“Is he a—”

“Yes.”

Something cold touched my spine and it was all I could do to keep my gaze trained on the ground.

“Papa,” I whispered. I had always called him this. I don’t know why I’d latched onto such an old-fashioned moniker, but it suited him. He had always seemed very old to me, even though he was not yet fifty. For as long as I could remember, his face had been heavily lined and weathered, like the cracked mud of a dry creek bed, and his shoulders drooped from years of bending over the graves.

But despite his poor posture, there was great dignity in his bearing and much kindness in his eyes and in his smile. I loved him with every fiber of my nine-year-old being. He and Mama were my whole world. Or had been, until that moment.

I saw something shift in Papa’s face and then his eyes slowly closed in resignation. He laid aside our rakes and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Let’s rest for a spell,” he said.

We sat on the ground, our backs to the ghost, as we watched dusk creep in from the Lowcountry. I couldn’t stop shivsering, even though the waning light was still warm on my face.

“Who is he?” I finally whispered, unable to bear the quiet any longer.

“I don’t know.”

“Why can’t I look at him?” It occurred to me then that I was more afraid of what Papa was about to tell me than I was of the ghost.

“You don’t want him to know that you can see him.”

“Why not?” When he didn’t answer, I picked up a twig and poked it through a dead leaf, spinning it like a pinwheel between my fingers. “Why not, Papa?”

“Because what the dead want more than anything is to be a part of our world again. They’re like parasites, drawn to our energy, feeding off our warmth. If they know you can see them, they’ll cling to you like blight. You’ll never be rid of them. And your life will never again be your own.”