Chapter 11

Melody died at the hands of a man named Holt.

After her death, I took her place, accompanying her grandmother on her final journey.

One day, her grandmother took me to worship the Buddha statue in the house.

She said, "May Buddha bless this child with safety and good fortune."

Suddenly, I realized that at that moment, she didn't call me Melody.

Grandma had always been sometimes confused and sometimes not.

Perhaps in a moment of clarity, she had already realized that I wasn't Melody.

But she didn't expose me.

The night after worshipping Buddha, I slept very well.

For the past long decade or so, my sleep had always been quite terrible. I would dream of Winters, dream of those mutilated bodies, and then wake up in the middle of the night, my clothes soaked with cold sweat.

But that night, I had a rare good night's sleep.

I had a long dream, and at the end of the dream, a bullet hit me right between the eyes.

But I wasn't afraid, I only felt peaceful.