I look up, see her, and think to myself: This wild woman will be the second death of me.

Kasey is racing down the street like a champion sprinter, the vivid light around her only barely keeping up, as if she might outstrip her own halo in her rush. No jacket, but she is wearing the rest of her clothes - this time. Those brilliant red pants billow and flow around her legs.

“Will!” she shouts, so loudly that I twist around reflexively, checking to see whether she disturbed anyone in the houses lining the street. No lights flip on. Of course not. This voice is only for me, when Jamie isn’t here. “Will, Will, Will!”

I get to my feet at once, alarmed. Is Kasey in trouble, somehow? Because if so - dear god, I’m helpless to intervene. What could I even do?

But that’s not it. As she keeps shouting for me, I realize. There’s joy in her voice, bright and flowering and beautiful, curving around the sounds of my name. I love hearing her say my name in any voice, but this...

Icing on a cake. An extra layer of goodness on something already sweet.

I take off running towards her, and we both crash to a halt at the place on the road where we normally meet. It’s automatic and nonsensical, the way I throw my arms open when she stops before me. As if she could see them, or even know that they were there for her to leap into. I drop my hands to my sides again, telling myself not to be a fool.

Kasey just does this to me.

“Hello,” I begin.

“Will! Are you here? I have some incredible fucking news.”

“What, what-?”

“Do you remember the glasses that I told you about?”

I remember everything that Kasey has ever told me about. Hers are the only words spoken to me in lifetimes, so how can I forget? She’d said that the team was working on a pair of reading glasses, trying to enable them to reveal what she described as ‘spectral traces’.

The idea hadn’t given me much hope, truth be told.

It’s not that I lack faith in my friends. They’ve already made it much farther than I could have imagined. But I've spent most of the past two centuries in a graveyard. I’ve seen people show up in the middle of the night towing all manner of so-called ghost hunting equipment, most of which I can’t even identify the purpose of.

There are the modern options - infrared thermometers, EMF sensors, dowsing rods, spirit boxes. There have also been visitors who try for the classic approach: candles, grimoires, mirrors. Those people usually visit on Halloween.

Once some teenagers brought an old book that they read silly phrases from. They lit a circle of tapers and sat within it, half-anxious, half-laughing.

“Who knows if the spirits will grace us with their presence tonight?” the girl reading from the book had said. Meanwhile I was right there, quite literally trying to kick over their ouija board and get their attention. “O, evil specter that haunts this graveyard! Hear us now!”

“Evil?” I’d asked, pausing in the act of trying to move the planchette. “Now, wait just a moment-”

“I hear it now. I hear the spirit,” she’d continued, and I’d stopped still.

“Did you hear me?”

“I can identify the spirit! It’s a screaming, headless ghost! Brutally murdered!”

Her friends had giggled nervously.

“How on Earth could I be both headless and screaming?” I’d grumbled, but it made no matter.

I’m not hiding. I’m trying to be seen and heard, and yet, even with all of these tools, no one can find me. Naturally, then, I didn’t have high hopes when Kasey showed up saying that the team was working on creating a pair of ghost goggles.

Kasey hops up and down for a moment, then stops and clasps her hands under her chin, ready to burst with her news.

“Jamie and Aiden got the glasses to work!”

It’s a long moment before I can find anything to say.

“What?”

“Aiden can see me with them!” she continues, beaming. “And hear me, which like, I don’t get how that works, but. We tested them out! He talked to me, and I talked to him!”

I understand her happiness better than anyone else ever could. What I wouldn’t give! I expect to feel jealous, but - not when she’s wearing a smile like this. I can only smile back, delight in her joy.

“Well, that’s wonderful!” I tell her, and she presses on.

“We think that maybe now we can use the glasses to find your grave!”

“My grave?” Could they really find it? I haven’t been back there in - well, as long as I can remember. I used to wait in the old cemetery every day, hoping that someone else might rise up. When that graveyard was shut down, Memory Gardens opened, and I started waiting there, instead. I didn’t want to chance missing anyone.

By the time I thought to visit the old cemetery again, I couldn’t remember where it was. The footworn paths that led there had mossed over, reclaimed by the forest. I searched for days, to no avail. The landscape of Ketterbridge is so different now from what it was when I lived.

“Aiden says that the trace leading to the old cemetery is too faint for him to pick up without the glasses,” Kasey continues. “He says you probably haven’t gone back there for a long time.”

“He's right.”

“But he thinks maybe once we find your grave we can make you corporeal. Summon you.”

I sink to sit on the ground, my head spinning.

“Summon me.”

