Dad went out early the next morning to buy some essentials from the twenty-four-hour grocery store up the hill. By the time I came downstairs, he and Mom were dunking gluten-free chocolate donuts into their coffee as they discussed going to see the restaurant.

"So, your father and I have been thinking about the name of the pizzeria," Mom said. "Dornzeria sounds like a pharmaceutical for allergies with a host of side effects."

Dad stuffed the last bits of donut into his mouth. "So, we were thinking... we might rename it Mazzeria, after our brilliant daughter."

I nearly spit out my coffee. "Are you serious? No way! If you do that, I'll emancipate myself."

Mom frowned. "But it's catchy. Your name goes so well with it. You have that Z in there!

"What if the restaurant folds?" I asked. "Then I'm stuck with my name on a failed business."

"You think we're going to fail?" Dad added a third donut to his plate. "We haven't even started and already you have us failing. You know what? I think you want us to. We really need to work through that vindictive streak of yours, honey. There are better ways to channel your anger. Becca, do you think we should get her a punching bag?"

"I don't... what?" Maybe not talking to them had been the right course of action. "Look, I just need you to think about this. You're good people. I've known you since I was a little baby."

"Thank you for noticing." Mom narrowed her eyes.

"You're a little snarky but I've learned to live with that. And no, I'm not saying the pizzeria is going to fail for sure. I'm just saying it's likely to. That's what businesses do. Besides, the people in town are used to its current name, and one of the reasons you chose to buy it is because you knew it already had customer loyalty. You don't want to lose any of that through a name change. Think about your branding! You'd have to spend more money redoing signs and menus."

"You have a point." Dad tapped his fingers against his coffee cup. "We'll take it under advisement."

"That's all I'm asking you to do." I wasn't overly hopeful they'd see my logic, but at least I'd spoken my truth. "By the way...did one of you turn my light off during the night? I fell asleep with it on and when I woke up this morning, it was off."

My mother looked to my father, who shrugged. Mom continued to squint at me. "Don't tell me you think a demon turned it off."

"Absolutely not! How irrational would I have to be to think that?" There was no point in telling them about last night. I wasn't going to be one of those people who tried to explain how much danger someone was in when that someone was a complete moron. They'd have to deal with the consequences of not taking me seriously when the priest was mopping up the exoplasmic goo. "I'm thinking maybe there's a short in its electrics or something. Is that possible?"

"Maybe," Dad cleared my plate. "Let us know if it happens again and I'll take a look."

"Will do." I would not be doing that. When I was nine, he'd electrocuted himself trying to wedge a broken piece of bagel out of the toaster with a metal knife. Keeping my dad away from anything involving circuitry was one of my biggest priorities.

I poured myself the dregs of coffee from the bottom of our French press and gulped it down while my parents scurried around me, trying to find their things amidst the half-unpacked mess that was our home.

"Honey," my father called from the study adjacent to the kitchen. "Is this yours?"

A white phone charger dangled from his hand.

"Oh, thank God." I grabbed it from him like it was a baton in a relay race and headed for the stairs to connect it with my phone.

I opened my door, and there he was: Demon Boy. He sat on my bed with red rimmed eyes looking like someone just told him his dog got hit by a bus. Considering that he was here to torment me before some sort of bludgeoning death ensued, I wasn't feeling too sympathetic for his little cry face.

"What do you want from me? Why are you here? What even are you?"

"I'm... I guess you said I'm a ghost? But then you said something about a Dark One, and Demon Boy, so... I don't really know."

"You started as a ghost but then it seemed obvious that you were more insidious so now you're Demon Boy. Try to keep up. Also, and more importantly, get out!"

I stood aside so he could walk out the door. "I already tried to leave. Watch what happens."

He got up, moved towards the wall next to me, and then glided right through it.

Stepping over the room's threshold, I examined the wall on the opposite side of where he'd been. My breath hitched. No boy.

Turning back into my room, there he was, sitting back on the edge of my bed, grandmother's quilt folded under him. "See what I mean?"

"I'm trying really hard not to." This couldn't be happening. The stress of the move, my fears and phobias—it was all coming to a head and now I was hallucinating. "I'm going to close my eyes and count to twenty and when I open them, you're not going to exist anymore. Okay? One, two..."

