Oh, she'll be there.

The official verdict is that Luna died by drowning after sleepwalking into the pond. Case closed. Sleepwalking is dangerous, the newspaper said in last week's article. People who sleepwalk are a danger to themselves and others. It's funny — well, not in the sense of being humorous — because the same can be said about people who are suicidal.

I know it had to be suicide. I'll take that information to my own grave, be it watery or otherwise, before admit it to Luna's parents. What matter, anyway? They don't want to hear me. They want to think it was a tragic accident, not something done purposefully, and if there's any blame to be had they want to shoulder it themselves.

The funeral was lovely. Or so I'm told. I didn't attend because I spent that day vomiting up everything I ate. It was a faked illness, or partly so. If you fake an illness, I suppose that isn't too different from being ill itself. Isn't a sign of sickness to want to convince others you're sick? I know I'm not well, too. Not physically, but spiritually, and perhaps mentally as well.

I feel as if I might be going crazy.

Last night I had a dream. I dreamed I saw Luna, sitting in her bedroom like she used to all the time when we would hang out. She looked faintly blue, and her eyes were dead and glassy. When she saw me, though, she smiled.

"Hi," she said, just like we had never had a fight. "You wanna hang out?"

"You're dead," I told her.

"I know," she said. Her hair and nightgown were still sopping wet, and her discolored skin glistened with water.

I sat down on the bed beside her and she put her arm around me. She felt cold and clammy.

"Do you want to hear about the moon?" she asked me.

"Sure," I said, because there wasn't really anything else to say. "Tell me about the moon."

"The moon is smaller than the Earth," Luna said, "but the moon is still important. It controls the water, you know? Tides. And humans are mostly water. People used to think the full moon could make the water rise up in you and drive you crazy."

"That's dumb," I told her. "Just an old myth."

She smiled again. The expression in those dead-fish eyes never changed.

"You're crazy, Loony," I told her, and my voice echoed hollowly in the room.

"I know," she said. "But you are, too. You can go crazy lots of different ways. Some people are born crazy. Some people go crazy. And some people — they sort of get forced into being crazy, because something happens to them and it drives them nuts."

"So which one were you?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'm nothing anymore, remember? I'm dead."

"You're still talking to me."

"I'm a ghost," she said. "To you, anyway. I'll probably talk to you again sometime, maybe lots of times. When you're asleep. When you're awake. It doesn't matter to me. You're my best friend, Jack, and I'll keep you company forever if I have to. Bad things happened to me when I was alive and I want to be sure that they don't happen to you."

I stood up. "I'm leaving, Luna. I'm not ever coming back."

"You don't need to," she said mildly. "I'll go where you go."

In her hands was the rock. It glowed softly and pulsed, thrumming out a quiet, steady heartbeat.

I keep expecting to see her now. I keep glancing over my shoulder, and around corners, and just waiting for her to show up. I've had such trouble believing she's gone, and, well... maybe that's because she isn't. Not to me, anyway. Does that sound crazy?

Small matter if it does, I guess. Crazy or not, it's my reality now. I live in a world where either the ghosts of dead girls walk the earth, or where the ghost of my former best friend walks my mind; whether actual or imaginary, the end result is the same. I'm stuck with her. I can't get away. She'll be here forever, or at least until the day I die.

I used to think that day would be so, so long away.

It doesn't feel so far-off anymore.