"Heather's what?"

"Her memorial service. See, I figure you already booked the room at the Carmel Inn, right, for the dance? But instead of having a dance there, I think we should have a memorial service for Heather. I really think, you know, she'd have wanted it that way."

Kelly's tone was flat. "You never even met Heather."

"Well," I said. "That may be. But I have a pretty good feeling I know what type of girl she was. And I think a memorial service at the Carmel Inn would be exactly what she'd want."

Kelly didn't say anything for a minute. Well, it had occurred to me she might not like my suggestions, but she couldn't really do anything about it now, could she? After all, I was the vice president. And I don't think, short of expulsion from the Mission Academy, I could be impeached.

"Kelly?" When she didn't answer, I said, "Well, look, Kell, don't worry about it now. We'll talk. Oh, and about your pool party on Saturday. I hope you don't mind, but I asked Cee Cee and Adam to come. You know, it's funny, but they say they didn't get invited. But in a class as small as ours, it really isn't fair not to invite everybody, you know what I mean? Otherwise, the people who didn't get invited might think you don't like them. But I'm sure in Cee Cee and Adam's case, you just forgot, right?"

Kelly went, "Are you mental?"

I chose not to dignify that with a response. "See you tomorrow, Kell," was all I said.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. I picked up, since it appeared I was on a winning streak. And I wasn't wrong. It was Father Dominic.

"Susannah," he said, in his pleasantly deep voice. "I do hope you don't mind my bothering you at home. But I just called to congratulate you on winning the sophomore class – "

"Don't worry, Father Dom," I said. "No one's on the other extension. It's only me."

"What," he said, in a completely different tone of voice, "could you have been thinking? You promised me! You promised me you wouldn't go back to the school grounds alone!"

"I'm sorry," I said. "But she was threatening to hurt David, and I – "

"I don't care if she was threatening your mother, young lady. Next time, you are to wait for me. Do you understand? Never again are you to attempt something so foolhardy and dangerous as an exorcism without a soul to help you!"

I said, "Well, okay. But I was kind of hoping there wasn't going to be a next time."

"Not be a next time? Are you daft? We're mediators, remember. So long as there are spirits, there will be a next time for us, young lady, and don't you forget it."

As if I could. All I had to do was look around my bedroom just about any time of day, and there was my very own reminder, in the form of a murdered cowboy.

But I didn't see any point in telling Father Dominic this. Instead, I said, "Sorry about your breezeway, Father Dominic. Your poor birds."

"Never mind my birds. You're all right, and that's all that matters. When I get out of this hospital, you and I are going to sit down and have a very long chat, Susannah, about proper mediation techniques. I don't know about this habit of yours of just walking up and punching the poor souls in the face."

I said, laughing, "Okay. I guess your ribs must be hurting you, huh?"

He said, in a gentler tone, "They are, some. How did you know?"

"Because you're so pleasant."

"I'm sorry." Father Dominic actually sounded it, too. "I – yes, my ribs are hurting me. Oh, Susannah. Did you hear the news?"

"Which? That I was voted sophomore class vice president, or that I wrecked the school last night?"

"Neither. A space has been found at Robert Louis Stevenson High School for Bryce. He'll be transferring there just as soon as he can walk again."

"But – " It was ridiculous, I know, but I actually felt dismayed. "But Heather's gone, now. He doesn't have to transfer."

"Heather may be gone," Father Dominic said gently, "but her memory still exists very much in the minds of those who were ... affected by her death. Surely you can't blame the boy for wanting a chance to start over at a new school where people won't be whispering about him?"

I said, not very graciously, thinking of Bryce's soft blond hair, "I guess."

"They say I should be well enough to return to work Monday. Shall I see you in my office then?"

"I guess," I said, just as enthusiastically as before. Father Dominic didn't appear to notice. He said, "I shall see you then." Right before I hung up, I heard him say, "Oh, and Susannah. Do try, in the interim, not to destroy what's left of the school."

"Ha ha," I said, and hung up.

