Page 62 of Cackle

“It’s gone now,” I say. “It’s . . . it’s a ghost! It looked like a ghost!”

“Hmm,” she says, tapping her lip.

“I thought you said your house wasn’t haunted.”

She doesn’t answer. She won’t look at me.

“I almost drowned,” I say. “Is your house haunted?”

Without raising her eyes to meet mine, she mumbles, “Maybe a little.”

“Sophie!”

“If I had told you, you would have never wanted to come over again!” she says. “You’re not in any danger. They’re just . . . inconvenient.”

“Who are they? And I’d say almost drowning isn’t an inconvenience. Death isn’t an inconvenience.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d agree, but . . .”

“Sophie!”

“I didn’t realize they could swim,” she says. “I apologize. Please, please don’t be angry with me.”

She grabs my hands and kisses them. “Please? I’ll fix your foot.”

I can’t bring myself to look at it again. I know it’s broken.

“I need to go to a doctor,” I say.

“Pshh,” she says. “I can fix it. And I promise I’ll do something about the ghosts. They’re just excited because you’re new.”

“Excited?”

She sighs. “I should have been honest with you. I thought it would be too much if I told you everything all at once. I didn’t want to scare you away. I wanted you to still want to be my friend and to come over and for us to have a normal experience. As friends. Who can, you know, hang out.”

Her eyes are wide and sweet and pleading. Most of the time, with Sophie, I feel like the clueless, uncool little sister, but every once in a while, I’m the big sister with the allowance money and the jeans she wants to borrow.

I don’t know. I’m an only child.

“You can get rid of them?” I ask. “The ghosts?”

“Oh, yes. It’s much easier since they’re already dead.”

I find this disturbing on multiple levels. First, I don’t appreciate her nonchalant attitude toward literal ghosts. Second, it implies she’s familiar with the difficulties related to disposing of living people.

She gathers up my pants and sweater. “Let’s talk about this upstairs.”

“How am I getting upstairs?” I ask.

She leans down and lifts my arm over her head so it’s draped across her back. She shuts her eyes hard, and a moment later, I’m weightless. She opens the door to the spiral staircase, and I whimper at the sight of it. There’s no way we’re getting up it side by side, and there’s no way I’m getting up alone.

Sophie reaches out and touches the wall. We climb the first step, her anchoring me as I float along beside her, and somehow we fit. It’s like the stairs expand for us to accommodate us.

I hear a rattling sound and peer behind us to see the lemonade tray following us up the stairs. Carrying itself.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll take care of the ghosts, I promise. I didn’t think they would bother you. I understand if you don’t want to come here anymore.”

There’s such sadness in her voice, such defeat.