On the first day after the disappearance of her mother, the baby seemed that she was in some sort of trouble. What could she have done that her parents just leave on her?
A moment after the baby began playing with the stones again, she heard a knock on the door. She went to her bedroom door and opened it, not knowing any better that all strangers are not necessarily nice. But, fortunately for her, it was someone nice. It was the neighbor from down the street, Kelly Cremea.
“Oh hello, my dear Joy! It’s been such a while since I’ve seen you! Why don’t you come visit like you used to with Elliot?” She asked Joy with that soft, ever loving voice that she had the pleasure of owning.
“Kelly! I’m sorry I haven’t visited. My brother had to go to boarding school, and my mom doesn’t want me wandering around without him.” Joy explained, “Are you here to babysit me? My mother must have called yesterday, right?” Kelly nodded, apparently agreeing to the statement set forth by the baby.
The two of them began to engage in normal human conversations, although mainly conversations that switched topics a lot due to the baby’s low attention level, and the woman’s high rate of fluency between subjects. After a while, Kelly decided that it was very close to lunch time.
“So, Joy, what is your favorite lunch?” She asked the baby.
“I don’t know… I feel like I used to have a favorite lunch, but I really will eat anything.” The baby said in return. Kelly laughed in a strange form of agreement. She seemed to have had the same experience with not really having a favorite food.
“Well, your mom told me that you really like hot dogs, so I suppose I will make a couple of those for us, does that sound alright?” The baby nodded. Kelly laughed and then took the baby by the hand and led her to the kitchen. Before they knew it, they had made the hotdogs, eaten them, and even cleaned up after themselves. They were full and began to go back to the baby’s room, laughing and carrying on.
“That DOES sound fun, Joy!” Kelly agreed. Previously, Joy had brought up the idea of them playing a card game that was made up of a bunch of cards with different types of fish on them. Joy skipped, her skirt flapping around at her ankles, all the way to the bedroom. Kelly followed, carrying the card game encased in a little box, ready to be opened and played with until they were worn down to limitless folds.
Joy laughed as she plopped down in the center of the room, her back to the door. She turned her head and motioned for Kelly to do the same. That she did. Kelly pulled the cards out of the little box, each one sparkling ominously.
“Why do they look like that?” Joy asked, overjoyed at the beautiful speckles of light dancing across each of the cards.
“They are special cards. Only I have this kind, and I’m sharing them because I think you deserve it.” Kelly explained, her tone becoming lighter, nearly wind-like. Joy nodded, sensing that there was something that she couldn’t talk about.
Kelly shuffled the cards, and Joy watched as they practically flew through the air blurring to a point where they seemed almost to be one solid object. She was struck in awe, even when Kelly began handing each of them seven cards. The rest went in the middle. Joy looked at hers. She didn’t have any matches; there were seven completely different cards of fish. What was stranger was that they didn’t stay still. The fish seemed almost like they were moving, but not quite. They were trapped in the cards, and Joy wasn’t quite sure what she felt about this.
“How did you get the fish in the cards?” Joy asked, gesturing to the fish that seemed like an illusion, but almost too real to be that.
“I didn’t catch them. That’s what you do in the game!” Kelly said, laughing. Behind her smile, however, there was a hint of an emotion that Joy couldn’t recognize. It was something darker than she had been exposed to in the past. But the emotion in Kelly’s face didn’t stay long. It was like a flicker of a candle, or a lighter when someone is just playing with it, not actually trying to light anything. At least, not yet.
“Wha-what?” Joy said, shocked at the strange emotion that seemed now almost to be present in herself, “I’m… I’m going to lay down for a moment, Kelly.”
“Why, sweetie?” Kelly questioned, the dark emotion completely evacuated from her, “We haven’t even begun the game, yet!” Joy shook her head and fled to the other room. Something wasn’t right, but the baby didn’t know what it could be. She collapsed into the big cushy couch in the living room where she fell asleep on sight. When the baby awoke, she was in her bed, tucked into a poofy comforter. She sat up and saw Kelly across the room playing with a couple of rocks, just like Joy did with hers.
“Are those mine?” Joy asked, referring to the stones that she was stacking into curious towers, looming above the ground almost like they were weightless. Kelly shook her head. “Where did you get them, then?”
