“Sid, I’m so—I’m sorry,” Geno said. “My stupid—I’m ruin everything, I—” “Shut up, Geno,” Sidney said, already intensely weary of listening to Geno’s self-recrimination. “You’ve barely even done anything.” Geno’s voice dropped what sounded like an entire octave. “But I want to.”

The first Zhenya heard about it was an email from Sidney in the middle of August.

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?”

The naiad moved in shortly after Sid finished his house, that first summer, a week after he filled the pool. He noticed some splashing one morning while he was eating breakfast, and when he went outside to investigate, she popped her head up out of the water, clung to the side of the pool, and hissed at him. “Uh,” Sid said, still holding a slice of toast in one hand. Dew from the grass chilled his bare feet. “Are you—hi?”