TIMES HAINT WHAT THEY USED TO BE
By Maureen Hardegree
Author's note: This free story takes place between Haint Misbehavin',
Book One and Hainted Love, Book Two of the Ghost Handlers Series. Enjoy!

Wednesday, Jekyll Island, Georgia

Life didn't get much better than baking on a stretch of sand, watching the tide roll out into the setting sun.

From my spot on the widening beach, I, Heather Tildy, freak who'd recently added ghost-handling to my repertoire of weirdness, appreciated the joy that is a family vacay and straightened my beagle Roquefort's designer sunglasses. The expensive shades were courtesy of a certain unsuspecting older sister in retaliation for Frito-hogging. Sad, isn't it?

As the salty wind lowered, I toasted red Powerade with my younger sister Claire, who was sitting in the low mesh chair next to mine, enlightening me about the latest fashion trends listed in the Teen Vogue she was flipping through.

Even better than sitting on the beach with a sister I liked at sunset, no one on Jekyll Island knew my Princess and the Pea nickname or my reputation for being weird. Walking Roquefort didn't feel like the chore it always was at home, especially since I got to see more of the beautiful, twisted oak trees and cute boys who also had dog-walking duty.

I assessed my PABA-free summer so far. Yes, I'd made hot lifeguard Drew Blanton notice me but not in an altogether positive way. Time away from the pool might make his heart grow fonder. At least he liked me as a friend. And it wasn't as if he actually said I was too much of a weirdo to ever date. Drew's friendship could grow into something more, right? If I could help a ghost move on, I could do most anything.

And supergeek Xavier would get over me eventually, I thought, adjusting my four towel strata to ensure that sand didn't get inside my bathing suit and exfoliate tender parts of me I didn't want exfoliated.

Yeah, Xavier would be fine. Maybe some other future member of the Pecan Hills High debate team would walk into the Five Points Library Branch, where he volunteered, and supplant me in his affections. I smiled to myself. Stranger things had happened-literally.

I kinda missed Amy, my first haint, but it was great to be ghost-free. I could really enjoy the rest of my vacation. Well, other than having to deal with pain-in-the-butt, older sister Audrey.

"Has anyone seen my sunglasses?" Audrey's whine rose from the hacienda's porch and drifted down the weathered steps to where Claire and I sat.

Claire's mouth opened.

"Don't," I said, knowing she was about to rat me out. "Let her stew a little longer."

Roquefort seemed pleased to be rocking those oversized shades, so I pretended I hadn't heard Audrey, then glanced toward the curling waves and noticed a now familiar lady in an old-fashioned, red one-piece bathing suit and a flowered rubber swim cap-like the kind I'd seen Grandma wear in faded old color photographs. This lady seemed to be about my grandma's age or maybe even older, and she walked by at the same time in the same suit and cap for the past two nights and mornings.

She waved at me, and I waved back at this creature of habit. People are so friendly at the beach. But apparently not dogs, I thought, as Roquefort sat up and barked repeatedly at the old woman.

"Quit," Claire said, lowering her magazine.

As usual, Roquefort didn't listen and finished with a long beagle bay, the sunglasses skewing sideways on her snout.

"What's up with her?" Claire asked, like I could somehow read more things in our dog's mind than her preference for fashionable eyewear that didn't belong to her.

I removed my sunglasses and studied the pudgy woman strolling through the surf, oblivious of her wedgie to end all wedgies. She couldn't be more than thirty feet from us. Surely my sister could see her as clearly as the woman's footprints in the sand-Um, oddly enough, the woman wasn't leaving any impressions.

My skin pebbled. There was a good reason for the Roquefort ruckus, a reason Claire couldn't see. My brain executed the mental equivalent of a gulp.

Roquefort switched to a low growl, and Audrey's sunglasses fell to the sand.

My top-most towel's terry cloth knubs prickled against the sticky layer of SPF fifty on my back. If I could see this lady, the dog could see her, and Claire couldn't, it meant one thing, and one thing only. Ghost.

