MirrorMirror

18 / Amy the Ghostly Friend

"Fish face?"

Jazz nodded, smiling wryly. Cassidy sighed again and slumped in his chair. He might have known.

"Why can't Ethan keep his mouth shut?"

"Because we actually give a shit about you, that's why, Fucker."

He smiled, though it was half hearted. He'd walked out of his house to escape from Amy and the weird goings on. Meeting his sister was a pleasant surprise. Her knowing was distinctly unpleasant. She would tell him to stop being a numpty, something he would do if he could. Amy was making it difficult.

"Well, he didn't need to. I'm fine."

Thankfully, seeing as he could have had a broken leg or spine and been lying at the bottom of his stairs, undiscovered for days. Or worse.

"You think you're seeing messages on your mirror. You're not fine at all."

He didn't think he was. He knew he was. How would anyone believe that, though? In real life, it didn't happen. It couldn't be happening, even though it was.

"He's got it wrong. I was just messing with him."

"Or you were telling him what you believed to be happening, and now realise how it sounds so are trying to backtrack."

Cassidy felt like telling her he hadn't only just realised how it sounded. He knew from the start. That didn't prevent it from actually happening, though. Its impossibility wasn't doing anything to change the fact it was clearly possible. Except it wasn't. But it was.

He was getting a headache, something his walk was meant to help avoid.

"Just leave it," he told her. "I was mistaken. Imagining it."

"Since when did you have an imagination? And, if you did, you wouldn't come up with this. I know you don't believe in ghosts and all that crap."

Crap? So, she didn't believe in ghosts either. Well, Amy, dead though she was, had admitted they didn't exist. So, what did that make her? It wasn't a conversation he wanted with Jazz. She was too blunt, not always intentionally, and could come across as judgemental. He didn't need that from his sister. Ethan had seemed to accept what he'd been told and was going to see for himself. Jazz called a spade a spade and a fool a fool. Cass would have preferred it if she didn't think of him as the latter.

"No, I don't. They don't exist."

"Well, how do you explain it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I can't. But it's real."

Jazz took a long, slow mouthful of her lager. She kept her eyes on her brother, making him feel uncomfortable. She could do that. Her gaze was as effective as her tone.

"Maybe we're both wrong and the supernatural does exist," she said after swallowing and putting her glass back on the table.

"No. I disagree. They don't. I don't believe in it."

"Well, something is happening to you. If it ain't ghosts, then what is it?"

"I thought there was an intruder, at first."

"An intruder? What have you got worth nicking?"

"Nothing, I suppose, but they wouldn't know till they broke in and checked."

"They'd be disappointed, then."

"Thanks for the optimism, sis. It's not anyway."

"Not what?"

"An intruder. I've checked everywhere. I even rang Elise."

"I bet that went down well," Jazz said, rolling her eyes.