Not a jazz funeral like earlier—there are no white suits, no somberness to the affair, no casket that I can see—just shining brass instruments, and brilliant costumes, and skeletons. I tense, instantly on guard. But the skeletons only billow like kites on bright red strings, dancing in the air, jaws open as if laughing. Lara’s hand tightens around mine, but despite everything, I’m not afraid.

There is no menace in the air, no danger. No bone-deep chill or hollowing fear.

Just the overwhelming thrum of energy and life.

We stand there a moment, two parents, two girls, and a ghost, watching the parade. With every forward step, it seems to gain size. People join, cheering and dancing, the procession swelling into a street party.

“What are they celebrating?” I call over the roar of the crowd.

“Life!” says Mom. “Death!” she adds. “And everything in between.”

“Can we join?” I ask, and Mom beams, as if she thought I’d never ask.

We step into the fray. The parade swirls around us, carries us along, and we let it. I want to close my eyes, disappear into the sound, but I don’t want to get trampled.

“Life is a party, dear daughter,” says Mom, draping a chain of gold beads around my neck. “Celebrate it every day.”

Dad snags a feathered crown and sets it on Lara’s head, and for an instant, she looks so surprised, so out of place, that Jacob cackles, and I expect her to take it off, to smooth her hair. But she doesn’t. She smiles. And sure, she straightens the crown a little when it slips to one side, and holds it there, but only because she doesn’t want to lose it while she’s dancing.

And there, in the midst of the parade, she is not Lara Chowdhury, a lonely girl trying to grow up too fast. She’s just Lara, smart and clever and selfless.

And Jacob Ellis Hale is not the ghost of a boy who drowned three years ago in a river, trying to rescue his little brother’s toy. He’s just my best friend, bouncing out of time with the beat.

And I’m not being hunted by an agent of Death.

I’m just a girl dancing with my friends and family in the street.

Chapter Seventeen

We tumble back into our hotel room, giddy and tired.

My shoe knocks against something small and hard, and it goes skittering across the floor. A stone. I look down and see another, then the open box of matches, spilling thin wood sticks across the floor.

The room wasn’t exactly tidy to start with, but now it’s a mess.

“Oh dear,” says Mom.

And for a second, I wonder if we somehow caught the attention of a poltergeist here. And then I realize, this wasn’t a spirit at work.

It was a cat.