Douglas was agreeable, as birds go, and upon my uncertain inquiry he guided me to a mossy chest toward the back of the pond. I thanked him kindly, and he flapped off, back to his perch on the little island. I pulled open the chest and exhumed a dusty, black dress. It looked like something a puritan grandmother might have considered a bit old-fashioned. I held it up to my shoulders anyway. The client’s late wife—or possibly mother—had apparently been as tiny as she was dowdy. A soft giggling bubbled up behind me.

The ghost was resting comfortably on a grassy log, her shimmering head propped up casually on one hand. “Oh! I didn’t . . . Good morning, Miss Cavanaugh,” I said.

“ ‘Jenny’ is fine.” She smiled. “You really shouldn’t wear those, you know.”

“I did ask.”

“I’m sure you did, dear. You shouldn’t wear them because they’re dreadful.”

“Oh,” I said. “I suppose you’re right. Although, if I were about a foot shorter and twenty pounds lighter, I might have made a fetching Pilgrim. A tiny, fetching Pilgrim.”

“I think you look positively darling in that pretty red outfit—but it is really more of an evening gown than a day dress, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t much choice. Everything I have with me is either pretty or practical, except maybe the one you washed. Thank you, by the way.”

“If you don’t like them, why did you pack them?”

I sighed. “They were the first things I saw in my closet. Before I ran off on my own, my mother used to love to dress me like a paper doll in showy gowns from her favorite dressmaker. I never had to think about what to wear, because it never much mattered what I thought, anyway. I might have had more to choose from if she had packed for me, but I also would have needed a separate carriage just for hatboxes. It was one of her deepest fears that some passing gentry might see her daughter dressed in rags. That was what she called any outfit that did not have a wire frame, lace fringe, and five layers of fabric. I had a few school uniforms, at least—and I rather liked those—but they were worn out even before I left, and built for sitting in desks, not for clambering over rocks. They tore easily, and the hems got all tattered to ribbons. By the end of the first month, they really were rags. I spent the rest of my days at the dig site in boys’ trousers.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. And I loved it . . . at first. It was part of my big act of defiance, all bold and brazen and exciting. I can assure you, though, it stops feeling liberating after months of hard, dusty work. Now I just wish I had some dresses that were a little less . . . dressy.”