Victor would've loathed us for holding his funeral under that same, smiling sun. Above stretched a sky so mockingly clear, and its heat bore on us down like a thick shroud.

           Bronwyn asked for a Christian service, and so we held one outside. We stood in two black-clad semicircles around the picnic table where Victor's body laid, people more well acquainted with him standing closer.

          Bronwyn screamed a lot. They came in explosive bursts, guttural then piercing, more like yells of excruciating pain than grief. Even from the backmost row I saw her tremor as she kneeled by Victor's side, soil caking her dress like bloodstains. No matter how fond the others might be of Bronwyn,  no one dared to come close throughout the funeral.

          Enoch was our makeshift minister. He'd seen plenty of funerals long ago, being the son of two undertakers. In between Bronwyn's outbursts, he recited the canticles and prayers like a second language.

          "Lord, we beseech You. As we lament the departure of our brother and your servant Victor Benedict Bruntley, we remember that we are most prepared to soon follow him."

          A gust of wind blew past us like a sigh, and down came a rain of beech blossoms. Thousands of stellate, coppery buds whirled and married with the trimmed grass. Several speckled the linen sheet over Victor's body, caught the brilliant sunlight like many little bronze brooches.

          I could barely make out the features of his face under the cover, but the tumors were distinct. Dark, bulbous growths pock-marked his skin. His burial suit bulged where a particularly fat tumor had manifested just over the liver.

          Cancers. Of course you'd get cancers when you aged forty years in a minute.

          Forty years' worth of chromosomal mutations, of every single mistranscription in every single peptide chain, compressed into one minute. A biomedical nuclear missile. You'd have to be the luckiest person alive to not develop at least a dozen stochastic diseases.

          Emma told me he was still breathing when they found him by the loop entrance. His nailbeds bled. He had crawled his way back, most likely. I couldn't think of a worse way to die.

          And one horrible thing echoed in my mind like the grim toll of a churchbell -- what have you done to him what have you done to him what have you done to him.

          "I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believeth in Me, even if he dies, shall live and--"

          Enoch's throat caught. Bronwyn screamed again.

          "'-- and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."

❧

          Someone knocked on my door after the funeral. The door creaked open after I responded, and in came Horace. He dressed down that day, donning a simple fitted suit and a maroon cravat from Victor. His eyes were bloodshot, swollen almost shut.

          I startled. He had been avoiding me all day,  ducking into rooms, disappearing into the garden.

          "Hello."

          "Horace-" I croaked.

          "No," he said, and my throat collapsed in on itself. "Listen. I think it's best if we don't talk for now. I don't want to do or say anything I'll regret."

          He kept his distance, merely placed an envelope on top of a pile of books on my study.

          "What is it?"

          "A letter. From Vic."

          "How come?"

          "They were in his drawers. We all received one," he said. He gave me a searching look, which I took to mean I hope we're done here. "Well. I'll see you at supper, then."

          He turned to leave.

          "Horace," I tried again.

          He continued towards the door.

          "Horace, please-"

          "SHUT UP!" he yelled, banging the door with a fist.

          He caught sight of my face, and I must've looked like a dog who'd been kicked. He took shallow, rattling breaths, trying to damper his emotions.

          "I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry. But if you're going to listen for once, listen now, I beg you. Let's not speak. I just can't- I can't bear you right now."

          He sped off like it nauseated him to be in a room with me. At least I understood why, then.

          I stood shakily and retrieved Victor's letter from the study. It was an airmail envelope, with blue and red stripes adorning the margins. It was the only type they sold in Cairnholm's post offices. On it, Victor had scrawled in a uniform, slanting script - 𝘛𝘰 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘩.

          The ink bled a little. I remembered he wrote with his left hand, but did everything else with his right.

          What had he said? I imagined the worst things. To Meredith. You ruined everything for me. You shouldn't have come here. Why do you loathe me so much, why, why, why- I hate you. Waste of space. Murderer. The phantom words bred and filled my chest like a cancerous cell.

          Without thinking I stuffed the document into my pillowcase, sick to my stomach.

          There the letter would fester for months. Whatever I thought Victor said leached into my dreams, the regret cannibalizing me like the Caucasian Eagle.

          But I thought I deserved nothing less.

          I won't move, I told him. I won't move as you take away from me what I've taken away from you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

❧

          In a loop, natural decay ceased to exist. Victor's body would fester for exactly twenty-four hours every day before being rejuvenated, tightened up like some sick wind-up toy. But in that way we had plenty of time to think about burial options.

          For cremation there was Emma's peculiarity and mine, but of course no one even suggested it. Everyone ruled out burial in the loop, too - it felt too much like burying someone alive. If we were to bury him, we'd have to wait until the ground thawed in the present.

