The rest of the night passed without incident, unless you counted all the times a sleeping Marsha elbowed Chris in the face or kneed her in the back. Marsha slept fitfully in Chris’s bed while, between her thrashing and the anticipation of an attack, Chris lay wide awake.
She gave up on sleep once the light of daybreak seeped in through the curtains. Since the previous attacks had happened in the middle of the night, she thought chances were weighted enough in favor of Marsha being safe on her own and got up to steal quietly downstairs. She found her laptop open on the kitchen table, with her sister seated in front of it, tapping away on the keys.
“Don’t let me interrupt your writing,” she said as she trudged through the kitchen on her way to the coffee maker.
The tapping stopped anyway. “It’s not writing,” said Ron. “It’s research.”
“On a new novel?”
“On Marsha. Or what’s haunting her.”
On zombie autopilot, Chris went through the motions of starting a pot of coffee. “Find anything interesting?”
“You could say so. I started out brushing up on La Llorona. Of course, that legend is about a particular ghost, but there have been other sightings that fit the profile, so I think it also qualifies as a type of haunting.”
“You think that’s what our white lady is?”
“She shares a lot of the hallmarks. It would help if we could find out more about her.”
“Marsha doesn’t know anything helpful. I’ve asked her to get in touch with her grandmother. Hopefully she’ll have more info.”
Ron drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “It would help if we could actually talk to the spirit. But she doesn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation.”
With the coffee started, Chris pulled up a chair next to Ron and sat down to wait. “It could be that she’s not capable. Maybe she’s an apparition, not an intelligent haunting.”
“You think she’s an environmental electromagnetic recording of a past event?” She looked skeptical. “I’m not sure I buy an apparition having the power to sow so much despair.”
“That’s only one theory of that type of haunting. Maybe what’s really going on is that those types of spirits have been around and on their own for so long that they lose their minds, or their sense of who they are.” Noticing Ron’s frown and remembering exactly who—and what—she was talking to, she quickly added, “That’s only one idea, though. That’s probably not it at all.”
“Anyway,” Ron said, ignoring that entire line of thought, “I tried looking into the history of the estate, but that didn’t turn up anything helpful. So then I did some digging on poltergeists.”
Chris’s eyes widened. “Poltergeists?”
“What else would you call whatever’s got it in for Marsha?”
Chris sighed and rubbed her face. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling I’m going to need coffee before I can continue this conversation.”
She got up and went to retrieve her favorite mug from the dishwasher, a tall black ceramic mug with a big, white, three-dimensional ceramic ghost taking up one side. It was the cute kind, more like Casper than the ones she normally dealt with. On top of the mug’s handle perched an adorable little baby version of the ghost. Derek had gotten it for her because naturally, it had reminded him of her. It was meant for Halloween, but since pretty much her entire life was one long, unending Halloween, it seemed appropriate for every day.
The coffee pot was only half full. Making a mental note for about the umpteen millionth time to buy herself a Keurig, she moved the carafe and finagled the mug under the stream of fresh coffee, tilting it so that it still caught every drop spewed out of the filter while pouring in the contents of what was already in the carafe. She did this expertly, filling her mug and replacing the carafe without spilling a drop. She brought her mug back to the table, sat down, and took a careful sip before telling Ron, “Proceed.”
“So anyway, as you know, a poltergeist is a mischievous, sometimes violent spirit. One thing that sets them apart from regular hauntings is that they tend to become attached to a person instead of a place. Hence why I thought of them.”
“Right. But aren’t they usually drawn to teenage girls? Why would a poltergeist be drawn to Marsha?”
“My understanding is that it’s the heightened emotional energy of girls going through puberty that tends to draw them. According to one theory, that energy can actually create a poltergeist, especially if the girl in question has some kind of psychic ability.”
Chris screwed up her face. “Man, I’m glad I didn’t draw one of those things to me when I was a kid. I had enough to deal with as it was. Do you think maybe the normal human spirits hanging around me helped keep them away?”
