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herself that she wasn’t going crazy, that this truly was happening. She wanted to find a way to pin him down. To hold him tight so he couldn’t escape again. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make him manifest once more. On the odd occasion, she thought she smelt his aftershave, or heard the rustle of movement, but each time it vanished when she tried to pinpoint its location. There was even one instance when she was passing the hall mirror, and as she caught a glimpse of her reflection– herlong, dark hair gathered in a loose pony tail – she thought she saw the edge of something behind her, something that shouldn’t have been there. But when she spun around there was nothing, and when she looked back at the mirror again, her eyes straining as she searched the glass, whatever it was, it was gone.
    Eventually, she gave up and completed her baking. Then she waited impatiently for darkness to come. When the day turned to dusk and the sun began to set, Juliette wandered out onto her balcony to watch the ocean. She kept her gaze on the water as the dying rays of the sun behind her turned the water from deep blue to glossy orange, and then eventually, black.
    Then she turned back inside to wait for midnight to pass, so that she could creep out into the hall and drop off the delivery to the floor above hers. It didn’t feel as thrilling as normal though, and she realised why as she made her way along the halls. It was because she was grieving again. It felt as though she was constantly having to start her grieving process, over and over. Every time she felt Danny’s presence, her heart jumped with excitement – but each time he vanished again, she was left devastated, desperate for just one more touch. She needed to figure out how she could get him to come back again, how she could make him stay.

    As she headed back to her apartment, having distributed her baked offerings, she tried to think her problem through logically. What had she been doing on each previous occasion when he had appeared? As she listed off each incident in her mind, she eventually came to a conclusion. Each time she had been distracted by something else. The first time she had been in the shower, and although, admittedly, she had been thinking of Danny, she had been busypleasuring herself. And then she had been speaking with Chris, when the book delivery arrived. After that, there were all of those weird things that had happened while she been sick. And then, most recently, she had been baking. So, she concluded, she’d been going about solving this puzzle the wrong way. She shouldn’t have been seeking Danny out – she needed to do the opposite, to occupy her mind. She needed to take her focus elsewhere, and allow him to come to her.
    Juliette let herself in through her front door and hurried down the hall and into the kitchen, dropping her empty basket on the island bench on her way past. In the living room, she snatched up the novel she had started to read the other week, when Chris had brought back the correct delivery with her, and then she carried it with her to the bedroom, where she changed quickly and then climbed into bed, sitting up against the headboard, with the pillows piled up behind her. Okay, Juliette, focus , she told herself, then she breathed in and out slowly to calm herself before she opened the book and began to read.
    At first her eyes were simply roving back and forth across the page, her brain barely taking in the words, her hands turning the pages mechanically, fraudulently – but after a little while, she sank into the story and forgot about her hopeful expectations. Which is why she didn’t react when it first happened. She had become so engrossed in her story that the sense that a hand was gently massaging her neck and shoulders as she read just enhanced her relaxed state. In fact, the sensation was so real that Juliette almost forgot that Danny wasn’t actually there – in the normal sense – and