Eddie Munson had seen ghosts before.

Not the kind that rattled chains in haunted houses or whispered from upside-down mirrors—though, in Hawkins, those weren’t entirely off the table. No, Eddie was used to the other kind. The kind that wore skin like a mask and silence like perfume. The kind that walked into a place and shifted the whole air around them, made lockers squeak quieter, made fluorescent lights flicker like they’d forgotten how to shine.

Magnolia Rose Duval was that kind of ghost.

She stepped into Hawkins High like she didn’t belong to this world—or at least not to this half-rotten, linoleum-floored corner of it. Her cardigan was pale pink, soft enough to look expensive even from across the hall. Pearls at her throat. Gloves. Actual, real gloves. White with lace trim like she was on her way to a garden party instead of fourth-period trig.

The hallway held its breath.

Eddie leaned against his locker, arms crossed, chewing a hangnail, pretending not to look. But of course he looked.

Everybody did.

She wasn’t “hot” in the way Hawkins defined it. Not like Chrissy Cunningham with her cheerleader charm or the cheerless clones who followed her like mall mannequins. No, Maggie Duval—because that was her name, he’d heard Principal Higgins say it like a sermon—was something else entirely. Southern gothic in full bloom. A fever dream in buttercream tones. Skin like dusk and honey, hair pinned up with precision, and those eyes—dark, unblinking, and ancient in a way that made Eddie’s skin prickle.

She wasn’t trying to be noticed. She expected to be noticed.

And when her gaze did find him, it was like a scalpel sliding under skin. Not flirtation. Not even interest. Just… analysis. Like she’d already peeled him open, catalogued all the parts of him, and filed the findings away behind her pearl-buttoned smile.

It should’ve pissed him off.

But it didn’t.

It made him itch. Like the sharp metal of feedback in his amp. Like lightning about to crack.

She moved past him with the grace of someone raised to walk without making sound, her scent soft—lavender, or lilac, or something old-world and expensive. Her gloved hand brushed the edge of his denim jacket, not skin, not flesh. Still, the light above them stuttered and blinked, casting momentary shadow across her face.

Eddie shivered.

She didn’t look back.

He told himself it was nothing. Static. Coincidence. Maybe the school’s wiring just sucked.

But deep in his gut—that spider-sense that never steered him wrong when D&D campaigns went sideways or when real monsters stalked their friends—he knew better.

This girl brought something with her. Something the rest of them had never seen. Something old, and strange, and stitched to her bones like family secrets.

And even as every instinct in his messed-up, over-wired brain said, stay the hell away, Eddie Munson felt himself turn toward her again.

Drawn. Daring.

Because if this Southern ghost was dangerous, he wanted to know just how dangerous she was without those gloves on.