“It’s nice to see you so happy, Kase-face.”

She shoots me a tired smile from where she’s curled up in my armchair.

“You know,” she says, “When this first happened, it only felt scary and sad. I lost a lot, but... the worst part was thinking that I might be one of one. Nobody else to share this existence with.” She tucks her feet beneath herself, propping her chin on her palm. “Now, because of Will… I’m starting to see this whole thing as a wild fucking adventure. Maybe the rarest type of adventure in the world, right? If we’re the only two ghosts around?” She breaks into a grin. “How fucking cool is that?”

“It’s pretty fucking cool!” I match her smile. “Not to mention that you don’t have to work. You can spend every day doing whatever you want. Or doing nothing. It’s completely up to you. I’m actually jealous. Of that part, at least.”

“Yeah, right, like you wouldn’t miss working at the flower shop.”

“Like you don’t miss working on your Ph.D.!”

“I’m not even gonna bother denying something so obviously true.” Kasey yawns, then looks at the TV. “This is hilarious to me now, by the way.”

We have The Woman in Black playing, with the volume low. On the screen, the eponymous ghost appears in the corner, shrieking wildly. She hurtles towards the protagonist, decaying hands held out to strangle him. He screams, dropping to the floor just in time to escape.

“Now, this is what I’m talking about.” Kasey points to the TV. “I feel like, as a ghost, I should really spend more time terrorizing men.”

“You didn’t do enough of that while you were alive? Have you forgotten about that time in high school when Zach Putnam cried because he got assigned to go against you in debate?”

“Not my fault he didn’t come prepared,” she says primly, smoothing out her bright red pants. She looks down at them, then back up at the movie. “The Woman in Black has a dope funerary dress. That’s good and spooky. What would I be? The Woman in - Pants?”

“Well, that would definitely terrorize Coburn.”

Kasey taps her lip. “The Woman in Thrifted Couture Fabrics."

“The Woman in an Overall Chic Look,” I offer.

She laughs, then hops out of the armchair and joins me on the couch. The movie cuts to a shot of some horrifying dolls in a dark nursery.

“You see those, Kase-face? The ones at the Three Pines Inn were even creepier. I swear.”

“I know, I saw them. Aiden showed me a picture.”

“What!” I slump back against the cushions, smacking a distressed hand to my forehead. “He took a picture? I told him not to do that! As if those dolls can’t come through those pictures and murder us!”

“Maybe creepy dolls are misunderstood, like ghosts.” Kasey grins, all devious. “Maybe they just want to be your friend, Jamie.”

“Wow, hard pass. Major pass. No fucking thank you. I don’t want to be their friend.”

“Oh, no? What if you don’t have a choice?” She pitches her voice to a childish, wobbly croon. “You’re our friend now, Jamie, forever... come play with us…”

“Stop it!” I slap my hands over my ears, and Kasey laughs again, snuggling down at my side. “You’re so annoying! Quit haunting me.”

“Haunting just means to frequent someplace, you know. It had nothing to do with ghosts until Shakespeare decided that it did. Technically, you and Aiden haunt Mugshot.”

“Okay, well, who am I to argue with William fucking Shakespeare?”

Kasey shrugs, examining her fingernails. “I would do it.”

“I know you would! And he’d probably cry, just like Zach Putnam did.”

“I bet I can ramp up my haunting capabilities,” Kasey muses, her gaze flicking back to the screen.

“Not in my apartment, you can’t.”

“Come on, if I’m going to haunt someplace, I should learn how to do it with style. Like the Woman in Black does.” Kasey’s eyes roam my living room, then stop on the remote. She puts two fingers to her temples, like a psychic at a carnival. “Let’s see if I can turn off the TV.”

“Don’t even do that!” I reach for the remote and snatch it up.

I must have hit the volume button in my rush, because when the movie’s next jumpscare comes a few seconds later, it’s loud.

Kasey and I both scream. I half-fall, half-slide off of the couch, hurling the remote across the room in my panic.

“Um, hello?” someone says. Kasey and I both scream again, whipping around to face the door.

That was not my most graceful moment, nor like, the most manly sound I’ve ever made in my life. So of course Aiden would arrive just in time to witness it. He’s battling a laugh, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Oh - Aiden!” I press my shaking hands to my chest, then point an accusatory finger at him. “You! You took pictures of those fucking dolls? I’m gonna kill you!”

He steps inside, closing the door after himself. “Is that why we’re all screaming?”

“I didn’t scream, dude!” I stumble back to my feet, my cheeks flaming. “Nevermind about that! Where’d the remote go?”

