After leaving Warden Haddock's office, Robert is shaken by proof that Blue is really a dead boy from the 1920 fire. He replays every strange moment with Blue and wonders who among the boys is alive, dead, or something in between. Hoping to confront Redbone first, Robert waits outside the cafeteria, but Boone summons him publicly and makes it clear in front of everyone that Robert is helping hunt haints.

Boone takes Robert into the kitchen, where Redbone is working again. Redbone tries to stop Boone by falsely warning that the floor is wet, but Boone ignores him and asks Robert to show him exactly where the ghost stood. Boone then produces goofer dust from his grandmother's grave and explains that it lures ghosts back to the place they were seen. Under pressure and feeling sick with guilt, Robert points to the corner by the vat where the stabbed white boy had appeared.

As Boone lays a thin trail of dust into a circle, Robert hears a terrible inward scream and realizes it is the boy with the knife in his back. Moments later, dust begins falling from the air into Boone's trap, forming a small pile that proves the ghost has been caught. Boone carefully brushes the remains into a tube, marvels at Robert's gift, and proudly presents Robert to the other boys as a new haint catcher. Because of that success, Robert is promised better treatment and suddenly gains status among the boys, who crowd around him at supper and treat him with admiration while Redbone avoids him.

That night Robert cannot sleep. He feels guilty for helping trap the ghost, now named Clint, and fears that Haddock may use him to destroy other spirits, including his mother's. Blue appears over Robert's bed, condemns him for making the trap seem easy, and warns that Boone and Haddock will now demand more catches. Blue also terrifies Robert with sounds only Robert can hear, proving how much power he has over him.

Blue then raises the stakes by threatening to lure Robert's mother into a trap if Robert helps catch any more innocent ghosts. He says Clint and the others are not gone forever, but trapped, and that they must eventually be buried, prayed over, or set free. Blue reveals that Haddock set the fire, has been a killer all his life, and keeps hidden photographs of the burned boys and of himself with naked boys, along with the captured dust, in his locked desk and darkroom shed. Blue tells Robert to keep pretending to cooperate, wait until Blue provides one guilty ghost Boone can safely trap, then steal Haddock's evidence and escape with Blue's help.