We were alone, sitting beside the fresh dug grave marked by a small evergreen tree. The sun had set, and the world was taking on the gray hue of a frozen twilight.

The ground beneath us was icy, but the cold I felt came from the unfamiliar emptiness of being a ghost.

“What are we going to do?” Jacob asked.

I didn’t have an answer.

Jan said, “But we’re dead.”

I knew what he meant. We were dead. There was nothing we could do.

I pulled both of them closer to me.

“We’ll stay,” I said.

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“We have to stay,” Jacob grumbled. “Felice said—”

“No. I want to stay.”

“Why?”

“Because…it’s what Dominie would have done. We can’t do anything else, but if we guard him, we can keep the monster inside.”

“Guard him?” Jan said. “Like a sentry?”

“Like a sentry. Or a soldier.”

Jan sat up taller.

“If it would protect people,” I said, “Dominie would have chosen to stay.”

“How do you know?” Jacob muttered.

“Because he protected us. He always tried to help people. Even in little ways. Even…the sisters.”

“Is this a little way?” Jan asked.

“It’s a big-little. It keeps people safe, but all we have to do is watch.”

“I can do that.”

Jan’s unconscious confidence beamed out from him, and it felt like a ray of sunshine.

All it was, was watching—staying with my beloved Dominie and watching the bones where the monster was sleeping.

I realized Dominie was keeping people safe too. He didn’t have a choice either, but I thought he would be glad if he knew…now that it was all he could do.

“Jacob, Jan, will you stay with me?”