Pulse racing, I stood. By waving back at the haint, I'd acknowledged her. And the rules of ghostly engagement meant I now had to help her. Of course, I couldn't let on to Claire that I was seeing about a ghost. "Come on, Roquefort."

Claire set her magazine down on the stack piled next to her. "What's wrong? Where are you going?"

"It's time for a walk," I said, hopeful that this woman's issue was easy peasy, lemon squeezy, which I deserved since I was, after all, on vacation. Come to think of it, I should get a few extra points on the heavenly scoreboard for interrupting my vacay to help.

Tempted as I was to ignore the lady in red, I couldn't. No way should anyone have to spend eternity with a wedgie.

"Hey," I called out once I got far enough away from my sister that I doubted my voice would carry on the wind.

The old lady didn't stop. Her gait was different from most people's, much less sure and, I noticed, her stride was shorter, not quite a shuffle.

"Wait up, ma'am!" I shouted.

With wispy silver strands of hair escaping from under her cap, she glanced back at me as I was about to overtake her. Her watery gaze appeared fearful. Her voice shook. "I don't have any money."

"Don't be afraid," I said as my stupid beagle started barking once more. I looked around the deserted beach.

My stomach rumbled that dinner was fast approaching, and I glanced back toward the beach below the Hacienda House, where Claire was no longer lounging. She was heading my way. I had to make this quick.

"I'm here to help you, but I think I have to go eat dinner or I'll get in trouble. That happens a lot-trouble for me. So I'll see you in the morning, and we'll talk. 'Kay?"

The lady's forehead wrinkled, her lips twitched like she had a nervous tick of some sort. She blinked repeatedly, but the lost, glazed over look in her eyes remained. I'd seen that disoriented expression before, but I couldn't remember where.

"Is that okay?" I asked. "Can you get me up to speed in the morning? You do walk in the morning, too. Right?"

"Yes, I walk in the morning," she said, voice trembling like the rubber flowers decorating her swim cap.

"Good. I'll see you then." Uncertain whether I'd really meet up with the confused lady in the swim cap again, I headed off toward Claire. I also started wondering where frightened old ghosts go at night.

More than a little worried, I made it back to the towels and beach chairs, and noticed that Audrey's sunglasses were nowhere to be found. "Where did you put Audrey's glasses? We need to give them back to her."

Claire lowered her shades. "I thought you had them."

Roquefort ran up sniffing, snorting, and without the purloined eyewear.

Taking her snout in hand, I gazed into her warm doggie eyes. "What did you do with the glasses?"

A smelly lick was her answer.

Searching the stretch of sand for any unusual mounds that might lead us to where she'd buried the glasses-if she'd buried them-I prayed for a little divine guidance, then searched again.

Nothing. My appetite evaporated.

I couldn't count on Claire, sister-most-likely-to-crack-under-the-pressure, to keep quiet.

I was so dead.

#

Guilt woke me way before the sun. Somehow last night, I convinced Claire to keep mum on my part in the great disappearing sunglass caper. How, you ask? I lied and told her I was going to buy Audrey some new ones.

Problem was I had no idea how I was going to afford replacement glasses when I had no money and my allowance was spent. Thankfully, those minor details weren't brought to my attention at the time I'd promised Claire. But now they gnawed at me.

You see, Audrey bought these designer sunglasses at a consignment shop. The likelihood of me finding an exact replica were infinitesimal-if I had the money-and I didn't.

They had to be somewhere. They couldn't just disappear. Maybe I could scour the beach today. Maybe Audrey would figure she lost them herself . . . until Claire confessed.

Sighing, I dressed quietly so as not to wake Claire, the sister who doubled as my conscience, then headed downstairs to the quiet kitchen. Since no one else was up and about to tell me not to, I made a pot of coffee and was able to drink a whole cup before anyone else stirred. Considering my parents won't let me drink java, I considered it quite the coup. I took it as an omen that the day would go well. I'd not only find Audrey's sunglasses, I'd help bathing cap ghost find her way out of this realm.

