“This is taking forever.” I pace back and forth beside the map, twisting the ring around my finger. “You think she’s in trouble?”

Aiden leans his hip against the workbench, watching me affectionately. “Breathe. It’s gonna be okay.”

“I don’t like this.” I twist the ring again, then stop, looking at Aiden from across the map. “This is why we went in the first place, not her. What if it’s dangerous for her in there? What if she turns incorporeal, or - what if she can’t get out-?”

“If she can’t get out, we’ll go in and get her,” Aiden says firmly. “We promised that we’d give her enough time to try. Come on, you know Kasey, do you really think she’s not up to the challenge?”

“No, of course not, it’s not that.” I hesitate, then blurt out: “But I already lost her once, and if you hadn’t done something, that would have been forever, and I just - can’t...”

I fade off as Aiden pushes himself upright and moves around the map to stand with me.

“Jamie.” He takes me by the elbows, looking into my eyes. “It’s going to be alright.” He presses a gentle kiss onto my mouth, and I let myself sink into it, let it steady out my heart. “We just have to be patient,” Aiden murmurs, brushing his knuckles along my jaw. “Hang in there.”

I tip into his arms, lean my cheek against the broad plane of his chest.

“Why did he run?” I ask. “Doesn’t he want to be rescued?”

Aiden is silent for a minute.

“It’s - hard,” he finally says, “To let people really see you, after a long time of nobody knowing you at all. Harder than you’d think.”

I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, a pulse of light moves across the surface of the map.

My heart leaps in wild hope. Aiden and I release each other, backing up.

There’s a second, brighter flash, and I just have time to see a ghostly figure burst from the map’s surface before my vision is overwhelmed by the light.

When I blink my eyes open again, Kasey is on the floor by the map, sitting up, panting.

“Kasey!” I rush over and drop to a crouch next to her, a tidal wave of relief flooding through me. “Thank fucking god!”

“Is he here?” She pushes her hair out of her face, looking around frantically. “Did he-?”

She stops, staring past me. Aiden and I both turn, following her eye line.

“No fucking way,” Aiden whispers.

It’s Will. He made it.

He’s just starting to sit up, where he landed near the back of the Ghost Office. He sees us all looking and scrambles to his feet, gasping. He backs all the way up to the wall, like he’s going to press up against it. But he starts to fall through it, and Kasey flings out a hand.

“Will!” She stumbles to her feet, her arm outstretched. “Please don’t go! It’s okay! You’re okay!”

Will stops where he is, his eyes wide and wild and roaming over us.

From my peripheral vision, I see Aiden bend to snatch the pocket watch up off of the map. With one token gone, the entrance is sealed, which means that Will can’t panic and dive back in. Aiden slips the watch into his pocket, the tiniest flash of gold, and then it’s gone.

No one else has moved.

I caught a glimpse of Will when we were inside the map, but I was so stunned to see him - and then so stressed when he ran off - that I didn’t process too much. Now, with him here, standing still, I take a longer look.

He’s tall and broad-shouldered, closer to Aiden’s height than mine. He has a full head of shimmering blonde hair, short in length, but long enough to curl down over his temple. Like Kasey, he’s held onto some of his coloring in his ghostly form, and I can discern the sharp, leaf-green shade of his eyes, the hint of gold in his hair. He has peaked eyebrows, and a small white scar on the left edge of his jaw.

Kasey and I had been joking about how he might have one of those intense, thick, swirly mustaches that were popular back then, but he has no facial hair at all. I’m surprised that Kasey hasn’t said anything about it already, honestly.

Will’s clothes are - different. He’s in a cotton work shirt, snowy white in color. Simple, not fancy; it looks like something designed for ruggedness, durability. There are five buttons down the front, the topmost of which is undone, leaving the collar open, a little room around his throat. His sleeves are folded up around his elbows.

He’s also wearing what I want to call - trousers? They come up well over his hips, and the shirt is tucked into them. They’re a smoky charcoal color, with a flat-front design, more fitted to him than the shirt.

Rounding off the whole look are brown leather suspenders and a pair of scuffed work boots.

He looks close to our age, which means that he hasn’t aged at all during his two hundred years of waiting for this. In fact, there’s a very faint sunburn on his nose and cheeks, unfaded, after all this time.

“Will.” Kasey takes a step closer. “You’re with friends. You know these guys, remember? Jamie and Aiden?”

I hold up my hand in a tentative wave, and Aiden does the same.

Will is breathing hard, but he swallows, apparently bracing himself.

I hold my breath. I think he’s about to try and speak.

