text: locked it in the safe."
  
  "You're speaking to a dead woman and a lost purse is strange?" she questioned.
  
  "I speak to the dead all the time, my dear. But I never lose a thing," I said.
  
  "Peculiar," Edithe Zilonis said, but I think she just liked the sound of the word.
  
  "Very," I said.
  
  The shop did not have any windows besides the two on the front that looked out onto Main Street, and even those had curtains.
  
  I was quite lucky to be an Undertaker on Main Street. When I moved to Blackwood, the city was small and growing. Then it started booming, and the land I stood on, and the land Edithe Zilonis died on, was worth millions.
  
  I also had invested in a large sign outside the shop. I hoped it caught attentions, and perhaps led drivers to hit citizens too, but that's only good for business.
  
  And I hadn't seen a clock but I knew the shop had to be closed soon. The sun was setting and would have glittered through those front windows had I not curtains.
  
  Edithe Zilonis, who was much shorter than me, looked up at me with wide eyes.
  
  "It's time to close," I said.
  
  I walked past her to lock the front doors and fix the crooked curtains. The dead are a curious bunch and always want to see outside one last time before they leave but they never fix the curtains.
  
  "Do I have to go back, to being dead?" Edithe Zilonis asked me.
  
  Her voice had lightened, almost became frightened as if she was scared. But she had been through the worst part already: Life.
  
  "You are already dead," I told her.
  
  I reached to turn off the lights. Edithe Zilonis was standing by the steps and the lights and the sun from the windows upstairs shone down upon her. It made her seem ghostly, but she was not yet a ghost.
  
  "I mean, go back to. . ." she started, but I understood what she meant.
  
  "Yes. It is unfortunate about your purse, and about your death, but I am just an undertaker," I said.
  
  "No, you're not," she said. "You talk to the dead. You bring the souls of the dead back to life, as least for awhile. What are you?"
  
  > Explain
  "I am not a witch," I said.
  
  "Witches are real?" Edithe Zilonis asked.
  
  "I'm not sure, but I know I'm not one. In fact, I don't think I can wield magic at all."
  
  "That's preposterous," she said, "and frankly impossible."
  
  "I don't know magic," I said, "but I do know I can speak to the dead. Mediums, children and animals can do that too."
  
  Edithe Zilonis seemed frustrated with me. Her soft face grew perturbed. Her mouth turned inward. Her eyes looked me in my soul. It had been done before to me. I was unfazed by the dead and their cold glares.
  
  "I refuse to believe that," she said.
  
  She also crossed her arms. For a woman of twenty-nine she acted like she was fourteen. I hoped I was that ferocious when I died.
  
  "Goodnight, Edithe Zilonis," I said.
  
  I had come up to her, extended my arms when I told her Goodnight. It was true that I spoke to the dead. Because when I said Goodnight, her eyes flittered closed and she fell. Her darling expression had faded into something much softer.
  
  I placed her back into her bed, went up the stairs.
  
  > Continue
  It was not strange that that night I had a dream about Edithe Zilonis.
  
  The dead haunted my dreams often. Some ghosts continously haunted me until I ceremoniously redirected them to where they desired to be. It was all part of the job. I'm sure most undertakers dealt with their share of the ghost and spirit population as well.
  
  So I assumed at first Edithe Zilonis was merely in my dreams.
  
  We had been at the park on Eastend. Edithe Zilonis walked in front of me, would turn back to tease me, and ask if I was still following.
  
  I called back, Yes, Edithe, I am. I've followed you for some time now. Why would I not follow you?
  
  I didn't know the correct answer to that nonsense question.
  
  The Edithe Zilonis that was in my dreams was much less pale, much less cold, and much less dead. She had color in her cheeks and shoulders. I saw her shoulders because her dress cut low, although it didn't seem like a thoughtful clothing choice, given it was very cold in this sunny park.
  
  Her blonde hair was done back in soft curls and glittered brightly too, as if it was no longer whitened by death. And she had a bow tied around her head like a girl as well.
  
