At the end of the meal, Nathan tells me it’s really helped to talk to me and to know the truth. He also asks if we can meet again the next day, just so he can see the switch for himself. I tell him I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll try.

Our parents pick us up. On the drive back home, Kasey’s mom asks me how it went.

“Good … I think,” I tell her.

It’s the only truthful thing I tell her the whole ride.

Day 6028

The next day, a Sunday, I wake up as Ainsley Mills. Allergic to gluten, afraid of spiders, proud owner of three Scotties, two of which sleep in her bed.

In ordinary circumstances, I would think this was going to be an ordinary day.

Nathan emails me, saying he wants to meet up, and that if I have a car, I can come to his house. His parents are away for the day, so he doesn’t have a ride.

Rhiannon doesn’t email me, so I go with Nathan.

Ainsley tells her parents she’ll be shopping with some friends. They don’t question her. They give her the keys to her mom’s car and tell her not to be back too late. They need her to baby-sit her sister starting at five.

It’s only eleven. Ainsley assures them she’ll be back in plenty of time.

Nathan is only fifteen minutes away. I figure I won’t have to stay too long. I’ll just have to prove to him that I am the same person as yesterday. Then that’s it—I don’t think I have anything else to offer. The rest is up to him.

He looks surprised when he opens the door and sees me. I guess he didn’t really believe it would be true, and now it is. He looks nervous, and I chalk it up to the fact that I’m here in his house. I recognize it, but already it’s started to blend into all the other houses I’ve lived in. If you put me in the main hallway and all the doors were closed, I don’t think I could tell you which door led to which room.

Nathan takes me into his living room—this is where guests go, and even if I’ve been him for a day, I am still a guest.

“So it’s really you,” he says. “In a different body.”

I nod and sit down on the couch.

“Do you want something to drink?” he offers.

I tell him water will be fine. I do not tell him that I plan on leaving soon, and water probably isn’t necessary.

As he goes to get it, I study some of the family portraits on display. Nathan looks uncomfortable in each of them … just like his father. Only his mother beams.

I hear Nathan come back in and don’t look up. So it’s a jolt when a voice that isn’t Nathan’s says, “I’m so glad I have a chance to meet you.”

It’s a man with silver hair and a gray suit. He’s wearing a tie, but it’s loose at the neck; this is casual time for him. I stand up, but in Ainsley’s slight body, there’s no way I can meet him eye to eye.

“Please,” Reverend Poole says, “there’s no need for you to stand. Let’s sit.”

He closes the door behind him, then chooses an armchair that’s between me and the door. He is probably twice Ainsley’s size, so he could stop me if he wanted to. The question is whether he’d really want to. The fact that my instinct is to wonder about these things is a tip-off that there may be cause for alarm.

I decide to come on tough.

“It’s Sunday,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be in church?”

He smiles. “More important things for me here.”

This must have been what it was like when Red Riding Hood first met the big bad wolf. What she felt must have been as much intrigue as terror.

“What do you want?” I ask.

He folds his leg across his knee. “Well, Nathan told me the most interesting story, and I’m wondering if it’s true.”

There’s no use denying it. “Nathan wasn’t supposed to tell anyone!” I say loudly, hoping Nathan hears me.

“While for the past month you’ve left Nathan hanging, I have been attempting to give him answers. It’s natural that he should confide in me when he is told such a thing.”

Poole has an angle. That much is clear. I just don’t know what it is yet.

“I am not the devil,” I say. “I am not a demon. I am not any of the things you want me to be. I am just a person. A person who borrows other people’s lives for a day.”

“But can’t you see the devil at work?”

I shake my head. “No. There was no devil inside of Nathan. There is no devil inside of this girl. There is only me.”

“You see,” Poole says, “that’s where you’re wrong. Yes, you are inside of these bodies. But what’s inside of you, my friend? Why do you think you are the way you are? Don’t you feel it could be the devil’s work?”

I speak calmly. “What I do is not the devil’s work.”

At this, Poole actually laughs.

“Relax, Andrew. Relax. You and I are on the same side.”

I stand up. “Good. Then let me go.”

I make a move to leave, but as I anticipated, he blocks me. He pushes Ainsley back to the sofa.

“Not so fast,” he says. “I’m not finished.”

“On the same side, I see.”

The grin disappears. And for a moment, I see something in his eyes. I’m not sure what it is, but it paralyzes me.

“I know you so much better than you give me credit for,” Poole says. “Do you think this is an accident? Do you think I’m just some religious zealot here to exorcise your demons away? Did you ever ask yourself why I am cataloging such things, what I’m looking for? The answer is you, Andrew. And others like you.”

He’s fishing. He has to be.

“There are no others like me,” I tell him.

His eyes flash again at me. “Of course there are, Andrew. Just because you’re different, it doesn’t mean you’re unique.”