“I think that you were a pretty laid-back teenager and poltergeists probably thought you were boring. Also that only you would describe human spirits haunting you as normal.”
“I guess dealing with the problems of the dead gave me a sense of perspective most teenagers don’t have.”
“That, and you’re an old soul.” Ron looked at her. “You were always very mature for your age.”
“Thanks.” She sipped her coffee before asking, “So, any theories about how one of these things came to be haunting a thirty-five-year-old bride-to-be?”
“Well, the theory about psychic puberty hormones creating poltergeists is undercut by the fact that these spirits don’t exclusively haunt young girls. I mean, that theory pretty much started with the Bell Witch haunting. But there was a famous case in England in the late nineties that centered around a fourteen-year-old boy. And before that, there was that famous Warren case up in Rhode Island. The one they made that movie about? In that one, the haunting focused primarily on the mother, who was around the same age as Marsha.”
Chris made a noncommittal noise and sipped some more coffee. “We’re still talking about kids in their early teens, though. I mean, in that Conjuring case, didn’t that lady have like half a dozen kids in their teens and tweens?”
“Five kids. All girls.”
“So it still doesn’t really compute that this type of entity would be after Marsha.”
Ron seemed to mull this over. “She’s so excited about her wedding. Maybe her Bridezilla vibe is what attracted this thing.”
“Maybe. But that seems like a stretch.”
“But here’s the really interesting part.” Ron tapped on the keyboard and pulled up a web page. It was an old Angelfire page, found via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It featured white text on a black background. Animated ghost gifs, circa 1998, danced across the top of the screen.
“Looks professional.”
“Don’t judge the information by the outdated web design. Listen to this. ‘Another theory is that poltergeists are the spirits of infants and very young children, unable to understand their predicament and caught in an eternal temper tantrum.’ So if the white lady fits the La Llorona profile, maybe what’s after Marsha is the child she killed?”
Chris looked thoughtfully at her mug, at the big ghost and little ghost, seeing them for the first time as mother and child. Suddenly, the little ghost struck her as incredibly sad instead of cute. “Makes sense. But that still doesn’t explain why it’s targeting Marsha.”
“No. Maybe she reminded it of its mother?”
“Could be. It’s a good working theory, but we shouldn’t assume the two hauntings are related until we have more to go on.”
“You’re right.”
Chris blinked and looked at Ron. She wasn’t used to hearing those words come so easily from her sister.
Ron went on like it was no big deal. “I think Joe and I should go back there tonight and see if we can get the white lady to talk.”
“I think that’s a spectacularly bad idea.”
Now Ron looked surprised. “Why?”
“You’re kidding, right? Do you not remember how her crying made you feel? It’s too dangerous.”
“Which is precisely why it should be Joe and me to try and interview her. So what if she’ll make us sad. It’s not like she can make us suicidal. Or like we can do anything about it if she does.”
“No.” At the defiant look on Ron’s face, Chris added, “Please? Let’s wait until we can talk to Marsha’s grandma and find out what she has to say.” When Ron didn’t agree right away, Chris pressed. “Ron? Please promise me you won’t go over there until we all agree it’s the only thing left to do.”
Ron slumped a little but said, “Fine. I promise.”
“Thank you. Was that so hard?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“Well, I’m proud of you anyway. I’ll be even more proud if you actually keep your promise.”
Ron pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. Chris decided to let it drop for the time being. Besides, she knew Joe wouldn’t be on board with this insanity. She sipped her coffee quietly, savoring the silence that had settled between them. Despite their argument, there wasn’t any tension in it. Ron went back to her research, leaving Chris to finish her coffee in peace. She contemplated the mug in her hands, tracing the outline of the larger ghost, the one she’d come to think of as the mother.
Beside her, the keyboard tapping stopped. “You okay?”
Chris shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look sad.”
Chris considered this, then glanced at her sister as she admitted, “Part of me was hoping Marsha was right about it being Mom.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Ron reached over and touched her arm. “It’s not Mom.”
“How can you be sure?”
Ron sighed and closed the laptop. Then she shifted to face Chris better. “I’ve never told you this, but I went looking for her.”
