Grandma is in the kitchen, frying fish at the stove, when Shelly arrives. “I’m home,” Shelly says, not stopping as she heads to her room. “I have some homework.”

“Dinner will be done soon,” says Grandma, flipping fish in the pan. It’s early, but Grandma likes to eat early. “Fried fish with rice and peas—No Frills had a special on. Wash up and come eat, and then do your homework.”

“Okay!” Shelly calls back, wondering if ghost cats would hunt ghost fish.

She pushes open her bedroom door and makes sure it’s shut tight before reaching for the comb on her dresser so she can free the cat from her hair. It lands on the carpet just as Estelle pokes her head out of the closet.

“What’s that?” Estelle asks. “A cat?”

Shelly raises a finger to her lips. “We can’t talk too loud,” she says. “Grandma might hear. I thought you could use some company. It’s cute, isn’t it?”

Estelle and the cat eye each other with equal wariness.

“A cat’s not exactly a crossword puzzle,” Estelle says, as the cat begins to circle the room, investigating. “A cat’s a responsibility.”

“It’s a ghost cat,” says Shelly. “It can’t die a second time.”

Estelle lets out a throaty cackle of a laugh that startles both Shelly and the cat. “You’re right. There are worse starter pets to have. I’m not going to take care of this thing on my own, though. I’m not a cat person. I like dogs.”

Shelly reaches down to pet the cat and it meows at her. It sounds like it’s meowing from the other end of a long hallway. Shelly smiles at the cat and its edges blur even further as it starts to purr, its whole being vibrating.

“Okay,” Shelly says, an idea forming in the back of her mind as the cat crawls onto her lap. “That’s fine. I like dogs, too.”

“Shelly!” Grandma calls from the kitchen. “Dinner!”

Shelly leaves Estelle and the cat. She can tell she was just playing with a ghost. The chill that follows the dead lingers on her skin.

Grandma looks up from plating the fish and frowns. Shelly freezes. Grandma’s more sensitive than she is, even if she missed Shelly bringing Estelle home. “Shelly,” she says. “You’ve been around ghosts.”

Shelly could lie and try to turn this back on her grandma, who has cobwebs in her gray hair and looks tired, the same way Shelly’s mom used to when she came home and made dinner after working all day. She could say Grandma’s just confused. Bending the truth seems more practical.

“I went to the graveyard,” she says. “I talked to Joseph.”

Grandma gives her a sad look, setting her skillet back down on the stove. “Shelly, I’d like to see her, too, but your mother isn’t—”