The weight of all the ghosts she’s carried back to the house in her hair is enough to make her head ache every time she thinks about them. She hides them in the dresser in her closet when she leaves for school and leaves Estelle free to keep an eye on them—Estelle knows to hide from her grandma, even if she’s nasty sometimes, and she’s bossy enough to tell the other ghosts what to do.

Still, she’d rather spend time with her ghosts than with Grandma, who speaks too carefully to her now, or at school, where everyone except Isabel acts like they’ve forgotten how to talk to her at all.

• • •

“Do you think you could teach me to see ghosts?” Isabel asks Shelly before class one day. “Maybe during recess? I have an extra pack of Gushers.”

“It’s a family thing. I can’t teach you,” Shelly says. She’s never known anyone outside of their family who can communicate with ghosts the way they do. It’s something that gets passed down, a skill and a tradition. “And you don’t get rid of all ghosts.”

“Why not?” Isabel asks. “They’re dead. Don’t they have to move on? You could tell me more about them, right?”

“I don’t really feel like it,” Shelly says. “I like to read during recess.”

Isabel leaves her alone after that.

Isabel knows about ghosts, but she doesn’t understand them like Shelly does. And she keeps trying to talk about her parents and how her dad still doesn’t believe in ghosts, but her mom’s convinced. Shelly doesn’t really want to talk about family right now.

Shelly doesn’t really talk to anyone. She ignores the other kids at school, and everyone but Isabel returns the favor. When she’s not at school, Shelly wanders the streets. She finds ghosts and she brings them home—another cat and two dogs, a squirrel that skitters out of a bush and chirps at her feet, the faded memories of ghosts that were once people and are now just impressions of emotions: fear, longing, acceptance, confusion.

“This is too many ghosts for me,” Estelle says, when Shelly brings the raccoon home. She has to elbow Diya out of the way to get to Shelly. “You’re hoarding now.”

“I’m not,” says Shelly. “I’m making sure you aren’t forgotten.”

Shelly ignores Estelle’s complaints. She builds up her collection spirit by spirit. She finds ghosts, but none of them are the one she’s looking for, and more and more the collection feels too heavy to carry.