“And how many more times will we have to try this before the Dark Place gobbles us up?” Samantha said. “That hole is getting bigger every day.
“Don’t think about that now,” Katie said. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Whatever,” Samantha said. “I’m going home.”
It was for the best that Samantha left. I wanted to be alone with Katie. I didn’t know how much more time we had together, and I wanted to cherish every precious second.
“I dare you to eat it,” Katie said as we stared down at the pie.
“That’s disgusting,” I said. “It smells like old feet.”
“So what? You made it. You should eat it.”
I gave her a sidelong glance. “What will you give me for it?”
“I don’t know what I possibly have that you want.”
“One page of your diary. I want to read one page of your diary.”
“That’s a tall order, hombre.”
I pointed down at the pie. “And this is totally disgusting, so I think it’s a fair trade. You want me to eat it, you gotta give up the goods.”
Katie bit her lip. “Fine. One page, but I get to choose the page.”
“Then we have a deal.”
I walked over to the utensil drawer and pulled out a fork. It was going to be disgusting, but it would be worth it. I would have done just about anything to get a peek at that diary.
I stepped back over to the cage and dipped my fork in the disgusting pie. The filling smelled curdled. I pressed the fork to my lips and forced the meat inside my mouth. I nearly wretched as I chewed it up.
“No vomiting, or the deal is off,” Katie said, laughing.
“You can’t change the deal mid-bite.” I choked on the words as bits of meat and pie crust flung out of my mouth.
“Well, I just did.” She folded her arms across her chest with a smug smile.
I ran over to the sink and stuck my mouth under the faucet. I turned on the spigot and drank every ounce of water that came out of it, until I had swallowed the last remnants of the pie.
“That was horrible,” I said, gagging and trying not to retch.
“But you did it, and you can feel okay about that. You accomplished something, even though that something was disgusting.”
“I feel horrible about it, but at least it means I get to read your diary now.”
Katie peered at me with squinted eyes. “Why are you so interested in my diary? You can ask me anything you want. I’m floating right here.”
“I know, but people tend to lie in person. They don’t lie to their diaries.”
“Are you sure about that? I feel like I lied to my diary more than I ever lied to you.”
“Why?”
Katie dipped her head. “Because that diary was going to be around a lot longer than me, and I wanted to look good when somebody found it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you hide it if you wanted somebody to find it?”
“I didn’t say I wanted somebody to find it, but I knew they would, eventually,” Katie said, turning toward the sink. “This isn’t an interrogation.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.” I took a cautious step toward her. “Look, if you don’t want me to read your diary, I won’t.”
She shook her head. “No, a deal is a deal.”
I knocked softly on Joanne’s door, confident that the light from the TV through the front window meant she was still up. It was late, but I figured she’d be awake. She didn’t sleep much when Katie was alive and had maintained the habit of staying up until all hours of the night.
“Hi,” I said when she opened the door. I was taken aback by the tears in her eyes. Joanne rubbed at them with a wad of tissues.
“I’m sorry, Anna. This really isn’t a good time.”
“It’s never a good time,” I said. I looked over at Katie, whose heart would have broken at the sight of her shattered mother if she still had a heart to break. “It’s lonely over there, Joanne, and I would rather not be alone right now, if that’s okay.”
Joanna smiled through her tears. “As long as you’re okay with being around a blubbering mess.”
“It’s never bothered me before.”
I stepped over the threshold and into the living room. I was on a mission to find and read Katie’s diary, but missions change all the time, and I couldn’t just leave Joanne to her pain.
“What are we watching?”
“Hallmark movies,” Joanne said. “I know they’re corny, but there’s something nice about knowing that nothing bad will ever happen to anybody in them.”
“Mom watches them, too, when I’m not around. She thinks I’m going to make fun of her, but secretly I love them, too. So did Katie. I would stay up all night watching them with her, when we weren’t watching horror movies, of course. It was a weird combo, but Katie was weird like that.”
Joanne nodded slowly. “I remember her asking me if we could move to Kern County after watching Jennifer Love Hewitt in one of those movies.”
“It was Bucks County, and it was Lacey Chabert,” I corrected her.
“I’m pretty sure it was Jennifer Love Hewitt.”
“No, Mom,” Katie said. “It was Lacey Chabert.”
For a moment, Katie forgot that she was a ghost, and that her mother couldn’t hear her, and she fell into her old rhythm. She caught herself though, and I could see her heart collapse upon itself. She covered her mouth, and hurried off, floating up the stairs.
“It was Lacey Chabert,” I said, pushing myself up from the couch. “I’m sure of it.”
Chapter 23
I heard Katie crying before I pushed open the door to her room. I didn’t know that ghosts could cry, and yet, there she was, with her head in her hands, her back heaving with ugly, blue tears streaming down her face.
“We can cry,” Katie said. “We have human emotions, at least until they’re leached out of us.”
I sat down
