Another ghost of a smile. It touches parts of his face I’ve never noticed before: smile lines under his eyes, a dimple on his right cheek—a phantom of who Thane used to be. I want to approach that subject, ask him how things changed once his mom was gone, ask him if he’s helping me because he’s hoping to bring her back, but my gaze has slipped from him to the graveyard.

For someone who can see the dead, graveyards are like walking through a creepy wax museum. Bodies freckle the landscape, frozen in states of death and time, and they’re all lost—suicides and the murdered, those who faced death suddenly or unexpectedly. They come in all forms: men and women, the old and the young, but the thing I can never quite come to terms with are the children—little girls with braided hair and white dresses, boys with smooth hair and small suits. It makes the push and pull of the energy they stir harder to bear.

Thane must notice because he grabs my arm, pulling me toward him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I breathe.

He slides his hand down my arm, wrapping his fingers around mine, and leads me through the graves.

At the back of the cemetery near the tree line sits a mausoleum. The marble structure resembles a house with a tall, steepled roof, and two windows flank a door with an image of a cross entangled in iron vines.

Thane approaches the mausoleum, digs his phone out of his pocket, and shines the light on the door. After studying the lock, he withdraws a thin silver spike from the pocket of his jacket and jams it into the keyhole.

Pretty sure this counts as desecration.

“What are you doing?”

“Picking a lock.”

“Is this something you do on a regular basis?”

“Not a regular basis,” he says none too confidently as the lock clicks. After pocketing his phone and the piece of silver, he pulls the door open, and we enter the mausoleum.

I expect a room of statues and crypts. Instead, the inside looks like a hotel lobby. There is a red rug that runs the length of the hall and two couches at the center, flanked by a set of side tables with wrought-iron lamps. At the very end, rising like a headstone, is a stained-glass window. Moonlight streams through, casting a kaleidoscope of colors over marble walls, highlighting the names of the dead.

“I thought this was a mausoleum.” My voice sounds ragged in the quiet of the hall.

“It is.”

“Why does it look so…relaxing?”

Thane gives me a look I can’t quite place until he speaks—it’s understanding, born from experience.

“It’s hard to let go. Having a place to come and visit makes things…easier over time.”