City of Ghosts

It’s like Neverland in Peter Pan—the longer the Lost Boys stayed, the more they forgot. The longer I’m on the wrong side of the Veil, the harder it is to get out.

“I prefer the phrase ‘corporeally challenged.’”

The living may take strength from love and hope, but the dead grow strong on darker things. On pain and anger and regret

I know you’re supposed to want to be one of the popular kids, but the truth is, I never have. It just seems like it would be exhausting, trying to keep up with all the rules. Smile, but not too wide. Laugh, but not too loud. Wear the right clothes, play the right sports, care about things, but never care too much.

People think that ghosts only come out at night, or on Halloween, when the world is dark and the walls are thin. But the truth is, ghosts are everywhere

THE INSPECTERS.

It’s a play on words, you see, because an inspector is a person who searches for and examines something, and a specter with an e is another word for ghost. So an inspecter is a person who searches for and examines ghosts

One foot with the living, and one with the dead.

“Ghost five,” I say, for luck. A ghost five is like a high five for friends who can’t really touch. It’s basically just me putting out my hand and him pretending to hit it, both of us murmuring a soft “smack” sound on contact.

“Ninth rule of friendship,” he says, “ghost-watching is a two-person sport.”

That tickle at the edge of your senses