He was dying to know, obviously he was dying to know; obviously he knew something had happened, with the way Geno and Sid kept looking at each other, and holding hands like that, which Sidney had never seen them do. And kissing on the couch, and Sid looking like he was up in the clouds, just totally gone, like his feet were floating at least a kilometer above the earth.

Sitting at the table was Sid: Sid as Zhenya had first known him, almost a decade before: dorky, long-haired Sid, his cheeks round with baby fat. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and even that was generous. “Wow,” baby Sid said. “Are you Evgeni Malkin?"

The locker room chatter started up almost at once, providing a screen of background noise. Zhenya sat down beside the ghost. “I’m captain. Evgeni Malkin.” “Sidney Crosby,” the ghost said. He didn’t offer his hand, which made Zhenya think he had been dead for a while, long enough to shed the ingrained habits of the living. “I’m, uh. Is it really 2018?”