At least, I hope it was my mom. Now that I think about it . . . but no, I hadn’t seen Jesse since that first day I’d moved in. It had definitely been my mom who’d shut my windows.

Anyway, when I’d walked outside to get into Mom’s car, I’d found that it was freezing out again, and that was why I was wearing the wool coat.

Father Dominic told me that my locker was number 273, and he seemed content to let me find it myself, strolling behind me with his eyes on the breezeway’s rafters, in which, much to his professed delight, families of swallows nested every year. He was apparently quite fond of birds – of all animals, actually, since one of the questions he’d asked me was how was I getting along with Max, the Ackermans’ dog – and openly scoffed at Andy’s repeated assurances that the timber in the breezeways was going to have to be replaced thanks to the swallows and their refuse.

268, 269, 270. I strolled down the open corridor, watching the numbers on the beige locker doors. Unlike the ones in my school back in Brooklyn, these lockers were not graffitied, or dented, or plastered with stickers from heavy metal bands. I guess students on the West Coast took more pride in their school’s appearance than us Yankees.

271, 272. I stumbled to a halt.

In front of locker number 273 stood a ghost.

It wasn’t Jesse, either. It was a girl, dressed very much like I was, only with long blonde hair, instead of brown, like mine. She also had an extremely unpleasant look on her face.

‘What,’ she said, to me, ‘are you looking at?’ Then, speaking to someone behind me, she demanded, ‘This is who they let in to take my place? I am so sure.’

OK, I admit it. I freaked out. I spun around, and found myself gaping up at Father Dominic, who was squinting down at me curiously.

‘Ah,’ he said, when he saw my face. ‘I thought so.’

Six

I looked from Father Dominic to the ghost girl, and back again. Finally, I managed to blurt out, ‘You can see her?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. I suspected when I first heard your mother speak about you – and your . . . problems at your old school – that you might be one of us, Susannah. But I couldn’t be sure, of course, so I didn’t say anything. Although the name Simon, I’m sure you’re aware, is from the Hebrew word meaning “intent listener”, which, as a fellow mediator, you of course would be . . .’

I barely heard him. I couldn’t get over the fact that finally, after all these years, I’d met another mediator.

‘So that’s why there aren’t any Indian spirits around here!’ I practically yelled. ‘You took care of them. Jeez, I was wondering what happened to them all. I expected to find hundreds—’

Father Dominic bowed his head modestly, and said, ‘Well, there weren’t hundreds, exactly, but when I first arrived, there were quite a few. But it was nothing, really. I was only doing my duty, after all, making use of the heavenly gift I received from God.’