At one point Joshua looked down at his watch impatiently. It was almost 2:40, only fifteen minutes until the end of school. As he read his watch, I could see one emotion all over his face: frustration at the apparent failure of his brilliant plan. He grabbed one of the few books left on the stack, handling it with less care than the others and flopping it open to the first page.

That’s when it happened.

The first page was as innocuous as those of the other yearbooks. It boasted a picture of a cartoon man in a hardhat (a Digger, apparently the school’s mascot), and the dates 1998 to 1999. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The second page, however, was much different. This second page contained a large, full-color photograph of a girl. Underneath the picture was a caption, which read:

In Loving Memory of Amelia Elizabeth Ashley

April 30, 1981—April 30, 1999

I stopped breathing. Then I began to choke.

I stood up suddenly, forcefully. The chair in which I’d been sitting flew back across the tiles with a loud screech before it slammed against the library wall.

My head swung around toward the sound. I stared at the chair, openmouthed. It seemed ordinary enough—a red plastic seat atop thin metal legs. Just a plain old chair. And the first object in the living world, other than Joshua, I’d been able to move since my death.

The thought of my death sent my head flying back around to the photograph in the yearbook. To the girl in it, and the name under it.

The chair would have to wait.

This picture scared the hell out of me. I wanted nothing more in this world than to turn away from it. But I was transfixed.

The girl in the picture stared up with the tiniest smile on her lips. The smile curved up just a bit at the corners; it was pleasant but wary, as though the girl had heard something funny but wasn’t sure if it was okay to laugh. Her eyes—a bright, woodsy green that matched her dress—sparkled with the laugh. Her wavy brown hair fell past her shoulders and framed her thin, oval face. A pink flush couldn’t quite cover the tiny freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

She looked timid and sweet, but also vibrant. And very alive.

A drop of liquid fell from my chin and hit the page, darkening into a round little spot on the girl’s neck. I wiped at my cheek, reflexively knowing the droplet was a tear—my tear.

“That’s me in the picture, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t even look at Joshua, couldn’t pull my eyes away from the picture as I spoke. I whispered, as if a loud noise might break the spell that had fallen over us. Nothing but silence answered me. Then—

“Told you you’re beautiful.”

I turned toward the soft sound of his voice. Actually, only my head moved, since my body appeared to be anchored to the desk. I didn’t realize until now that I’d gripped the edge of the desk with both hands, knuckles clenched to white above the wood grain. Under my fingertips, I could feel the slick surface of the wood breaking through the numbness. This sudden, physical sensation didn’t surprise me in the least; actually, I was kind of shocked I hadn’t splintered the desk with the force of my grip.

I wasn’t the only one in shock, either. Joshua stared back at me; belief, disbelief, and a multitude of other emotions played across his face. But no matter how disparate his changing facial expressions might be, each of them told me the same thing.

He knew. Beyond any doubt, beyond any wish, beyond any hope. He knew I was Amelia Elizabeth Ashley. And I was dead.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

Joshua slowly rose from his chair. He held out his hands in front of him in a gesture of surrender. The action reminded me of the way he’d approached me three days ago, on High Bridge Road. Like he expected me to run away at any second.

Still moving with absolute care, Joshua placed his hands on either side of my face but didn’t touch me. He looked directly into my eyes and raised his eyebrows. Warning me of his next move, or maybe asking permission for it.

Though I didn’t respond, he must have sensed some kind of assent on my part. He lowered both of his hands to my cheeks, gently cupping my face. I held perfectly still, even when it felt as if his hands had burned prints onto my skin. Joshua leaned forward and, very softly, pressed his lips to my forehead, just above my eyebrow.

The kiss sent a jolt through my entire body. The sensation was more intense than any I’d felt until now—a pure shock wave rushing along my spine and down each of my limbs. I gasped from the strength of it, dragging in a near-shriek of air.

Reacting to the sound, Joshua tried to pull away to see if I was okay; but I clamped my hands down on his, holding them to my cheeks. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my ragged breath. I shook my head No, willing him not to move.

He complied, standing close to me and cupping one side of my face in his left hand while stroking my other cheek with the fingertips of his right hand. Eventually, my breathing began to even itself, coming out in a slightly less alarming way than its previous pant. After a few seconds I released his hands and nodded to let him know I was better. Far from okay. But better.

Joshua ran his fingers down my cheek once more and then dropped his hands. I felt him move away from me, though I didn’t open my eyes. I could hear him rustling around somewhere a few feet behind me. Slowly, I opened one eye, then the other. I turned my head to peek at my picture, which stared up innocently from the desktop.

I was still staring at the picture when Joshua walked back around me and placed something on the table next to my picture. It was a phone book.

“Trying to find the Ashleys?” My voice broke and cracked, as if it had been hours since I’d last used it instead of minutes.

“Only if you want to,” Joshua whispered.

“Open it,” I said, not taking my eyes from the desk.

Joshua leaned around me and bent over the phone book. He flipped through each of the vellum-thin pages until he reached one specific page. He traced his index finger down the list of A names and then stopped, leaving his finger in the middle of the page. I leaned over him and stared at the spot where he pointed. Above his finger, one line held my attention.

Accompanying a phone number and an address was a singular name. A very familiar name.

Ashley, E.

I stared at that line for an eternity. I stared at it when the bell rang, signifying the end of the school day. I stared at it while the other students packed up their things and left Joshua and me frozen in the back row of the library.

Finally, I stirred.

“E. Ashley—that’s probably my mom, Elizabeth. I don’t know why my dad’s initial isn’t there. His name is Todd. Todd Ashley.”

My voice came out flat, unemotional. Nonetheless, I began to shake a little.

The image of that printed name and its missing companion floated around in my head. Then, mixing in with the names were flashes of other, blurrier images. The faces associated with those names. The faces of my family.

Forgotten faces. Impossibly, irrevocably forgotten. And yet, like my flashes of memory, here they were—regaining shape and form in my mind.

I wrapped my arms around my frame, hugging myself tightly. Joshua moved closer, almost touching me but not quite. We stayed like that for a while—ten minutes could have been ten hours for all I knew—until, miraculously, I felt . . . lighter.

In that lightness was the strangest, most inexplicable flood of relief.

I don’t know how it was possible, but Joshua seemed to sense the change in me. This time, he was the one to break the silence.

“So, Amelia Elizabeth Ashley,” he said quietly. Carefully. “Do you want to see your family again . . . today?”