It was my idea to meet for breakfast at the Hook, Line & Sinker after my sentence was over, but now that I’m here, I haven’t said more than three words to Tavi and Miles. Not that they’ve noticed anyway. They’re what sounds like days into an argument about their SeeMe channel.

“If you wanted to make it a history show, why not just tell me so I could tell you I wasn’t interested from the start?” Miles grumbles.

“If you weren’t so bent on making it a ghost-hunting channel, I might have been able to tell you sooner that it was too gimmicky for anyone to take it seriously,” Tavi fires back quickly.

“Hey, guys, there’s something I think I need to tell you,” I mumble, digging deep to find my last stores of courage. They’re in here somewhere, hopefully not wherever I lost my protector penny.

I might as well be talking to Mom, though, because they aren’t listening.

“Oh yeah, because that’s what everyone wants. A serious SeeMe channel about history. Hey, maybe we could throw in some homework assignments for extra fun,” Miles snarls.

“Whoa, it’s looking like intergalactic war is about to break out over here,” Ricki says. She sets menus down for us before backing away cautiously.

Ivan the pug whimpers, and then he backs away, too, with his tail quivering.

“Something happened last night,” I try again. “Actually, it’s been happening for a while now, and Dad knew, but now he’s gone, and . . . I really need to tell you.”

“Now look what you did,” Tavi scolds Miles, and for a second, I think she feels bad for making me work so hard to get through to them.

“You made Ivan so upset he’s sick!” she scolds Miles.

We turn to find Ivan ralphing in the corner.

“Gross,” Miles winces.

I don’t believe this.

“Would you just listen?” I blurt.

This finally captures Miles’s and Tavi’s attention (and half the restaurant’s). I wait for the rest of the diners to return to their meals before speaking.

“Is it hot in here?” I ask, feeling flushed. “I feel hot.”

His eyes widen when I peel my flannel off to expose the angry red scratches on my neck.

“Dude, what happened to you?” he asks. His brow furrows. “You look like you got mauled by a bear.”

“Not exactly,” I say slowly.

Tavi leans across the table, catching on. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “There’s a reason you wanted to meet us here this morning, and I know it wasn’t exactly for the Heavenly Hash.”

“Sorry!” Ricki says from across the restaurant, somehow picking up that bit of our hushed conversation. “No hash today,” she laments.

“Such a shame,” Miles mutters.

“Sorry to hear that, Ricki,” Tavi says, stepping on Miles’s foot under the table.

Ricki hurries over to Ivan and scoops him into a cradle. “You have Mister Greedy over here to thank for that. Turned my back for a second and he’d eaten two full mixing bowls’ worth.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” I ask.

“Vet said nature has to . . . well, you know.”

After leaving us with that appetizing thought, Ricki hustles off to put Ivan to bed in back.

“What’s going on?” Tavi whispers. She locks her big eyes on mine.

This is it. Now or never. Either they’ll think I’m a complete freak and run to tell all of Nameless and Rhodi and anyone else who’ll listen that I’m delusional or a pathetic, attention-seeking loser who’ll say anything for an ounce of recognition . . .

Or . . .

“A ghost attacked me last night.”

Silence is a funny thing. It can feel like an eternity when it lasts for seconds. Not funny ha-ha. Funny excruciating. It also feels like literally every person on Nameless Island is staring at me right now, but that might be because all the sound has drained from my ears, so I can’t hear a single fork clink.

In reality, it’s only Tavi and Miles staring, and the silence is only long enough for me to breathe in and out.

Which is a relief because reading Tavi’s and Miles’s expressions is impossible.

“Yeah, you’re going to need to say that again,” Miles says.

“Do I have to?”

“Yup, definitely,” says Tavi.

“I got attacked by a ghost last night.”

“So not a bear?” Miles confirms.

I shake my head.

Another silence, and somehow, this one is longer and more painful.

Then, Miles’s face breaks into the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on him.

“That’s AMAZING news!”

Tavi looks at him, aghast. “Miles!”

“I mean—I don’t mean—I mean, oh, I can’t deny it, that’s awesome!” Miles says.

“It’s okay,” I say to Tavi. “Well, it’s not okay, but it’s not exactly the first time.”

“Hang on, hang on,” Tavi says, squeezing her temples between her fingers. “Are you saying you . . . ?”