Still sipping my contraband, I wandered over to the counter where my dad had placed the rental house keys to open the back door. A note lay beside them. Audrey's girly scrawl. Please look for my sunglasses. I searched my room and the deck off of it.

Guilt body-slammed me even with the caffeine fortification. Those glasses were long gone, probably buried by inches of sand or even swept out to sea. For all I knew, a horseshoe crab was sporting a new look. Maybe the coffee would help me figure a way to make it up to Audrey . . . somehow.

As I made my way down the worn wooden steps, I could tell the tide was literally against me. The water almost reached the bottom. I'd have to work fast or wait until the evening to figure out my latest haint's problem, and the longer this haunting went on, the greater the likelihood I'd end up on Prilosec. Stress-induced ulcers weren't on my bucket list.

Come to think of it, I didn't even know my haint's name, and that's usually a good place to start to find out why they're here.

Hand covering my eyes from the rising sun's blinding rays, I glanced left then right before I saw her, then ran through the spreading, cool, ankle deep surf after her. This time I didn't have Roquefort, thank goodness. I think the dog scared my haint yesterday. Plus, I wasn't rewarding our dog for losing Audrey's glasses.

Wedgie ghost kept looking back at me as I sped toward her, but she didn't slow down. She kept shuffling along.

I splashed through the rising surf to reach her. "Hey, lady! Stop!"

"Do I know you?" she asked without slowing.

"Yeah. We met yesterday."

"We did?"

"Yeah, remember I had my dog with me, and she kept barking at you."

She cocked her swim-capped head to the side, then shook it. "I don't remember."

Okay, I know what you're thinking because I was thinking it, too. If this haint couldn't remember what happened yesterday, how was I going to help her leave and stay gone?

What seemed so simple, fix a wedgie, send a soul to the great beyond-seemed so much more daunting today. Especially now that the surf was up past my shins, and I couldn't see what was in the silt-darkened water with me.

"Fix your bathing suit," I said.

"What?" She blinked.

"You've got a wedgie," I said and pointed behind me. "You know wedgie?"

"Wedgie?" She looked behind me instead of at her own behind.

"Not me, you."

"Not me, you," she repeated.

Okay, so wedgie wasn't a part of this woman's vocabulary. "Your bathing suit is stuck between your. . ." How else could I explain? I couldn't. I just had to lay it out there. "Butt cheeks."

She craned her head to look behind her, and I swear it was almost like Roquefort chasing her tail. Only this ghost did it much slower, and I had to stop her.

"Just pull it out," I said.

"Pull what out?" she asked.

I wanted to smack my forehead. "Your bathing suit from in between your butt cheeks!"

Seriously, I was almost ready to tug it down for her. But she accomplished the task and started walking again, away from me, like she'd totally forgotten I was there to help her, which she probably had. She hadn't become a beam of light and moved on, which meant her wedgie wasn't what was keeping her here.

At about ten paces away, I think her suit hiked back to the spot it most liked to wedge into.

"Hey!" I called out to her as a particularly forceful wave nudged me into teetering. She had to do something nice for me to move this haunting along, at least that's one of the rules I'd figured out with Amy.

The ghost looked at me like we hadn't had a conversation about her wedgie moments ago. Her blank expression wasn't just forgetful, it was weird. Or maybe she was not all here.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Me?" she called back but shuffled along without stopping.

"Yes, you," I yelled. "What's your name?"

She responded, but thanks to the surf and her gliding too fast for me to follow, as haints sometimes do, I wasn't sure if she said Booby or Doobie. But neither of those are people names. So I went through the alphabet. Scooby? Funny, but no.

