Somehow I managed to keep my poise as I grabbed my backpack and closed my locker. She trailed me down the long hallway and through the front door, her chill breath on my neck, her icy hands clutching at my clothes. It was a long time before the air around me warmed and I knew she’d dissolved back into the netherworld. After that I made sure I was safely away from school before twilight, which meant no extracurricular activities. No ball games, no parties, no prom. I couldn’t take the chance of running into Miss Compton again. I was too afraid she might somehow latch onto me and then my life would never again be my own.
I turned my attention back to the ghost in the restaurant. I recognized him, too, but I didn’t know him personally. I’d seen his picture on the front page of the Post and Courier a few weeks ago. His name was Lincoln McCoy, a prominent Charleston businessman who’d slaughtered his wife and children one night and then shot himself in the head rather than surrender to the S.W.A.T. team that had surrounded his house.
The way he appeared to me now was quite ethereal, with no evidence of the wrongs he’d committed on himself or his family. Except for his eyes. They were dark and blazing, yet at the same time icy. As he peered at me across the restaurant, I saw a faint smile touch his ghostly features.
Instead of flinching or glancing away in fright, I stared right back at him. He’d drifted into the restaurant behind an elderly couple who were now waiting to be seated. As his eyes held mine, I pretended to look right through him, even going so far as to wave at an imaginary acquaintance.