We use the tent stakes to mark the boundaries of the area we’ll be searching. We need to know what ground we’ve already covered if we fail to find Will’s headstone on the first try. The stakes are oddly comforting: they make the search radius seem less hopelessly vast. I mean - who knows how spread out these headstones might be, how big this churchyard is? If there was a wall here before, it’s long gone now.

“Done,” I announce, returning from my reconnaissance mission. “I don’t see any ground plants that should give us trouble. Nothing but the stinging nettles, and they’re on the other side of the church.”

“Great.” Aiden is already unlacing his boots.

“But - keep your socks on,” I add, sitting down next to him. “Just in case I missed something.”

I pull my shoes off, then dig an orange out of my backpack and start peeling it. We’re beneath the row of Incense-cedars, sitting on a thick blanket of pine needles. It’s late afternoon by now, and diffuse sunlight makes its way down through the boughs overhead, speckling Aiden with droplets of brightness. I pause, watching him, then hastily turn back to the orange when he glances over at me.

“Where did Kasey go?” I ask. Just peeling my orange. Didn’t get smitten for a second. Not at all.

“She’s back in the church.”

“Well, we can’t start the plan without her. Mission - um - feel things with our toes.”

“Oh, god,” Aiden laughs. “We’re going to need a better name for it than that.”

“Our - foot search?”

“Foot Search sounds like a website someone with a very specific fetish would go to.”

“Aiden!” I let out a startled laugh, and he grins at me. “You’re feeling better, huh? You’ve got jokes, now?”

“Yep.” He takes off his hat, hooks it onto his knee, and leans his head back against the closest Incense-cedar. “I’m still super pissed off at Ralph, but the good news is, I finally feel a tiny bit less terrible about the smackdown I gave him at Kent’s house. Tiny bit.”

“That’s very fair.” I offer him an orange slice. He takes it, and I blurt out the question on my mind. “Aren’t you more pissed at him for basically trying to pour a drink down your throat at Angie’s party? He already knew by that point, right? That you had quit, and…?”

Aiden nibbles thoughtfully on the piece of orange I gave him.

“Yeah, that sucked, too, but at least it was right to my face. It’s the sneaky shit that really gets under my skin. I don’t like having to guess what people really mean, or whether they’re lying to me, or playing games… It makes me all paranoid.” He sighs. “In a way, though, I almost have to hand it to Ralph. He came up with that lie so fast, and he made it sound so convincing. He did it right in front of Noah, he knew that Noah would agree with whatever he said, and then Noah did, and that made it all the more believable.”

“Yep, when it comes to bullshit, Ralph could teach the master class.”

“I should know better by now,” Aiden says, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I even...”

Because you two used to be friends, I think, but I’m not about to say that right now. I hand Aiden another orange slice, then take one for myself.

“Well, I’m proud of you. You were so angry, but you didn’t explode a single thing.”

“I think that Kasey would actually find a way to murder me if I destroyed a historical site right in front of her. I’d be the next resident of this cemetery.”

I laugh, then swipe my phone unlocked.

“I would have been pretty bummed out myself, if you had exploded the church. I mean, look at this.” I lean over to show him my phone, scrolling through the photos I’ve been taking all day. I have ones of the church’s exterior, the sealed door, the row of trees we’re currently leaning against. A whole lot more of the interior, lit up by Aiden’s flashlight and the phone's camera flash.

I also took some closeups of the Virgin Mary. I’d wanted to peel away the moss so we could see more, but Kasey put her foot down. Apparently doing so might have peeled the remaining paint right off the wall.

“You took lots of pictures of that,” Aiden observes.

“I want to show my mom, she’d love this.” I pause, looking up at him. “Unless-? That’s not really telling her about the ghost hunt, right? She knows we’re camping, I was just gonna be like, look at this cool thing we found-”

Aiden cuts me off with a gentle, citrusy kiss.

“Yes, you can show her. Thank you for asking.”

“We can show her together! She wants you to come over for dinner again. Actually, could you tell my mom about finding the church? I would do it, but I’d have to lie and cut Kasey out of the story, and that can only go-”

“No one’s cutting me out of shit, babe,” Kasey says, reappearing through the church wall. She stops in front of us, drops her jacket to the forest floor, and sits down on it. “In fact, I’m going down in the fucking history books. Aiden, take a memo.”

“With what?” Aiden asks, opening his empty hands.

“The memo should say this.”

“I haven’t got any-”

“On this day, Kasey Lavoe, historian, ghost, and all-around dime-piece-”

“Agreed!” I put in.

“Identified a ruined church in the middle of a massive forest - are you getting all this, Aiden?”

