Shelly is disappointed, yeah, but she’s frustrated, too. She’d known Zhou’s was a long shot—why would it be more important to her mother than any other place she could reappear? The house or the cemetery makes way more sense and one of those places is already crossed off the list. If she were going to appear at home, she would have done it by now.

So she must be somewhere else.

She’ll check the cemetery again. Sometimes the dead are confused when they come back—like John Francis German and the river ghost. They don’t know who they are. If her mom’s lost, it’s up to Shelly to find her.

She already asked Joseph to look out for her mom. She can recruit other ghosts, too. Shelly knows the chances of finding a ghost who’s seen her mom are slim, but if there’s even a slight possibility—and she’s sure there is—then it’s worth trying.

She’ll find ghosts and ask them if they’ve seen her mom. She’ll show them a photo so they know who to look for. She’ll ask if they’ve run across a woman looking for her daughter.

Her mom is out there somewhere, and Shelly knows just where to start her search.

12

Shelly waits until Grandma starts cooking dinner then goes into her mother’s room.

There’s a framed photo of Shelly and her mom sitting on the bedside table. It was taken when Shelly was little, but not so little that Shelly can’t recognize herself. Shelly’s mother is holding her and smiling at the camera. Shelly looks thrilled to be caught up in her mother’s arms. The frame is fancy—colored gold with lots of little flowers carved into the metal.

For as long as Shelly can remember, their family was always her, her mom, and Grandma. She doesn’t remember the day the photo was taken, but she wishes she could go back. It’s a sunny day and they’re outside in a park somewhere. Shelly’s mom’s hair is short, barely reaching chin length. Even if her mom had wanted to, she couldn’t have caught ghosts with hair that short. She’s wearing a sweatshirt that Shelly recognizes—it’s dark red with flowers stitched across the front. Her mom used to wear it all the time. Shelly doesn’t know where it went.

Shelly’s hands are shaking when she opens up the back of the frame and slips the photo out.