As I scrolled through an image search of missing teenage boys, I gave Jack the short version of why high school had scarred me for life. "Did you know that I puked my first day of freshman year? Right in the middle of homeroom. They called me Hurly Girly the next two years."

"See, this move means you have an opportunity to spend your remaining two years of high school without a vomit-related nickname."

"Who knows what awaits me at Dorn High, though. Maybe they'll call me Pizza Princess because of my parents, or I'll trip and fall down the front stairs."

"Relax, there aren't any stairs leading to the front of the school, so you can at least cross that one off your list of pending calamities."

"What?"

"I said, you can cross the stairs off--"

"How do you know there aren't front steps at Dorn High School?"

"Oh." He floated up an inch again. "I'm not sure."

"I am! There's no way you could have known that unless you'd been to that school. Jack, don't you know what this means?"

"I'm from Dorn?"

"I was right! Geography does matter to ghosts! Plus, it means you remembered something concrete."

"It doesn't mean I was a student there."

"No, but you're familiar with the building. Jack, this is huge!"

"If it's huge, then why haven't we found any evidence locally of my, you know, my untimely demise?"

I moved my head from side to side. "I hate to say it, but this is going to take some boots to the ground research. I'm going to have to leave the house again."

"Oh, the horror!"

"Don't laugh! If I walk around Dorn for too long, I'm afraid someone's going to slap a milkmaid costume on me and hand me wooden clogs."

"Isn't that a Dutch thing? I thought Dorn was based on some little village in Sweden."

"I'll try not to be gone too long. Do you want me to leave the TV on for you?" He couldn't yet enter the living room, but the television was angled in a way that made it viewable from the kitchen.

"Yes please."

I flipped through the channels trying to find something he was interested in, finally settling on a nature show about polar bears.

"Are you sure you want to watch this?"

"Sure. Look how cute the cubs are!"

"Yeah, and doomed. Cue the global warming equals emaciated polar bear babies scenario."

"Really?"

"Maybe you have been dead a while. Or you're just clueless. Oh my God, I hope you're not one of those climate change deniers. Please tell me you believe in facts and Bill Nye the Science Guy isn't your anti-Christ."

"The dude with the bow tie? No, he's cool. Can you put something else on, though? I don't want to see polar bears starve."

"Changing the station won't solve the problem, Jack."

A movie with a garish set of clashing eighties patterns came up a few clicks of the remote later. In front of a red and yellow carnival tent, a slow talking man in coveralls was being accosted by a clown with rotting teeth.

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Leave this. This is good."

"No, this is where good goes to die, but suit yourself." I headed towards the door "Be back soon."

#

It didn't totally suck here, as far as the general ascetic went. Our neighborhood was situated midway up a hill, which gradually sloped downward towards Dorn's main street. Just beyond the row of Swedish replica buildings, a grassy park abutted a marina on a wide bay, one of the many inlets of the Puget Sound. The Olympic mountain range peaked up over the trees across the water, visible from the road I walked on. Now, in late August, they shone against the midday sun in hues of browns and deep greens. Before I could stop myself, I'd contemplated how striking they'd appear once the first big snowstorm hit them. I hated myself for looking forward to anything here in Dorn, but there it was. The mountains would dazzle and there was no stopping them.

I supposed this was a first step towards accepting my fate here—admitting that not everything would always suck completely. There were mountains and water and towering trees, and no way could I make those things all bad. Plus, this morning the town was also home to a jug band busking on the street corner, just outside a store advertising itself as the meatball capital of the Pacific Northwest.

The guy plucking a string attached to a broom looked like he'd been kidnapped by a Steampunk author and forced to wear nothing invented after 1893. His waxed mustache was expertly curled at the ends. I had to stop myself from staring too long at his eyes, or really just his right eye, which was unremarkable except for the fact that it was covered by a monocle. It seemed almost bionic, like if you took it off, you'd reveal the fact that his brain was composed of metal gears and powered by coal.

The thing that made me nervous about street performers was that they want to be paid attention to, which meant they were paying attention to whomever was paying attention to them. That meant monocle guy or his ratty haired top hat-sporting, pajama bottom wearing cohort might look up from his jugs and see me gawking. This might lead to a look of acknowledgement. Possibly a head nod. If I was particularly unlucky, the song would end and they'd want to say something to me like, "thanks for listening." I paused for a moment to listen to the jug band—from a distance and in the shadow of the meatball house's overhang, and then I moved on.

Since school hadn't begun yet, Kayla was at the restaurant helping to get it up and running. I ground to a halt outside the pizzeria, hand over my mouth as I stared in horror at what Kayla and my parents were in the middle of orchestrating. They stood off to one side, instructing a guy on a cherry picker as to where they wanted the restaurant's new sign placed.