“No, I don’t have-”

“In the middle of a massive forest, with the assistance of her team, and before she even got her Ph.D.” Kasey leans back, smiling. “I can cross one more thing off my bucket list. I know that’s stuff you’re supposed to do before you die, but you know. You make do. Did Aiden see any spectral traces, by the way?”

“No, I didn't. And I don’t hear anything spectral, either. I don’t know why.”

The mention of his hearing calls to mind a question I’ve been meaning to ask. I hesitate, but my curiosity wins out.

“Aiden, is it easier for you, being out here? Is all the noise in your head quieter, now that we're farther away from Ketterbridge?”

“No. Location doesn’t matter. Believe me, I’ve been everywhere - like, everywhere - and the volume never changes. It doesn’t make a difference if I’m in Ketterbridge, or the forest, or - I don’t know. Phnom Penh. It’s always the same.”

Kasey blinks at him.

“You’ve been to Cambodia, Aiden? You went to Phnom Penh?”

“Uh - yeah, but honestly, I couldn’t tell you much about it. I was… fucked up the whole time, and…” He stops, noticing the change in Kasey’s expression. “What?”

“Ugh, it’s just - before I died, I had tickets booked to go visit my grandparents and my cousins in Vietnam, and I planned to do a whole bunch of exploring around that part of the world… Phnom Penh was on my list.” She scowls. “And now I might never be able to leave Ketterbridge. It kind of sucks.”

“We tried,” I explain when Aiden turns to look at me. “Kasey almost fell apart when we hit the city limits. It was so scary.”

“Oh.” Aiden bites his lip. “I’m sorry, Kasey. You’re powered by my power, and my power comes from the Guardian Tree. I think you got too far away from your battery.”

She stares at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you probably can’t go a certain distance away from the Guardian Tree. I bet that’s why Will is still here, too.”

“What?” Kasey moans. She twists to look at me. “Jamie…”

The look in her eyes feels like a kick to my chest.

“No, no, Kase-face, that’s just how it is now, we can still find a solution, we’ll find a way for you to go wherever you want. Right, Aiden?” I look over at him. He’s biting the inside of his cheek.

“Uh - yeah, totally.”

“Could we move the tree?” Kasey asks him, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Move the tree?”

“It’s not a potted plant, it’s huge, Kasey,” I tell her. “Ancient.”

“Yeah, even if we could move it, that would probably kill it, and if it dies-” Aiden cuts himself off.

There’s a moment of heavy silence.

“What happens if it dies, Aiden?” I ask, my voice scraping.

“That... would be very bad for me. We don’t want that.”

I remember tracing my fingers down the tree’s unusual bark. The way that Aiden shivered, and told me he could feel it on his own skin.

“Okay, so, we are not fucking with the Guardian Tree,” I say firmly. “I know we don’t exactly have a plan, but if we can find a ruined church in the middle of an old growth forest, and make ghost goggles, and get a magical map working - we can figure out some sort of new battery for you, Kasey. Right after we rescue Will.”

I must have sounded more sure of myself than Aiden did, because Kasey falls silent and thinks it over, nodding slowly.

“Then let’s get busy.” She gets up, puts her hands on her hips, and surveys the bounded-off area we set up. “We need to leave time to hike again before we set up camp, since Jamie refuses to sleep in a cemetery-”

“Yes, because I’m the only member of this team with a shred of self-preservation.”