“I got them like you… except yours were from your mother, mine were from my brother. Since then, he has never spoken to me, and this strange white one has lost its stripes.”
“Really?” Joy jumped up and ran to her stones. She picked up the white one and examined the perfectly colored lines. “Do you want mine?” She asked, running over to Kelly, holding her precious white stone in the palm of her hand. Kelly shook her head fast, and suddenly.
“No! That is yours!!” She said sternly, taking Joy by surprise. She stopped running and stared, big grey eyes directly at Kelly, “No, you can’t ever let anybody else touch them, okay?” Joy continued staring, confusion filling every crevice in the baby’s brain.
Joy nodded slowly, but still asked what Kelly meant by it. “I’ve had these a long time now. I once let someone hold onto them, but they didn’t give it back until the lines were gone. You can’t trust anyone with those. Not even me.” This did not relieve Joy’s confusion, in fact, it magnified it.
“What do you mean, I can’t trust you?” She asked, “How can’t I trust you? What do you mean?” Joy began to cry. None of it made any sense, it was so messed up. “H-how can I expect to go about my life not trusting anybody? ANYBODY??” She was laying as a repulsive heap on the floor, her face distorted to looking nearly devilish. Her hands were locked into tight little fists, and she shook as her face flooded with tears.
“No, no. That’s not what I mean! You can live your whole life trusting anybody you want to. You just can’t let anybody else touch those rocks, okay?” Kelly replied in a soothing voice, pointing directly at the stones in Joy’s hands. “I’m sorry I made you this upset. Would you like to play the fish game, now?” Kelly put a hand on Joy’s shoulder, still shaking from anger. Joy nodded, sitting up and wiping the tears from her eyes. Rather than being a blob of purple and red, her face was now turning back to the normal color it was, flashing only little rash-like spots of red. She even let a smile escape as Kelly handed seven cards to Joy.
Kelly started, asking if Joy had a sting-ray. Joy shook her head and said ‘go fish’. Kelly seemed disappointed when she picked up another card, seeming as though she didn’t need that one. Joy asked for a shark, and Kelly regretfully handed it over. The game continued for a little while, Kelly seeming to gain more cards than she could make do with, only having a stack of six matches by the end. Joy had twenty matches next to her.  The sparkles and illusions didn’t show anymore, but Joy didn’t notice.
Joy asked Kelly how she did so badly, at which time Kelly broke into uncharted laughter, letting out all of her breath at least three times over. “Joy!! How could you not notice?”
Joy was taken very much aback, “What didn’t I notice?” She demanded.
“I was playing you from the start!” She chuckled again. “The twenty matches were mine!! You only had six!!” Joy began to cry, realizing that this was, indeed, true. How did she not notice she was putting the matches in the wrong stack? “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Quit with your crying! I was only kidding. You did win, but that is just because I had a terrible hand. How did I even convince you of that?” Kelly broke into laughter yet again.
Joy, catching her breath and trying to understand what was happening, said, “I… I don’t know.”
Kelly finished laughing as suddenly as she had begun, and then got all quiet and somber, “Joy?”
“Yeah?”
“Was that very mean of me?”
“A little, but I’ll get over it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have made fun of you like that… It’s only in my nature, me being… uh… never mind.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t you my neighbor?” Joy was stunned at this strange outburst from Kelly.
“No.” was the simple answer.
“WHAT?” Joy stood up, looking directly at Kelly demanding an answer.
“I… well. I was your neighbor. But… well you and me are…” Kelly couldn’t finish the sentence. She kept stuttering and stumbling over her words.
“You have to tell me.” Joy said, patting Kelly on the back as nicely as she could, “I am too curious for you to keep this from me.”
“Okay,” sighed Kelly, “I’ll tell you.”
“Alright, go.” Encouraged Joy. Kelly’s eyes looked like glass from fear and confusion.
“I… I mean… us…. We’re dead.”

“What?”
“I said, we’re dead.”