"I said I'd disown you if you did this." This got my parents' attention. They'd done exactly what I'd told them not to. The sign was round and resembled a pizza, its toppings arranged to make the pizza look like a maze. Across it, the word "Mazzeria" was plastered.

Dad was the first to break the silence, "We added an extra Z so it's less like your name, Mazie. Kayla thought a maze theme would be fun."

"Kayla thought?"

"You know as well as I do that this place needs an overhaul." Kayla pushed open the front door and gestured for me to follow her. "Becca, Carlo... maybe you should stay out here and see to the sign. I'll talk her down."

"Talk me down?" I followed her, all right. As soon as we were out of earshot of my parents, I was going to forget being a timid little anxious flower and bring out my inner angst all over this girl.

Once inside, though, I found myself again stopping dead in my tracks.

I hadn't been here since the day Kayla had hired my parents to be her bosses. Seven days and the place had morphed into something barely recognizable.

I brushed my hand over the nearest wall, now an inviting adobe red. "Holy Mazzeria."

Now that the initial shock of having me woven into my parents' branding scheme had passed, I wasn't sure how to keep up my ire. Kayla, it seemed, was meant for a future in corporate takeovers. Mazzeria was her first experience, and so far, she was doing more than I could have hoped for. Tacky travel posters had been replaced with pictures of famous hedge mazes and medieval labyrinths. Some of the tables had been removed and several workers looked to be in the middle of constructing new booths.

The best part: not a single naked cherub in sight.

"Wow, so is this what you want to do, open up your own restaurant, or like, a fleet of them?"

"I want to be in charge of things."

"Like a country?" Or possibly an empire.

"I have to start small. Out with the Eiffel Tower saltshakers, in with the tables containing built-in mazes and magnetic balls to run through them."

"These renovations are amazing. You seem like someone who knows a lot about a lot." My cheeks heated. I wasn't good at casually segueing. "So, I was wondering... this is going to sound strange."

I paused. Kayla waited for me to respond but my mind had seized.

"It won't sound strange unless you say it. Why are you the color of the lipstick my mom wears when she goes for drinks with the guy from her office who's 'just a friend?'"

"I have crippling social anxiety, okay?"

"Wow, not shocking. You seeing a therapist for that?"

"I was, for a while, back in Spokane. But now with my parents opening the restaurant, we don't have insurance, and all our money is apparently going to purchase maze tables, so..." I bit my lip. "Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to ask you something that will probably make you think I'm beyond the help of a therapist so maybe I should just keep my mouth shut but I can't because Jack is counting on me."

"Who's Jack?"

I clasped my hands over my mouth. "No one."

"What's that?" Kayla grabbed my wrists and pried my hands away from my face. "Why'd you bring him up if he's no one?"

"I probably shouldn't say at this point."

Kayla circled around me, one eye squinted like a wild west sheriff trying to determine if she should shoot first and ask questions later. "All right, Mazie, tell me what you want to know. But if I give you the answer, you tell me what you're hiding. Deal?"

I craned my neck to make sure my parents weren't about to enter the restaurant.

"Have any teenage boys died or gone missing in Dorn since 2001?"

"Okay, I was not expecting that." She tapped her index finger against her chin as she thought it over. "There were these brothers. The older one was drinking and wrapped his car around a tree. Both died."

I shook my head. "No, we already ruled them out."

She did her sheriff squint again. "We? You and... Jack, is it?"

I stiffened. "Are those brothers the only ones you can think of?"

"It's a small town. We don't exactly have teens dropping like flies. A kid drowned a couple of years ago, but he was only eleven. Do you want me to give you girl deaths too?"

"No, it's a boy, fifteen to eighteen years old or so."

"That's all I've got. Well, there's Zeke, but he's not dead."

"Then why bring him up?"

"There was an accident out at his family's property a few weeks ago. No one will say exactly what happened, but it involved a gun. He's in a coma."

"Oh my God...that could explain it." I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this before.

"Explain what?" She put her hands on her hips.

I grabbed her arm to steady myself. "Maybe Jack's not dead after all."

#

Eyes on her phone, Kayla walked by my side as we dodged the jug band and headed up the hill towards Casa Rivera. I couldn't tell if she believed my Jack story or not, but she hadn't rolled her eyes or suggested I be held for psychiatric evaluation, so that was hopeful. "Why 2001? How do you know this dude isn't from like, 1901 or something?"

"That's the year 'The Others' starring Nicole Kidman was released. I looked it up. Jack made a reference to the movie, which means he must have seen it."

"Which means he had to have been alive at least through that year. Smart."

I tried to keep form blushing at her compliment. "Plus, he's not dressed like he's from some bygone era. He looks like how kids dress today, which gives credence to the Zeke-coma theory."

"Right. And he doesn't remember anything else."

"Not anything. Like I said, he saw that movie, and he'd seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space too."