I slogged back toward the hacienda through the murky water. Newbie? Doubtful. Ruby. That had to be it. So, progress of sorts. But she didn't remember who I was from meeting me the day before. She didn't remember the conversation we sort of had about her wedgie minutes after we'd talked. She didn't realize she'd done one nice thing for me, and she could expand her haunting parameters because of it. So that meant . . . flighty?

Crazy was also a good possibility. Ghosts can't possibly take their meds, so I could see how a crazy person would have some issues in the afterworld. Although, I kind of always thought you were healed of your physical problems when you died.

And that's when it hit me, the vacant yet scared look in the eyes, the shuffling gait, the inability to remember a conversation from two minutes earlier. Dementia. My friend Tina's grandmother had it from a stroke that left water on the brain and her right arm weak. She remembered her past way better than her present. But Ruby's ghostly limbs had been working just fine. So what was I dealing with-Alzheimer's?

Coffee rose in my throat. How would I deal with a haint who had Alzheimer's? So much for the little smidge of confidence helping Amy had won me.

Hurrying so that I wouldn't end up swimming to the steps at our beach house, I scrambled up the sandy cliff carefully avoiding those burrs that stick to your bare feet. Relieved I'd made it, I glanced down to the beach to where the haint had been and no longer was.

The water rose much higher in the minutes I'd been gone. God only knew how I would have made it if I'd had to swim. I'm okay in the swim department but not exactly strong, and this area was known for rip tides-at least that's what my parents told us.

So now I had to figure out what exactly Ruby's problem was, beyond the debilitating disease, and maybe her last name so I could find out who she'd been. If I could get her to tell me her last name, I might be lucky enough to find something on an internet search. I'd wasted too much time with my first ghost not focusing on who she'd been to make the same mistake. That's where the truth of a ghost's limbo status usually lies. But then, having only helped one ghost, I'm not exactly an expert.

#

That evening, I'd been sitting at the top of the steps waiting on Ruby, the-ghost-most-likely-to-need-a-wedgie- extricated and least-likely-to-know-why-she-hadn't-moved-on, or that she was even dead for that matter.

Wait a minute. Could it be that simple? If this haint couldn't remember anything else, why would she even remember she was dead? Maybe all I had to do was say, hey, you're dead. Plan A, covered. Plan B?

Amy told me that when people died they wore their favorite outfit, so this lady had probably loved this particular stretch of beach. Not sure how that factoid would help me. And she could be from anywhere. I didn't even know her last name much less what emotional baggage if any was keeping her here. So I guess getting that information out of her was my Plan B.

"Hey!" Mom called out from way too close behind me.

I startled. Thanks to the constant breeze or maybe the surf rolling in and out and the gulls screeching, I hadn't heard her sneak up on me.

"What're you doing?" she asked. My mom has an insatiable desire to know what her progeny is doing twenty-four-seven, and in case you haven't figured it out, that's annoying.

"Nothing. Just sitting." So I could see her face, I shifted on the weathered topmost wooden step that led down to our spot of beach and hoped it didn't lead to a splinter in my hind end.

She raised an eyebrow, the universal mom signal for I-don't-believe-you.

"And thinking . . . about stuff." Vague yet truthful.

Mom squinted against the sun, the message on her tee-shirt a clear indicator of her pleasant mood, Well another day has passed, and I didn't use algebra once. "Stuff, huh?"

Why not give her a little something to chew on? Then maybe she'd leave me alone to figure out my ghost. "Yes. Alzheimer's specifically."

"Grandma's fine," she said, assuming I was worried. "We're all a little forgetful at times, but that doesn't mean we have Alzheimer's."

I guess she was into the royal "we."

I focused on two ships moving along the horizon. "I know, I know. But I saw this . . . lady on the beach the other day. She looked lost and scared. I think she has it."

Mom's forehead wrinkled into her full-on worried expression. The lines between her eyebrows deepened. "I wish you'd told me then. We could have called someone."

