I freeze at the sound of the phone.

Jessica looks over at me. Then to the plug, which is definitely not connected to the wall.

Her wide eyes say it all:

Did we mistakenly hear that?

Are we hallucinating?

The phone rings again and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“How?” Jessica gasps.

I take a step toward the phone. I reach out, my hand shaking.

Like the phone is electrified.

Like it’s a live spider.

Jessica nods at me.

I pick up the phone just as it rings a third impossible time.

“Hello?” I ask.

“You’re home,” Rachel says. Her voice is gravelly. “We were worried you’d decided to run.”

I swallow. I had thought of running away. Many times. I just didn’t think it would work.

“What do you want?” I ask. I try to make my words stern and commanding. Instead, they shake as much as my hand.

Rachel just laughs.

Then the phone clicks, and I swear the dial tone sounds like voices screaming underwater.

I hang up immediately.

“Who was that?” Jessica asks.

I consider lying, but my brain can’t come up with something fast enough. Besides, this might be one of those rare occasions where the truth is harder to believe than any lie.

“Rachel,” I reply.

“Impossible,” Jessica says. She picks up the dangling phone cord. “It didn’t sound like her. And how could she call when the phone is unplugged?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think … I think something is wrong. Something happened to her, Jessica. I don’t think … I don’t think she’s fully human. Not anymore.”

I don’t know why I say it. The words fall from my mouth before I can stop them, but the moment I speak I’m hit with a wave of something I didn’t expect to feel—relief. Relief that I’ve finally told someone. Relief that maybe now I won’t have to face Rachel alone. Jessica has experienced the impossible, just like I had. She has to believe me.

She has to help me figure something out. She’s always been the smart one of the two of us.

For a long while she just stands there in silence. Faintly, I hear her own phone buzzing and beeping in the living room with whatever game she forgot to pause. She doesn’t seem to notice. She just stares at the unplugged phone, her face blank.

Then she looks up at me.

“I don’t believe you,” she says.

My heart drops.

“What?”

She drops the cord and squares her shoulders to face me.

“Did you really think I’d fall for that? You haven’t spoken to Rachel in over a year and now you’re trying to pretend she’s, what? Some sort of monster hunting you down?” She sighs in frustration. “I’m not falling for it. Whatever sort of stupid prank this is. I bet you did something to the phone and got one of your bully friends in on it. Well, it didn’t work.”

“But, Jessica—”

Jessica holds up her hand, cutting me off. I want to slap it away, but I can’t seem to get my body to work. It is numb with shock.

“No. You’re a horrible person, Samantha. I don’t know why I ever thought you could be different. I’m not falling for one of your cruel pranks again. You just better hope you didn’t mess up the phone, or Mom and Dad will kill you.”

Before I can say anything else she stomps up the stairs to her bedroom.

Like the kids at school, she pushes into me as she passes.

Like the kids at school, I don’t push back.

I stand there, staring at the unplugged phone.

My sister thinks I’m making it up. She thinks this is one more mean thing I’m trying to do to her.

I didn’t ever really think she’d help me, or even know about this, but having her turn against me just hammers in the unavoidable truth:

Rachel has turned everyone against me.

Rachel has already won.