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at the diary over lunch.”
    I fall into step beside him. “We can try to read more of what Constance wrote on that one page.” What if she wrote on more pages?
    We walk through the metal detector, and Adam calls out, “Hey, Mrs. W! It’s cool if we eat in here, right?”
    â€œJust clean up after yourselves.” She smiles behind the big checkout counter.
    â€œI thought you weren’t supposed to eat in the library,” I mutter, as we wend between tables over to a sunny corner in the biography section.
    â€œYeah. At some point, there was a big reversal on that. I guess they figure we can take the books home and slobber all over them.”
    I set the diary between us and open to the page with writing—Constance’s, not ours.
    Adam arranges the components of his lunch according to some system. He has one of those lunchboxes that’s a set of small containers, and each compartment holds something different. Grapes. Baby carrots tucked in a tidy row. Finally a sandwich, which he extracts from its box.
    He catches me studying him. “What?”
    The way he sorts everything helps hold the huge, messy shapelessness of life together. But I don’t say that because it would be weird. “You’re weird,” I say instead, but he knows I don’t mean it.
    He starts to summarize what happened with the diary. “You wrote the rosemary line from
Hamlet
. . .” he says.
    I repeat the line:
Rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray, love, remember.
    He continues. “And then we noticed Constance’s writing.”
    â€œWhich is really faint,” I add.
    â€œSo we didn’t see it before,” he says. “Even though we looked pretty carefully.”
    â€œBut we should have seen it.” I say what we both know. “It isn’t that faded.”
    â€œYou think there’s actually something strange happening with this book?” His voice is just louder than his breath.
    â€œDon’t you?”
    He nods. Once.
    We both lean over the book, careful to hold our food away, and read together:
Father says we . . .
    The next word is blotted, like it got wet. The letters are frayed around the edges, tiniest hairs of ink reaching out into the roughness of the page.
    Need.
Adam works it out.
    Father says we need the rosemary so that we can remember.
    â€œRemember what?” I wonder, as I turn the page.
    My hand flies to my mouth. Adam and I recoil. The new page just says
Wilkie.
Over and over and over and over. The whole page. Filled with the name Wilkie, written neatly at first and then more and more messily. And then it’s blotchy, like rain fell on the page, drops of water, staining the cursive with pale brown blots.
Wilkie. Wilkie. Wilkie. Wilkie.
    Adam whispers, “So that we can remember
Wilkie.
”

Four
    W E BOTH LEAP UP, and Adam yanks me away from the table. My wooden chair pitches backwards and clatters to the floor.
    â€œEverything okay?” Mrs. Wallace calls.
    â€œYup!” I squeak. Adam gives an awkward thumbs-up. It’s good that Mrs. Wallace isn’t looking too closely, because all the color has drained from Adam’s face except two weird red blotches low on his cheeks.
    I take a steadying breath. “It’s just a name. Written over and over.”
    â€œThat’s the creepy part.” Adam hugs himself. “You can tell something was wrong.”
    â€œBut whatever was wrong was a long time ago. It’s not wrong anymore.”
    â€œYou don’t know that,” Adam counters. “If Wilkie, like, died, then he’s still dead.”
    â€œYeah, and that’s sad, but everyone from history is dead. The tragedy is over.”
    â€œSo why are you standing over here and not sitting with the perfectly harmless, not-at-all-weird diary there on the table?” he challenges.
    â€œYou pulled me!”
    He reaches for my hand.