Chapter 3

I didn't put any hope in Marianne's promise.

All I did was urge her to tell our parents the truth about who she was, and soon.

"You've seen it yourself. They love you, their daughter. If they knew you'd come back, they'd be overjoyed."

"And I'd be glad to give you this body, so you could live in my place."

Marianne's face darkened as she glared at me.

"What are you talking about!"

"The underworld has rules. There's no way I could use your body to return to the living world!"

"And you're only eighteen. You still have a whole life ahead of you. How could you throw your life away that easily!"

She scolded me with a stern face, then explained how it worked.

If I died now, who knew how many hundreds of years it would be before I got another chance to be reborn.

I might have to stay in hell a very long time.

But what she didn't know was that I would rather stay in hell than go back to the living world and keep being our parents' daughter.

Marianne started slipping past our parents, borrowing a nurse's phone at the hospital every day to map out the road ahead for me.

"Once you're discharged, I'll figure out how to change your name first."

"This city seems like a good one… you should settle down here. It'll be good for your condition too."

Once she learned I'd set fire to the house wanting to die because of a mental illness, she started trying to talk me through it, day after day.

She even told me not to hate our parents.

"Maybe they did all this because I was so sick back then, because they poured so much of themselves into me."

I listened to her tell the story of how she died and said nothing.

Because over the past eighteen years, I'd had to hear those same things nearly every year.

I could understand the pain of losing their own daughter.

I could understand how much they missed Marianne.

But why did all of that have to be made up for with my life?

After she was discharged, Marianne played the part of her old self, sweet and obedient in front of our parents.

Only at mealtimes she still went pale and spat the porridge and apple back out.

Seeing our parents about to get angry, she quickly lied and said her stomach hurt, that she just couldn't eat right now.

Our mother's frown eased. She set the food in the room and reminded her gently,

"No matter what, you can't go hungry."

"If you can't finish it, save it for tomorrow as leftovers. You can heat it up in the microwave yourself."

Marianne agreed with a flat face.

Then, in the middle of the night, she snuck out and used the money on the phone to order delivery food.

My eyelid kept twitching.

"Be careful. If they catch you, it's over."

She nodded and nodded, then carried the food down to eat at the foot of the apartment building.

Seeing me stare at her without blinking, she asked in a small voice,

"Have you… really never eaten anything besides those three dishes?"

When I nodded, she drifted out of my body and pushed my soul back inside.

"There now, hurry and taste it while it's hot."

The rich, savory steam of the spicy noodle soup rushed into my nose, so sharp it made me want to cry.

I picked up a meatball with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth.

A taste full of newness burst across my tongue.

It was exactly like the flavor I'd imagined.

I cried as I ate, and when I finished I even let out a satisfied burp.

Marianne laughed under her breath and handed me a bag.

"Inside is the ID I stole for you. I've already bought your bus ticket."

"Sophie, you go now."

"Get as far away as you can, and never come back."