The door led into a short hall lined with shelves and cleaning supplies. At the end, a hatch in the floor had been boarded over. Again, the boy went through the motions of opening it.

"I don't think you should-"

He darted through. I walked to the hatch door, lowered myself to all fours, then pushed my legs through. Stuff like this was tricky-mentally disorienting. Like walking on floors or sitting on furniture in the living world. Seems simple enough, until you consider that those floors and that furniture don't exist in my dimension. So what keeps ghosts from dropping through? Voluntary delusion. If you believe the floor exists or the chair exists, you can treat it as a physical object, at least in the sense that you won't fall through it. So when passing through this trapdoor, I grabbed the floor and lowered myself down, even though I couldn't feel anything under my fingers.

As my feet went through the boarded-up door, I cast a light-ball spell. My stronger magic might be hit-and-miss in this world, but I could still count on the simple stuff. Beneath the trapdoor was a ladder, a rickety half-rotted thing that promised to collapse under the slightest weight. Luckily, I was weight-free these days. So I set my foot onto the first rung, and climbed down.

I landed in a tiny, dark room. Concrete walls sweated rivulets of water that stank of sewage. I cast my light around. Nothing to see. Just bare walls and a bare dirt floor. I turned. On the wall behind me was a wooden door crisscrossed with boards. As I stepped toward it, something jabbed the bottom of my foot and I jumped in surprise.

I moved my light down to see a small green globe, half-buried in the dirt. Bending over, I picked it up. A marble. Jade green, its glassy surface clouded with scratches. I turned it over in my hand and smiled. A ghost marble, like the ghost wheelchair Kristof had conjured in the psych hospital. I tucked the marble into my pocket, then walked through the door.

I came out in a long hall. Doors lined one side, thick wooden doors reinforced with steel bands, solid except for a slit about two-thirds of the way up, covered with a metal plate.

When I reached the third door, I heard crying. I stopped and listened. It came from behind the door. I stepped through into a small room, less than five by five. On the wooden floor lay a moldering pallet, half-covered with a moth-eaten, coarse blanket. The room was empty, yet I could still hear crying. It came from all sides, as if the very walls were sobbing.

"Didn't mean it, didn't mean it," whispered a voice.

"Who's there?" I said, twisting, trying to pinpoint the source. "Is that you, hon? You didn't do anything-"

"Sorry, so sorry, so sorry."

The words came louder now, the voice distinctly female. Wrenching sobs punctuated the babble of apologies. I stepped into the empty rooms on either side. From both, I could still hear the voice, yet it obviously came from the middle cell.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, hail-"A sob. "I don't-don't remember. Hail Mary…"

"Hello?" I walked back into the middle cell. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

The only answer was a soft clacking. I thought of the marble in my pocket.

"Hail Mary," the voice whispered. "Hail Mary, full of grace."

Rosary beads. The click of someone counting off rosary beads. A distant door banged. The voice gasped, choking back her prayer mid-word. Footsteps sounded in the hall-the thud of heavy, booted feet. I stepped through the door. No one was there. Yet I could still hear the footsteps, growing louder as they came down the hall toward me.

From inside the room came a muffled whimper. As I looked around, a new sound filled the air, a steady thumping, softer than the footsteps, growing faster as they drew nearer. The tripping of a frightened heart.

"Holy Mary, mother of God."

The prayer came out no louder than a breath, whispering all around me, barely audible over the patter of her heart. The footsteps stopped outside the door. A jangle of keys followed. A whimper, sounding as if it came from right beneath me. A key screeched in the lock.

"No, no, no, no."

The door hinges squealed, and I heard it open, yet the door stayed shut. The woman gave a sudden cry that nearly sent me to the rafters. I whirled around, but I was still alone. From beneath me came the frantic scuffle of someone scrambling across the wooden floor.

"Hail Mary, full of-"

A laugh drowned out her prayer. The door slammed shut. The woman screamed. Then a slap resounded through the room, so loud I reeled as if I'd felt it. Another scream, a bloodcurdling scream of fury and fear.

And all went silent.

I looked around, tensed, waiting for the next spectral sound. But I heard only the faintest scratch of tiny claws from a distant rat.

Slowly, I stepped from the cell. The boy was right there. I jumped, letting out an oath. He waggled a finger at me, then motioned with the same finger, and took off.

I hesitated, getting my bearings, then went after him.

Chapter 15

THE BOY LED ME THROUGH YET ANOTHER BOARDED-UP door, into another room that stank of rot and stale air. There, wedged between two towers of rotting wooden crates, he'd hidden his stash of treasures-a handful of marbles, some colored stones, feathers, a tin cup painted sky blue, and a hand-sewn animal that was either a dog or an elephant.

"I think you're missing something," I said as I crouched beside the pile.

I pulled the green marble from my pocket. The boy gave a wordless chirp, then threw his arms around me. I hesitated, surprised, then hugged him back.

"What's your name?" I asked.

He only looked at me, smiled, and nodded.

I pointed at myself. "Eve. I'm Eve. And you are…?"

The smile brightened another few watts but, again, he answered only with a nod.

"I'm going to help you get out of here. Take you someplace nice. Would you like that?"

He nodded, still smiling. I suspected that if I asked whether he wanted me to take him dogsledding in Siberia, he'd have given the same nod and smile, having no clue what I meant, but perfectly amenable to anything I suggested.

"We'll leave soon, hon," I said. "I just have to do one thing first. Find someone. Someone here." I paused. "Maybe you could help."

His head bobbed frantically, and I knew that this time he understood me. So I described Amanda Sullivan. But as I did, his eyes clouded with disappointment, and he gave a slow shake of his head. Finding someone was a concept he understood-applying a verbal description to that person was beyond him.

I concentrated on the news article I'd read, the one with Sullivan's photo, and tried to make it materialize. Nothing happened. No problem. My skills on this side might be weak, but I could do it easily enough in my own dimension, so after promising to be right back, I popped into the ghost world, conjured up the photo, and returned to the other side.

"This is a picture of the woman I'm looking for."

He let out a tiny shriek and dove behind me, clutching my leg, face buried against my thigh. I dropped to my knees. He pressed his face into my shoulder. His thin body quaked against mine and I cursed myself. He knew-or sensed-what Sullivan had done. For a few minutes I held him, patting his back and murmuring words of comfort. When he stopped shaking, I shoved the photo into my pocket.

"Forget about her," I said. "Let's get you-"

He grabbed my hand and tugged, his tear-streaked face determined. When I didn't move, he sighed in exasperation, released my hand, and took off. I raced after him.