Disclaimer: Sadly, it all belongs to Meg Cabot.

From my place on the windowsill, I saw the owner of the house walk in, along with his new wife. Behind them, a young girl, who I had never seen before, followed.

She was beautiful. About medium height, with chocolate-colored hair. Very thin. And absolutely breathtaking.

I turned away from them. No sense in torturing myself with what I will never have. No-one had been able to see me since my death 150 years ago, and I had long since learned that it was pointless to dwell on such things. I heard the new wife tell the girl—her daughter—more about the room. The man wandered around, showing her the furnature and lighting and such. The adults had certainly done as much as possible to make this room look nice for the young girl; I don't ever think I've seen that much pink in my entire life (or death, either). Both adults looked like they were trying very hard to please the teenager. As soon as the man left, I understood why. Not only did the girl not want to move to California (and with her leather jacket on, it was somewhat obvious she was not going to fit in perfectly), she didn't even like old houses. And since this house was built in 1849, I would say that by this family's standards, it was quite old. This girl—"Susie," I heard her mother call her—was in for a rough time.

The mother left, and the young girl stood in the middle of the room, as though waiting for something. After a few moments, she turned to look at me—or rather, at the window, since she could not see me.

"Alright, who the hell are you?" she demanded.

Confused, I turned to look behind me. She could not possibly be talking to me. No-one had spoken to me in well over a century. But I when turned around, the only thing I saw behind me was the large bay window. I turned back to the young girl with a look of sheer incredulity on my face.

Apparently, I was wrong.

"Nombre de Dios," I whispered.

"It's no use calling on you higher power," she said, rolling her eyeballs. She then spoke to me about my death, using many terms that I did not understand. She asked me why I was still here. It would be much easier to answer that question if I knew the answer to it myself.

Then she had the audacity to tell me that I had to leave, because this was now her room. I have been here since long before she was even born! I attempted to calm down, telling her my name, and asking her what hers was. She said it was Susannah; I had to bite down on my tongue to stop myself from telling her that it was the most beautiful name I had ever heard.

I tried to keep the conversation going, just with meaningless smalltalk that would hopefully sidetrack her, but she seemed determined to be rude to me. I was perfectly calm, until she called me a cowboy.

Cowboy?! I lost my temper with her then, and in an attempt to scare her, I made the mirror shake. Instead of frightening her, however, she got an angry look on her face and grabbed the finger I was pointing at her as I was telling her off, threatening to break it.

I could not believe it. She could see me, talk to me . . . and touch me?

She was still angry, and she looked like she wanted to continue to yell at me, but she was called downstairs. After telling me that I had better be out of "her bedroom" by the time she got back, she walked out.

Still having a somewhat difficult time understanding exactly what had just happened, I resumed my place on the window seat. This was absurd! This little girl comes in and demands me to leave the place that I have been, for lack of a better term, "living" in for the last century and a half, threatens bodily harm upon me, and then expects me to cooperate? Well, Jesse de Silva has never been afraid of much, and I am certainly not going to turn into a coward because some little girl who happens to have a unique gift of conversing with the deceased told me that I was to vacate "her bedroom."

But for some strange reason, it was very difficult to be angry with Susannah for very long. She was obviously intelligent, and she completely lacked fear—something that one does not truly often see in men, let alone women.

Susannah would, no doubt, find her way into danger because of these characteristics. And though I tried to tell myself it was only because she had no right to tell me to leave, I knew: the reason I was going to stay right where I have been for so long was because of Susannah, because it tore at my insides to think of any harm coming to her.

Like it or not, I had fallen in love with her.

Nombre de Dios.

A/N: My apologies for the slight sexism there, ladies . . .

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