“See ghosts, yes,” I say hoarsely. I can barely get the words out, but there they are, exposed. No taking it back now.

“This is unreal,” Miles says, running his hands through his hair hard enough to make little spikes at the tips.

“Trust me; it’s real,” I groan. “I’ve got the scratches to prove it.”

“What did it look like? Was it Old Man Cleave? When did you first see the ghost?” Tavi’s questions are spilling out of her faster than I can answer them. People are starting to stare again.

“Shh,” I remind her. “He’s a boy, I saw him on the first night I got there, and he’s . . . broken.”

“What do you mean ‘broken’?” Miles asks.

“Bent out of place. Like he got put back together wrong or something. I can’t describe it. His bones are all dislocated. And he’s in rags.”

“Yikes, that doesn’t paint a pretty picture,” Miles shudders.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Still want your SeeMe channel to be about ghosts?”

For the first time since I’ve met him, Miles looks doubtful. A pit drops in my stomach. They’re pretending to believe me until they can make their escape from the Hook, Line & Sinker to laugh at me.

“You think I’m a total weirdo, huh? I’ll bet you never would have talked to me if you knew I was a magnet for homicidal ghosts.”

Miles looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You’re joking, right?”

Tavi leans closer, hands on the table. She’s making little clinking sounds with the silver rings stacked on her fingers. “You did the right thing coming to us, Gus. You won’t find bigger weirdos on Nameless Island than Miles and me.”

Miles nods. “Tell us everything.”

I don’t say a word. Instead, I hold up nine fingers.

“No” is all Miles can say.

Tavi’s eyes move back and forth for a second. I think I’ve lost her, but then she reaches out to snatch my hands.

“One in every house you’ve lived in?”

“Ow. And yes.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve been seeing—”

I pull my hand from Tavi and slap it over Miles’s mouth.

“Ghosts for most of my life, yes,” I finish in a whisper, “but could we maybe not broadcast that?”

Miles swats my hand away. “Dude, you could be our SeeMe channel’s chief correspondent!” he says. To his credit, he’s scream-whispering now.

“Not a chance,” I say. “My mom thinks ‘seeing ghosts’ is code for ‘parenting fail.’ You two are the only people who know about this. So do me a solid and keep the g-word to a minimum when it comes to me, okay?”

Tavi nods. “We need a code word.”

“I don’t think we need a—”

“Definitely a code word,” Miles agrees.

“Have you seriously never told anyone about this before?” Tavi whispers.

I look down at my lap. “Not exactly,” I mumble. My stomach hurts. “My, um, my dad, but he isn’t . . .”

Miles tries to help. “It’s cool,” he says. “Tons of my friends’ parents are divorced.”

“It’s not that,” I say. I focus on my lap because this is the hardest part. “He’s . . . not around anymore.”

“Oh” is all Miles says.

“He disappeared,” I say. “About a year and a half ago. He went out one night and . . .”

Miles and Tavi don’t say anything for a while, but I can feel their eyes on me.

“What do you think happened to him?” Miles finally asks me.

I surprise myself when I’m completely honest.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what to hope for.”

We’re all quiet for a minute before Tavi says, “Anyway, the whole situation is totally sh—”

“Sheep, I know,” I finish.

“Huh?” says Tavi.

“So how did you explain that to your mom? I’m guessing she didn’t believe it was a bear either,” Miles says, pointing to my scratches. “I mean, I’m guessing that’s sort of an occupational hazard.”

I shake my head. “That’s the thing,” I say. “It isn’t. I mean, it hasn’t been until last night. The ghosts have never been able to touch me before.”

I shudder, remembering the boy’s cracked purple fingernails swiping at my neck, his teeth gnashing in his mouth, anger so hot I felt its burn.

“Huh,” Miles says, leaning back in his bench.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“Nah,” I say. “You know something.”

“No, I don’t,” he says defensively. “I mean, not necessarily.”

“‘Not necessarily’ like it might be a blip on the supernatural radar or ‘not necessarily’ like there’s a good chance he’ll eat me in my sleep next time?”

“I’d need to run some tests,” Miles says. I drop my head to the table.

“My mom will never let either of you back in the manor.”

