Later

Regis Thomas approaches the group, which doesn’t surprise Jamie since the dead are often attracted to the living. Liz tells Tia that no one’s there and Jamie is making it up, but Jamie introduces himself to Thomas. Thomas is wearing a sash with a ribbon pinned to it. He tells Jamie that he won the ribbon in a sixth-grade spelling contest and always wears it while writing. Jamie finds this silly, but Thomas isn’t embarrassed.

Adult Jamie explains that dead people don’t seem to feel emotions. Some of them can feel love like Mrs. Burkett, crying and kissing her husband’s cheek, but even this emotion doesn’t seem very strong. The one emotion they seem to be able to feel strongly is hate—as hate is the emotion that creates ghosts to begin with.

Young Jamie asks Thomas if his final book is fully planned. It is, and he is willing to tell the story to Jamie so he can relay it to Tia.

It takes an hour and a half for Regis Thomas to recount his final book. Halfway through, Liz brings Jamie something to drink—which he appreciates. Thomas concludes by revealing a major plot twist—which adult Jamie doesn’t reveal, as he tells the reader to read Thomas’s books if they want to know. Finally, Thomas delivers the last line, and police arrive to do a routine check of the property.

Liz and Tia spin a story about Tia looking for Thomas’s last manuscript, and since Liz is a cop, she came along to make sure everything was secure. The cops accept their explanations and do their own survey of the property. While the adults are distracted, Jamie thinks of the way Professor Burkett scratched his cheek when his ghostly wife kissed it. He asks Thomas if he can do something to make Liz aware that he is present. Thomas blows in Liz’s face, and she recoils. Jamie tells her that the sensation was Regis Thomas.

Adult Jamie discusses Liz Dutton. She is attractive with a good figure, a great smile, and gray eyes that can be warm or sleet cold. Jamie likes her because she is generally kind to him, like when she gave him something to drink and because she would buy him matchbox cars. She would sometimes play with him, ruffle his hair, and tickle him.

However, Jamie doesn’t like her when she bugs him about his messy room, his nightlight, or the fact that his mother still drives him to school. She also calls him “Champ”—which he doesn’t like—but the thing that bothers him the most is that she takes up his mother’s attention. Jamie’s like and dislike of Liz are equal until the incident with Regis Thomas. After this incident, he notices Liz sometimes looks at him in a cold, speculative way.

The novel cuts ahead to Christmas. Looking back, adult Jamie remembers this as the best Christmas he ever had. Liz has to work, so Jamie and Tia spent the Day with Professor Burkett. They exchange gifts, and Tia gives Professor Burkett an annotated collection of the Sherlock Holmes stories because he is a semi-retired Professor of Literature who used to teach a course on Gothic mysteries. Professor Burkett gives Jamie a book of unexpurgated fairy tales. He tells Jamie about some of the darker elements of fairy tales, like the wicked stepsisters in Cinderella cutting off parts of their feet to make Cinderella’s slipper fit.

In 2010, the “spirited discussions” between Tia and Liz begin to turn into arguments. When they met, they had a great deal in common; they like many of the same books and movies, but Liz is scornful of some of the authors Tia represents. Tia is politically liberal, and Liz is conservative. Between their fighting and making up, they drink and end up hungover in the mornings.

Tia spends four months writing The Secret of Roanoke. When it comes out, it receives good reviews, and the agency’s share of the royalties saves the agency.

Adult Jamie reminds the reader that his younger self had reasons to like Liz and reasons not to. What he didn’t realize at the time was that Liz didn’t like him. Adult Jamie is certain that Liz liked him well enough, but after the incident with Regis Thomas, she had become afraid of him. Adult Jamie looks back and realizes that Liz’s bosses and coworkers didn’t like or trust her either.

Adult Jamie explains that the first time Liz came alone to collect Jamie from school was in 2011, while she and Tia were still together. The novel cuts to the past, as Jamie leaves school and finds Liz waiting for him in her personal vehicle. He thinks Liz has come to drive him home, but instead, she takes him to Woodlawn Cemetery and asks if he sees any dead people. He sees a few, but none of them are the particular dead person she is looking for.

Jamie and Liz stop for ice cream, and Liz asks if it’s scary seeing the dead. Jamie could tell her that it’s no more marvelous than looking up at the stars and contemplating the vastness of the universe, but instead he says “no.”

Liz and Tia break up when Tia finds two pounds of cocaine in the pocket of Liz’s spare police jacket. It is revealed that Liz has been transporting drugs. Tia kicks Liz out; Jamie wants to yell at Liz, even though he thinks it’s Tia’s fault for finding the drugs. That night, Tia dumps all her wine down the sink. After this, Jamie never sees her drunk or hungover again.

Jamie is in seventh grade when Liz comes back into his life. She meets him outside his school and asks him to take a ride with her. Jamie doesn’t want to go, but she tells him that she needs his special talent.