Crappola! So not what I wanted. My hypersensitive skin gave its pre-flare warning. "Not necessary. Some guy was with her," I lied. "Probably her son."

"Are you sure? Because if you're not, and this lady's wandered off-"

"I'm sure. So, like, this is what I'm wondering. How do you get a person to remember if they have it? And where exactly do their minds take them when they stare off at nothing? Do their minds take them somewhere from their past?"

Mom shook her head. "Awfully deep thinking for vacation."

I sighed. "Come on. I need an answer."

"I'm not sure. Did this lady say something to make you think she was living in the past?"

I shrugged. Maybe she'd gotten lost on her way to heaven. Did ghosts like Ruby make it there eventually?

Suspecting that if I wanted to get to the bottom of why she strolled the beach, I'd need to do something that would jog loose a memory. Maybe ask her what year it was, if she had any kids. Maybe I could figure out when those rubber swim caps were all the rage. Plan C.

And there was Ruby. I checked my phone. About six minutes behind schedule. I stood. "I'm going for a quick jog before dinner."

Mom frowned. "Please don't be late. And stop worrying about that lady, Heather."

Easy for her to say. "I'll try."

God knew I had plenty of other things to worry about-being a freshman at Pecan Hills High, my older sister's friends who think I'm weird, and my friend Tina being mad because I didn't want to go to her friend Suzanne's boy-girl party. It was a pity invite, and even though it's sometimes hard to see because, yeah, I want to be part of the in-crowd, I've got more self -esteem than to go where I know I'm not truly welcome. Oh, and I still hadn't located my sister's sunglasses even though I'd scoured the beach this afternoon.

I scrambled down the rickety stairs and kept an eye on the surf. I jogged until I caught up with Ruby, not that she was stopping for me.

"Ruby!" I yelled about ten times before she acknowledged my presence.

Unfortunately, this boy and his dad who were flying a rainbow-colored box kite noticed my frantic calls, too.

"Did you lose your dog?" the man asked.

"Yes," I answered, relieved that he didn't automatically assume I was insane, because that's what I might have thought if I'd seen someone shouting Ruby repeatedly as she ran down the beach. I didn't offer any further information since I was, as was becoming all too frequent since becoming a ghost handler, lying.

"I lost something once," Ruby said as I fell into step with her.

Careful that the kite fliers wouldn't hear me, I prodded, skipping all the way to Plan C. "What was it? The thing you lost?"

She looked wistfully out at the water. "I don't know, but I think I liked it."

Okay, not progress by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe if I kept her talking. "What sorts of things do you like, Ruby?"

"The water, the beach, music and, and . . . . It's right here." She pointed to her mouth. My first thought? Lipstick. But then the neurons fired. I suspected she meant something else entirely. "Is it on the tip of your tongue?"

"Yes," she said and gave me a trembly smile, then stopped mid-ghost stride, and that scared, unsettled look returned. "Do I know you?"

"Yes, I'm Heather. And you're Ruby." Here was my shot at Plan B, learning a last name. Maybe that's what she liked that she'd forgotten. It was worth a shot. "What was your last name again?"

"Where's Bill?" she asked, and my hope deflated.

Not sure if Bill was son, husband, brother, or some friend from beyond long ago, I didn't know how to answer. This Bill could be dead or at the very least living his life far away from coastal Georgia. Maybe the thing she'd lost was a person.

"Where's Bill?" she asked again. "He should be here."

"Why?"

She grew tearful. "He promised."

"What's Bill's last name?" I asked, praying it wouldn't be a dead end, praying she wouldn't forget who we were talking about.

"Puckett," she said.

Getting that out of her boosted my confidence that I'd get more information. "And your last name is?"

"Where's Bill?" was her answer.

"Don't worry," I heard myself say, and worse yet, "I'll help you find him."

Yeah, me, the girl who still hadn't figured out how to help Ruby move on, was now promising things I shouldn't. Plus, her doing a second nice thing, which I counted her answering my questions as, should enable her to accompany me back to the hacienda.

