She feels the ghost as soon as she steps into the house. It’s definitely not Isabel’s grandma. There’s nothing nice feeling about this ghost at all. It’s like static electricity all along her skin—a prickling sensation that makes the hair on her arms stand up and has her shivering. She looks up at Grandma, who’s undoing her hair already.

“You have a ghost all right,” Grandma says. “It feels like an old one.”

Shelly’s pretty sure Joseph and the little boy in the hotel are the oldest ghosts she’s seen—the ghosts who’ve been around the longest. This ghost feels very different.

“I knew it,” Mrs. Lee says, triumphant. “I knew it wasn’t just because the house is old.”

“Mom, calm down,” says Isabel, and Mrs. Lee laughs.

Shelly steps away from Isabel and walks over to her grandma’s side. “What should I do?” she asks. “Want me to try and find the ghost, too?”

“I think it’s found us,” Grandma says, and she’s right—the ghost appears at the far end of the hallway a moment later. It looks like static, too, all flickering black and white and gray, not at all as settled and person-like as Joseph. It doesn’t walk, just flashes on and off, on and off, getting closer to where Shelly and Grandma are standing.

Mrs. Lee steps away from them, grabbing Isabel’s shoulders and pulling her back, too. She’s not laughing anymore. “What’s happening?”

“What?” says the ghost, voice crackling. “Who?”

“It’s the ghost,” Grandma says. “Don’t worry. We’ll handle it.”

Mrs. Lee doesn’t look very reassured.

Shelly reaches up to undo her hair and Grandma stops her. “I’ll handle it, Shelly,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about this one.”

Except Shelly wants to worry. Shelly wants to have something to do and Grandma isn’t letting her. It’s not fair. “I can handle it. I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you can,” Grandma says, “but I’ve got it.”

“Who?” says the ghost, voice louder now, echoing down the hall, loud enough to make Shelly flinch. “Why?”

“You need to move on,” Grandma says. “You’ve been here too long.”

The ghost’s attention focuses sharply on Grandma. It flashes into place in front of her, a towering column of static. “Who?”

Grandma doesn’t move. She stares down the ghost and twirls a strand of hair around her finger, reeling it in. She looks magnificent—powerful. Shelly wishes Grandma would give her the chance to show her she can be that way, too. “If you can’t remember, you can’t be here anymore.”