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"Well here's the thing," he said, pointing to the ID. "That's not the only bit of the past that has popped up lately."

And the more he found, the less sense it all made.

"Imp saw something out by the cliffs the other day. I'm still not sure what is out there, but I wanted to climb it. And this woman, Viv, showed up. She led me to this crack in the cliff, and inside there was a leather jacket and a lantern sitting there. This old, faded jacket with a medical alert tag and a DNR. In the pocket there was this ring, red garnet and silver, and it said 'with my love, always, liam.'

"There was a number on the coat, so I called it. The woman who answered was Viv's mother, and she said... Viv has been dead since the 80s. And her husband since the 60s.

"Mrs. Hawken led me to the Liam on the ring. He was Viv's fiance, from way back. He said the ring shouldn't exist, that it had been destroyed, buried with her. He didn't say much more than that. But there's something in those cliffs. They said she was obsessed with them, kept climbing them until she couldn't anymore."

Rylan shrugged, looking back at the ID.

"And now we're here."

Rylan chuckled. "It's weird, I know. She didn't seem dead at all... And she took off a sweater. She left something behind."

But maybe that in itself still was not compelling enough an argument for the fact that maybe Viv wasn't dead. At best, she was not completely gone from the world, he guessed. But she had an awfully real way of impacting the world for someone who didn't physically inhabit it anymore.

"I've found nothing out so far. I don't think anyone would know," he added. "So maybe this library is a good idea. Maybe there are some answers there. Where's the fun in a straightforward puzzle, right?" he said with a wry smile. Wry because he, too, was tired of not understanding his life.

"You might be right," he agreed with a small nod, watching from his spot on the couch as Lucas rose. From the top of the bird cage, Imp twittered and blinked at the man with beady amber eyes.

"It couldn't hurt," he added with a grin. Though perhaps he was being a little too optimistic when discussing matters of the otherworld. As he was beginning to learn, anything could hurt, especially over there.

But it seemed worth the venture.