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“And I got to be with August.” He was the good she didn’t know existed. But what about the pictures of the girls she found? The man she knew doesn’t reconcile with the man who took those photographs. “Did you know August was working for Ira?”

“August had his own secrets. Some of us have more hauntings than the others.” Millie looks at Jo in such a way that Jo’s breath hitches. She’s a ghost, a lost soul. Some knowledge must be etched into her bones, after all. “Have you figured out yet who killed me?” Millie sits up, folds her hands into her lap. She doesn’t have a shadow.

The horse beats its hooves at the cobblestones and puffs the air.

“What is he saying?”

Millie shrugs. “He says you know more than you’re letting on.” She squints at Jo. “Is he right?”

“Tell me about your mother.”

Millie looks down at her feet and wiggles her toes. “She’s a difficult woman. Not kind. Prone to angry fits. Especially since Daddy died.”

“Has she ever hurt you?”

Millie shakes her head, and her clavicles protrude under her skin so violently, Jo’s certain they will break through the skin. “Not me. Grace. That girl just doesn’t listen.” A wide smile spreads on her face, a flash of teeth, and she looks so much younger than her fifteen years old. “Grace fell in love with Sally. Wanted to run away with her, and Mother beat her senseless. Hit her with the Bible across her face. Split her lips. Almost took an eye out. Screamed she had the devil in her.” Millie trails off, and Jo doesn’t push her. She stays quiet, watching Millie—taking in her pale face, long disheveled hair, and a white rose tucked behind her ear. After a long pause, Millie continues, “Sally ended up in that awful place on Dearborn Street. Uncle Ira suggested sending Grace away to a boarding house for unruly girls. But then I died, and Grace stayed at home.” She sighs and looks at Jo, her eyes cloudy with unshed tears. “I wonder if it was Mother who killed me. I told her I’d leave with Grace. I wouldn’t stay in the house with her. I was dead a day later.”

“If it was your mother, why would she poison you and not Grace?”

“Why, to punish my sister, of course.”

Jo nods, suddenly feeling completely wrung out but not entirely convinced that Gertrude indeed killed her own daughter to penalize her other child. What kind of mother would do something so despicable? The thought doesn’t sit right with Jo. Something doesn’t fit.

“I’m close to solving your murder. I just need a bit more time.”

How thrilling. A low whisper in the air.

Jo and Millie gawk at Horace.

“He isn’t very nice,” Jo says and gets to her feet.

Horace snorts.

“How do you know you’ll be able to move on if you know your killer?”

Millie looks up at the sky. She looks like a miniature version of Grace—same wide-set blue eyes, full lips, and an open yet mischievous gaze. “I just know. It’s like a current. It drags me somewhere, but I cannot move because I’m tethered to this place. I suspect as soon as I know, that connection—whatever is holding me here—will be finally broken, and I’ll be able to move on.”

“Is that true?” Jo turns to the horse. “Will she move on?”

Horace nods.

“I’m not the only one here. There are many souls like me. They live behind those doors.” Millie points to one of the alleys with the white doors Jo was trying to open the last time she was here. “There’s a courtyard just like ours behind each door. Sometimes we come out into the alleys. Not to be alone. We walk, look inside each courtyard, but we never talk about our deaths. We don’t talk at all.”

“It must be very lonely.” Jo’s voice is quiet, strained. Lost souls wandering endless pathways that lead to nowhere. Each of them waiting to move on. Most of them stuck here for eternity.

Millie reaches out to Jo as if to touch her hand, but reconsiders. “I think about it a lot. About the end of here. And the beginning of something new.”

The swell of tears is like a wave rushing over Jo. A tide that pulls her down. “I promise I’ll figure it all out. You will move on.” The tears burn the back of Jo’s eyes, choking her, shrinking her aching heart. “I couldn’t find you last time. This place was empty. What happened?”

Millie cranes her neck to look Horace in the eye, but the horse turns away.

A sudden breeze wooshes through the air. Stray locks of Jo’s hair whip around her face. The white rose falls out of Millie’s hair and is blown into the well.

Jo. Jo. Can you hear me? A familiar voice pierces through the wind.

Jo’s head jerks violently. Her neck cracks. Jo’s shoulders ache as if they’re being squeezed too hard.

Jo. Please wake up.