“Why not?” Miles asks. “We’ve already seen it. The cat’s kinda out of the bag, isn’t it? Not your Cat. Just the expression. It really is confusing that she’s named Cat. You should think about changing her name.”

I shake my head, ignoring Miles’s suggestion. “Mom’s afraid you’ll fall through a floor or something.”

“Those don’t look like fingernail scratches,” Tavi says, not ready to let go of my injuries.

“Yeah, it’s weird. They itch too,” I say. “Like when I got scratched by our class’s pet hedgehog.”

“Rodents make you itch but not cats?” Miles says, like that’s my weirdest trait.

“Well, hedgehogs aren’t rodents,” Tavi says. “They’re eulipotyphlans.”

Miles blinks at her. “Tavi. How do you know the most random things?”

Tavi ignores Miles, keeping her attention on me. “How did you get the other ghosts to stop haunting you?”

“They showed me how they died,” I reply. “The trick is getting them to lead me to the answer.”

“And this boy can’t tell you how he died,” Tavi says, connecting the dots.

“The ghosts don’t talk,” I say. “And this one is . . . less than forthcoming,” I say, remembering his anger.

“So we need to find out who he is,” Miles says. “Tell him he’s dead, move him along to the otherworld, bing-bam-blah, your ghost problem is solved!”

I lift my head enough to cup it in my hands. “Yep. It’s that easy,” I say hopelessly.

“It’s not like we don’t have anywhere to start,” says Tavi. “I mean, I’ve got access to the archives from my mom’s work. And Miles has his, uh—”

“Analysis,” Miles finishes defensively.

“Right, except you’re banned from Rotham Manor,” I remind him.

“There are ways around that,” says Miles.

Before he can get into any more detail, Ricki comes back to take our orders.

“It looks like the war has ended, but what new tragedy has befallen the youth of Nameless today?” she asks dramatically.

I sit up from my slouch long enough to see most of the heads in the Hook, Line & Sinker turn toward us. Ricki has made sure we’re today’s entertainment.

I hate this morning so much.

“Don’t you worry,” Ricki says when we meet her with silence. “I have just the thing to put a little pep in your step.”

“That feels like a bad sign,” Tavi whispers once Ricki disappears into the kitchen.

We glance around at the surrounding tables, but I see no evidence of a Kitchen Cage Match experimentation.

“One problem at a time,” says Miles. “Have you gotten a good look at this ghost boy?”

“Yeah, I got a pretty clear picture when he was reaching for my neck.”

“What about his clothes?” Tavi asks. “Did you notice anything about the era?”

“Um, old?”

She glares. “Not helpful.”

“I don’t usually pay attention to what they wear. Mostly I’m focused on, you know, what’s wrong with them. This kid, he’s all bent, like his arms and legs and neck are out of place. He looks like one of those puppets on strings—what’re they called?”

“Marionettes?” Tavi guesses.

Miles shudders. “Puppets. NO. Big NO. They’re just too creepy.”

“Like a marionette that’s been dropped on the ground,” I say, “except he’s standing up.”

“That’s horrifying,” Tavi gapes. “How can you stand to look at that?”

“You heard the part where I didn’t choose any of this, right?”

“Sorry, okay,” she quickly says. “So you didn’t notice what he was wearing.”

I shake my head, straining to remember, but all I can recall are tan-colored rags, torn and drooping in parts. The areas still intact are tight.

“Maybe like some sort of, what are those called . . . like, what they wear in The Nutcracker?”

“A leotard?” Miles guesses.

“Yeah, something like that.”

I can feel eyes cutting through me from every direction. I think people are clinking forks and knives quieter to hear what we’re talking about.

“Why do I feel like a zoo animal?” I ask, hunching lower in my seat.

Tavi and Miles squirm in their seats.

“Charlie Cleave and his buddies,” Miles starts.

“What now?”

It’s then I notice Charlie is among today’s restaurant crowd. He’s sitting at a table of adults—men in rubber fishermen’s gear looking like they’ve already finished a day’s work. His dad isn’t among the large-shouldered men that almost swallow Charlie Cleave behind their mass in the booth.

“Charlie and his friends have been . . . busy,” Miles says. “They may have started a rumor or two about you and your mom.”

“Don’t worry,” Tavi rushes ahead. “I’m sure that once people get to know you, they’ll know you aren’t comet worshippers.”

