Page 60 of The Sisters of Crimson House

Instead of the floral pattern, it was blue with printed baseballs and mitts. A traditional little-boy bed. It felt soft, but the material snagged a bit under her palms, nubby as if it had been washed a thousand times. The pillow was perched haphazardly on the edge of the bed as if it had been tossed there. Charley reached for it. Why not make up a ghost’s bed? she thought, feeling utterly confused as to what she was doing here, when she noticed something on the headboard just behind the pillow. Peering closer, she could make out letters carved into the wood as if with a pocketknife. She lightly brushed the letters with her fingers. “Cricket,” she said softly, reading the words aloud.

The pain in her hand took her breath away.

The shock was violent, the air leaving her lungs as if she had been punched. She felt the air whipping around her. She was afraid. She knew this fear intimately. Had lived it, marinated in it for what felt like her entire lifetime. It was the soul-piercing feeling of being utterly alone.

“Charley.”

She awoke on one of the twin beds, Miranda, Astrid, and Sy looking down at her like a bizarro tableau from The Wizard of Oz. The thought did nothing to stop the tears from falling as Astrid carefully helped Charley up into a seated position, wrapping her arms around her as she cried.

“It’s okay,” Astrid said, the worry in her voice conveying anything but. Miranda studied Charley as if she were a fascinating sculpture at a museum. Sy scowled.

“What did you see?” asked Miranda.

“They’re not baseballs anymore,” Charley said, looking down at the bedspread, barely able to get the words out. The sadness still clung to her like a web, sticky and stubborn. She felt an ache that had worked its way into her bones.

“What does that even mean?” asked Sy, clearly annoyed.

“Can you give her a second?” asked Miranda. “Just take us through what you remember.”

Charley glanced around the room, wiping tears from her face. “I was really cold, and then I saw the room like it must have looked before. Like, a long time ago.”

“How did you know it was a long time ago?” interrupted Sy, and this time Charley fired back.

“Because I just knew. I can’t tell you how. I just did. The little girl showed me.”

“A little girl?” he asked, making a big show of looking around. “What little girl?”

Charley sighed. She knew by his sneer where this was headed.

“And what did she show you?” he said, talking to her like she was a little girl. “Is she here with us now?”

“Shut up for a second so she can maybe say something,” said Astrid calmly, shocking Sy into silence. It was the quietest ones who were the scariest. “Please continue,” she said with a smile to Charley.

“I think this used to be her room,” she said to Miranda.

“How?” Sy demanded. At least he was badgering her with an adult tone now.

“I don’t know,” Charley huffed, her irritation rising. “I think she liked to look out the window, look at her swing set. She hauled off and bit me because she was lonely? Scared? Or maybe she was just being a little kid.”

“She bit you?” said Sy. He looked genuinely surprised.

Charley impulsively looked at her thumb for the mark, but there was nothing there.

“I watched you walk over to the bed, lie down, and start crying,” said Sy. “This is your evidence of a haunting of a sad ghost girl?” said Sy.

“Don’t mock me,” Charley said, suddenly furious. “It’s not sad. It’s fucking heartbreaking.” She got up from the bed and started pacing. “She was alone. And so lonely. I could feel it on my skin,” she said, hugging herself from the persistent chill. “I think this might have been a foster situation?”

“So, what? You’re just speculating now?” said Sy, glaring at her.

She wheeled on Sy. “You asked me to come here and tell you what I see. I’m telling you. I saw a little girl who bit the hell out of my finger, and then I touched the word CRICKET on a headboard and felt like I’d been punched into a different timeline. I’m not enjoying any of this,” she said, waving her palm at him. They both gasped as blood ran down her hand. She looked at her palm, stunned to see a third line visible. She hadn’t even realized it had happened.

Sy had gone very still. “How did you know that name?”

“What name?” she said. God, she just wanted to lie down on this bed and go to sleep. “Cricket? It was there on the bed frame, carved into the wood,” she said, pointing with her good hand.

“Where?” he asked, already moving toward the bed.

“Right there on the headboard.”