  Her gown was a brilliant pink with ruffles and shiny fabrics. It was pulled in tightly at the waist, which is a large cause of female organ failure later on. But I did not think about organ failure during this dream. I thought how I rather liked Edithe Zilonis' waist, how much more I would have liked it without the dress.
  
  I awoke from sleep when the coldness from the sunny park was too much to bear. Edithe Zilonis was standing at the foot of my bed. Her eyes were glowing golden like they had before.
  
  "Find the man," she said to me.
  
  "Why aren't you asleep?" I asked.
  
  "Find the man," she said again, this time with more ferocity. I knew that this part of Edithe Zilonis was not Edithe Zilonis, but I didn't know who it was.
  
  I was not scared but certainly not content.
  
  "What man?" I asked.
  
  "The man who murdered me," she said. "He has my purse."
  
  "Edithe, you need to sleep," I said.
  
  "I can't sleep."
  
  > say "Goodnight, Edithe."
  When I spoke, she fell onto her face and into my bed then promptly vanished. She was a stubborn one, this Edithe Zilonis, or whatever was possessing her at the time.
  
  I rinsed my face in the washroom, perhaps to awaken myself or to come to terms with what I had seen. That being Edithe Zilonis I had sent to sleep the night before.
  
  I had not a dead who had awakened on her own to bother me in my room. I realized then that Edithe Zilonis was not just any dead.
  
  I wasn't paid enough for any of this.
  
  I went downstairs to see if Edithe Zilonis' body was still on its bed, tucked into the freezer.
  
  She was, looked as kind as ever. Her face was smooth and still and her body seemed as if it hadn't moved at all.
  
  I was rightly upset, stumbled back up the stairs to make some coffee for myself.
  
  > Continue
  It wasn't often my emotions got the best of me.
  
  I sat at my kitchen table. The morning sunlight beat brightly down onto my face, warmed the coolness I felt everywhere. I wondered if I had enough money saved so that I could retire. Perhaps I could invite my cousin to take over the store. Perhaps I could leave the cursed city of Blackwood for good.
  
  But a part of me argued mercilessly against my leaving. That part of me deeply desired to know what Edithe Zilonis truly was, and how she came to be. Another part of me felt compassion for Edithe Zilonis. For her story, at least.
  
  Another part of me felt a different compassion for Edithe Zilonis too.
  
  I finished the black coffee and went to look through my books again, to see if anyone could explain how a dead could become possessed, if she was possessed at all.
  
  The study, which was already riddled with dust, dirt, books, tools and other items of mysterious origin became even more cluttered when I tore through my shelves on the search for answers.
  
  Zasadzinski, Reindl and D'angelo wrote about what to do with a body that has broken bones. Fielding, Sheats and Levant wrote about ills and diseases. And Galwey taught me how to properly use a scalpel, but no one knew about mystery of the dead.
  
  But perhaps no one had witnessed what I had. Perhaps no one wanted to try and solve any mysteries. We're only undertakers after all. We're not the police, not detectives, usually not witches. I wasn't anything but a person who repaired the dead.
  
  I cursed loudly. I could have stopped. I could have gone on with Edithe Zilonis' funeral, buried her myself and gone back to embalming old folks.
  
  There was a knock at the door, then the doorbell rang.
  
  > Ponder
  I rested back against the tall bookshelf, ran my fingers through my hair.
  
  I supposed no one else was going to try and discover the truth of Edithe Zilonis. I supposed I had discovered something new in the realm of speaking to the dead. I supposed I would have to find the man Edithe Zilonis told me about, and her purse as well.
  
  I was fully off-the-clock. It was even Saturday morning, and I always slept late on Saturday mornings.
  
  It was why I would have to reawaken Edithe Zilonis, and write my own book of the dead too.
  
  It was also why I went to answer the door.
  
  > Answer
  I skipped the second-to-last step, opened the door of the shop to a nervous man.
  
  He had taken off his cap, revealing a bald head with few hairs swept over to make it seem as if he wasn't already so old. And the hair was black, and his skin was white, and his face was heavy with lines and stress.
  