“Comet what?”

“Or, you know, keeping a room full of doll heads for séances in the manor.”

“Great. This is just great,” I say.

“It’s all talk,” Miles says, and I can tell he’s doing his best to make it sound like nothing, but he and Tavi grew up here. They know everyone. Mom and I are the newcomers.

“Charlie Cleave’s dad is the reason my mom hasn’t gotten to know anyone on Nameless yet,” I say through gritted teeth. “She’s too busy trying to fix everything he broke or find contractors to work for her because he’s turned everyone against her. Now he’s seemingly ghosting her, or missing, or whatever, and his giant moose turd of a kid has the nerve to spread rumors about—”

“Jeremy Cleave is missing?” Tavi cuts me off midspeech.

“I didn’t say he was missing-missing,” I shoot back a little angrier than I mean to, but I’m sort of an expert on what it means for someone to go missing, and this isn’t that. “He’s avoiding my mom for the same reason he trashed the manor. He’s mean and bitter, and he’s trying to make her life as hard as possible.”

Tavi and Miles lean back in their seats. I guess they decide it isn’t worth talking about anymore, which is fine by me because it’s only going to tick me off if they show an ounce of sympathy for anyone named Cleave.

“We need a plan,” Miles finally says. “Let’s find a time when your mom’s away from the manor.”

“You’re joking,” I say. “She stopped giving me the silent treatment, like, two hours ago, and silent treatment from your mom might not seem like much of a punishment, but when you live in a hoarder’s dungeon where the only one paying you any attention is a ghost who probably wants to pluck your eyes out of your head, it’s a pretty big deal!”

“Relax,” Miles says, reaching across the table to at least quiet me down because I’m only drawing more attention to our table. “We’ll figure something out. I have a really good feeling.”

“Miles, I—”

“Trust me.”

Tavi pipes in. “I bet I can find loads of information about the Rothams in the main archives. It so happens Squiddy has a surgical rotation this weekend at Seattle Memorial.”

 

“Perfect,” Miles agrees. Then he sees my blank face and fills in the gaps. “Tavi’s Squiddy has a Seattle apartment for when she does weekend rotations.”

“And I desperately need to get a head start on my folklore project,” Tavi winks.

Miles nods. “Tavi, you’ll need your mom’s archive access card. They’ll believe you. You would be working on a project for a school year that hasn’t started yet.”

Tavi scowls. “I was actually going to grab some materials while I was there.”

Miles snorts. “I never get tired of being right.”

Tavi turns to me. “Do you think this ghost—this broken boy—might be Felix? The name from the basement door?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “He wasn’t chatty.”

“Even if he wasn’t a Rotham, he must have lived at the manor at some point, right?” Tavi says. “Isn’t that how it’s worked with all your other ghosts?”

“Can we please not call them my ghosts?” I plead.

“Wait, didn’t you say that the manor’s been lots of different things besides the Rothams’ home?” Miles asks Tavi, who nods. “So it could be that the ghost is anyone who was there at any point in the manor’s history, right?” Miles asks, his voice getting breathy with excitement.

“I mean, I guess so,” Tavi says. She looks at me.

I shrug. “Sure, why not?”

Miles gasps. “Remember the super old grave markers? What if there was something built on that land before the Rothams moved there? We could be dealing with ancient ghosts!”

“So many horrifying possibilities,” I groan.

“Miles, maybe we should try and focus on one ghost at a time,” says Tavi. “Remember this is about more than just the SeeMe channel.”

Her voice is soothing, kind of like Dr. Frankputter’s, which I appreciate, but I hope she doesn’t see me as just a patient or something.

“We’ve got your back, Gus. Trust me: we can put up a good fight,” she smiles at me.

A wave of relief almost washes over me until I hear Ricki’s voice from the kitchen.

“Did I hear someone say ‘fight’? Because this chef is ready for Kitchen Cage Match!”

The restaurant perks up with a handful of raucous cheers and plate rattles and whoops.

“Go get ’em, Ricki!”

“Yeah, Mad-Dog Madsen! You got this!”

Ricki laughs heartily, but the wave of relief has passed me by because there are three steaming plates in her hands—I can’t see what’s on them, but I heard all I needed to hear: Kitchen. Cage. Match.