By the time I'd gotten to five, a familiar tapping rhythm was keeping beat with my counting. Tap, tap, tappity tap. I opened my eyes to see the boy tap dancing in the middle of the room. "What's with the dancing?"

"I'm not sure." He came to a halt. "Do you really think I'm a demon?"

"Are you planning on possessing me and making me speak in Latin?"

"I don't know how to speak Latin, or you know... possess people. So, I think we're good there."

"Not totally convinced about that yet, but I'm willing to entertain other possibilities. Considering that you just passed through a wall, I'm thinking you being a ghost is back on the table."

"I feel like I'm the sort of person who doesn't believe in ghosts."

"I feel like you're the sort of ghost who should re-evaluate his beliefs."

He studied his own arms, pinching himself and slapping his face. "I'm not dreaming. And I can feel myself. I'm real."

I waved my hand above his elbow, then ran it right through him. "See? Ghost."

He wiggled his fingers. "Maybe this is like that movie where you think the main character is being haunted but really, she's the one doing the haunting because she's actually the ghost and she killed her kids, who are also ghosts."

"Are you implying that I'm a ghost? And a murderess?"

"I said it was like that. And I don't know... you could be."

"If I am, I'm ripping off the plot to The Others, which is a good movie, by the way." I walked around him. "Aside from the fact that you aren't made of flesh and blood, you do seem life like. You're not even see-through anymore. I'm still betting on ghost, though. What's your name? Was this your home?" I gasped. "Oh my God, did you die in this room?"

"I, um... I don't know the answer to any of those questions. Do you have any easier ones?"

"Easier than 'what's your name?' No, I do not."

"Things are kind of a blur."

"And yet, you remember the storyline to an old Nicole Kidman movie."

He shuffled his right foot back and forth. "And how to tap dance. But I don't remember who taught me."

"My parents are totally going to freak out about this. Sit tight and do not disappear before I bring them up here!"

I spun around. Ghost Boy had vanished on me the moment I'd told him not to. "Hello, can you hear me?"

I checked under the bed and in the closet, then ventured into the hallway. Pulling on a chain dangling from the ceiling, I lowered a rickety staircase so that I could ascend into the attic.

That space was why asthma existed. I coughed as soon as my head peeked up above the floor. Light from a circular window on the East side of the house cast a beam uninterrupted by the boy standing in its glow.

"You don't have a shadow. Like a vampire." I approached him slowly. "Based on last night's racket, I thought you might be up here. Why'd you disappear?"

He turned those hopeless eyes towards me. This time, I couldn't help but feel a tug of pity. Poor guy. It must suck to be an amnesic ghost.

"I'm not in control. I keep showing up in your room or up here. Every now and then I get a glimpse of the kitchen but then I'm back in the attic. I wish I could stop it."

"Maybe you can learn. How long have you been here? A year? A century."

"Since yesterday."

"Yesterday! You mean you've only been in this house as long as I've been here?"

"I don't remember anything before that."

"Including your name. We should come up with something to call you."

"Your name's Mazie. I heard your father call you that."

"Mazie Eliza Rivera, at your service." I bowed like an English butler.

A crooked smile graced his face. It softened his features, making him look more typical teen and less ancient spirit.

"Is there a name you'd like me to call you? It can be a placeholder until we figure out who you really are."

He frowned again. "I don't know. Whatever you want to call me, I guess."

"I get to name you? Like a new pet? All right then. Brutus, it is!"

"Brutus? No, not that."

"Fine, let's go with Morty. Get it? Morty... Morte... death?"

"Please stop."

"Jack."

"Jack?" He tilted his head from side to side mulling it over.

"It suits you. Plus, it's the name of a dog I had when I was five. He ran away."

"I'm not your pet, Mazie." He began to buzz, shaking as fast as a bee's wings vibrate.

"Jack, what's happening to you?"

"I don't know. I told you, I'm not in control. I think I'm leaving."

"Wait!" The buzzing stopped and Jack was gone.

A search of the house revealed a built-in ironing board in the hall linen closet, three wooden clothes hangers left in the spare bedroom, and a box my mother had mysteriously marked as "monkey" that contained no monkeys. Not the slightest trace of a depressed ghost named after a runaway spaniel was to be found.