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he knew, Kim was autistic, or drug-dependent, or a borderline schizophrenic. But he had walked into the classroom with a living, mewing, bad-tempered Tibbles, and whatever he was, and however he had done it, he had brought an undeniably dead cat back to life.
    â€˜What’s going on here, Kim?’ Jim asked him. ‘You seem to know more about me than I know about you.’
    â€˜I have come here simply to learn, Mr Rook. My father and mother were told that you had great gift of teaching. You see not just one world, like most teacher, but both worlds.’
    â€˜Oh, yes. And who told them that?’
    â€˜Kwisin, Mr Rook. You cannot open a door into the spirit world without the spirits knowing about it. The spirits can see the living when they enter the world of the dead, just like you yourself can see the dead when they enter the world of the living.’
    Tibbles began to struggle, so Jim dropped him down on the floor. ‘All right, Kim. Let’s put it this way. I can see things that most other people can’t see. Spirits, ghosts, whatever you want to call them. Demons, too. I’ve been able to do it ever since I was nine years old, when I nearly died of pneumonia. But don’t think for a moment that I like doing it, because I don’t.’
    â€˜There is a saying in Korea, Mr Rook. If you are given a lamp, why would you not light it when darkness falls?’
    Jim looked down at Tibbles and Tibbles looked back up at him with supreme arrogance, as if he had asked the question, instead of Kim.
    Jim didn’t answer. He was very reluctant to meddle with spirits these days, because it always seemed that there was a price to pay. Real life wasn’t like that TV program Ghost Whisperer , in which troubled ghosts were eventually shown the way to heaven, and everybody ended up tearful and happy. Once – reluctantly – he had helped his neighbor to talk to her recently dead husband. She had wanted to make up with him because he had stormed out of the house after an argument about the way she cooked chili and he had been cremated less than twenty minutes later in a fifteen-vehicle auto pile-up on the Golden State Freeway. When Jim had raised his spirit, there had been a highly emotional confrontation, with husband and wife both shouting and crying. Eventually they had sorted out most of their misunderstandings, and calmed their anger with each other, even if they hadn’t found perfect peace. That same evening, however, the woman’s sixty-seven-year-old father had suffered a stroke which left him permanently speechless and paralyzed.
    Almost every time that Jim had put the living in touch with the dead, similar tragedies had followed, sometimes worse. He had never been able to prove that they were a direct consequence of getting in touch with the spirit world, but he no longer offered his services as a mediator between the living and the dead, no matter how much pain and loss anybody had suffered. Two years ago, he had contacted the late wife of one of his fellow teachers. She had died of breast cancer at the age of thirty-three, and all that her bereaved husband had wanted to do was to embrace her one last time.
    At 3:33 p.m., with the drapes in their living room drawn together to keep out the sunlight, the teacher had held his lost wife in his arms. She had been shadowy, barely visible, but she had been sufficiently substantial for him to feel the warmth of her body, and kiss her lips.
    At 3.33 p.m., less than five miles away, their four-year-old daughter had fallen from the seventh-story balcony at her grandmother’s apartment on to a concrete path, and died later that night from severe head injuries.
    Jim said to Kim, ‘What will I be giving this Kwisin, to make her so grateful? You could at least tell me that.’
    â€˜You will find out, Mr Rook, when we reach the right time.’
    â€˜Actually, Kim, I think I’d like to know now. In fact, I insist on