I don’t know what he’s saying. I don’t want to know what he’s saying.

“Look at me,” he commands.

I do. I look into those eyes, and I know. I know what he’s saying.

“The amazing thing,” he tells me, “is that you still haven’t learned how to make it last longer than a single day. You have no idea the power that you possess.”

I back away from him. “You’re not Reverend Poole,” I say, unable to keep the shaking out of Ainsley’s voice.

“I am today. I was yesterday. Tomorrow—who knows? I have to judge what best suits me. I wasn’t going to miss this.”

He is taking me beyond another window. But right away, I know that I don’t like what’s there.

“There are better ways to live your life,” he continues. “I can show you.”

There’s recognition in his eyes, yes. But there’s also menace. And something else—an entreaty. Almost as if Reverend Poole is still inside somewhere, trying to warn me.

“Get off of me,” I say, standing up.

He seems amused. “I’m not touching you. I am sitting here, having a conversation.”

“Get off of me!” I say louder, and start ripping at my own shirt, sending the buttons flying.

“What—”

“GET OFF OF ME!” I scream, and in that scream is a sob, and in that sob is a cry for help, and just as I’d hoped, Nathan hears it, Nathan has been listening, and the door to the living room is flung open, and there he is, just in time to see me screaming and crying, my shirt ripped open, Poole standing now with murder in his eyes.

I am betting everything on the common decency I saw in Nathan, back when I was inside of him, and even though he is clearly terrified, the common decency does rise, because instead of running away or closing the door or listening to what Poole has to say, Nathan yells, “What are you doing?” and he holds the door open for me as I flee, and he blocks the reverend—or whoever he is inside—from catching me as I run out the front door and into my car. Nathan summons the strength to hold Poole back, buying me those crucial seconds, so by the time Poole is on the lawn, my key is already in the ignition.

“There’s no point in running away!” Poole yells. “You’re only going to want to find me later! All the others have!”

Trembling, I turn up the radio, and drown him out with the sound of the song, and the sound of me driving away.

I don’t want to believe him. I want to think he’s an actor, a charlatan, a fake.

But when I looked closely at him, I saw someone else inside. I recognized him in the same way that Rhiannon recognized me.

Only, I also saw danger there.

I saw someone who does not play by the same set of rules.

As soon as I’m gone, I wish I’d stayed a few minutes longer, let him talk a little bit more. I have more questions than I’ve ever had before, and he might have had the answers.

But if I’d stayed just a few more minutes, I don’t know if I could have left. And I would have been dooming Ainsley to the same struggle as Nathan, if not worse. I don’t know what Poole would have done with her—what we would have done with her, if I’d stayed.

He could be lying. I have to remind myself that he could be lying.

I am not the only one.

I cannot wrap my thoughts around this. The fact that there could be others. They may have been in the same school as me, the same room as me, the same family as me. But because we keep our secret so hidden, there’d be no way to know.

I remember the boy in Montana whose story was so similar to mine. Was that true? Or was it just a trap Poole set?

There are others.

It can change everything.

Or it can change nothing.

As I drive back to Ainsley’s house, I realize it’s my choice.

Day 6029

Darryl Drake is very distracted the next day.

I guide him through school and say the right things when I have to. But his friends keep commenting that he’s lost in space. At track practice, the coach berates him repeatedly for lack of focus.

“What’s on your mind?” Darryl’s girlfriend, Sasha, asks him when he drives her home.

“I guess I’m not really here today,” he tells her. “But I’ll be back tomorrow.”

I spend the afternoon and the evening on the computer. Darryl’s parents are both at work and his brother is in college, so I have the whole house to myself.

My story is front and center on Poole’s website—a bastardized account of what I told Nathan, with some errors that come either from Nathan hiding something or from Poole goading me on.

Going outside his own site, I find out everything I can about Reverend Poole, but it’s not much. He doesn’t seem to have become outspoken about demonic possession until Nathan’s story hit. I look at photos from before and from after, trying to tell if there’s some difference. In photographs, he looks the same. The eyes are hidden by the flatness of the image.

I read all the stories on the site, trying to find myself within them, trying to find other people like me. Again, there are a couple from Montana. And others that could be similar, if what Poole hinted at is true: that the one-day limit is only for newcomers, and can be somehow bypassed.

It’s what I want, of course. To stay in a single body. To lead a single life.

But at the same time, it’s not what I want. Because I can’t help thinking about what would happen to the person whose body I’d stay in. Does he or she just wink out of existence? Or is the original soul then banished to bounce from body to body—basically, are the roles reversed? I can’t imagine anything sadder than having once had a single body and then suddenly not being able to stay in any for longer than a day. At least I’ve had the comfort of never knowing anything else. I would destroy myself if I’d actually had to give something up before leading this traveler’s existence.

If there were no one else involved, it would be an easy choice. But isn’t that always the case? And there’s always someone else involved.