“So, come on. Let’s do this.”

~~~~

Aiden and I line up side by side at the edge of our search area. Kasey moves to the opposite end; she’ll be making sure we’re not wasting time doubling over the same ground.

“Shoes off?” she calls. “Toes ready?”

“Shoes off, toes ready, perfect slogan for that Foot Search website, hmm?” I mutter in Aiden’s ear, and he laughs.

“You idiot.”

“Would you two please stay focused over there?”

“We’re ready, we’re ready!”

Aiden and I walk together in our socks, feeling out the forest floor. At first it’s all soft and pliable, just earth and plants, but soon I step on something hard and drop to take a look.

“False alarm,” I call, straightening up again. “Big rock.”

We walk a few more steps, and Aiden stops.

“I’ve got something!” He bends and brushes some soil away. “It’s - another rock. These slabs must have fallen from the church. Pieces of the tower, maybe?”

“Keep going!” Kasey calls.

We reach the far edge of the boundary. Kasey steps to the side, marking the place we’ve already walked. Aiden and I move deeper into the search area, turn around, and head back towards the church. We'll do these back and forth laps until we make a find.

I almost immediately trip over something cold and hard.

“Goddamnit, my fucking toe-”

“Found something, Jamie?” Kasey asks.

I crouch again and dig my hands into the soil, uncovering something smooth, large, and covered in moss.

“Headstone!” I shout, and Kasey lets out a whoop.

“Nice work, Jamie! Who do we have?”

“Let’s see…” I drag a clump of moss away, then lean closer to the inscription. “We have… Clint Ellis.”

“Oh, I’ve got one, too!” Aiden digs a handful of weeds out of the way. “I found… Elizabeth Whitcomb. Beloved mother of… ten children? Jesus Christ.”

“Get after it, Elizabeth!” Kasey calls.

“This is like the world’s weirdest Easter egg hunt,” I mumble, standing up and brushing my hands off.

The next hour is spent uncovering headstone after headstone. Some are clear and legible once the plant life is pulled away; some are fractured and cracked. Others have fallen onto their faces. We have to turn those ones over to read them, which means that Aiden’s powerful build comes in handy again. One headstone is completely shattered, and we have to put it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

We move slowly around the invisible cemetery, uncovering long-lost souls, calling out names as we go.

“Jane Orston!”

“Ezra Shay!”

“Oliver Campbell!”

“Anne Graves! Oh, that’s ironic-”

“Isaac Pryor!”

“Aiden, can you come help me flip this one over?”

Aiden joins me at the headstone I’m clearing off. He pulls his sweatshirt off over his head, briefly dragging up his shirt and revealing those sloping lines of muscle by his hips. I forget what we’re doing for a second, and by the time my brain is working again, he’s already got the headstone half pushed over. I watch his arms while he does it, thinking that I actually wish more of these things were turned on the wrong side-

“Looks like we have…” Aiden sets the headstone onto its back. “Hmm. This one’s really mossy, but looks like - Joseph, something?”

“What, Aiden?” Kasey calls. “Did you say Joseph?”

“Yeah, no luck!”

“Isn’t that Will’s middle name?” she shouts back. “Wasn’t that engraved on the watch? William Joseph Clarke?”

Aiden and I look at each other, then both begin hurriedly scrubbing our hands over the stone, rolling away layers of moss and soil.

“Holy shit,” Aiden breathes.

“Kasey, get over here!”

She comes running, then drops to her knees between the two of us. There’s a silence as we all stare, breathless and wide-eyed, at the inscription.

In Sacred Memory of William Joseph Clarke

Departed This Life September 2nd 1822

In his Twenty Fifth Year

And below, in smaller, flowing script:

To nicest honour he be consign'd, while virtue rules his generous mind, and friendship crowns his love.

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

“Will,” Kasey murmurs, her dark eyes shining. “It’s you.”

~~~~

“This inscription, it means something,” Kasey says, when we’ve finally calmed down. “The timber company arranged William’s funeral, right? Why would they put this little poem on his headstone?”

“Um…”

“They wouldn’t have done that, not unless someone asked them to. So who asked? Aiden, you said that Will wasn’t from Ketterbridge, that he didn’t have any family in the area…”

“Not that we know of, at least.”

“Could have been his timber buddies?” I suggest.

“Oh, my god,” Kasey groans, pressing her fingers to her temples. “You two are both so dumb when it comes to this stuff.”

Aiden and I exchange a confused glance.

“What stuff?” he asks.

“Romance, dummies. I’m saying that it’s romantic. This line… it’s too intimate to be anything else. Someone went out of their way to ask for this to be put on Will’s headstone. Someone…” Kasey looks down at the lettering again, like she can read a secret message there. “Someone who was in love with him.”

“What? We don’t know that for sure. That seems like a leap to me.”

“No, Jamie. Trust me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’m not technically an expert, but I have been in love, and I know what it looks like.”

“You have?” Aiden asks, breaking his gaze from the headstone to look at her. “With who?”

Kasey falls silent, so I answer for her.

“Milo. Kasey’s college boyfriend.”

“He was more than that.” Kasey blinks and stares down at her hands. “Circumstance split us up. God, though, I was crazy about him. I wonder where he is now.”

“He’s on an archaeological dig outside of Rome,” I tell her.

Kasey twists to look at me.

“What? Why do you know that?”

“I emailed him. I wanted him to come to the funeral. Do you remember the rose bouquet I left on your headstone after? Milo sent that. We couldn’t get him a flight in time.”

“Aw, Jamie, you - you sweet-” Kasey breaks off and reaches for me, and we pretend that we can hold hands. Something we’re getting good at. “I guess Will and I both lost our first loves.”

“Well…” I answer. “You still have a chance for a new one.”

Kasey turns back to Will’s headstone and uses her shimmering finger to trace out the lettering, one more time. She pauses, her fingertip on the last word: love.

“We’re going to find him, right?” she asks, very quietly. “Team?”

“Of course we’ll find him!” I close my arms around her, and Aiden does, too. A loose approximation of a hug, as much as a living person can give a ghost.

But I hope that we can give her something more, soon. Someone who can hug her for real.

In fact, I’m not just hoping. I’m determined.