Grandma sets the mug of warm milk in front of him. “There’s nothing wrong with being afraid,” she says. “But you’ve been in the graveyard for a long time.”

“Yeah. Maybe this is a sign it’s time for me to go.” Joseph prods the mug with a finger. “I’d rather have music. I don’t need feeding.”

“You could stay here,” Shelly says, even though she knows Grandma won’t approve. “I can keep you here. You should only have to leave when you’re ready.”

Joseph looks up at Shelly. There’s no music coming from his headphones now, just his voice, and something about that is more distressing than if he’d been playing a sad song. “No,” he says. “No, I don’t think I can stay. We’re supposed to be friends, right? I don’t think staying is what a friend would do, Little Shell.”

“We carry our dead with us everywhere we go,” Grandma says, reaching out to touch Shelly’s hair. “The important people don’t leave us, even when their ghosts are gone. Even if they never come back.”

“Do I get to be important?” Joseph looks at Shelly, lips smiling nervously. “You’ll remember me, won’t you? I gave you a good tape. Introduced you to new music. Sat with you in a graveyard at midnight. That’s worth getting remembered.”

Shelly’s hands are shaking. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest and she wants to say no. She wants to tell Joseph he needs to stay around if he wants her to remember him. She wants to tell Grandma that memories aren’t the same as a person. That they fade. One day she won’t remember the sound of Joseph’s voice through his headphones. One day she won’t remember her mother’s face. Maybe ghosts aren’t the same as living people, but they’re better than nothing. She wants to wrap herself up in them and hold them close. She wants to keep everybody here, with her, instead of letting them leave.

“I don’t want you to go,” she says. She’s trying not to cry, but when she blinks a hot tear rolls down her cheek. “You don’t want to go.”

“I know,” says Joseph. “But I think I have to.”

“We’ll remember you,” Grandma promises. She takes a comb from her apron pocket. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know,” says Joseph. “But I guess most people don’t get to decide, do they?” He cups the mug in his insubstantial hands, looking down at the milk inside it. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”