"Oh my god." She put her arm out against my chest, stopping me dead in my tracks.

"What? What is it?"

"He's not a ghost or a boy in a coma, he's an alien. One morning you're going to wake up and he'll be standing over you with a red rubber nose and a gun that shoots popcorn pointed at your head. You should run while you have the chance, Mazie!"

She put her hand down to allow me to keep walking and we both laughed. Despite the absurdity of my situation, it was nice to talk with someone like this. At any moment, Kayla would see the mistake she'd made in associating herself with me and that would be the end of that, but for now, I wasn't totally unnerved by the idea of becoming friends with her. I couldn't help but compare her to Chelsea. Both girls were confident, outgoing, and the opposite of me.

"He can tap dance, too. Does that sound like Zeke to you?"

"His family is more the camouflage wearing sort. They're the uber paranoid types with "shoot first, ask questions later" signs all over the borders of their property. But for all I know, his mom makes them tap dance an hour every morning before they head out to the gun range on the back forty for target practice."

"Well, we can't rule Zeke out unless we have proof it's not him." Pointing to the mustard house on our right, I let out a sigh. "This is my new digs."

"That house?"

"Why? Is it a known vortex to the underworld? Was someone murdered there as part of a secret ritual? Do people go in and never come out?"

"Not to my knowledge. It's, um, it's very quaint."

"Maybe you'll have to take over our home's remake too."

"The gears are already turning."

We climbed the stairs and I let us in.

"Jack? Jack, are you here?" The tingling began. First sign of a potential panic attack. It would just be my luck if Jack disappeared while I was gone. Then I would feel like a total fool even though most likely, Kayla wouldn't know the difference.

"Thank God you're back. Those clowns creeped me out." Jack's voice came from the kitchen.

I led Kayla in that direction, and he gave her a little wave. "Oh, hello. Who are you?"

"Is he here?" Kayla moved around me, eyes scanning the room.

The tingling stopped but my heart plummeted. I'd held out the slightest of hope that Kayla would be able to see him.

"Jack, this is Kayla. She works with my parents. Kayla... well, you can't tell but Jack is over there in front of the fridge. He's there, I swear to you, he's there. Please don't think I'm crazy."

"Calm down, Mazie." She stepped towards the fridge. "Am I near him? Did he slide through me?"

"Gross!" Jack shifted to the right, positioning himself next to the counter to avoid an encounter.

"He hates when that happens. Imagine if you could see people moving through you like you were made of air."

"Freaky." She examined the room as though Jack might be hiding in one of my father's herb-filled mason jars. "This kitchen looks like it's seen a ghost. The ghost of good taste."

I couldn't argue with that. "Jack, the reason I brought Kayla here is that she goes to Dorn High and we've gathered that you most likely went there. If you attended it recently, she'd know. She's been a student there for two years and has two older siblings, so between them and herself, someone from her family has been attending that school for the past ten years."

Jack unembedded himself from the counter and moved out towards the center of the room, his feet barely above the ground. "Does she know who I might be?"

"We have a potential lead, but I don't want you to get your hopes up."

Kayla scrunched her forehead. "Did he just ask a question?"

"He wants to know if you know who he is."

"Oh, right. Of course. Have you tried taking his picture?"

"Yeah, several times. It's a no go. The camera doesn't capture his image any more than your eyeballs do."

"Dang, that's too bad," Kayla said. "Should I speak directly to him? Okay, I don't know who you are for sure but it's possible you're this boy named Zeke who's in a coma right now."

"In a coma?"

I wished I could have put my hand on his shoulder. "It's a good thing, Jack. If that's you, it means you're not dead. And that means you're not a full-fledged ghost. You could wake up and still be okay."

"My mom works with Zeke's second cousin. Says it's not looking too good."

"Shhh." I elbowed her.

Kayla cleared her throat. "So, the thing is, Zeke's family are oddballs. They live out in the boondocks like they think the apocalypse has already happened. He was homeschooled, but he went to football games and stuff, so he'd know what the school looked like."

"Ask her if she has a picture of him." Jack couldn't control his excitement. He flittered over a foot off the ground.

"That's the thing, Jack," I told him. "Because of how his family was, he has no social media. Even the police report about the accident didn't include a picture."

Kayla sat on a stool and spun around. "From Mazie's general description, it could be you, but brown hair, brown eyes, medium height white boy doesn't really narrow it down much around here."

"We're going to figure out if you're Zeke." I stared up at him as he floated near the ceiling. "Kayla's going to drive me to the hospital right now. If it's you, we'll know soon."

He lowered himself a peg. "And if it's not me?"

"Then we don't give up."

I flipped the channel. It landed on a documentary of The Revolutionary War. Jack's eyes glowed.

I messaged my parents telling them I was going to hang out with Kayla, and with that, my first non-solo adventure had begun.