Allison had been right about one thing: Touching Nathan was no different from touching any other dead person. It leeched heat out of her hands, numbing them. There were four ghosts chained to the two men who now approached. Two of them were women, one only slightly older than Emma or Allison and the other older than Emma’s mother. The two boys, however, were exactly that: boys. One looked as if he could pass for six on a good day. The other she guessed had been nine or ten at the time of his death. The dead, to Emma’s eyes, looked very much as if they were still alive. There was one significant difference, though. She could never tell, looking at the dead, what color their eyes were. It didn’t matter if she knew what the color had been before their death, either. Her father’s eyes—and, more significant, Nathan’s—were the same as the rest. They seemed slightly luminescent in the dark of night, but that luminescence shed no color; it was like an echo of the essence of light.