“If we were trying to do this in the old days, we’d definitely all be burned as witches.” That light flares again in Kasey’s eyes. She has history to share. “Do you know about that stuff, Will? Towards the end of the Middle Ages, around - I think it was 1450? - the witch-fear went wild, and then lasted more than two hundred fucking years. Some historians think that the fear began in the mountains, because the air is thin, which lends itself to collective hallucination. I think that’s a bit unfair to mountain dwellers, don’t you? I’d say the witch craze was simply a product of human cruelty. And sexism, but like, duh. There are interesting comparisons between Stalinism and - oh, I’m getting off-topic. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” I could listen to her go on forever, and happily. I need a moment to absorb the revelation about the glasses, anyways.

“The point is, we’re going to do our best.” She hesitates. “Will... the other night, when I asked if you were here, you gave me warmth, but just for a second. It wasn’t like it usually is. It felt like one quick touch.”

Kasey drops to sit on the street, facing me. This makes me feel like she knows I’m sitting down, and it puts a smile on my face, even if it can’t be true.

“Yes, that was different, wasn’t it?” I answer. “It was the first time I was able to give you warmth without disappearing.”

There’s a brief silence.

“Could you do it again, right now?” Kasey asks. “I’m just - I’m so excited about the glasses. I want to be sure that you know we’re making progress, and that we haven’t given up on you.”

It’s such a damn sweet thing for her to say. My heart twists. Something warm unfolds within my chest, and for a moment, I can only look at her, speechless.

I reach out across the space between us, then stop, unsure, my hand hovering over her wrist. There are no words for how devastated I’m going to be if I’m taken away from her in the middle of this particular conversation.

But I refuse to leave her unanswered. I brush my fingers against hers as quickly and lightly as I can. Kasey’s eyes widen; she tosses her head back and laughs. Bright, beautiful music that only I can hear.

“Fuck yes!” she shouts. “And are you excited, like, as excited as I am? Do it again, if you are.”

Can I do it again, without disappearing? I hesitate, then try once more. Kasey gasps.

“I felt that, Will! You told me something! You’re excited!”

Not only that, but I’m still here, somehow.

Kasey clasps her hands together again. She falls flat on her back in the middle of the road and bursts into a mixture of laughter and wild cheering. My face shifts into a smile, and then a big grin, and then we’re both sitting there laughing our heads off. I had forgotten what my laugh sounded like, before she came along.

“Hang on a second,” she says, rolling upright after we’ve calmed down. “If you can give me these little warmth touches, can you-? Okay, let’s try this. Touch me two times, in succession. Sort of fast. Try it, see what happens.”

I comply, and Kasey’s eyes widen again. She tips her head to the side and narrows her eyes, a face I know to mean she’s working through a problem in her head.

“Hmm...” She moves to sit cross-legged on the pavement. “I felt them both, which means… Try this, Will. One touch for yes. Two touches for no.”

I hold my breath, wondering if this will really work. Though I haven’t disappeared, I do feel a little less here. Each touch is eating me up, piece by piece, but I’m not about to stop now.

“Ready?” Kasey asks. “Wait, that’s not the question. Don’t answer that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I respond, still smiling.

“Shit, dude! I can barely choose a question. I have like a billion for you, but… Aiden says that the more we know about what happened to you, the more likely it is that we can summon you. So. I’m going to ask about your death, okay?”

“Okay.” In fact, I was rather hoping she might. I’ve been aching to explain myself to her, although I suppose I can only do so within the bounds of the questions she asks.

“Are we right in thinking that your death had something to do with Richard Newman? Specifically, that raid that he organized, on the landowners who wouldn’t sell to his company?”

I tap her hand once, leave a little spot of warmth there. Yes.

Kasey blinks rapidly, then shakes her head, dazed.

“Oh, shit, oh my god - this is crazy! I’ve never made a hypothesis about history and then been able to fact-check it with someone actually involved! Jesus.” She takes a steadying breath. “Okay, okay. I’m fine. Next question. Did Richard Newman murder you? Or no, wait. Too specific, he could have paid someone, or - let’s just do this. Were you murdered?”

I tap her hand twice. No.

“Okay,” she says. “That’s interesting… I was starting to think that maybe Newman killed you, or had you killed. To cover it all up.”

“No, but that would have been in keeping with his character,” I answer, a little breathless. Every time I touch her, it takes more out of me. I’m starting to feel thin, barely tethered to the world.

“Next question,” Kasey continues, and I nod, holding on with all I can. “This one won’t be helpful for the investigation, and I think I already know the answer, but… for my own sanity.” She pauses. “Do you like me coming here every night to see you? It makes me happy, but - does it make you happy? It just - means a lot to me, this time we spend together. It reminds me that I'm not alone. I know that sounds insane, given our circumstances, but-”

I grab both of her hands and pour out all of the remaining warmth that I have.