“You did? When?”
“After the business with Sarah, when the house was being renovated. I kept thinking about the decision I’d made to stay, and how it meant I wouldn’t see Mom. But then I thought, maybe she hadn’t crossed over. Maybe she’d stayed, too, to watch over us. So I went back to our old house. Where she died.”
“Oh, Ron.”
“She wasn’t there. Or at her grave, or her childhood home, or Aunt Judy’s, or anywhere else I could think she might be. So she’s either avoiding me—which, you know, could be the case—”
“Why would she avoid you?”
She let out a sad little laugh. “Because maybe Dad’s not the only one who blames me for her death.”
“Okay, stop. Nobody blames you.”
Again, she laughed.
“Dad knows it was an accident. He doesn’t blame you.”
“No, he merely wishes I’d never been born.”
“It could as easily have been one of my toys that tripped her.”
“But it wasn’t. Anyway, my point is that she’s gone. I’m sorry, honey. I miss her, too.”
“I know you do.” Chris took a moment before asking, “What do you remember about her?” At Ron’s surprised look, she added, “We were both pretty young when she died, but you had four more years with her than I had.”
Ron’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Well, she was pretty. And funny. She had an incredible sense of humor.”
“Could she… I mean, was there ever any sign, do you think, that maybe she was like me?”
“No, sweetie. She was blonde, not ginger.”
“You know what I mean. Do you think she could see the dead?”
Ron seemed surprised by the question. “I don’t think so. If she could, she kept it to herself. Why?”
Chris shrugged. “I’ve been wondering. I mean, my ability had to come from somewhere, right?”
“I guess. Maybe.”
“That night, at Aunt Judy’s. I always felt like she came in our room to say goodbye. But it was right after that that I saw that British soldier’s ghost. I guess I was wondering if she, like, passed it on to me or something.”
“If she did, she must not have thought of it as a bad thing.”
“Why me, though? If that’s what happened. Why me and not you?” Before Ron could answer, Chris said, “And don’t you dare say it’s because you killed her.”
Ron appeared to give it some thought. “I don’t know, then. If that’s what happened—and I’m not saying it is—then maybe—probably—she knew your personality was more cut out for it than mine. Like I said, you were a mature kid. Kind of spookily reserved, even before you started seeing the dead.”
She fell silent and seemed to grow thoughtful, her expression slightly troubled.
“What is it?”
Ron gave a little shrug. “Nothing, really. Only that, when we’re together like this, talking, it’s easy to forget I’m dead. If not for your ability, we wouldn’t be able to do this.”
“That’s why I’m so thankful for it.”
“I am, too.”
Chris sensed there was something more on her mind. “But?”
“No buts. I just… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking lately. I think the reason I’m always throwing myself into these projects… the reason why I meddle so much is so that I don’t have to face the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That my life is over.”
Chris didn’t know what to say. Nothing she could say would change the fact that, as easy as it was sometimes to pretend otherwise, her sister was dead. “Ron, I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged and waved away her sympathy. “It’s fine. This afterlife isn’t so bad. I’ve got Joe, and we’ve got this.” She pointed back and forth between them. “And I can still be useful. I mean, things could be worse, right? I could be a poltergeist, or a crazy crying apparition.”
“Right. Things could definitely be worse.”
“So it’s better to focus on that and not on all the things I’m going to miss out on.” Nodding resolutely, she opened the laptop and waited for the screen to come back on. While she waited, she looked at Chris. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Chris arched an eyebrow at her. “Which time?”
Ron rolled her eyes. “The time that got me killed. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. I’m sorry.”
It was times like this that Chris ached to be able to hug her big sister. All she could do instead was nod and smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry, too.” Sorry that they would never be bridesmaids at each others’ weddings. Sorry that their kids would never play together, that they’d never have backyard family barbecues, that their relationship could never be that of normal sisters. Chris knew that Ron shared all those regrets. She didn’t have to spell them out. “But we still have each other. That’s what matters, right?”
Ron smiled. “Right,” she said, and went back to her work.