Dr. Slaski, his eyes still closed, shook his head slowly from side to side. “You’ve come to the wrong person,” he said. “I can’t control that boy. Never could. Never will.”

“But you can still try, Dr. Slaski,” I cried. “Please, you’ve got to! If he saves Jesse… if he succeeds…”

“Your heart will break.” Dr. Slaski had opened his eyes and was gazing at me. “Your life will be over.”

“Yes!”

“How old are you?” Dr. Slaski wanted to know. “Fifteen? Sixteen? You really think your life will be over if a boy you have a crush on—not even a boy, a ghost!—happens to disappear? Next year, you wouldn’t remember him, anyway.”

“That isn’t true,” I hissed at him through gritted teeth. “What Jesse and I have… it’s something special. Paul knows that. That’s why he’s trying to ruin it.”

Dr. Slaski looked interested in that.

“Is he?” he said with a little more animation. “And why would he want to do that, do you think?”

“Because…” I was embarrassed to admit it, but what choice did I have, really? I took a deep breath. “Because he thinks we should be together. Him and me. Because we’re mediators.”

A slow smile broke out across Dr. Slaski’s dry, liver-spotted lips.

“Shifters,” he corrected me.

“Shifters,” I said. “Whatever. Dr. Slaski, it’s not right, and you know it.”

“On the contrary,” Dr. Slaski said with a phlegmy cough. “It’s probably the smartest thing that boy’s ever done. Romantic, too. Almost gives me faith in him.”

“Dr. Slaski!”

“What’s so wrong with it, anyway?” Dr. Slaski glared at me. “Sounds to me like he’s doing you a favor. Or the boyfriend, anyway. You think this Jessup—”

“Jesse.”

“You think this Jesse likes being a ghost? Hanging around for all eternity, watching you live your life, while he hovers in the background, never aging, never feeling an ocean breeze on his face, never again tasting blueberry pie. Is that the kind of life you wish for him? You must love him a lot, if that’s true.”

I felt heat rising in my cheeks at his tone.

“Of course that’s not what I want for him,” I said fiercely. “But if the alternative is never having known him at all— well, I don’t want that, either. And neither would he!”

“But you haven’t asked him, have you?”

“Well, I—”

“Have you?”

“Well.” I looked down, unable to meet his gaze. “No. No, I haven’t.”

“I didn’t think so,” Dr. Slaski said. “And I know why, too. You’re afraid of what he’ll say. You’re afraid he’ll say he’d rather live.”

I looked up sharply. “That isn’t true!”

“It is and you know it. You’re afraid he’d say he’d rather live out the rest of his life, the way he was supposed to, never having known you—”

“There has to be another way!” I cried. “It can’t just be one thing or the other. Paul said something about soul transference—”

“Ah,” Dr. Slaski said. “But for that, you need to have a body available to take the soul you want to transfer into it.”

I thought darkly of Paul. “I think I know of one,” I said.

As if he’d read my thoughts, Dr. Slaski said, “But you won’t do that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Won’t I?”

“No,” he said. His voice was beginning to sound fainter and fainter. “No, you won’t. He would. If he thought it’d get him what he wanted. But not you. You don’t have it in you.”

“I do,” I said as fiercely as I was able.

But Dr. Slaski only shook his head again. “You’re not like him,” he said. “Or me. No need to get huffy about it. It’s a good thing. You’ll live longer.”

“Maybe,” I said, tears filling my eyes as I looked down at my hands. “But what’s the point, if I’m not happy?”

Dr. Slaski didn’t say anything for a while. His breathing had grown so raspy, that after a minute or so, I began to think he was snoring, and looked up, fearing he’d fallen asleep.

But he hadn’t. His gaze on me was steady.

“You love this boy?” Dr. Slaski asked finally.

“Jesse?” I nodded, unable to say more.

“There is one thing you could do,” he wheezed. “Never tried it myself, but I heard it could be done. Wouldn’t recommend it, of course. Probably put you into an early grave, like I’ll be, soon enough.”

I leaned forward in my chair.

“What is it?” I cried. “Tell me, please. I’ll do anything… anything!”

“Anything that doesn’t involve killing someone, you mean,” Dr. Slaski said and broke down into a coughing fit from which it seemed to take him ages to recover. Finally, lying back on his hospital bed, the horrible, body-wracking spasms finished, he wheezed, “When you go back…”

“Back? Through time, you mean?”

He didn’t respond. He just looked up at the ceiling.

“Dr. Slaski? Go back through time? Is that what you meant?”

But Dr. Slaski never finished that sentence. Because midway through it, his jaw went slack, his eyes closed, and he fell sound asleep.

Or at least that’s what I assumed.

I couldn’t believe it. He’s about to give me some really valuable tip on how I might be able to save Jesse, and suddenly his Excedrin PM kicks in? What’s the deal with that?

I reached out to touch his hand, hoping that might wake him. “Dr. Slaski?” I called a little more loudly. When he still didn’t respond, panic set in.

“Dr. Slaski?” I cried. “Dr. Slaski, wake up!”

My scream brought the attendant snorting back into consciousness. He was up and out of his chair at once, crying, “What? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I stammered. “He—he won’t wake up.”

The attendant’s fingers flew over Paul’s grandfather’s body, feeling for a pulse, adjusting IVs…