Sitting on the window seat, I rested my chin on my knees and gazed down across the valley toward the curve of the bay. The sun was starting to sink low in the west. It hadn't hit the water yet, but it would in a few minutes. My room was ablaze with reds and golds, and the sky around the sun looked as if it were striped. The clouds were so many different colors – blue and purple and red and orange – like the ribbons I once saw waving from the top of a May pole at a Renaissance fair. I could smell the sea, too, through my open window. The breeze carried the briny scent toward me, even as high up in the hills as I was.

Had Jesse, I wondered, sat in this window and smelled the ocean like I was doing, before he died? Before – as I was sure had happened – Maria de Silva's lover, Felix Diego, slipped into the room and killed him?

As if he'd read my thoughts, Jesse suddenly materialized a few feet away from me.

"Jeez!" I said, pressing a hand over my heart, which was beating so hard I thought it might explode. "Do you have to keep on doing that?"

He was leaning, sort of nonchalantly, against one of my bedposts, his arms folded across his chest. "I'm sorry," he said. But he didn't look it.

"Look," I said. "If you and I are going to be living together – so to speak – we need to come up with some rules. And rule number one is that you have got to stop sneaking up on me like that."

"And how do you suggest I make my presence known?" Jesse asked, his eyes pretty bright for a ghost.

"I don't know," I said. "Can't you rattle some chains or something?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. What would rule number two be?"

"Rule number two ... " My voice trailed off as I stared at him. It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. Dead guys should not look anywhere near as good as Jesse looked, leaning there against my bedpost with the sun slanting in and catching the perfectly-sculpted planes of his face....

He lifted that eyebrow, the one with the scar in it. "Something wrong, querida?" he asked.

I stared at him. It was clear he didn't know that I knew. About MDS, I mean. I wanted to ask him about it, but in another way, I sort of didn't want to know. Something was keeping Jesse in this world and out of the one he belonged to, and I had a feeling that something was directly related to the manner in which he'd lost his life. But since he didn't seem all that anxious to talk about it, I figured it was none of my business.

This was a first. Most times, ghosts were all over me to help them. But not Jesse.

At least, not for now.

"Let me ask you something," Jesse said so suddenly that I thought, for a minute, maybe he'd read my mind.

"What?" I asked cautiously, throwing down my magazine and standing up.

"Last night, when you warned me not to go near the school because you were doing an exorcism ... "

I eyed him. "Yes?"

"Why did you warn me?"

I laughed with relief. Was that all? "I warned you because if you'd gone down there you would have been sucked away just like Heather."

"But wouldn't that have been a perfect way to get rid of me? You'd have this room to yourself, just the way you want it."

I stared at him in horror. "But that – that would have been completely unfair!"

He was smiling now. "I see. Against the rules?"

"Yeah," I said. "Big time."

"Then you didn't warn me – " He took a step toward me. " – because you're starting to like me or anything like that?"

Much to my dismay, I felt my face start to heat up. "No," I said, stubbornly. "Nothing like that. I'm just trying to play by the rules. Which you violated, by the way, when you woke up David."

Jesse took another step toward me. "I had to. You'd warned me not to go down to the school myself. What choice did I have? If I hadn't sent your brother in my place to help you," he pointed out, "you'd be a bit dead now."

I was uncomfortably aware that this was true. However, I wasn't about to let on that I agreed with him. "No way," I said. "I had things perfectly under control. I – "

"You had nothing under control." Jesse laughed. "You went barreling in there without any sort of plan, without any sort of – "

"I had a plan." I took a single furious step toward him, and suddenly we were standing practically nose-to-nose. "Who do you think you are, telling me I had no plan? I've been doing this for years, get it? Years. And I never needed help, not from anyone. And certainly not from someone like you."

He stopped laughing suddenly. Now he looked mad. "Someone like me? You mean – what was it you called me? A cowboy?"

"No," I said. "I mean from somebody who's dead."

Jesse flinched, almost as violently as if I'd hit him.

"Let's make rule number two be that from now on, you stay out of my business, and I'll stay out of yours," I said.

"Fine," Jesse said, shortly.

"Fine," I said. "And thank you."

He was still mad. He asked sullenly, "For what?"

"For saving my life."

He stopped looking mad all of a sudden. His eyebrows, which had been all knit together, relaxed.