“Yes, I-” Will begins, his voice unsteady. “Greetings, gentlemen. I apologize, I - I can’t seem to keep my countenance.”

Holy shit. He did it. He said something.

I manage to resist the urge to turn and catch Aiden’s eye, but it’s a full-body battle.

“What’s up, dude?” Aiden says to Will, with a friendly nod. “We’re so stoked that you made it through! With your voice and everything!”

Will had seemed to be recovering, but now, staggered that Aiden heard and responded to what he said, he freezes again.

“Dear lord,” he murmurs, more to himself than to us.

Will’s voice is low, and very quiet. Probably because he’s nervous, which is unsurprising. What is surprising, though, is the soft lilt to his words, almost a bit of a Southern drawl. The second g in greetings was barely there, and gentlemen sounded more like gen-ul-min.

Kasey has obviously noticed, too.

“You’re not from here originally, are you, Will? From Ketterbridge?”

“No, ma’am.” He seems dazed, like he doesn’t believe any of this is really happening, and it’s the only reason he can keep speaking. “But I’m what you might call a long-term resident.”

I blink in surprise, then let out a stunned laugh. I think that Will just made a joke. Kasey and Aiden laugh, too, and Will seems encouraged by it. He sort of smiles. It’s a sideways smile, a lift to the right corner of his mouth.

“Used to be cottonwood galleries a quarter-mile wide along the river, when I first came here,” he adds.

“I can’t fucking believe this.” Kasey presses her fingers over her mouth, incredulous. “How do you feel, Will? Are you - are you all here?”

“I’m not rightly sure how to tell,” he admits.

“You just know, obviously,” Kasey answers. “Come on, man. That’s like, basic stuff. Ghost 101.”

Will blinks, affronted, then seems to realize he’s being teased.

“Ghost 101,” he repeats, arching a blonde eyebrow. “A most complex lesson. ‘You just know’. Someone fetch me a pen, and I shall make note of it, so I don’t forget.”

Kasey laughs again, her eyes filled with happy amazement.

“You. Guys,” she says hoarsely, reaching for Aiden’s hand, and for mine. We gather closer to her, taking her fingers as best we can. “You. Guys. We. Did. It.”

“Nobody freak out,” Aiden says softly. “Nobody freak out.”

But something must be going on with our faces, or maybe Will has just remembered that three people are looking at him, because his expression shifts, and suddenly he looks terrified again.

He disappears. Just vanishes, in a fraction of a second.

“Oh-” Kasey takes a few running steps forward, then stops. “Will!” she calls. “It’s okay, come back!”

He reappears, now in the far corner of the Ghost Office. He looks equally as startled as we are.

“What happened?” he gasps. “I didn’t mean to-”

“You can appear and reappear, now that you’re corporeal,” Kasey explains, holding out her hands in a stay-calm kind of way. “Here, watch.”

She vanishes, reappearing right next to Aiden, who jumps and lets out a curse.

“See?” Kasey says. “Super easy.”

She disappears again, then reappears at the center of the Ghost Office, beside the map.

“Try to come to me.” She reaches a hand for Will. “I know it sounds weird, but you’ll just know how to do it. Seriously.”

He takes a breath, then closes his eyes.

He disappears, and when he reappears a second later, he’s a foot or so in front of Kasey.

“Just like that,” she says, beaming.

“Ghost 101.” Will shakes his head in disbelief. “Truthfully? It’s ‘you just know’? I really must note it down, after all.”

Kasey laughs, practically glowing.

Will’s depleted confidence seems to bounce back with every laugh he gets from Kasey. His green eyes brighten up right away. He bites down on his half-smile, then disappears again. He reappears by the workbenches, and lets out an amazed laugh of his own.

“Okay, stop it!” Kasey calls. “Don’t make me chase you all over the Ghost Office! Haven’t we been after you for long enough?”

I expect Will to come back, but he only looks at her, tossing his hair out of his eyes. It turns out that half-smile of his can be very devious. In fact, it reminds me of the exact way that Kasey smiles when she’s about to completely ignore somebody’s directions.

Kasey seems to realize that he’s not going to come quietly. I see a fire spark in her dark eyes.

She disappears, but right when she appears by the workbenches, Will vanishes, rematerializing by the door. Kasey’s eyes scan the Ghost Office until she finds him. She disappears again. By the time she reappears by the door, Will has already vanished, and reappeared by the stairs to the loft.

“Hey!” Kasey laughs, and Will laughs, too.

“Ghost 101.” He clicks his tongue, as if he can’t believe she would insult him like that. “When I have two hundred years of experience.”

Kasey tips her head to the side. “You think I’m not going to catch you?”

“I notice you haven’t yet.”

