get me out of the way of this girl's wrath.

"You told me," Heather screamed, "you told me I could get my life back! You lied to me!"

"Heather, I didn't lie. I just meant that your life – well, your life is over. Heather, you ended it yourself. I know that sucks, but hey, you should have thought of that – "

She cut me off with an unearthly – well, of course – wail. "I won't let you," she shrieked. "I won't let you take over my life!"

"Heather, I told you, I'm not trying to. I have my own life. I don't need yours – "

With the crickets and the birds silent, the sound of the water burbling in the fountain a few yards away had been the only noise in the courtyard – with the exception of Heather's screaming, that is. But the water sounded strange, suddenly. It was making a funny popping noise. I looked toward it, and saw that steam was rising from its surface. I wouldn't have thought that was so strange – it was cold out, and the water temperature might have been warmer than the air around it – if I hadn't seen a great big bubble burst suddenly on the water's surface.

That's when it hit me. She was making the water boil. She was making the water boil with the force of her rage.

"Heather," I said, from my bench. "Heather, listen to me. You've got to calm down. We can't talk when you're – "

"You…said…" Heather's eyes, I was alarmed to see, had rolled back into her head. "I … could … start … over!"

Okay. It was time to do something. I didn't need the bench beneath me to start shaking so violently that I was nearly thrown from it. I knew it was time to get up.

I did so, fast. Fast so that I wouldn't get hit by the bench. Fast so that I could reach Heather before she noticed, and deck her as hard as I could with a right beneath the chin.

Only to my astonishment, she didn't even seem to feel it. She was too far gone. Way too far gone. Hitting her had no effect whatsoever – except that it really hurt my knuckles. And, of course, it seemed to make her even madder, always a plus when dealing with a severely disturbed individual.

"You," Heather said, in a deep voice that was nothing like her normal cheerleader chirp, "are going to be sorry now."

The water in the fountain suddenly reached boiling point. Giant waves of it began sloshing over the side of the basin. The jets, which normally bubbled a mere four feet into the air, suddenly shot up to ten, twenty feet, cascading back down into a bubbling, steaming cauldron. The birds in the treetops took off as one, their wings momentarily blocking out the light from the moon.