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I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, leaned back against the headrest, and let the quiet of the car settle around me.

Kaidence was settled and safe in his classroom, Granny was resting comfortably with clean air in her lungs, and Willow was upstairs handling her business.

Everybody was starting to find their rhythm in this strange, massive house, which meant it was time for me to figure out mine.

I couldn’t sit around in that mansion living off memories and ghost stories forever. I had bills to handle, a son to raise, and a career I had worked too damn hard for to let it slip away.

I put the Range Rover in drive, checked my mirrors, and eased out into the street.

“All right, Lakelyn,” I muttered to the empty truck, watching the road open up ahead of me. “Time to find some work.”

I pulled out of the school lot and pointed the truck back toward the mansion. For the first time since I’d come back to Hallowridge, I had a few uninterrupted hours to myself… and I intended to make them count.

Chapter twelve

Caspian

Inever thought I’d see the day when I’d be standing on a bed of recycled tire mulch outside an elementary school, watching my five-year-old son navigate kindergarten recess.

Yet there I was… dead as hell and still on father duty.

Ever since Lakelyn brought our boy through the gates of that mansion, something in me had been getting stronger. Not all at once, either. It built day by day, every morning Kaidence woke up under my roof and every night he went to sleep there.

The house was still my anchor, my cage, and my kingdom all rolled into one. That hadn’t changed. I couldn’t just decide I wanted to manifest on the corner of Fourth Street and walk around Hallowridge like the man who used to run the city.

But Kaidence was different.

The same blood that had kept my heart beating for thirty-one years was running through my son’s veins now, and somehow death had turned that connection into something I could actually feel.

Kaidence carried a piece of me with him wherever he went.

As long as he was breathing, there was a pull I could lock onto, a thin but powerful thread stretching from him all the way back to the part of me still anchored inside that house. When he got scared, I felt it hit my chest like a warning. When he laughed, some of the cold wrapped around my spirit seemed to loosen. Even his excitement carried a warmth I had learned to recognize since he and Lakelyn moved in.

And after having him under my roof long enough to strengthen that connection, I discovered something new.

If I focused hard enough and poured enough energy into that bond, I could stretch part of myself along it.

Not leave the house completely.

I still belonged there.

But for a little while, wherever my son went, I could project enough of myself to follow.

The distance took a toll, though.

The farther Kaidence got from the mansion, the thinner I became, like smoke catching a hard draft. Holding myself together out there burned through energy fast, and I already knew I couldn’t stay indefinitely. But I wasn’t about to sit in an empty master bedroom staring at the ceiling while my son walked into a brand-new school alone.

I stood beside the chain-link fence near the red monkey bars, leaning against an oak tree that didn’t feel my weight.

Recess was in full swing.

The schoolyard was pure chaos. Little kids in navy uniforms sprinted in circles, chasing red rubber balls, climbing over playground equipment, and screaming at a volume that made absolutely no sense for people that small.

About fifty yards away, two teachers assigned to recess duty stood near the edge of the blacktop with coffee thermoses in hand, talking and occasionally scanning the playground, completely oblivious to the spiritual heavyweight standing twenty feet from the jungle gym.

Kaidence was by the slide, holding his own.

He’d already linked up with another kid wearing glasses, trading plastic superhero figurines like they were negotiating high-level contracts. The boy had Lakelyn’s charm and my posture—back straight, chin up, unbothered by the noise around him.