But they stop in a close circle before touching me, casting me in a ring of light.

I pull my forearms from in front of my eyes. They’re looking not at me but at one another. They turn to face the opposite direction, one by one, flipping like telepathic dominoes, connected to the movement of each other. Only one stays facing my direction—a man whose mist constellation forms the suggestions of a plaid shirt open over his ribbed tank top. Loose pants wave around the ankles, just above his sandals.

The man kneels in front of me so that his head is closer to my head, I guess to approach me on the same level. Honestly, it’s just terrifying because he’s the size of a monument. He could bite my head off if he wanted to.

“Jake . . .” His voice shakes me from the inside out.

The mist changes shape. It pulls off the giant figures like dandelion petals in a strong gust of wind. The mist forms around my body, breathes into me, puts gusto in my chest and strength in my bones.

How does he know my name? Where am I? Who are they?

The mist man shrinks down, closer to my size. “Jake?” he says. “What are you doing here?”

His face, even constructed in stars, obstructed in dust, looks familiar to me. I’ve seen him in picture frames and photo albums, mostly around Grandma’s house. Real smooth OG, always seen in beach shorts with a book and a pencil, or in a classy getup—suspenders, shiny shoes, and cigars. He’s always with Mom or Auntie Sheryl in the pictures. It’s their dad, who died when I was too young to remember.

And now, here he is. “Grandpa?” I say.

“You got something evil chasing you,” he warns me, shaking his head slightly, like there’s no time for introductions. “An evil that’s about to rip that good spirit in two.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talkin’ ’bout you, sleepin’ on a playground, all ready to let Satan win.”

A gray fog curls off the ground outside the circle, and new shapes form in the matter of black clouds, like the dust from a bomb explosion. Stringy limbs, emaciated midsections, bald, eyeless heads—the ghouls. They walk around the circle, around my circle, like they’re searching for a way to sneak in and get me. One of the protectors—one with a saber—lashes out and slices the arm of a ghoul. Black fluid leaks out of its sallow skin as it crouches backward, hissing through the darkness.

This dust of glittering blue and the fireflies synchronized in airborne ballets around me . . . they were never mindless souls. They were conscious people all along.