“What’re you doing up?” I had asked, and he’d laughed. “Listening to the dead sing. Do you hear them?” I shook my head, because all I heard was the wind howling, and the bushes outside scraping against the side of the house. And it was terrible. He hugged me tighter. “Your grandma—my mother—told me once that the wind is just the breath of everyone who came before us. All the people who’ve passed on, all the ones who’ve taken a breath—” And he took a breath himself, loud and dramatic, and exhaled. “They’re still in the wind. And they’ll always be in the wind, singing. Until the wind is gone. Do
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