“Never get in the back of a car with doors you can’t open,” Grandma tells Shelly, holding her hand as they make their way down the sidewalk. “You be polite to the police, but stay out of that car.”

It’s a dreary day—gray and damp—and Shelly thinks it would be kind of cool to ride in a police car, even on a day when taking the bus didn’t mean wading through puddles, but she doesn’t say so. Grandma’s got a point about getting in cars with doors you can’t unlock.

It takes longer to get to the river by bus than it does to get to the cemetery. When they get there, Jenny has a cardboard cup of tea for Grandma and a fancy hot chocolate for Shelly, which makes the long bus ride worth it.

“We just need help finding him,” Jenny says, gesturing out at the river. It’s wide and deep and its murky water is deceptively sluggish. “It’d save us a lot of time if you can figure out where he ended up.”

Grandma takes a sip of her tea, scanning the river’s edge. “We’ll see if he’s around,” she says. “I’ll give it a shot.” She hands her tea to Shelly and unbraids her hair, letting it hang loose around her shoulders. When she takes her tea back, Shelly starts to let her hair down, too, but Grandma stops her. “Just watch today,” she says. “Give me your hand, though. The ground’s slippery.”

They walk up and down the banks of the river, the cops trailing after them. Grandma’s hair blows around her face, ready to pull up any ghosts that cross their path.

The earth is soft and the mud sucks at Shelly’s feet. The hems of her pant legs get heavy with water and dirt. Shelly’s been to a lot of haunted places and seen a lot of ghosts, but this is more miserable than any haunted house. Her hot chocolate helps a little, but the drizzling rain and gray skies feel sad in a way hauntings don’t usually feel to Shelly. Maybe going to Isabel’s would have been better after all.

It takes three passes along the river for Grandma to catch the ghost they’re looking for. His clothes are soaked, plastered to his body, and his shivering makes him shift in and out of focus. He doesn’t speak, but he keeps glancing over his shoulder toward a little outcrop of rocks jutting out into the water.

“Ah,” Grandma says, nodding. She gestures the cops closer and points to the rocks. “He’s caught up in there. A nice young man with a red beard.”