Clarence thought about it. “You know, I’m beginning to like you. And that scares me.” A breeze blew in the living world, knocking loose one of the sparsely spaced ornaments. It fell to the ground and shattered with a dainty tinkle. The attendant went to clean it up.

“So this friend of yours—is she an incubus, or a succubus, or a poltergeist, or a ghoul?”

“None of those things. She’s just a girl.”

“And you’re in love with her.”

That caught Mikey by surprise. “How did you know that?”

“We talked about it, remember? And besides, that glow you’ve got—when you talk about her, it turns a little bit purple.”

“Right. So the first thing I need you to do is read me some newspapers. Living-world things are too blurry to read in Everlost.”

“What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Accidents,” Mikey said. “Accidents in Texas.”

Clarence took a long time to consider it, scratching his beard stubble. Then he held out his Everlost hand to Mikey. “It’s a deal. Let’s shake on it.”

Mikey instantly backed away. This was a scar wraith. He had to remember that. If the legend was true, he could be extinguished by a single touch.

Clarence still held out his hand, waiting. “A gentleman’s agreement requires a handshake. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

Mikey considered telling him the truth, but instead he said, “I’m unclean! Yeah—I’m an unclean spirit. And out of respect for you, I shouldn’t touch you.”

Clarence looked at him, but didn’t drop his arm just yet. “How does a spirit become ‘unclean’?”

Once the lie had been launched, Mikey found it hard to change its trajectory. “It’s not my fault—I had a curse put on me by . . . uh . . . by a graveyard ghoul. That’s why I walk the earth.”

“Graveyard ghoul, huh?” Finally Clarence put his hand down. “In that case, we’ll skip the handshake. Because, you know what they say . . .”

“Yeah,” said Mikey. “Yes, I know what they say. Boy, do I know what they say!”

As it turned out, they didn’t need newspapers. Over the next few days Clarence scoured the Internet from the computer in Hollow Oaks’s recreation room. What Clarence found confirmed Mikey’s suspicions. San Antonio, Texas, had become a center of bad luck. Not just the car pileup, but a school fire and a bleacher collapse, and a freak electrocution. Although Moose and Squirrel never appeared again in any of the news clips, the circumstances were all similar. There was always a suspect or two, who had been seen by reliable witnesses—once even caught on surveillance video—and yet each suspect claimed to have no memory of what happened.