My skin prickles.

“The Murderer?”

The washerwoman and Crafty Agatha nod.

“What would he be doing there?”

“Oh.” Crafty Agatha waves her ball of yarn in the air. “Well, he’s always either there or here. He comes and goes between the two all night long.” I blink at them, waiting for more of an explanation, which they finally seem to realize they should give.

“We don’t really know why,” the washerwoman says. “Only that he does the same thing every night.”

My stomach sinks. Never tell, the Murderer always says, like he’s keeping a secret. Homer said none of the ghosts know anything about what happened at the hospital that night. But what if there were one ghost, I suddenly realize, who’s decided to never tell? Could what happened the night I was born, and the Murderer’s secret, be linked?

I look toward the basement door, and steel myself to approach it.

“Leave him be, child,” Soggy urges me, floating up beside me. “Ghosts have ways of hurting you, no matter what Ebb says. If they’re angry enough. Haven’t you ever heard of falling chandeliers? Plates flying across a room? If a ghost is angry enough, he can kill. And trust me. That one is angry enough.”

I swallow before I take the last steps toward the door.

I open it, and peer down the stairs, then walk down them, one by one.

I look around, dreading the sight of the Murderer, the coal-red eyes, the rash around the neck.

But the basement is empty.

He’s not here.

CHAPTER 14

My mom drives us to school that night. I only have to remind her once or twice why we’re going, while she nods like Germ is some vague acquaintance I’ve barely mentioned before. The rest of the time, we’re silent. And the farther we get from the house and the sea, the more she fidgets and rubs her hands against the wheel.

As we turn onto Main Street, I pause at the sight of several ghosts hurrying to cross the road, dressed in suits as if for work. In the school parking lot, a ghost mother and child drift across the pavement, the mother dragging the child as if he’s late for school. Mom drives right through them, though they don’t seem to mind or veer off their path in any way.

I take a deep breath as we climb out of the car, then cross the lot and step through the double doors of my school. Only when I’m standing in the hallway, surrounded by crowds both living and dead, does it really sink in what kind of a night it’s going to be.