Heather’s eyes widened. ‘Shut up,’ she said.

‘You blew your brains out in front of his mother because you were too stupid to realize that no boy – not even Bryce Martinson – is worth dying for.’ I strolled past her, out on to one of the gravel pathways between the garden beds. I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself, but it was making me a little nervous, standing under the breezeway after what had happened to Bryce. ‘Boy you must have been mad when you realized what you’d done. Killed yourself. And over something so stupid. Because of a guy.’

‘Shut up!’ This time she didn’t just say it. She screamed it, so loud that she had to ball her hands up into fists at her sides, close her eyes, and hunch up her shoulders to do it. The scream was so loud, my ears were ringing afterwards. But no one came running from the rectory, where I saw a few lights on. The mourning doves that I’d heard cooing in the eaves of the breezeway hadn’t uttered a peep since Heather had shown up, and the crickets had cut short their midnight serenade.

People can’t hear ghosts – well, most people, anyway – but the same can’t be said for animals and even insects. They are hyperalert to the presence of the paranormal. Max, the Ackermans’ dog, won’t go near my room thanks to Jesse.

‘It’s no use your screaming like that,’ I said. ‘No one but me can hear it.’

‘I’ll scream all I want,’ she shrieked. And then she proceeded to do so.

Yawning, I went and sat down on one of the wooden benches by Father Serra’s statue. There was a plaque, I noticed, at the statue’s base. I could read it easily with the help of the floodlamps and the moon.

The Venerable Father Junipero Serra, the plaque read, 1713–1784. His righteous ways and self-abnegation were a lesson to all who knew him and received his teachings.

Huh. I was going to have to look up self-abnegation in the dictionary when I got home. I wondered if it was the same as self-flagellation, something for which Serra had also been known.

‘Are you listening to me?’ Heather screamed.

I looked at her. ‘Do you know what the word abnegation means?’ I asked.

She stopped screaming and just stared at me. Then she strode forwards, her face a mask of livid rage.

‘Listen to me, you bitch,’ she said, stopping when she stood a foot away from me. ‘I want you gone, do you understand? I want you out of this school. That is my locker. Kelly Prescott is my best friend. And Bryce Martinson is my boyfriend! You get out, you go back to where you came from. Everything was just fine before you got here—’

I had to interrupt. ‘I’m sorry, Heather, but everything was not just fine before I got here. You know how I know that? Because you’re dead. OK? You are dead. Dead people don’t have lockers, or best friends, or boyfriends. You know why? Because they’re dead.’