“You threw it like, all the way across the apartment.” Kasey is still getting her breath back. “I think it landed in the kitchen?”

Aiden lets out a low chuckle.

“Wow, Jamie, who knew you had the instincts of a pro quarterback? You heard someone coming and immediately got rid of what you were holding? Great pocket awareness. You’re a linebacker’s worst nightmare.”

I stomp to the kitchen to track down the remote. I need to fix this volume situation before the next jumpscare causes more chaos.

“What does any of that even mean, honestly?” I call over my shoulder, and Aiden shakes his head, grinning.

“Did I miss most of the movie?” He strides to the couch and drops down next to Kasey, pushing the glasses further up his nose. “Can someone catch me up on what happened so f-?”

On the screen, the ghost appears in a window, shrieking in the hero’s face again. Both Aiden and Kasey gasp, grabbing for each other. Aiden’s hand sails through Kasey’s wrist, and her fingers punch right through his chest. They realize what happened, and start to laugh.

I stop at the kitchen counter, watching them, hit with an unexpected wave of affection. Kasey is right: death has taken a lot from her. But not our friendship. Never that.

And now she can count Aiden as a friend, too.

Sometimes it’s weirdly difficult to think of her as dead. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s constantly forgetting, herself. Always trying to slap my arm or pop a kiss on my cheek before she remembers she can’t.

I used to think of ghosts as trapped memories, plain and simple.

I pictured a sad, shadowy being. Something you might find inhabiting an old colonial in the Northeast, or a gothic city in the South. If not there, then in an abandoned mining town. A collapsing hotel. A house with a secret bricked up in its walls.

It makes sense, if you’re going by the traditional definition of a ghost: a relic of some terrible injustice or violent death. You expect to find them in lonely, heartbroken places, maintaining an endless vigil over the site of some long-forgotten tragedy. Held in permanent, unknowing stasis.

But Kasey is a ghost, and she couldn’t be less like that.

She still laughs, and smiles. We talk like we always did before. She remembers new things, she wants new things, and sometimes she goes out and gets them.

She went cliff diving, for fuck’s sake. She planned a successful heist, and unearthed a lost cemetery. She’s the one who told me that I needed to admit my feelings to Aiden.

She can’t reach out and touch anything, but what Kasey does has a real, tangible impact on the world. It’s less like she’s dead, more like she just - gave up her physical form. She still seems so full of life.

I’m so lucky that this is the kind of ghost Aiden created, when we could have had a Woman In Black kind of ghost on our hands.

Aiden. He’s the one responsible for all this. My magic man.

I move to the couch, bend over him, and wrap my arms around his neck.

“Hello,” he says. He tips his head back so that I can kiss him, his eyes catching the light. My heart trips up into my throat, nervous flutters moving through my stomach. Those haven’t stopped, even though we’ve been together for a minute now. I’m starting to wonder if they’re ever going to.

I find myself thinking of something that Kasey said to me, this summer.

Am I wrong in saying that the way you feel about Aiden, you’ve never felt about anyone else before? Because maybe, that means… All I’m saying is that his mom was wrong.

At that point, I hadn’t so much as kissed Aiden. How did Kasey fucking know, all the way back then? I didn’t even know. Or maybe I did, but - it’s taken me this long to face up to it, to understand how ridiculously right she was.

I guess that’s how it is, with people who know you better than you know yourself.

I release Aiden’s neck and bend over Kasey, holding her the same way. Hovering my arms around her approximate form, so that they don’t go through her.

She tips her head back, just like Aiden did. “What’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know,” I groan. “You two losers just make me happy. I can’t decide who I want to hug more.”

“What? Me, obviously.” Aiden turns to look at me, offended. “Hello? Am I hearing this right? You can’t decide who you want to hug more?”

“Obviously he wants to hug me more, Aiden! He hasn’t been able to hug me since like, the start of summer!”

“Okay, I’m literally his boyfriend, so-”

“Answer me this, who is he hugging right now, hmm?”

They instantly fall into an argument about it. Smiling to myself, I loop back to the kitchen, where I grab the remote that I completely forgot about.

As I turn down the volume on the TV, it occurs to me that Will comes closer to fitting my old definition of a ghost. Isn’t he a lost soul, bound by tragedy to one tiny place?

Poor guy. He must be lonely, and bored to death.

I glance over at the squabble happening on my couch. Kasey is up on her knees, punctuating each point she makes with a loud clap. Aiden is laughing, leaning back, threatening to remove the glasses and win the argument by default.

“Do it, Aiden, see what happens!” Kasey warns, stabbing a finger at his chest.