But she just kept walking down the beach away from me before I could implement Plan A, like she didn't know the rules, or she didn't remember them, or I'd gotten them wrong.

No. I shook off the self-doubt. Amy had been pretty clear. I wasn't the problem in this equation. To move my haintly friend on, I had to get her to do one more nice thing for me and of course figure out what was keeping her strolling along this particular stretch of beach.

If I couldn't figure out who she was, how could I find her father/brother/husband/son/childhood friend?

#

So dinner was miserable but not because of the food. It had more to do with Audrey's constantly complaining, which I had no choice but to tune out after about two full minutes of whining and not just about her missing sunglasses.

I had plenty of other things to dwell on besides episode fifty-million and one of Life's so Unfair to Audrey. For example, I had to come up with a way to get her to let me borrow her laptop to do a little research on this Bill Puckett guy because I had stupidly left the cord to my pc at home and the battery in my laptop wasn't charged. I have HP. She has a Dell. Borrowing her cord or battery wasn't an option. And all Audrey droned on about was that the sun was waking her up much too early in the crow's nest bedroom she'd insisted on having.

Not that her hiney made it downstairs before eleven a.m. She also complained that it got too hot up there, and there were strange noises, blah, blah, blah. Gripe and moan.

Claire and I had the default room that stayed relatively dark in the mornings and was pleasantly cool and void of Audrey-style whining. And that's when it hit me. I'd make a deal with older sister.

"I'll switch with you if. . . ." Fighting a smile, I waited for her to take the bait.

"If what?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest.

"If you let me use your computer."

"Okay," she said a little too easily. "But Claire has to move up there with you. As the oldest I get my own room."

"As if. There's one bed up there," I pointed out.

"Yeah. But it's a double. Share," she said and popped another grilled pepper in her mouth.

Dad lifted his fork. "Veto. If you don't want the crow's nest, Audrey, you have to share the room with Claire."

Audrey mulled, then finally gave in, and I got use of her computer, too. Yay, me!

On a whim, I searched for Ruby Puckett, and nothing came up but this Ancestry.com thing that I think I'd have to pay for. So I typed in Bill Puckett. Same ancestry site popped up. Nothing else.

Great. Another dead end, and I couldn't even smile at my own pun.

#

The next morning I woke up early again, thanks to the sun rather than guilt. Audrey had not been exaggerating about the near blinding brightness. Since sleeping was out of the question, I decided to see if Grandma, who was usually awake early, could at least shed some light on my ghost. Not that I was going to tell her the person in question was of the non-living variety.

Grandma had already set the whistle kettle on the stove top for tea. "Well, aren't you up early. Want a cup?"

The kettle sang, and she poured the steaming water over the bag in her mug.

"I'd rather have coffee," I answered, ever hopeful she'd break the rules.

"You're not allowed to drink coffee, and there's none made. Here." She pushed her mug toward me, then got another one for herself, dunking her teabag and looking at me expectantly.

I added a big, heaping spoonful of sugar to mine and sipped. Not bad, but not coffee.

"What's bothering you?" she asked. "Don't say nothing, because you're just like your Aunt Geneva, and I always knew when something was bothering her. Just like I always know when something's bothering you."

Yes. Everything was going as planned. "So I met this lady on the beach the other day, and I think she has Alzheimer's. She was looking for someone named Bill, and she was so upset I said I'd help her find him."

"That's quite a pickle."

"Well, I got her to tell me his last name, not that it yielded anything when I Googled him."

"Maybe you should try talking to the person who's keeping an eye on her. There is someone with her, isn't there?"

"Yes," I fibbed, then took another long sip of the tea I still wished was coffee. I didn't really like lying to my grandmother, but sometimes a ghost handler had to do what she had to do.

Grandma walked over to the pantry to get the box of bran cereal she liked. "And Heather, maybe you can convince her to tell you more about Bill. If she remembered his name, he's probably important."

