Asa is an unwilling sensitive with a fear of mirrors and anything reflective.
Amy is an unwitting empath.
Together they are responsible for murder.
THE SHIPPY SIBLINGS are rarely alone, despite living as secluded orphans on the remains of...
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CRICKETS AND OTHER THINGS threw their voices into the dark, filling the empty spaces with trills and whispers that traveled on the wind. It was a warm night. Or maybe my nerves were more in charge of telling my brain what was temperate or not than reality. I stood on Aunt Cindy's front porch, sweating bullets in my shirtsleeves, my stomach in knots.
I shouldn't be here.
I'd crossed midnight a few pedaled miles back, and the nighttime seemed darker here. The porch light was off. I nudged the welcome mat with my foot, my sneakers inches away from the front door, which hung open ominously, triggering my flight response.
My bike watched me from its discard in the driveway, three weathered wood treads and a gravel path away. I could make it there quickly if I needed to: one long leap down, four strides, a pause to grab the rubber handles, and then I'd be off.
"What's inside?" I asked the young man hovering at my side. His purple shirt bled color at the fringes, barely discernable in the darkness.
He didn't speak, he pointed. The familiar tone of his pearly arm drew my eye as he stretched it toward the front door, curling his fist and letting loose one rigid finger.
Go. See.
It was a thought. Not mine. It filled my head with weight. I toed the mat again, hoping to trick whatever hid inside the quiet house into a premature reveal—no such luck.
I couldn't be here. It wasn't possible.
Thursday, I'd contemplated my options, widdling the hours to nubs in the field outback, keeping within earshot of the decrepit barn. I said things out loud. Things I knew it would hear, and I wondered, half-heartedly, if Dad might be listening, his spirit squirreled away in the rafters, forever dammed to ignore me.
In the full sun, I sat, brown grass matted around me. Small insects weeble-wobbled their way up and down the frail stems.
I said, "What if it wasn't real?"
After the adrenaline rush died and my thoughts gathered in line, after I'd sketched the face emblazoned behind my eyelids, I started asking questions...
What if I made it all up?
Was Ma even there? Had I manifested her out of a strange grief I couldn't suppress?
I'd read about such things in a rotted-out book I'd found in Ma's dresser. The cover was cracked leather, so old on its own that I doubted the heat from the fire had made much difference in its brittle skin. The bookplate on the first page had angels and skulls and flourishes you couldn't find in modern books. Experimental Spiritism: A Guide for Mediums, Invocators, and Malediction. That was the title. 1891 was the publisher's date.
Inside, the thick pages were spotted by mildew, yellowed. I'd read every paragraph secretly, half hidden under my blankets, my red plastic flashlight a guide.