Kasey grins in a way that I know means Will is in trouble, even if he hasn’t figured it out yet. She disappears, and Will does, too.

He reappears again, this time up in the loft. He peers down at the loft stairs, searching for Kasey, but she’s nowhere.

I see the realization spread over Will’s face, that she was waiting to see where he would go before she reappears.

“Oh,” he says, about one second before Kasey materializes directly in front of him.

“That’s right, oh!” she laughs, and leaps into his arms.

Will makes a surprised sound, catching her automatically. Her momentum sends both of them flying over the edge of the loft.

“Kasey!” he gasps, and they both disappear in mid-air, before they can hit the floor.

They reappear on their feet, right next to me.

“Lord’s sake!” Will stammers. “I - I did not move, that time.”

“I think I moved us both?” Kasey is panting, her arms still wrapped around his waist. “Shit, I didn’t even know I could do that!”

Will seems to realize all at once that Kasey is holding him, and that he’s holding her. He freezes up, his jaw tensing. Kasey must sense it; she lets him go and steps back. He stands very still, kneading his palm, his green eyes startled.

“Sorry,” Kasey says, fanning her face. “Baby steps. I get it. You’re just so - you-” She clasps her hands under her chin, then catches my eye, grinning. “Jamie,” she hisses.

“Told you,” I hiss back, grinning just as widely, my heart singing to see her so happy.

Will is glancing between the two of us, confused. I’m about to say something, but then Aiden winds an arm around my shoulder, and Will pauses, staring at us.

The warmth in my chest fades slightly as I brace myself for whatever he’s about to say.

“I - I can scarcely find the words for my gratitude,” Will manages, blinking hard. “You have no notion, no notion whatsoever.”

I turn to catch Aiden’s eye, and he flashes me a smile, squeezing my shoulders.

Will is looking down at his hands.

“I simply can’t believe this. I can't believe you can all - all see me.” He looks up at us, and shivers. “I’m sorry, I don’t - don’t know why-”

“It’s okay, Will,” Kasey interrupts. “No one has looked at you in two hundred years. This reaction is - okay, well, I was going to say normal, but honestly, nothing about this is normal, so. Would it be easier for you if - do you want some time alone? To - adjust to seeing yourself, first? We understand, if you do.”

To Kasey’s credit, she keeps any regret out of her voice, even though I know how desperate she’s been to spend time with him.

Will considers, nibbling his lip.

“Would it - would it be terribly ungrateful, if I did?”

Kasey shakes her head, then offers her hand. Will takes it, and when she smiles up at him, he smiles back.

“I’ll be waiting,” she says. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Will lifts her hand to his mouth, drops his head, and kisses her knuckles. No hesitation, like this is just how a person says goodbye to a lady. Kasey blushes, then catches my eye over the top of his head, and mouths: oh my fucking god.

“I won’t keep you waiting long this time, Miss Lavoe,” Will promises, straightening up.

“Meet you on Benton Street?” Kasey asks, and he nods.

“On Benton Street.”

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, smiles, and disappears.

~~~~

There’s a brief silence after Will vanishes. We all just stand there, staring at the spot where he was.

“Oh my god!” Kasey shouts, at the top of her lungs. I burst into laughter, and Aiden does, too. We all dissolve into a fit of screaming and jumping around. “We fucking did it!” Kasey hollers, both fists punched into the air.

Aiden snatches me into his arms and lifts me up off the ground, then reaches his free hand for Kasey. She springs over, joining the huddle as well as she can, and we all melt into laughter, sagging together.

“Holy shit,” Kasey wheezes. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

“Oh, it’s happening,” I tell her, grinning so hard that my face aches. “Believe that, Miss Lavoe.”

“Oh my god,” she giggles, pressing her hands over her eyes. “Shut up forever, please.”

“Nope, we’re never shutting up again.” Aiden lowers me carefully to the floor, then leans his elbow on my shoulder. “So, how do we feel about the suspenders, Miss Lavoe?”

“They’re not a fashion statement, you idiot!” Kasey swipes her hand through Aiden’s arm. “They didn’t wear belts outside of the military back then, and elastic hadn’t been invented, and-” She breaks off, biting her lip. “I like them,” she blurts out, and Aiden and I instantly start laughing again.

Kasey laughs, too, but I hear something change in it. I stop, looking at her, surprised. She drops her face into her hands.

It turns out that even if Kasey can’t cry as a ghost, she can sob.

But I know better than to think it’s coming from a place of unhappiness. The opposite, in fact.

I smile at Aiden, and we gather together, linking our arms around Kasey on either side, into the closest approximation of a hug we can give her.