The wind picked up to a whine that cut right through my thin shirt. I thought of willing myself a jacket, but didn’t. In the ghost world, you could pass weeks, months, even years without ever feeling temperatures that went beyond pleasantly warm or pleasantly cool. Once in a while, discomfort wasn’t so bad.

I walked into a deep dip that sheltered me from the wind. I rubbed my ears. As they thawed, my hearing improved. Not that there was much more to hear, just the whistle of the wind overhead. No, wait, something else. I cocked my head to listen. A thump, then a swish. Silence. Thump, swish. Silence. Thump, swish.

I readied an energy-bolt spell.

The thumping sound could be slow footsteps. But the swish? I didn’t really want to think about that. The next thump brought a nails-down-a-chalkboard screech. A muttered oath. An exchange of words, one voice male, one female. A grunt. A thud. Then it resumed. Thump, swish. Thump, swish.

I cast a blur spell—if it worked in this dimension, it should distort my shape enough to let me sneak past anyone who wasn’t looking for me. Then I climbed to the top of the knoll. Less than twenty feet away stood a young woman holding a flashlight. I quickstepped back down the hill, then sharpened my sight.

I peered over the hill. The woman was shining the flashlight on a man digging a hole. That was the noise—the thump of the shovel digging in and the swish of the dirt as he tossed it aside.

The couple were both in their twenties. The man was small and skinny with a greasy mop of hair. The woman was blond, with her hair piled high in a god-ugly outdated do. Her clothing was equally out-of-date—miniskirt, high boots, and a car coat. That wasn’t surprising. In the ghost world you get used to seeing a historical fashion show. Most ghosts stick with whatever style they enjoyed in life. Well, unless that style included corsets or other instruments of torture.

Here we had two ghosts, circa the sixties…or the seventies. Being my “growing-up years,” the two decades merged into a shapeless whole of miniskirts, tie-dyed tees, go-go boots, and disco.

“Deep enough?” the man said, rubbing his hands together. “Bloody cold out here tonight.”

The woman leaned over to peer into the hole, then nodded. She laid the flashlight on the ground and the couple walked into the darkness beyond. They returned carrying a long, wrapped bundle between them.

“It’s not big enough,” the woman said. “He’s taller than I thought.”

The man nodded, lifted his shovel, and resumed digging. As the woman watched, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Given the cold, and the task at hand, a shiver was not out of place. But the look on her face was, her eyes gleaming, tongue darting out.