  It was the man who hit Edithe Zilonis with his carriage, or the carriage driver who hit the woman who dashed in front of his carriage, by accident.
  
  His name was Monty Queneau and he irritated me because he spoke loudly and acted as if I had to listen to him.
  
  "Good morning," he said. "How is Miss Zilonis?"
  
  "Possibly possessed," I said. I realized I had put on a work shirt but was still in my bed slacks. But it was Saturday and I wasn't supposed to be working anyway. And Monty Queneau knew that I was closed on Saturday too.
  
  "What?"
  
  "She's swell. She was a good girl, you know. And she didn't jump in front of your carriage," I said.
  
  "Pardon? She didn't?"
  
  Monty Queneau seemed surprised. The guilt on his face seemed to drip down and land in a puddle at his feet of which he constantly wallowed within.
  
  "There was a man," I said, "I think, who pushed her. And that man stole her purse too."
  
  I had realized one flaw in my thinking, and it was thinking that this man who pushed Edithe Zilonis in front of the carriage was alive. I was on a hunt for a live man, but I had the purse the day Edithe Zilonis came in to me.
  
  "He's dead," I said to Monty Queneau.
  
  "Pardon?"
  
  "The man's dead. He's a ghost, or a dead. Not from here, but he's dead," I said.
  
  Monty Queneau pounded on the door after I closed it in his face and went to awaken once more, Edithe Zilonis.
  
  > Continue
  "Edithe," I called softly.
  
  This time, I was not about to roughly awaken her, in fear I'd lose my good cheek.
  
  She was still.
  
  "Edithe Zilonis," I called, "wake up, Edithe Zilonis. We have unfinished business, my dear."
  
  She was still.
  
  "Edithe Zilonis," I tried once more, "this is no time for sleeping. Don't be stubborn now."
  
  She jolted awake, sat up straight and threw open her arms. I was completely not startled.
  
  She laughed, said, "I got you, didn't I? You silly undertaker, I scared you!"
  
  "You didn't---" but there was no use arguing with Edithe Zilonis.
  
  I said, "You were possessed again. You said there was a man, Edithe. A man pushed you in front of the carriage, and stole your purse."
  
  She put an arm around my shoulder so I could help her off the bed.
  
  "A man," she mused.
  
  "Yes, a man. But he's not alive, Edithe. Because your purse, I swore I had it when I met you," I told her.
  
  "A dead man pushed me in front of the carriage?" Edithe Zilonis asked.
  
  I nodded.
  
  "Poppycock."
  
  There was a moment where I fumbled for my words, because there wasn't a reason for her to not believe me.
  
  Then she grinned wide, said, "I'm joking. It's not the most bonkers thing you've said to me yet. You certainly don't like jokes."
  
  "I'm sorry I don't like jokes when there is a thieving, murderous dead man running about," I snapped.
  
  "You're very stressed for someone who is alive," Edithe Zilonis told me. "I am dead, and murdered, and having a ball, really."
  
  "Edithe," I said.
  
  "Undertaker. Or do you prefer My Undertaker? You're funny, you know."
  
  She walked by me, her skirt followed behind her, left a coolness in the air and left me speechless like no living woman ever had.
  
  I thought, now that's silly, thinking of that. Certainly a living woman is much more attractive to me. I was living after all. And Edithe Zilonis was dead.
  
  Perhaps the living are just a bore.
  
  She was walking to the door, had the handle in her grasp. She looked at me over her shoulder and asked, "Are you going to follow me, or stand there like a fool?"
  
  I was no fool.
  
  > Continue
  Edithe Zilonis walked briskly, so that my own walk was too slow but a light jog was too fast.
  
  She seemed to remember this city like the back of her hand.
  
  "Where were you coming from, Edithe?" I asked. "Before you were killed? Did you live here, in Blackwood?"
  
  She said, "No. I'm from Central City. I like to travel. I wanted to eat at the Obsidian Hotel, so I came here. I was walking to the park after that. Then it happened."
  