“I heard you. Are you messing around with me? Because that’s a sick joke.” Joy sat down cross-legged, her hands resting her head between her knees. Kelly didn’t laugh… she just shook her head. “Well…. That kind of explains a lot. But… how did you know my mom said I liked hotdogs? I mean… is she dead, too?” Joy shocked herself with her own thoughts and began to choke up. “Everybody here is dead, aren’t they? My mom… and anybody else I’ll ever see?” Tears began to roll down her face, but not so much from anger than sadness of not being able to live a full life.
“I’m sorry.” Kelly said, sighing and dropping her head to her hands in defeat. “I was pretty shocked when I found out, myself. Although, at least I was twenty three and had my share of bad choices that led to it. You didn’t even do anything to deserve it.”
Joy nodded, feeling much older than she actually was, though she was still in her baby form. There were many questions that weren’t answered, but one stood out from the rest, seeming to display all of her troubles in two simple words, “What now?” Kelly shook her head. Then a low grumble of chuckles escaped from her mouth.
“How do I wish I could answer that?” Kelly sighed, thinking as hard as she could, coming up with nothing, “You and me are in the same boat, I guess.”
Joy thought, and then realized something. “That rock you had… how many stripes did it have?”
Kelly’s face lit up for a moment, but it faded quicker. “I don’t remember. For all I know, it didn’t have any ever.”
“But… didn’t you say that the lines were taken away by someone?” Joy asked.
“I suppose I did… but I don’t remember.” She shook her head in disgust. “I only remember one thing. One single direction that the person who told me I was dead told me.” Joy nodded, hoping she would continue, which she did. “We have to give our families closure.”
Joy smiled in excitement, “That doesn’t seem too hard! Almost easy!” Kelly shook her head again.
“I don’t even remember who my family is. My memory to them is probably long gone by now.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s a terrible feeling. I can’t even remember who I am sometimes.” She paused, “Joy?”
“What?”
“Do you know where I used to live?”
“Yeah, down the street, four doors to the right!” Kelly nodded.
“I remember now. I lived in that old run down shack. With my family… I still don’t remember them.”
“Well… what exactly does ‘giving our family closure’ mean?” Joy was pacing back and forth, her skirt waving back and forth with each progressive step.
“I think we basically have to get them all in the same place… or at least a couple of them, you know?”
“That makes sense.” Joy stopped and tried to think of a way they could do that, “How about you start with the story of your life? Maybe we could figure out who your family is.”
Kelly nodded, even letting a small smile slip, “That’s a good idea! Maybe we could head over to my house to see if there are any photographs or anything.” Joy agreed, and they set off down the street.
The walk was the same as it would have been for anyone… passing a couple of houses with grass in the front lawns. There were a couple of cars that drove by, minding their own business. A couple was jogging down the street with their dog wearing matching outfits. Not the dog… the couple. There were a couple of kids swinging on a personal swing set in their back yard. Nothing special, but being dead, I’m sure there was. The lawns that you couldn’t really feel anymore because you couldn’t actually do anything. The people couldn’t see you, though you could see them. You could listen in on the kids’ conversations, but it wouldn’t give you any gossip advantage, because you were dead.
Nothing was the same for the two spirits wandering down the streets. Neither of them said a word until they reached the run down shack with the windows boarded up and the yard overgrown with weeds.
“How long would you say it’s been since I died?” asked Kelly, obviously hoping for some memory to trigger in Joy’s mind… but nothing happened.
“My guess is as good as yours. Maybe a year? Maybe six months? Maybe… well… I was four. Less than four years ago, because I remember you.” Joy figured.
Kelly slumped her shoulders and sighed as they entered the abandoned building. “I keep getting these little scenes playing in my head. Like memories except they’re faded… almost like they’re memories from a dream. It’s all very strange.”
“Everything is strange.”
“True.” Kelly nodded toward a big book laid open near a wheeled chair. As they approached, there was a foul odor that wafted in the air. “Oh!” Kelly was paralyzed from shock at what she saw when she turned the chair around.
“What?” Joy questioned in suspense. Kelly just pointed at the chair. Joy walked around it so she could see, too. What she saw before her would have scarred a child for life… now it was to scar her for death.
