My confusion turned to mild skepticism, but I accepted the gift. I didn’t have any lucky charms, and perhaps this one would do me good. I took it with the same apathetic optimism with which I swallow the occasional vitamin—it can’t hurt, and it might help. “Thank you so much for your time.”

“No, thank you—for your company. And take care of yourself, miss. Tell your uncle I said hello. Tell him too that he should make his own way out here before long. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“I sure will tell him,” I promised, “and thanks again.”

I left the shop clutching the brown paper sack with the book, incense, and gris-gris. My car was parked outside, so I opened the passenger’s side and set my purchases on the seat before venturing into the street.

Though it was well past lunchtime, I couldn’t detect much in the way of hunger pangs. I was too distracted by the wealth of new information to worry about food. I paused before a newspaper rack and read the date on the right-hand corner. September 18. Eleven days until John Gray was thoroughly sent to rest, even by his own religion.

No one remembers him anyway, I told myself. This is ancient history. There’s no one left alive to try to raise him—as if it could even be done. I’d seen plenty of ghosts, but nothing of the resurrected. And I’d certainly not seen anything like a man dead for a century and a half brought back. It was more than I could imagine. There would be nothing left of him to raise.

A street or two down I saw a sign for an International House of Pancakes, and promptly changed my mind about whether or not I needed to eat. I retrieved my new book from the car and started walking, certain I could find something fruity, syrupy, hash-browny, or milky to ingest. IHOP had never failed me yet.

Amidst the clinking silverware, clattering plates, and bustling of waitresses, I read on in the glossy, hard-backed book while I waited for my blueberry cheese blintzes. September 29, 1840. John Gray was dragged from a ceremony by a group of Spanish monks who wrapped him in chains and hung him from a tree outside the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida.

September 29.

A week and a half. But why should it worry me? The nearness of the date was a good thing—I was so close to being beyond fear. Why did this affect me so much? Because I’d dreamed of his hand? I shook my head, knowing I could not clear it. My connection to John Gray was more distant than I could imagine. It was distant enough for me to live without fear, and for me to ignore the superstitions of the long, long dead.

Still, I continued to read.