“Because your girlfriend hates you, and instead of dealing with it, you’re acting like Mr. Mixologist, whoever the hell that is, and people are leaving you behind in tunnels and stuff. It’s just, it’s obvious, is all.” To Bigs, she whispered, “And because I won’t be a part of any situation where the well-meaning black people die first. I’ll kill the demon with my bare hands before that happens.”

Bigs laughed at her.

“What?” she asked. “You know I will.”

Harrison folded his arms. “Who decided that was the person I was?”

“You did,” Aidy said, holding his ego like a toy she might toss.

“Okay, I didn’t say now was the time we deal with it,” Teeny warned. No one wanted to pick at the scab covering Harrison and Aidy. “I guess I have to say this. I’ve been trying not to, but obviously the rest of you don’t see it yet. This night is about ghosts.”

The room went stiller than still. It was as if stillness itself tipped over and spilled out until it was dry, leaving us in suspended animation.

“Exactly,” Teeny said in answer to the quiet. “You all know I’m right. We’re here for a ghost, and I’m going to be the one to announce it, because then I can take the power out of what scares me. I’m about to leave for college, and I want to get out of this place for good. I’m not carrying her ghost around. Listen to what she told me.” She removed her letter from the purse beside her sleeping bag. “You listen and try to tell me I’m wrong.”

TENIYAH CAMPBELL

Welcome to the Adventure. Eyes on your own paper, please.

What do you think about when you’re in dance class? All that time in front of a mirror, studying every inch of your body. Does it make you stop thinking of yourself as a person? You’re a billion pieces, building and unbuilding, stacking and unstacking, hinging and unhinging, squeezing, pushing, pulling, leaning, standing, falling, all to create something bigger than you. I know when I watch you that you’re more than a person. But do you? Is that what you think? It’s got to be more than eight counts and technical corrections in your head. There’s seriously no way you can do the things you do thinking like that. Or believing you’re just a person. I’ve gotta think that you see yourself as so many things, like you’re the sun and then the sky and then a ball and then fire and then a bird and then a tree, all in one step.