Shelly keeps her opinions on walnuts to herself and smiles at Isabel, feeling a little lighter for the first time in a long time. “That sounds good. Maybe we could play a game, too. If you want.”

Isabel smiles back. “I’d love to.”

• • •

When Shelly gets home from school, Grandma is waiting for her, covered in ghosts. Shelly’s whole body goes cold, like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. Grandma looks angry.

Shelly’s mind races. She doesn’t know how Grandma found the ghosts. Maybe Estelle got tired of sharing Shelly’s room with other spirits. Maybe Grandma was putting laundry away. Maybe she finally let herself feel the way death was piling up in her house and followed it to the source.

It doesn’t really matter how she found them. What matters is that Shelly’s good mood is about to be ruined. Grandma says, “Shelly, we need to talk.”

Grandma’s voice is stern. She’s holding herself stiffly, like it’s taking a lot of energy to keep so many ghosts in one place.

Shelly thinks about denying the ghosts for a moment, but there’s no point lying now—Grandma has them. She went into Shelly’s room and dug them out of her dresser and filled the kitchen with them. Looking at Grandma through the hazy veil of ghosts surrounding both of them, it’s hard for Shelly to believe she fit so many into her tiny room.

She can’t tell if Grandma has let some of the ghosts go already or not. She sees Estelle and Diya—and Gavin and the cat—but the kitchen is packed to the brim with spirits.

The kitchen is so full it makes Shelly feel like she’s drowning from the weight of the dead. It’s a heavy feeling in her chest that reminds her of why she started collecting in the first place. She was helping them, protecting them. She was gathering up company that noticed her when nobody else would—Grandma included.

“Those are mine!” she snaps. “You had no right going through my things!”

“I told you that you had too many of us,” Estelle says, from behind Grandma’s shoulder. “You should have listened.”

“They aren’t yours,” Grandma says. Her hair is writhing with ghosts. “They belong to themselves and they don’t belong here.”

“I invited them here and they want to stay,” Shelly says. “I can’t tell them anything about where they’re going next so why would I make them go? They’re happy here!”

Diya and her wide white eyes look bewildered. “Oh, this is . . . I didn’t mean . . . I think I’d like to go.”

Shelly thinks Estelle was right, not liking Diya.