  "What was your job?"
  
  "I don't have a job. I was fired from my desk job. I worked for Willi Cranshaw as a secretary, until he had enough of me talking, I suppose," Edithe Zilonis said.
  
  She had slowed down to walk beside me, after realizing I was farish behind.
  
  "Can anyone see me?" she asked.
  
  "No, you're not a spirit. Only I can see you," I said.
  
  She had been looking at me but shifted her head when I said that, as if it upset her.
  
  "So you're talking to yourself now?"
  
  "Yes, indeed."
  
  She did smile, and I smiled too.
  
  We came upon the spot of her death. There was still traces of blood along the stone.
  
  > look closely
  "You're so very silly, wearing your sleeping slacks like that," Edithe Zilonis teased.
  
  I kneeled down to observe the blood on the stone.
  
  "The folks around here already think I'm mad," I said, "and it's best to let them continue to think that."
  
  "They trust a mad person with their dead?"
  
  Edithe Zilonis put her hands on her hips, peered over at me.
  
  "A madman can't kill what is already dead," I said.
  
  Edithe Zilonis laughed.
  
  The blood was exactly five days old. I had known Edithe Zilonis for four. Dirt and water had since washed it mostly away. A couple stones from the road had been pulled up. Perhaps when the carriage trampled Edithe Zilonis.
  
  "A coin," called Edithe Zilonis. "It must be mine," she joked.
  
  She found a coin, perhaps one that had come from her purse.
  
  "You had your purse when you came to me," I told her, "so this man wasn't after your money."
  
  "But he has my purse now," she said.
  
  "Yes, he does. Perhaps he wants us to find it, and ultimately him."
  
  "That's absurd. He killed me, now he wants us to find him?" Edithe Zilonis asked.
  
  > Question Edithe Zilonis
  "Did you know any men?" I asked Edithe Zilonis.
  
  "Well sure, I know lots of men. Like Willi Cranshaw, Archibold D'oyley, Payton Brandenberger---"
  
  "Any man who would push you into a carriage?" I corrected. "Who is now dead."
  
  "Fin Seaburg died by jumping off a roof a summer ago. But he was much too kind," Edithe Zilonis said.
  
  I began to feel hopeless.
  
  "Edithe," I tried, "have you had any family at all? Certainly a mother, or a father? Even a sibling or a cousin?"
  
  "Well yes, but Mother died when I was five years old. And Father, well he died just a few months ago, but he was mean to me. I hated his guts. I couldn't wait to get out of that house."
  
  "Edithe," I said.
  
  "Yes?"
  
  She turned to me fully, had a silly smile on her face as if the man deserved a fate worse than death that she imagined quite often. Her eyes drifted along my chest and my sleeping slacks.
  
  "Edithe, could it have been your father?"
  
  "Certainly not. Why would he haunt me? He hated me as much as I loathed him."
  
  "I need to speak to the you who is possessed," I said.
  
  "Oh I don't like when that happens. I completely forget where I am when that happens," she said.
  
  Edithe Zilonis must have read my face, for she sheepishly admitted afterwards, "But of course. We have to get to the bottom of this."
  
  "Hey! You bloody loon! Quit talking to yourself!" called a few boys walking past us. They must have witnessed my speaking to Edithe Zilonis, who they did not see.
  
  I was very immune to insults from little people. I had better things to worry about, but not Edithe Zilonis. She was taken by any event, regardless of importance.
  
  "How about you shove it up your ass you white-livered spoons!" shouted Edithe Zilonis back at them. "We're trying to find the man who murdered me!"
  
  She rushed up and kicked the ankles of the boy who shouted, who then doubled over and hollered.
  
  It was absolutely gut-busting, and it also meant the dead were physically capable of perhaps shoving young women into the tracks of carriages.
  
  > Continue
  "How does someone become a ghost?" Edithe Zilonis asked me as we finished up our investigations at her murder scene.
  
  She added, "I quite like this, walking around on Earth, no one seeing me. Imagine the things I could do."
  