No offense, but duh. The problem was I had to get my ghost to tell me why he was important to her.

Seeing that the tide was in, which meant I'd have to wait to interrogate my haint, I sat in the living room and noticed my sister Audrey had left her laptop on the coffee table. I decided to Google Ruby's mystery man again to see if I'd missed anything, which is quite possible.

And there it freakin' was, an obituary for this morning's Brunswick paper. A William Puckett who died Wednesday of heart failure. I could see there wasn't much juice left in the battery, but I needed to find paper and a pen so I could get the details-not that I was going to his funeral today. But I think I had the answer to where Bill was or had been. I ran over to my mom's purse and dug up a pen and one of those little yellow notepads that had grocery lists on most pages. Finally at the end, one measly sheet empty of writing.

I scratched the pen until ink came out, then ran back to my spot bumping my shin against the sharp edge of the coffee table.

"Heather?" Grandma watched me with concern.

"I found my answer, I think."

I wrote down the birth and death dates, noted that he'd been preceded in death by his wife of forty-six years Ruby, who'd succumbed to Alzheimer's last fall. Bingo. And that they lived on Jekyll and their favorite thing to do was walk the beach together in the mornings and at sunset. The obituary mentioned he'd continued to walk there without her as was their habit until his heart attack this week. He never regained consciousness.

Okay, new problem. I now knew Bill was her husband and why she was looking for him. As a ghost, she probably walked with him, just like when she was living. I wondered if he'd known. I also mulled over how she'd react to learning he'd died and how I'd convince her to join him in heaven rather than walk the beach.

I exited the website, then looked up the tides for the day. In about an hour I should be able to walk on the beach. I'd find Ruby and convince her to head toward the light, where I seriously hoped Bill would be waiting. Yeah, a reboot of Plan A.

#

Sun beating down on my head and shoulders, I booked down the beach where I could see Ruby way ahead. Damp sand flew as I hurried. There were too many people on the beach this morning for me to call out to her and not draw attention to myself. Well, no more than my running did.

I caught up with her several yards past some girl making a sand castle and a boy who was older digging for sand crabs.

"Ruby," I said as I fell into step with her.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

Here we go again. I wanted to smack myself. "Yes, I'm Heather. I'm the one helping you find Bill."

"Where is he?" she asked, for once stopping.

How did I ease into this? "He got sick."

"Sick," she repeated.

"His heart. He had a heart attack."

Her face crumpled, and she started to cry. I looked around hoping no one else could hear her, because some kids can, and I saw a man making a bee-line for us, or maybe me. He was about my dad's age, and as he got closer, I noticed he wasn't leaving an impression in the sand.

Great, just what I needed, another haint. He'd have to wait until I moved Ruby along. So much for a restful vacation.

But he wasn't here to see me, I realized, as he focused on my crying companion. He put his arm around Ruby. "Hey, now. Why all the tears, gorgeous?"

Ruby's sobs sputtered. "You're okay."

"Of course, I'm okay. I'm with you," he said, then winked at me, like I was in on the joke.

Oh, my God, was this. . . ?

"Bill Puckett," he said, and I could now see the resemblance from the obit photo.

Then right before my eyes, Ruby's fear dissolved, and that lost look left her gaze. "I know you. And this is Bill. My Bill."

Her wrinkled face smoothed. Her age spots faded. The wisps of hair poking out from her rubber cap darkened to a light brown. The red suit and the body inside it shrank about five sizes smaller. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say twenty, maybe thirty years of living, almost instantaneously erased from her ghostly face. Beautiful.

"Heather, right?" she said, her voice now strong. "Thanks for helping me find Bill."

"I think he found you. I didn't really do anything."

"Sure you did. No wedgie. That's what you called it. And your kindness gave me hope that Bill would come. You see, I couldn't remember who I was looking for, at least not long enough to find him."

