“I know,” I said. “But here I am.”

“Dance with me,” she said.

“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“Come on! You have to. I’ve been trying to get this last move right. You have to teach me.”

She extended her arm to one side and waited.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to.

She was still waiting, arm extended.

And then I changed my mind.

I wanted to.

I mirrored her position. She pointed her right foot and I pointed my left. Together, our arms rose over our heads and our feet lifted off the ground. Together, we bent forward and spun a half turn, and my hair in the wind, the movement I made, brought back my life.

A leap. Look how precious you were. A spin. How worthy of love you were. A dip. Look at your heart, intact. Reach to the sky. What a miracle it was. Swoop to the grass. How steadily it beat for the people you loved.

We danced, together, in the dark field of music. We danced with the fog all around us, my feet landing heavy on the grass, hers weightless. We danced until I lost my breath and had to stop. I watched her as she spun, tears streaming down my face, side aching with the effort of the movements, heart aching with memory. I watched her and I thought that of the two of us, I was surely the ghost. I was the faded one, and she was still vibrant and young, full of abandon and light.

But also: I was the one with a heartbeat, with a body that made me stop and rest, with time that would someday run out. Of the two of us, I was the one with a responsibility to the world, so I needed to wake myself up.

“Mila,” I said to her. And I thought she didn’t hear me at first, but then her movements began to change and slowly, slowly, she came to the end of her dance.

“What do we do now?” I asked her.

I was surprised, at first, by her sadness. I had thought she felt only delight—but sadness, of course, was a feeling all of us have always known. Was a feeling I had known, even before everything else.

“Oh, Mila,” she said. “You have to take me back.”

“How do I do that? Grammy and Grandpa are dead. Our mother is gone. There’s nowhere to take you back to.”

“No,” she said, and pressed her hand like Dr. Cole’s stethoscope against my heart. “You have to take me back.”

“Oh. When?”

Not soon, I hoped.

Maybe we could spend a few more nights together. I would never look away again. We could dance this way on other nights. The farm was full of ghosts, so surely, surely, she could stay awhile longer.

“Now,” she said. “If you’re ready.”

“I’m not.”