The Ghost and the Goth

Oh, hell, no. I tugged harder at the restraints, succeeding only in losing another layer of skin.

“Okay, suit yourself. I guess you don’t want out of here bad enough.” The ghost girl started to roll her chair backward.

“Getting out isn’t the problem,” I said wearily. “Staying out is. And she’s not a … chippie.”

“Ha, I knew it!” She squealed in delight.

I raised an eyebrow.

“That you could hear me, I mean,” she said.

“Honey, who are you talking to?” My mother pushed open the door to my room with a frown.

I hesitated, a million familiar lies tumbling to the tip of my tongue. It was the radio. I was talking to myself. I was singing…. rehearsing lines for a play … quoting my favorite line from Ghostbusters. Lie after lie after lie. I could have given her any of them, but the words just wouldn’t come.

“I don’t know,” I said finally. I looked to the little girl. “What’s your name?”

Miller’s eyes nearly bulged from his head, such was his joy. My mother just seemed … resigned, and a little scared.

“Honey, it’s me,” my mother said. “Dr. Miller came by for a visit, too.”

I ignored them and kept my gaze steady on the girl.

She shrugged finally. “Your funeral. My name is Sara, Sara Marie Hollingsford.”

I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Sara Marie Hollingsford.”

My mother sucked in a breath. “No.”

Miller approached. “He’s having another episode. Now, Will—”

“You stay away,” I told him. “Mom, I’m fine. I’ve always been fine. I really can see and talk to”—there was no easy way to soften the next part—“the dead.”

She shook her head. “Not again, William.” Her voice broke.

“Yes, again, the whole time. I just stopped trying to convince you because it seemed easier to let you believe what you wanted. That’s what Dad did and what he told me to do.”

She blanched. “Your father knew?”

“He was what I am. Grandma Killian, too, I think.” I’d never met her because she’d died before I was born and evidently had not stuck around. From what my father had said, though, on the rare occasions I could convince him to talk about it, he’d inherited his “gift” from his mother.

A strange look crossed my mother’s face. “Bridget?”

“What?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

She shook her head as if trying to talk herself out of something, but the words escaped anyway. “She told me once that my grandmother had left the necklace for me, not Charlotte. I had no idea what she was talking about. She’d only met my grandmother once, at our wedding. Then when Char got married a few years later, she wore the pearls that were my grandma’s favorite.”

Not surprising, Aunt Charlotte, who lived in California, and my mother had grown up the bitterest of rivals from the stories I’d heard.

“Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe this.” Miller sighed. “Julia, your husband committed suicide because of a deep depression and repeated schizophrenic episodes. Schizophrenia has a genetic component, which can be passed down to offspring.”

“So does this … gift, curse, whatever,” I shot back at him. Then I turned my full attention to my mother. “Dad killed himself because he was hiding.”

She took a step back. We never talked about what happened to my dad, ever. It was almost like she feared saying the words would make it happen again.

“The pressure to behave normally, to ignore dozens and dozens of voices around him, all the time … it just got to him, I think. But I’m done hiding.” The ferocity of that declaration startled even me, but it was genuine.

“I’ve heard enough of this. We’ll discuss this tomorrow after your tests are complete.” Miller started for the door.

“You want proof,” I said.

He stopped and turned around with a tight smile. “I suppose my great-aunt Mildred is waiting there for a message.”

Mildred? “Uh, no, it’s just me and Sara for the moment. Unlike the movies or TV, I can only talk to whoever’s here, and she doesn’t have a message for either of you.” I looked to Sara for confirmation and she nodded. “But I’m wondering if she’d be willing to play a little game.”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“Okay, Dr. Miller over there.” I gestured to him with my chin — I could have asked them to release the restraints, but I didn’t want them to think this was a trick to help me escape. “He’s going to step out into the hallway, close the door, and write a word on his prescription pad. The only rules are that it has to be clearly written, and the pad stays where he can see what he’s written at all times.”

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, but he went into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him. He was probably already writing it up as a new chapter in his book.

Sara followed. A second later, she said, “He’s holding it too high.”

“You’ll need to lower it a little,” I called to Miller. “Sara’s in a wheelchair.”

My mother gave a soft gasp.

“Um, I don’t know this word.” Sara sounded uncertain.

Shit, I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I should have gone the number route instead. “Can you spell it?”

“A-N-A-B-O-L–I-C.”

“Anabolic,” I called out.

No response.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“He looks kind of mad. Wait, he’s writing another word.”

“Mom,” I whispered. “Do you believe me? That’s all that matters.”

She hesitated, brushing a strand of hair off her weary face, and only then did I realize she was still in her diner uniform. Someone must have called her at work. The number was in my wallet. “William, I want more than anything for you to be well, but—”

“Um, vest-ig-all?” Sara tried.

I frowned. “Spell this one, too.”

She did.

“Vestigial,” I shouted out. Thank God for the SAT vocab section.

“He’s writing another one and … I’m not saying that!”

I laughed.

My mother looked at me sharply.

I shook my head. “He wrote some kind of swearword. Will you spell it, Sara?”

“No!” she said.

“Please?”

“First four letters spell ‘bull,’” she said huffily.

“I do believe the good doctor is questioning my authenticity. It’s not bullshit, Dr. Miller. I promise you that.”

“Now he’s just scribbling a bunch of letters. X, Y, Q …”

I repeated them after her, and the door burst open again, Miller with his pad in hand, looking wild-eyed. Sara rolled in after him. “How are you doing that? You’ve got spies in the hall,” he accused.

“You’re right,” I said. “Her name is Sara, and she died in …” I looked at her.

“1942,” she supplied.

“1942,” I finished.

Miller’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.

My mother plucked the top sheet off his pad and glanced at it. She paled, and her mouth tightened.

I held my breath.

Then she told Miller, “Make your name with someone else’s son. We’re done here.” She frowned at me.