Book Two: Chapter 143

“Hey. Are you okay?”

She turned her head and laughed, then coughed violently, expelling a concerning amount of blood.

“Looks like you get to be the Caretaker after all.” Her voice was slurred. He shifted positions to see her face, and what little light remained in her eye was fading fast. “This is what she wanted. This is what the house wants. It’s time that I... go.”

“Well, it isn’t what I want.” He sat down next to her and stroked her hair without thinking about it. It was almost instinctual, like a long forgotten memory. “You seem to have me confused with somebody else.”

“Yeah, right.” Yuki muttered something in japanese that he couldn’t hear. “I won’t be your problem much longer.”

“What about the others? The ones you turned to stone.”

The silence was deafening, but eventually Yuki took a deep breath and held out her hand. In it was a broken stone the shape and size of an eyeball.

“Use... you can use...” she coughed again, her body trembl