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hysteria or something. The burns had never actually been there.
    But when I got to The Happy Place after school, I checked again, just in case.
    The burn was back, its black color slowly seeping back into my arm. Maybe it only showed up near the Hall. Maybe it faded when I left the Hall, for some reason.
    Whatever it was, I was glad. I couldn’t stand the thought of it all being a hallucination. I needed to find these ghosts, and I knew that, somehow, the burn connected me to them.
    That night, I dreamed about the world of Death. It was black and glittering, like my burn. I walked into it through an archway of comets, and Igor was right beside me.

OCTOBER
    I T WASN’T UNTIL a couple of weeks into October that everything clicked.
    Wednesday morning. October 13. I woke up with my teeth chattering, like I’d been sleeping in a freezer. My breath puffed in little white bursts. So did Igor’s and Nonnie’s. I dressed fast, skipping around on the cold concrete floor.
    “Stupid drafty old place,” I muttered. “You’d think we lived in the Arctic or something.”
    Nonnie watched me happily from her cot, wrapped up in our quilts. “You’re grumpy lately, ombralina. Scontroso. ”
    “Well, Nonnie, that’s what happens when a girl gets moved from a house into a meat locker.”
    Nonnie clucked her tongue. “Is not so bad, now.”
    She was right; the temperature in the room had increased, and my breaths were back to invisible. I looked at Igor. “Weird, huh?”
    He glared up at me from my rumpled sheets. When will you stop talking so I can go back to sleep?
    “But not just today,” Nonnie said, tying her scarf over her eyes. “You are strange all the days. You are distracted.”
    Guilt sank into my stomach. I had been pretty distant lately. All I could think about were the ghosts; I spent hours drawing them after work, hours I should have spent with Nonnie.
    Nonnie peeked out from beneath her scarf. “You missed cards last night.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” I sighed and plopped down beside Nonnie. “What would you say if . . .” I looked at Igor for reassurance, but he wasn’t much help, already half asleep. “. . . if I told you I’d seen ghosts? And that I wanted to find a way to talk with them?”
    Nonnie’s eyes widened. “Il fantasma. Lo spettro!”
    I patted Nonnie’s arm. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “No, no!” Nonnie shook her head, grinning. “I saw lo spettro once. Once, when a girl. In old country. Oh, I was beautiful, ombralina ! I wore lace scarves. Everyone said, ‘She is so beautiful!’ ”
    “I bet you were, Nonnie.”
    “There were parties, oh, so many parties. And at one party”—Nonnie held up her finger—“there was game. And we sat in a circle and lit candles. We spoke to il spettro . He was a pirate capitano .” Nonnie grinned, leaned back against the wall. “He liked my scarf. He told me he did.”
    Chills skipped down my arms. “Nonnie?” I grabbed hershoulders, gently. “You said you sat in a circle. You lit candles. And then you talked to ghosts?”
    Nonnie nodded, moony-eyed. “ Il capitano , he was in love with me, I think.”
    “Nonnie!”
    She waved me away. “ Ombralina , it was la seduta. La spiritica. ”
    Spiritica. Spirits.
    “Oh my gosh, that’s it,” I said. I jumped to my feet, yanked on my boots, and grabbed my jacket from the bed. Never in my life had I been so excited to get to school. “That’s what we need! That’s how we can contact the ghosts!”
    A séance.

    At lunch that day, I walked to Henry’s table in the cafeteria and tapped him on the shoulder.
    “What are you doing here, psychopath?” Nick Weber said. The others laughed, except for Mark Everett, who focused hard on his lunch. I think I’d really freaked him out that day, running at him like I had. The thought made me smile.
    “Trying to decide what curse I should use on you,” I said. “So many choices.”
    Nick