Mrs. Gray's voice was very soft, so soft it seemed the wind could carry it away.
For no reason at all, Wade suddenly felt his scalp tingle.
He kept himself from backing away and asked just as softly, "Who?"
Mrs. Gray lowered her gaze to him sadly. After a while, she said something entirely unrelated:
"About half a month ago, I felt that something was wrong for the first time... I had never felt anything like it before, but I seemed to... seemed to instinctively know... what it was..."
"What?"
But Mrs. Gray seemed not to have heard him. She continued murmuring to herself:
"That feeling was vague, incredibly vague... Once you become a ghost too, you'll understand. Most of the time, it's as though we live in the memories from before we died. Everything else... is very vague..."
"It was something incredibly, incredibly ancient... far older than even the era my mother lived in... something terribly frightening..."
"I thought I had sensed it wrong. I thought it was a nightmare... although ghosts don't dream to begin with..."
"I thought... it was only, only my own thoughts playing tricks on me again... I didn't pay much attention to it..."
Mrs. Gray wrapped both arms around herself. Her eyes were wide, and her lips trembled slightly as she said:
"But yesterday—no, early this morning, before dawn... I felt it again... I don't like this feeling. It reminds me of... of when I was killed..."
"It's all right. You can tell me," Wade said gently. "I'll help you figure out what's going on. And if I can't, there's always Dumbledore."
Mrs. Gray raised her head and stared at Wade without blinking.
"I don't like you."
She said it suddenly.
Wade was somewhat surprised and even more baffled. He casually said, "So?"
"You