I had lied about my homework, of course. The essay was done, and I had worked through two chapters of geometry – about all I could handle in one night. The truth, of course, was that I had an errand to run, and I had a bit of preparation to do for it.

You don’t need a whole lot of tools to do a mediation. I mean, all that stuff about crosses and holy water, I guess you need those things to kill a vampire – and I can tell you right now that I have never in my life met a vampire, and I’ve spent a lot of time in graveyards – but for ghosts, well, you sort of have to wing it.

Sometimes, though, to get the job done right, you have to do a little breaking and entering. For that you need some tools. I highly recommend just using stuff you find on site because then you don’t have a lot to carry. But I do have a tool belt with a flashlight and some screwdrivers and pliers and stuff, which I wear over a pair of black leggings. I was fastening this on at around midnight, satisfied that everyone else in the house was asleep – including Sleepy, who was back from his pizza round by then – and had just shrugged into my motorcycle jacket when I got a visit from good old you-know-who.

‘Jeez,’ I said, when I caught a glimpse of his reflection behind mine in the mirror into which I was primping. I swear, I’ve been seeing ghosts for years, but it still freaks me out every time one of them materializes in front of me. I spun around, angry not so much that he was there, but because he’d managed to catch me so unaware. ‘Why are you still hanging around? I thought I told you to get lost.’

Jesse was leaning very casually against one of the posts to my bed. His dark-eyed gaze roved from the top of my hooded head to the toes of my black high-tops. ‘It’s a little late to be going out, don’t you think, Susannah?’ he asked as conversationally as if we’d been in the middle of a discussion about, oh, I don’t know, the second Fugitive Slave Act, which I believe had been enacted at or around the time he’d died.

‘Uh,’ I said, pulling the hood back. ‘Look, no offence, Jesse, but this is my room. How about you try getting out of it? And my business, too, please?’

Jesse didn’t move. ‘Your mother won’t like your going out so late at night.’

‘My mother.’ I glared at him. Up at him, I should say. He was really disconcertingly tall for someone who was dead. ‘What would you know about my mother?’

‘I like your mother very much,’ Jesse said calmly. ‘She is a good woman. You are very lucky to have a mother who loves you so very much. It would upset her, I think, to see you putting yourself in the path of danger.’