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didn’t know that other ghosts existed. Another mystery, this one a tiny branch off the Big Question of why the Shift happened in the first place. If I knew that, I’d make it unhappen.
    “So what are you giving Logan for his birthday?” Megan asked me.
    I checked my purse to make sure it was shut, hiding the wrapped gift. “It’s personal.”
    “I already know about the sex. What’s more personal than that?”
    With me and Logan? Music. I’d bought him an autographed copy of Snow Patrol’s
Eyes Open
CD off of eBay, but I wanted to give it to him alone. Mickey and Megan had this thing about “sellout” bands—as soon as an artist had a Top 40 hit, they were eternally uncool. But all Logan and I cared about was how the music made us feel when we were together.
    “Have you seen my baby?” a violet woman asked us. She stood so close to our table she was practically a part of it, but in the light we could barely see her shimmering outline.
    “No, sorry,” we mumbled, focusing on our food.
    “How do you know?” The ghost’s voice sharpened. “I haven’t even told you what he looks like.”
    I set down my spoon. “Did you try your home?”
    “Of course I did, but they went and moved. I know I should’vestayed away, but I couldn’t. I made him cry just by sitting on the end of his bed.” When we didn’t react, the woman moved into our table, standing between us. “I’m his mother, how could he be scared of me?
I
pushed him out of the way of that car, and now he goes running to that whore for comfort. Calls her ‘Mommy’ now. Ungrateful little beast.”
    “I’m sure he’s grateful,” I told her, “or he will be someday. But you’re dead. You’re not part of our world anymore. Once you deal with that, you can move on.”
    Megan slurped the last of her drink, then set her cup down in the middle of the ghost. “Come on, we gotta get ready.”
    The gig wasn’t for two hours, but I nodded and picked up my bag. We headed for the exit without another word for the ghost, even as she shrieked behind us, “I don’t want to move on. I want my son!”
    Heads turned our way—not all of them, just the post-Shifters’. A freshman girl from my debate team gave a sympathetic wave, which helped ease the knot in my neck as I braced for the inevitable tantrum.
    “Don’t you walk away from me!” the ghost snarled.
    A toddler in yellow overalls burst into tears. His mom picked him up, looking exasperated at his change in mood.
    “Shut up!” the ghost shrieked at the child. “You still have your mother, so—Shut! Up!”
    The toddler wailed louder, and Megan and I hurried toward the bright light of the exit.
    Outside, we were alone as soon as the door closed behind us. I guess the ghost never used that entrance when she was alive.
    “Jesus, Aura,” Megan said. “An intervention in the food court?”
    “I can’t help it sometimes.”
    “It’s less cruel just to ignore them.”
    “I don’t know, maybe.” One theory said that “engaging” ghosts actually made them hang out in our world longer. The longer they stayed—and stayed unhappy—the more likely they were to become shades.
    But I couldn’t help imagining how it would feel to be trapped here with no body, no way to change anything. How lonely it would be for no one to hear or see you, except little kids who cried when you talked to them, or people me and Megan’s age, who just wanted to be left alone.
    I looked back at the mall entrance and saw the ghost watching us from inside the darkened doorway. The mother with the screaming child walked right through her.
    Megan and I got to the community center in time to change and find a spot up front. We’d missed the sound check on purpose, since it usually consisted of Mickey yelling at Logan, who would respond with silent obscene gestures (to save his voice).
    Before long, the place was packed and sweaty, most people already bouncing to the recorded music on the speakers.
    We boosted our