As we entered the garden, she slowed. I glanced down and saw my distorted reflection in the gazing ball, then almost giggled. But Agatha gave me a hard tug, and the buoyant feeling disappeared back under the confusion.

“Agatha, slow down!” I hissed, trying to rush but feeling another wave of dizziness overtake me. I dragged her to a stop and put my hand on her shoulder to keep from toppling over. She gave me a moment to get my bearings and then we were off again.

I’d never seen her move so quickly. There was none of the usual wooden stiffness in her body, none of the passive slowness. She didn’t even seem like the same person. I had the surreal thought that we’d switched roles, that I was the sick one and she was the steadfast companion.

Finally, we made our way down the barren stretch of path that led to the graveyard.

The gates ahead of us were wide open.

We weren’t going in there, were we? After my nightmare, I wasn’t exactly eager to visit Lily’s grave. Any grave, really.

“I don’t—” I began to protest, but she spun on me, silencing me with an intense stare.

Oh, she’s mad, I thought. She’s upset that I planted flowers for her mother.

So upset that she brought me down to look at them in the middle of the night?

And also . . . how would she even know I’d planted the flowers?

We went more slowly now—taking our time and moving between the trees, using them as cover. Agatha seemed to be carefully considering each bit of forward progress. I gave up on the idea of resisting—she was strong, and any struggle would have broken the silence that seemed to be an important part of this undertaking.

Finally, we passed the last of the large, gated memorials, and reached the part where the path wound like a snake around a thicket of low, dense bushes. Beyond this, I knew, was Lily’s grave.

I started shivering, and felt Agatha’s hand tighten around my arm. Was she reassuring me—or grasping me harder so I wouldn’t run away?

Then she stopped short and sidestepped, dragging me off the path to stand behind one of the tree trunks. Forty feet away from where we hid was Lily’s isolated grave site.

I blinked. Even from this distance, I could see that there was something . . . weird about it.

I looked back at Agatha. She was frozen, staring straight at the grave. Her right hand released my wrist and then hovered in the air, still, as if caught mid-gesture.

Suddenly in the darkness, movement.

A pale figure standing over the grave, luminous in the sliver of moonlight cutting down through the trees.

A ghost?

I gasped, and Agatha grabbed my hand again to express her disapproval.

Right. Quiet.

Don’t disturb the ghost.