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Nate walked through him.

Through him.

And it felt so weird!

A jolt of warmth passed through the ghost, and he smelled… was that coffee? Coffee and sawdust.

The ghost spun around. “Don’t do that! You can’t just — that’s — Jesus, that’s rude. You don’t walk through people.”

“You were in the way.”

“I was blocking you!”

“Well, you aren’t very good at it, are you?” Nate headed back to the truck.

Again, the ghost followed him. “You’re not going to be happy here,” he promised.

Nate turned and held a box out to him.

The ghost grabbed for it. His hands went through the cardboard and the box hit the gravel with a thud.

They both looked at it.

“Right,” Nate said, picking it back up. “Forgot.”

“You didn’t forget. You did that on purpose.”

“I was testing a theory.”

“What theory?”

“Whether you could hold a box.”

“I can hold a box! I could! I just didn’t want to hold your damn box because I don’t want your stuff in my house!”

Nate carried it inside. The ghost trailed after him.

Nate set the box down in the sitting room and pulled out a tape measure, which he used to measure the window wall before writing numbers in that notebook of his.

“What are you doing now?” the ghost demanded.

“Measuring the walls for shelving.”

“You’re not putting shelves up. No. Absolutely not.”

Nate measured the next window without even looking at the ghost.

The ghost wasn’t going to stand for that.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that I’m never going to stop. I’m going to fight you on every single thing you do in this house.”

Nate glanced at him. “With what, the broom?”

The ghost’s mouth opened and closed.

Nate focused back on his notebook and wrote another measurement.

The ghost’s fists clenched. Who did this medium think he was that he could ridicule the ghost like that? That he could move into this house and treat it as if he owned it, as if the ghost didn’t exist?