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The customs officer would not ask to check his visa or travel history. He would just show the cover of his passport, and breeze through.
    “Hang on a sec!”
    Sky Spider is visibly shaken by this absurd plan.
    “I don’t even have a passport.”
    I grin, and hand him a French passport.
    “Remember, there was something in the breast pocket of the clothing that man left behind. I had to check it out.”
    We are in a secret place. It was there for whatever reason, just because it might be useful at some point. I hear a sound outside. One of the ghosts is eavesdropping.
    “The jig is up,” I mutter.
    I had been utterly focused on convincing Sky Spider. This was foreseeable.
    “We’ve been spotted.”
4.
    It is like air pressure. The unanswered thoughts of the ghosts press against us, then penetrate. My own reflexive fear threatens to paralyze me, sap me of all my strength. Finally I would be made to see. Or perhaps there is a fate worse than death. Now it is too late. There must be seven or eight of them. Including Cerdan.
    “That’s too bad,” he says, standing in the doorway, glaring at me.
    “You, sir, may leave. But you may not take the young man.”
    “You’re wrong!” I respond, in desperation, near collapse. “Don’t you think we should ask him what he wants?”
    No.
    Respecting Sky Spider’s wishes—that in itself would be fine. For an instant, though, I pause in my thoughts. If he stays behind, he might be able to work his way through this situation. I begin to cover my trepidation in a florid cloak, one that the boy might still see through. He’ll see my hesitation, and in that moment, be crushed.
    These words will get us out of here. It is the only way, if I am to save the young man.
    “Well …” Cerdan starts to say. “We are a family, are we not?”
    “I …”
    Sky Spider is clearly at a loss. The pressure of the dead is rising, as if to penetrate the crevices of his heart. And in that moment, a piercing C# is heard. For an instant, the ghosts turn their attention in that direction. On the far side of the aisle, Neveu has drawn the bow across the strings of the violin, and then she puts it down quietly.
    “Follow your heart!” she says, in a voice that carries well. “The sound of those who waver is worth no more than fingernails!”
    Her words pierce my heart.
    A person who has lost their own music. A former cellist, unable to let go of his own regrets for nearly half a century. I may be able to get off this plane, but surely I would lose my music once again. Of what value is such a man?
    A man who cannot play the cello. How would the young man see me then?
    And what if? What if, if he were to leave the airplane, Sky Spider were to lose his own talent? There could be no guarantee. Turning to him, I see fear in the young man’s face. Surely I have overinflated my own expectations.
    The ghosts step nearer.
    Toward where I stand. And even more so, into my heart. Violent emotion swells within me. This is not something out of this world. It is something commonplace, pure happenstance. And that makes it all the more difficult to resist. For example, fear. For example, the relief of submission. The seduction of leaving the world behind, to live with music. Amid all of this mixed together, I listen. A high, eardrum-piercing pitch. The brakes of the car that had stolen my gift.
    That’s right.
    What had happened to me in that accident? I had moved to protect my instrument, and I had injured my arm, right? (Wouldn’t you like to try for yourself?)
    Wrong.
    This ship is not for testing people. It is for revealing their true nature.
    I lift my head, and look around me at the ghosts. My voice is so relaxed it surprises even me.
    “The moment may be imperfect, but music has value, don’t you think?”
    I wait for Sky Spider to respond.
    In a small voice, he says, “I would like to play a recital outside …”
    A voice so minute it was on the verge of disappearing. But it had conveyed a clear