The wind howls, the rain comes down in sheets, and Patty is still dead. The earth settles, the grave grows green with the first shoots of hungry scrub grass and dandelion root, and Patty is still dead. The funeral bells are silent, the last of the we’re-so-sorry cakes have been reduced to stale crumbs that attract marching regiments of ants, and Patty is still dead. Patty is going to be dead forever, because that’s what dead means : dead is the change you can’t take back, dead is the mistake that can’t be unmade. The rain batters the tin slope of the roof until the sound of it drowns out everything else in the world—everything except for the simple, inalienable fact that Patty is dead , Patty is gone , Patty is never coming home . Seanan Mcguire Dusk or Dawn or Dawn or Day