Ghostphobia

Ghostphobia Ch.3

  "Want to see something really cool?" Gigi blinked owlishly up at the girl who had just interrupted her reading, an overexcited blond girl with curls that seemed to be going in every possible direction, a missing front tooth, and big blue eyes that seemed to make Marichilo less able to talk than normal. "Well, do you?"

Marichilo nodded and the blond girl's grin widened. She grabbed Marichilo's wrist and dragged her to the other side of the library. Marichilo, a small dark-haired girl of ten who normally stuck to her little corner of the children's section of the library, looked around with wide eyes as the girl led her through the dusty old stacks, finally halting at a table with a bunch of books opened to colorful pictures. "Lookit!"

Clambering up on to one of the chairs, Gigi stared at the pictures, wondering what she was supposed to be looking at, exactly. She glanced back at the girl, who seemed to sense her lack of enthusiasm and thus scowled. "Don't you think it's cool?" she asked, sitting in the chair next to Marichilo. "Those are pictures from all over the world! Look, from Africa, from Asia, from everywhere."

When Marichilo still just looked at the pictures a little blankly, the girl let out a huff and pushed some of her curls out of her face. "I just think the world is really cool," she said quietly. "I think it'd be the awesomest thing to get away from my parents and away from here and just explore everything." Marichilo's eyes widened at that, because she knew that feeling — the feeling of not belonging and of wanting to leave. The girl grinned again and stuck out her hand. "I'm Gigi, by the way."

As she shook Gigi's hand, Marichilo spoke for the first time to tell her, "My name's Marichilo."

  Gigi and Marichilo remained friends through elementary school, junior high, and even high school, suffering through the awkward stages of puberty and adolescence together.

  When they went away to college, though, everything started to change.