“Joseph, have you seen my mom?” Shelly asks. “She hasn’t come home, and I don’t know—how long do you think it’ll take for her to show up?”

Joseph tilts his head, his dark eyes boring into her. “No hello?”

“Hi,” says Shelly, sitting on the grass in front of him. “Sorry, just—Grandma says we might have to move and we can’t move before I find her. How will she know where to find us if we do?” Grandma didn’t say anything about moving out of town, but Shelly’s pretty sure it’s what she meant. “I don’t want to leave her behind.”

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen her,” Joseph says, after a beat. “There’s been no new souls walking. Not since the last time you were here. Did Estelle leave?”

Shelly thinks about Estelle in her bedroom. She’s only got a cat and a dog and sometimes Shelly for company, but that’s a lot more than Joseph has. He’s been out here, alone, for a long time, with just his music.

She doesn’t want that for her mother.

“Estelle’s sticking around for a while,” she says. “She’s staying in my room.” Shelly pauses. She could get in trouble if Joseph tells on her. “We’re friends, right? You won’t tell Grandma?”

“Are we friends?” Joseph asks. “Little Shell, you didn’t even say hello. You didn’t bring me a tape. You don’t want me to be your friend. You want me to watch the graveyard for you. You want me to be your employee, like Old Lady does.”

Shelly frowns. There’s some truth to what Joseph’s saying—she wants information from him—but he’s wrong. “I’m not employing you. I just—I want to talk to you. I want to talk to someone who understands and Estelle just complains about how bored she is.”

“Yeah,” says Joseph. “She did that a lot here, too. Don’t you have friends? Alive friends? Friends who know about death from where you’re sitting? You’re spending too much time straddling two worlds, Little Shell. You’re spending too much time all wrapped up in death.”

Shelly’s starting to get annoyed. “This is important, Joseph,” she says. “I need to find her. Who cares how much time I spend with ghosts? This is what we do.”

“Is it?” he asks. “Where’s Old Lady?”

“Working.” Shelly scowls and pushes herself to her feet. “She’s working because she’s always working now. She’s so busy with ghosts and making money clearing houses that she’s got no time for me.”

“Maybe you should be talking to Old Lady and not me,” Joseph says, reaching up to run a hand through his curly hair. “I can’t help you with your grandma, Little Shell.”