As a child, Olivia Thackery believed in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and ghosts, although not necessarily in that order. She surrendered Santa Claus at eleven after finding gifts hidden in her mother’s closet, realized the tooth fairy was legend, not living, when she caught her dad sliding a crisp bill under her pillow, but she hadn’t given up on ghosts until Riley Scanlon died but never haunted her.

Since they were in love and had planned to marry, Olivia figured if anyone could come back from the dead, Riley would. But as the days, then weeks and months passed, he didn’t, so she decided ghosts were another figment of the imagination.

Olivia wished he would haunt her. Even a transparent image might be a comfort and at least she’d know some essence of Riley had survived death. She would take a music box playing on its own as a sign or welcome an eerie whisper at the wolf hour.  At night she dreamt of him, wish dreams in which he remained alive and well. She always woke with a brief burst of joy, which faded into tears when reality returned.

She mourned him, hard, so much that grief robbed her appetite and drained away any pleasures. Through it all, though, Olivia had the odd sense that Riley wasn’t gone even though she knew he was. She had wept over his casket and been at his funeral. Olivia had stood beside his open grave, damp with an unseasonably chill early summer rain. He was dead and she knew it. The problem was, she didn’t feel it.

And in her stubborn heart, despite the facts, she didn’t believe it.