The skeletal shadows of bare twigs cast jumping silhouettes on the walls of the pup tent that sheltered the two 7-year old boys wrapped in their sleeping bags. It was Halloween night, and after trick-or-treating, Robbie was the guest chosen to spend the night in Tony’s back yard.

The lilac bushes were bare, having already contributed their dead leaves to the rustling rubbish that obediently swirled to the commands of the October wind.

Robbie’s bizarre shadow, made by shining the flashlight under his chin, no longer interested the boys. They began to talk.

"I know there are ghosts. I saw them on TV floating around in old-fashioned clothes and holding lanterns. You can see right through them," Tony whispered.

"Nah, they’re just optical delusions — just trying to make you scared."

Just then Tony’s grandma appeared at the opening of the pup tent. Robbie shone the flashlight beam on her.

"Are you guys OK out here?"

"Hey, Grandma! Yeah were doin’ OK."

"Are you warm enough?"

"Yea … Grandma, do you believe in ghosts?"

"Of course I do. Here’s one coming now."

Grandma’s fingernails brushed the top of the tent, making a scratching sound on the canvas. She wailed a hollow "Ooo-wee" sound in her high soprano voice that used to be the loudest in the church choir. She hadn’t sung for many years but still had the voice.

The boys imitated her, ooo-wee’ing into the night, which started the neighbor’s dog barking.

"No really," Robbie said. "Do old people see ghosts? Kind of like, since they’re going to die soon, the dead people might want to sort of get them ready, kind of teach them how to be dead."

Grandma picked up the flap of the tent, crawled between the two sleeping bags, sat on the ground and leaned against the post. She was surprisingly agile for an old lady. The two boys snuggled against her soft, warm lap.

The first thing she did was hug Tony, as she always did when she saw him. She patted Robbie on the shoulder.

"That’s a good question, Robbie," Grandma said. "Ghosts don’t just pop out on Halloween night with their fingers splayed, chasing people all over. Ghosts tell you things in quiet ways, they leave clues that you will notice if you let your mind open up. Opening your mind is kind of like remembering your last thought before you fall asleep."

As always when Grandma visited, Tony started to feel sleepy, soothed by her soft, slow voice.

Robbie was still wide awake. He had never met Tony’s Grandma, but he liked hearing her talk. He liked the way she listened carefully to his questions and answered them in a way that made him feel like he was

grown-up too.

"Yes, old people can pick up on the clues that ghosts leave," Grandma continued.

"Ghosts talk to little people too. They talk to children who haven’t yet learned how to be too logical. They don’t even try to talk to grown-ups who ignore things that are too difficult to believe."

The next morning the boys were told to clean up the decorations in the front yard: spider webs hanging from the bare trees, carved, burnt-out pumpkins, and fake, plastic grave stones that said R.I.P. As Robbie approached to pick up the last grave stone, he stopped short. There, partially buried in the grass, was the flashlight the boys had been using the night before. It was on. As clouds covered the sun on the already tree-shaded lawn, Robbie could see the light shining on the words of the fake grave stone.

"Believe in Love."

Robbie pulled the flashlight out of the ground as Tony’s mother passed by.

"Where’d you get that old flashlight? That looks like it came out of Grandma’s old trunk in the attic. We haven’t touched that stuff for years, not since she died."

Robbie’s heart beat rapidly as his eyes widened. He looked back at the grave stone. R.I.P. was written on it in as if nothing had changed.

"Believe in Love" — Robbie knew without a doubt that he really had seen those words on the grave stone. He shivered. Then slowly, carefully, he turned off the flashlight.