          So, for a long while, he stayed in his old bedroom, preserved in that state of immortal death.

          It was only karmic that his room happened to be directly over mine.

          Now and then, I'd overhear Bronwyn's explosive arguments with Enoch upstairs. She wanted him to reanimate Victor, and while he obliged for a while, it became too taxing to see his spirit beg for release.

          "It hurts him!" I heard Enoch yell, once, a pleading edge to his voice. "I say no. I don't want to do this anymore."

          "And just let 'im sleep like this? Do you not miss 'im?" spat Bronwyn.

          "You're being a bloody oaf. It's hell, being dragged into a land you don't belong in. Try seeing Victor kick and scream in your face whenever we pull him out of his world."

          "His world?" Brownyn laughed mirthlessly. "His world? Are you hearing yourself? You're despicable, that's all that you are. Go away and never come near us again."

          Every day for several months, Bronwyn occupied that room like a second undead. She combed Victor's hair, neatened his lapels -- whatever else could be a reason to stay beside him, I reckoned.

          Sometimes Miss Peregrine took Bronwyn's place. Then Horace took Miss Peregrine's, Millard took Horace's, Enoch took Millard's -- before I knew it I memorized what everyone sounded like when they cried. It became a torturous habit, tallying how much tears were shed because of me.

          The rare times no one was around, I'd pay a visit to Victor myself. I'd kneel by his bed, whisper a new apology each time. Perhaps I hoped he could hear at least one of them.

          "I'm sorry for stealing everything away from you. Wherever you went, may you find all the love to last you a hundred-million summers."

          "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Say hello to- say hello to Salome Durham for me. She's the pretty one with long brown hair and red lips. Talk to her about what horrible things I did to you, not because of my peculiarity. Because I just am horrible. Selfish, stubborn, stupid. A God-damned degenerate."

          "I'm so sorry for destroying everything I touch, everywhere I go."

          I spent ages watching his aged face carefully, tried to discern his nineteen-year-old self beneath the fresh wrinkles and warts and melanomas. I never could.

          He was really gone, then. However much I imagined scenarios of wrenching him back in just as he stepped outside the loop, of gaining the ability to breathe back life into his broken body -- he'd remain gone.

          It crushed my everything, to yell into a void like this. Before I knew it, the tears would fall again. Slowly, and then in a deluge.

          Once, when I was six, I went scouring for watercress in the bog beside our clinic. I'd seen Pa do the same, and life back then was a big game of pretend-to-be-Pa. Like most days, it rained heavily-- the grounds were sunken in and slick, and my bumbling feet struggled just to stand still. Inevitably, I fell in a muddy pit and drowned.

          It was a special breed of anguish. Rainwater surged into the pit in torrents, and I watched in horror as the surface drifted further away. The more I thrashed and clawed at the oily walls, the nearer doom felt. Seconds could've been hours-- the last globules of air seethed from my nostrils, acid depositing in my tissues like caries. I wanted nothing more than Pa to reach in and end the agony.

          Back in Victor's room, a warm hand squeezed my shoulder and startled me back to life. I almost called out to Pa.

          "You've been here for half an hour," said Emma softly.

          She still wore her mourning attire quite long after the funeral. The cold, black chiffon brushed against the nape of my neck.

          "I didn't hear you come," I said wetly. I must've looked monstrous, but I didn't care anymore. "Pardon. Do you want to spend time with Victor?"

          I felt the floorboards warp as she kneeled alongside me. She planted my face in the crook of her neck, which smelled faintly of soap and fabric softener. Her arms wrapped snugly around my waist. So warm.

          So wrong, said Victor.

          I peeled her away and tried to ignore her hurt expression.

          "I want to spend time with you." She was so kind to me -- and why? "Talk to me, please. You're hurting."

          "Not nearly as much as the rest of you, I don't think," I said. "Really, just take care of yourself. I'll be alright."

          "Do you want me to leave you alone, then?"

          Did I? I thought for too long. I didn't answer.

          "Tell me yes, and I'll go."

          I gathered the gall to look her in the eye.

          Even grief failed to corrode her lustre -- she looked like an unvarnished portrait, then. She tied her hair in a low, silken ponytail. Her cheeks were sallow and sunken in, but she still offered me a smile.

          I wanted to know -- how many days of heartache had she endured? What had I done to her? What have you done to her?

          I cleared my throat. "You don't need to deal with me."

          "Utter rubbish. That's not for you to decide. What if I wanted to deal with you?" She tucked a few wet strands of hair behind my ear. "Let's go out, please."

          "I won't be much fun..."

          "You don't need to be. We won't even talk if you don't want to."

          I sighed.

          "I'll be ready in ten minutes."