Bill was already glimmering. "Time to go, Ruby."

"Bye," she said with a wide, confident smile. "Thanks again."

Hand in hand, they walked away from me down the beach, brightening with each step, until my eyes watered and I had to look away. And then they were gone.

I started to walk back and noticed the girl making the sand castle nearby was talking to me.

"Look," she called out. "My castle has big windows."

Not just big windows. Two big, round, dark windows connected with black molded plastic that looked like my sister's lost sunglasses. Yes!

"Hey, where did you find those?" I asked.

"Over there," she pointed to a curved line of seaweed and shells, marking the last high tide.

"Can I see them? My sister lost hers." With a little help from me and Roquefort.

The girl squinted up at me. "But that'll ruin my castle."

"I'll help you rebuild it," I offered even though I pretty much hate little kids. Yeah, that's how badly I wanted those sunglasses back.

Maybe I could get her to feel a little of my pain. "You got an older sister or brother?"

She nodded.

"Well, I sort of took my older sister's sunglasses, and she's not happy I lost them. She might kill me."

The little girl snorted. Not exactly the sympathy I was looking for.

Alright, I'd just grab the shades and run. I glanced around to see where her parents were. Unfortunately, a woman in a one piece, sarong, and large brimmed straw hat, who was probably her mom, was watching me a little too closely. And her shoulders were already leaning forward. She was poised to do battle for her kid.

"Finders keepers, losers weepers," the little snot said, reminding me way too much of my first haint Amy.

It figured the kid who found Audrey's glasses wouldn't be sweet. I cut to the chase. "So what do you want for the glasses?"

She eyeballed my Georgia Bulldog tee-shirt that featured a cartoon of Hairy Dog on the back. "I like your shirt."

I liked it, too. We'd gone to a football game last fall, and I'd used my own money to buy it. "I don't think so."

"So you want your sister to kill you?" she challenged with a smirk.

"Not particularly. What I want is for someone in this world to do something out of the kindness in her heart. Someone, meaning you. You found those glasses, and you know they don't belong to you."

The mom sprang out of her beach chair and in a matter of seconds was standing next to me. I knew better than to hope her presence meant she'd force her daughter to do the right thing.

"Before you start yelling at me, I want you to know those really are my sister's designer sunglasses. I left them on the beach, and it's not like I'm old enough to get jobs other than babysitting to replace them. Well, not without my parents' permission." I took a breath and got back on track. "My point is I shouldn't have to literally give the shirt off my back for your daughter to return the glasses to the sister of the rightful owner."

On that dramatic note, I left without the sunglasses and started working out in my head how many babysitting jobs I'd have to endure to make enough money to buy Audrey a similar pair and estimate how much trouble I was going to be in when I at long last admitted to Audrey and my parents what I'd done and how I'd lost them. I couldn't live with the guilt any longer.

"Hey, girl!" the kid called out from behind me, over the sound of the waves and wind.

Expecting to see a stuck-out tongue, I almost didn't stop. But I did. When she caught up to me, I noticed Audrey's sunglasses in her hand and braced myself for her to say something like the price was now my shirt and shorts, which had Bulldogs emblazoned across the booty.

"Take them," she said, pushing her tangled brown hair out of her face.

Oh, my God. Her mom made her do the right thing. My heart raced with joy.

"Really?" I couldn't believe she wanted nothing in return. I started to leave, but then it hit me. I shouldn't get off so easy. I'd been wrong to take Audrey's sunglasses, and I'd been lucky that Claire hadn't ratted on me.

I took a deep breath, then removed my bulldog shirt. Yes, I had a bikini top under it, so it wasn't like I was naked. I tossed it to her. "Thanks. It's not every day you save a younger sister's life."

She smiled, then wriggled the shirt that was long enough to be a dress down over her head, covering her bathing suit completely.

Two for two today, and it wasn't even noon. The rest of vacation stretched before me, ghost and guilt free.

The End