Life is about to get a whole lot more interesting for Will.

Or afterlife, I should say.

~~~~

Long after Kasey takes off for Benton Street, I lay awake in bed, lost in thought.

Aiden is passed out by my side. The window is open, and it’s cold in my room, but his body heat is keeping me toasty.

He's at war with his dreams, tonight. He keeps swallowing, and his jaw is clenched. Every now and then, he’ll make quiet sounds, or speak.

I look over as he does it again.

“Couldn’t reach you.” His voice is soft, and pained. “Couldn’t… reach.”

I work my fingers into his hair, then skate my nails along his scalp in slow, repeated movements. I’ve noticed that he usually falls quiet after a few minutes of this. I don’t know if that means it’s helping, but I do it anyways, just in case.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper, knowing full well that this apology is not for me.

Aiden stirs, but doesn’t wake up. “It’s… okay?”

My fingers pause, mid-movement. He caught me by surprise. This is the first time I’ve answered something he said in his sleep, and I didn’t expect him to hear me.

“Yes.” I give his chestnut hair a gentle tug. “It’s okay.”

He goes silent again, but I keep smoothing my fingers through his hair, watching him.

I’m thinking about the locket, and the woman who wore it, all that time ago. Ariana.

I’m thinking about what it means to love someone so much that the proof of it is still in existence, two hundred years later.

I trace my fingers down Aiden’s sleeping face. I get it, Ariana.

Suddenly overwhelmed, I climb out of bed and feel around in the dark for my boxers, then for Aiden’s sweater.

The locket is on my dresser. I pick it up and open the lid, peering down at the blank, golden surface inside.

Did the jeweler who made this put the secret latch in? That seems like a strange thing for them to do. It looks like the locket was designed to have a portrait and a standard hair compartment. But the portrait has been left out, and the compartment sealed up.

Did Ariana ask someone to make her a locket with a trick latch?

Did Ariana make the trick latch herself?

It’s so well disguised. You have to look really hard to separate it from the tiny decorative leaves framing the locket’s outer edge. Either that latch was always there, or whoever added it had an expert hand.

A muffled sound rises from the bed. I turn to find Aiden all curled up, muttering something to himself.

I climb back onto the comforters next to him, then touch my hand to his face.

“Aiden? Is it getting worse? Should I wake you u-?”

I break off, staring at the locket. I’d forgotten that I was holding it, but that’s not what’s grabbing my attention.

Does it feel suddenly - warmer?

I take my fingers from Aiden’s face, and the metal immediately goes cool.

I test it out a few times. It doesn’t seem to matter where I put my hands, so long as I’m touching him. It’s indisputable: the locket gets warm when I touch Aiden, and turns cold the second I let him go.

I’m hesitant to wake him up, but it doesn’t seem like he’s getting restful sleep right now, anyways.

“Aiden.” I give his shoulder a gentle shake. “Aiden.”

He vaults upright, gasping, blue eyes filled with panic. “Jamie?”

I drop the locket and gather his face into my hands.

“Hi, it’s okay! I’m right here.”

I press my forehead to his, and he closes a hand around my wrist. His breathing starts to slow, like I knew it would. We’ve gone through a handful of nights like this together, by now. I’m starting to figure out what helps him, and what doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, when he gets his breath back. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. I just noticed something weird. Check this out.” I drop the locket into his fingers, then flatten my palm on his chest. He blinks, looking down at the locket. “You feel that?”

“I... do.” He frowns. “Why is that happening?”

“Wait for it.” I take my hand from his chest. “It only happens when we’re touching each other.”

“Yeah, it’s cold, now.” Aiden's eyes are wide. “What the fuck? This is so weird. I’ve never seen magic like this.”

He sounds baffled, but also sort of - impressed?

“Does it have to do with our connection?” I ask. “Should we try opening the connection while one of us holds it? Just see what happens?”

Aiden offers me his free hand, grasping the locket with the other. I take his fingers, and the connection sends sparkling warmth gliding up my arm. 

Magic flickers to life in Aiden’s eyes. We wait in silence.

"Holy shit," I whisper, as a glow begins to gather around the locket.

What? Aiden asks, with his inside voice.

The - you don’t see that?

See what?

I don’t answer. My eyes are glued to the locket, and the white-blue light blossoming around it.

Are you doing that, Aiden?

Am I doing what?

I can feel his confusion through our connection. He’s not joking or pretending. I’m the only one seeing this.

It dawns on me slowly. I’m the only one on the team with the Vision.

Um. Aiden.

Yes?

We need to talk to Kasey. There’s been a development.