One rainy afternoon when Bod is twelve, Silas explains why he lives so differently than most of the living. When Bod learns that his parents’ murderer still wants to kill him, he is not scared. He points out that his friends and family are dead, too. Silas agrees but says:

And they are, for the most part, done with the world. You are not. You’re alive, Bod....If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you’re dead, it’s gone.

Bod asks if the man who killed his family is really still alive. Silas says yes but does not explain how he knows. Bod thinks this over and announces that he wants to go to school. He knows all about the dead, about how to Fade and Haunt and open a ghoul-gate. Now he wants to know about the living. At first, Silas refuses to let Bod go. He says Bod has to stay where he is safe. Bod reminds Silas of “the potential thing.” He says that if a man is out there who killed his family, then nobody should worry about keeping Bod safe from him. Instead, they should worry about keeping the man safe from Bod.

So Bod enrolls in the local school. He does well in all his classes, but he stays partly Faded so that nobody notices him. One day he confronts two bullies, Nick and Mo, and after school they follow him. Bod notices them and leads them into a nearby graveyard and says, “Stop hurting people.” Nick tries to punch Bod, but Bod Fades, and Nick’s fist slams into a gravestone. Then Bod uses a skill he learned in the graveyard, performing a Frightening that scares them so badly they run away home. They do not forget him, however, and in school Bod can tell that he has lost his invisibility.

When Silas finds out that Bod called attention to himself in school, he is furious. He insists that Bod stay in the graveyard, but Bod says, “What would you do to keep me here? Kill me?” He stalks out the gates and into the town, which is dark and quiet for the night. He finds Nick’s house and performs a Dreamwalk, turning Nick’s dream to a nightmare to scare him out of bullying other kids. Afterward Bod plans to run away for good, but Liza Hempstock appears and convinces him not to run off, at least not without saying good-bye to his friends and family.

Bod heads home to a graveyard, but a police car stops him. The officers, one of whom turns out to be Mo’s uncle, take him to her house. She tells a made-up story about Bod sneaking through her garden and breaking things, and the officers tell Bod he will have to spend the night in jail. In the squad car, Bod soon recognizes the officers’ attitudes as falsely threatening, but he does not know how to get away. Then a dark figure runs in front of the car, getting hit and lying motionless on the street. When Bod sees the fallen body’s face, he realizes it is Silas. He shouts, “You hit my—my dad.” He accuses the officers of helping Mo bully him and then killing his father on purpose when he tried to intervene. The police, terrified, withdraw to talk the situation over. As soon as they are out of sight, Bod Fades, and Silas carries him back to the graveyard.

Afterward, Bod agrees not to go back to the school—except once, to scare Mo—and Silas agrees that it is impossible to keep Bod perfectly safe. The only people who are truly safe are dead.