The Chalk Ghost thought about traveling along the wire. She suspected it led to Jim's apartment.

*

No, not yet. There's time enough for that later. First things first. I need to find out who this girl is. What she's doing here.

*

Just after dawn Lilly-Rose took the boy out of the house, along with her hearing dog, the laptop, and a backpack full of books.

The Chalk Ghost didn't know how long she would have to explore the apartment before they came back. So she filled the house with her spirit. It was a giddy feeling, as if she were helium expanding in a balloon. It gave her confidence. She might be able to make things right after all.

*

The Chalk Ghost haunted everything in the old house where she died, even the wireless network. She became a wave of particles.

*

Oh, now I know. The computer owner's name is Lilly-Rose Whitehorse. That must be Flowers' real name.

Lilly-Rose looks a bit Asian. Maybe she's from the Muas clan. The little boy is named Zane. That sounds a little bit like Xing. Maybe his father was from the Bear clan. I thought I heard Lilly-Rose call the dog Max. But Lilly-Rose doesn't speak clearly. She has a problem hearing, too. Maybe what she called the dog was 'Mok.'

No wonder Lilly-Rose didn't answer her cell phone when I tried to call her from my old phone, the one I left crammed deep inside the sofa-bed where I died.

Did I have another phone? A land line. I can't remember.

It looks like Lilly-Rose knows about me now, too. She knows my name used to be Sue Young and that Sue Young once lived at this address.

Sue Young. Spelled exactly that way. My mother wanted me to have an English name for my Canadian birth certificate.

The real question now is, will Lilly-Rose answer the phone now if I try to call her again? And would that be enough to save her little boy?

*

It was hard for the Chalk Ghost to be logical where she was just then. She tried to think the way she had thought while she was alive -- tried to think like Lilly-Rose must be thinking. But she couldn't think -- she could only feel.

The radio waves on which the Chalk Ghost rested felt soothing, rhythmical.

Like breathing. Calming.

*

How I miss breathing.

That hurt! The radio wave just spiked -- it felt like a knife wound in my soul.

Jim is online now. What is he doing here? He has no right to be here in Lilly-Rose's laptop. I thought he was still at work.