“I’m not sure ‘old times’ is what we should aim for, Matt.”

“Old, old times,” he clarifies.

Ah. That would put us squarely back in fifth grade, the dark ages before Matt Kincaid picked me to be his girlfriend and popular-girl counterpart. Even back then he was socially magnetic, the kid everyone wanted to be around, and his attention made me feel like the funniest, most interesting human on the planet.

Megan was already close with Matt, and soon he and I were friends too. By seventh grade, his glances became bashful, lingering, and that made me feel like the sun. It was another year before he kissed me, and four more until we broke up. By then, Grandmother had left, and I felt like a supernova mid–gravitational collapse, all the things I’d thought made me me falling away rapidly.

Matt tried to understand why I was withdrawing, why dance and popularity and school spirit had started to nauseate me. Truthfully, it wasn’t any of those things in and of themselves, and it wasn’t Matt himself either; it was what all those things brought out in me—the way that for years I did things I didn’t want to do, laughed at things that bothered me, went to parties I had no interest in because the thing that seemed most essential for my survival and happiness was being seen as Like Everyone Else in Union. Once I stopped fighting to be that person, Matt and I started fracturing. I ended things before they could get any worse, thus sentencing us to a life of perpetual though tolerable limbo.

He blushes at my lengthy silence. “You know, me, you, Megan. Everyone.”

“Okay, it’s a date, then.”

“A date?”

Why do I do that? Why do things like that just come out every time it feels like Matt and I are on the verge of moving forward? I try to make my voice light, teasing. “Yeah. You, me, Meghan, and the ghost of River Phoenix.”

“Who’s River Phoenix?”

I tilt my head at him. “Do you even have the Internet up on that farm of yours, Matty? What keeps you warm at night if not angst-ridden male celebrities who died before we were born?”

“Football, Nat.”

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect there are whole websites devoted to football too.”

“Duly noted,” he says. “Anyway, why do you care so much about this Phoenix guy when there’s a ghost haunting our very own Ryle High School band room?”

I gasp and grab his sleeve. “Wait—do you think River could be the Band Room Phantom?”

Matt rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, but before he can speak, I feel my stomach somehow rise up in my abdomen, and I double over, fighting against the sensation that I’m falling. The overhead lights cut out. The entire hall falls dark and silent. I swear under my breath and reach out for him, finding nothing but empty air. “Matt?”

The back of my neck prickles as the swarms of color fade, allowing my eyes to adjust. My heart starts hammering in my chest as my eyes try to tell me something impossible: Everyone has vanished. I’m alone in the nearly pitch-black hallway.

There’s a current in the air I’ve felt only in very specific moments of my life: the quivering charge of a dream breaking into reality, the same way the man in the green coat and the other hallucinations did before Grandmother came.

I’m dreaming. This is some new brand of hallucination, and, like always, it all feels too real, impossible and yet undeniable. I try to swallow but my throat’s too dry, and my arms are shaking as I shuffle forward, one palm sliding along the cool metal of the lockers. “Matt?” I call loudly. My voice echoes against the scuffed tile.

Something brushes my arm, and I stifle a half-choked scream as, all at once, the overhead fluorescents blink back on and everyone reappears.

“Oh, God.” I clutch my chest and try to ease my hyperventilation back into even breaths as my eyes register Matt’s faint freckles, his hand on my arm. His eyebrows pull together, and he glances over his shoulder, as if expecting to see a tornado barreling toward us.

“Nat?” He shakes my arm lightly. “You okay?”

“Power,” I pant. Matt tilts his head. “The lights just cut out.” And everyone disappeared.

“Huh.” He shrugs. “I must’ve missed it.”

I force my sandpaper throat to swallow. “Guess so.”

Matt looks around and lowers his mouth to my ear. “What’s going on, Nat?” he presses. “You can tell me.”

I take a step back from him, folding all my fear back down into the pit of my stomach. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

He sighs. “See you tonight.”

As he walks away, bumping his shoulder into Derek Dillhorn’s, I turn my eyes up to the light panels in the ceiling, watching, waiting. I don’t want to scare you, Grandmother said, but you need to be prepared for what’s coming.

3

After dinner, Jack and Coco ride back to Ryle with me in the Jeep, which is making a sound like there’s a cat stuck in the engine. “God, what do you think that is?” I ask them.

“I dunno,” Jack says. “Your radiator?”

“He doesn’t have a clue,” Coco says without looking up. “Hey, are you and Matt getting back together?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Abby said he asked you on a date, and you said yes. I think that’s great.”

“Really? Because you sound like Stephen Hawking when he thinks something’s great.”

“That’s really mean, Nat,” Coco says flatly. “He can’t help that he sounds like that.”

“He doesn’t sound like that. His machine sounds like that. He could choose any voice he wants. It could sound like Morgan Freeman, if he wanted it to.”

“Could Matt get me on varsity if you guys got back together?” Jack says.

“Would you come home from college more often?” Coco says.

“That’s not how football tryouts work, Jack. More importantly, I’m not getting back together with Matt, and what the hell is making that sound?”

“The carburetor,” Jack says.

“He has no idea,” Coco says.

We park at the edge of the lot and make our way across the asphalt. There’s a slight breeze, but the humidity still has my hair and my dress clinging to every inch of me, and I’m hoping this night goes quickly so I can get back to the air conditioning.