10

Marlowe sighs, and shrugs their shoulders.

"I don't know; maybe they would. I'm sure there would be people who would say I was trying to rewrite history or something. But—it's not rewriting anything if I'm telling people what happened from my perspective. It's just looking at it in a new way. I don't know—maybe someday I could go through all of that, but right now I think I just want to focus on living my life. That doesn't mean I feel happy seeing his name everywhere, and I definitely don't want to forget about everything he did. It's just…I need to figure myself out for now."

After a few moments, you carry on walking together until you reach Marlowe's building, and once you're there you stop at the end of the short driveway. Giving you a tired smile, Marlowe thanks you for walking with them—and then, raising their eyebrows in excitement, they say:

"Oh—guess what? I talked to my boss the other day, and she actually said she'd be willing to let me try out my weird news column. Y'know, we called it 'Shiver-Tree'? She said it would just be a test run for now, but if people like it then they could do more. And she said that would be on top of what I'm doing now, as long as I have the time for it, so I could get paid a little more as well. I was thinking I could write my first article about Alberobello Forest, because there are so many urban legends about it. Obviously there were the stories about the trees disappearing recently, and a lot of people say that it's haunted, or that there are underground passages there—I'm not going to claim anything is definitely true, but I just want to put all of the stories together and try and find out where they come from. I kind of can't wait to start."

You share one last hug before Marlowe starts to head for their door. Once they're out of sight, you start to move again as well—and before long you're back on your own street just in time to see the streetlamps starting to glow.

Next