“What people?” Mom asks, throwing her hands in the air. “What ghosts? I’m not saying you can’t help them, Mom. I’m saying don’t bring them into our house and don’t take Shelly with you when you go—don’t drag her along to deal with strange ghosts. You take all the jobs you want. Charge some money or ask for favors—do whatever you want, Mom. You’re an adult. But Shelly doesn’t need to grow up with ghosts in her hair and her head.”

“I’m teaching Shelly the same things I taught you,” Grandma says. “She knows the rules. I don’t know why you’re so worried. The dead aren’t anything to be concerned about.”

“I find them concerning!”

Shelly slinks out of the kitchen to avoid the rest of the argument. She doesn’t want to get caught between her mom and her grandma. She knows her mom is just trying to look after her, but that doesn’t mean Shelly thinks she’s right, and she doesn’t want to say that to her face.

Shelly knows where she stands with ghosts, even if her mother doesn’t like the work that Shelly and Grandma do. It’s important. Even if Shelly’s a little worried about where they’re sending ghosts to, the dead are just people. It’s like Grandma says—when someone needs your help, you give it.

7

After Mom and Grandma’s argument over the river ghost, it takes a while for Grandma to bring Shelly with her on a job again. Grandma waits until a Saturday when Mom is working late. She knocks on Shelly’s bedroom door and says, “How would you like to go downtown today?”

Shelly looks up from the book on parapsychology she got out of the library—it’s useless, full of facts about electromagnetic fields, and Shelly is pretty sure those don’t apply to ghosts at all. Honestly, it’s pretty funny—a whole field of people who think ghost hunting is all infrared cameras and EMF readers are so caught up thinking they know everything that they don’t realize they’re going about finding ghosts all wrong.

Shelly would rather be doing something else, though. “What for?”

“Ghosts,” Grandma says, a note of triumph in her voice. “We’re going to go someplace nice.”

Shelly closes the book.

Grandma pulls Shelly’s hair back into a neat French braid and ties her own in a bun. She makes Shelly change out of jeans into a skirt. They take the bus all the way into the heart of downtown, to a fancy old hotel, and Grandma leads Shelly through the big lobby to the concierge desk.

“We’re here about your ghost,” Grandma tells him.