"You were in my dream last night," Apple Aces said.
(Whenever I think of your name I think of someone else but I can't remember who, Read Ehuumaay thought.)
"You went inside a van, exchanged something with someone, then walked into a mortuary. What did you buy?"
"There was no transaction."
"You must be lying. Anyway you came back out of the chapel with a girl, whose name sounded like mine but wasn't me. 'I'm one day too late,' I thought. Because I died only a day after the other girl died."
(Now I remember—) "Her name was Ana Stasis, wasn't it?"
"I don't get it."
"This came in the mail today." He showed her an envelope that said "READ" on the outside and contained a christmas card. "Do you know anything about this?"
"No..."
"I can't tell if it's addressed to me, or if it's saying, 'READ this.' Either way it doesn't make sense, because no one calls me that except you, and also because the handwriting in it is literally unreadable."
She looked at the note as if she could read it. "Is there a return address?"
"It came from the county jail."
"I've been getting phone calls from there. Several every day from different inmates. I can never understand what they're saying, I can't stop them and I don't know how they got my number. No one even has my number except you."
"I lost my phonebook recently."
"What the hell is going on here?"
"I haven't slept for 66 hours."
"Why?"
"Because I rolled a Midnight."
"Against who?"
"Dead Crow, the man in the van."
And what about me?"
"Snake Eyes."
She doubled over in pain and shut her eyes, for ever. Ehuumaay was finally alone; the star on the tree lit up.