  "You will have to take that up with the folks who monitor the dead," I said. "Why wouldn't you want to go to Heaven?"
  
  "I don't like the color white," Edithe Zilonis said.
  
  I laughed out loud at her absurd answer. She smiled at me.
  
  "Besides," she said, "I quite like you too. I'd like to hang around you a bit longer."
  
  "I am not worth the Heavens," I said.
  
  "Poppycock. You've got to have someone who thinks you are. A lucky lady, or a felicitous fellow?" She asked.
  
  She had slipped her arm under mine, walked alongside me.
  
  Admittedly, I was not fond of romance. It impeded my job. And besides, no one was interested in a person whose hands are always touching the dead. Women were often taken aback, and men startled, when I mentioned my occupation.
  
  The dead couldn't judge me, and the living thought they could.
  
  > A lucky lady
  Sure, the owner of the Topics and Genres Bookstore three places down from my shop was a dashing red-haired woman with a large smile and kind eyes. Her name was Cristi Moneo and if the name didn't, certainly her attractive confidence would stop any person in his or her tracks.
  
  I had been looking, in fact, for a certain book from Lisbeth Mccullough. Cristi Moneo was kind and helped me find it.
  
  I had said to her, Thank you, I don't suppose you're an avid reader of magic and the dead as well?
  
  She smiled at me in such a way I felt the sun shine from the window, onto her white teeth and eyes hit me directly in the face. It had been pleasant.
  
  "We had coffee later that day," I said to Edithe Zilonis.
  
  > Continue
  "Coffee?" questioned Edithe Zilonis. "Did you pay?"
  
  "I did not," I said.
  
  "Oh you know what that means," she said.
  
  "It means a met a kind person who found my rigid personality refreshing?"
  
  "No, it means you'll be in bed in no time, certainly," teased Edithe Zilonis. "How scandalous of you, Undertaker."
  
  I didn't understand what was so scandalous about a good night's rest, other than not receiving one, like I had not the night prior. I was actually quite weary. But Edithe Zilonis seemed to liven me up.
  
  We came back to my shop. It was a storefront built in the early eighteen-hundreds. The entire city of Blackwood was very dated. When the time came for buildings to have electricty, most were unequipped to do so. The first floor of my shop was still lit mostly by candles and lamps. Although I hardly minded. Perhaps I assumed the dead couldn't see me in the dark.
  
  But the dead are mystical, I began to believe. And the trivial whispers I gave the dead were perhaps heard. But I hoped not, because the dead knew more about me than any of my family did.
  
  "Do you have a family?" Edithe Zilonis asked.
  
  Of course I did. I had a supportive mother and father and a very successful sister who lived in Peach City, owned a trading company. I rarely heard from her, but I assumed she was well. And Mother and Father were slowly growing old and before soon I feared I would see them in my shop.
  
  But death did not frighten me. I was living, and life was so much more frightening.
  
  I told this to Edithe Zilonis.
  
  "When you die, who is going to undertake you?" she asked.
  
  I said, "I don't know, but I hope the person treats me with as much respect as I do my own dead."
  
  "Do you think you'll go to Heaven?" Edithe Zilonis asked.
  
  > No
  It was true there were, and never would be, records of the events that transpire in Heaven nor the Hells.
  
  Heaven is often assumed to be a paradise in the clouds, where angels fly about and play musical harps, and the Gods oversee the folks there. It is guessed that each person that has gone to Heaven lives in his or her own paradise, constantly, forever and forever.
  
  None of these theories are true, nor are they false. Even as a person who speaks to the dead, I was unsure of both Heaven and the Hells. I thought more often about Purgatory, which seemed to be just a replication of Earth, where good and bad both occur.
  
  I told Edithe Zilonis No because I hoped I would go to Purgatory, or become a ghost. I had a fear of the unknown, and I was certain about it.
  
  But Undertaker, she said to me, Purgatory is the unknown, truly. We know at least Heaven is good and the Hells are bad.
  
  I replied, Yes, that might be true.
  
  Does that mean you live in fear on Earth, here now