The first thing she noticed, besides the stench, was the rotting corpse of a familiar person. As she studied it further, she came to realize that the matted hair was brown and the eyes were black… much the same as Kelly’s. Neither of them said anything at first. It was a great shock for both of them, although I don’t know quite how sane I would be if I had seen a rotting version on myself on a chair where no one had bothered to find me since who knows when. Kelly stopped looking and spun the chair around, Joy nodded. Nothing could do to erase the singed image of a rotting Kelly out of their minds… Her hair all matted and falling out… Her eyes bloodshot and wide open, bulging as if they’re about to pop out of their sockets. The skin falling off, some in flakes and some in chunks through to the bone as if it had gone through a shredder. And the smell, horrid… like a cross between day old vomit and day old dead fish.
“That’s me…” said Kelly in a disturbed voice, her eyes focused and wide. “I… I can’t believe it… Nobody even cared to… bury me?”
“Just… try to forget it, okay, Kelly?” Joy said, putting a hand on her arm to find it to be shaking violently, “Really, let’s just try to figure out who’s in your family, okay?”
“I can’t just forget it! It will stay imbedded in my head for… eternity…” Kelly said, her breath rate quickening, her heart skipping a beat or two.
“I know… it’s implanted there pretty good. But maybe if we get through this we can go to heaven and you’ll forget all about it.” Kelly began to laugh a little.
“Yeah, maybe…” She said, that dark look glassing back over her eyes. Joy was disturbed yet again, but refused to let it bother her this time, because she knew that death probably had something to do with it.
“How about we look through this book?” Asked Joy, trying desperately to change the subject.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” asked a shocked Joy, “I mean, I’m just trying to help.”
“There is no helping… I’m gone, Joy… I don’t want to know what is in that book.” The dark look in her eyes had spread across her face and was bubbling into a crooked smile. “I don’t want you to see it.”
“Oh-kay… I guess we can find something different to look at.” Joy suggested, followed by a nod of Kelly’s head and a click of her heel. They went to the back of the pathetic shack to find a staircase… rather a few crooked boards that were layered so that when you step from one to the next, your body goes in an upwards direction. Joy looked at Kelly, but her eyes were fixated ahead of her and didn’t notice Joy’s movement. Halfway up the stairs, one of them broke. Apparently, even if you’re dead, you can still be a klutz. I suppose that explains the unexplained squeaking of boards and doors. That could be why some doors close and open all on their own… maybe not… but who knows?
They found a room off to the right of the staircase, but the door was locked. Kelly found that amusing, but Joy found it strange.  There wasn’t anything else on that level. Kelly, in all her strangeness asked, “Do you remember what I was like? As a person?”
“Honestly? No… not really. I only remember that I have heard your name before, really. I don’t even know how I knew you lived here.” Joy answered directly.
“That’s because I told you.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t even remember.” Joy giggled at the thought…. Kelly couldn’t have told her that this was where she lived… it couldn’t be true.
“I did tell you.” Kelly’s voice was soft and whisper-like, but dark… like a slow trickle of blood dripping down someone’s neck. “I told you the night that you died.” She began to chuckle, “I think I was the reason that you died.” This sent chills up Joy’s back, especially seeing that this devilish person was the only person in the WORLD that could even see her right now. She decided that she didn’t want to be around Kelly anymore.
“I think… I think I should go.” Joy said softly. Kelly chortled and then stopped suddenly, gripping the girl’s arm with a hand, nails clinging into her skin. She let out a soft screech.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this…. But you’re not going anywhere.”

“Oh.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Kelly began, then in a mocking voice, “Oh.” She clung tight and let the blood gather in the girl’s arm. She wasn’t in very much pain, though… I mean, she was dead.
“Yeah, and you better let go of me or I’ll scream.” Joy said sternly, forgetting for a moment that nobody would hear her.
“Who’s going to come and rescue you?” Kelly asked, digging her nails in further and twisting, “Who, my darling Joy, would come and rescue you… a dead little girl.” Tears welled up in the child’s eyes as she realized there was nothing she could do. The high-pitched voice crackled as she spoke again, assuring that this could be the only reason, “Oh, and if you didn’t figure it out, there is no Heaven for me.”
“This isn’t what it’s supposed to be like!” Joy shouted, “You can’t hurt me! I’m already dead!” That shut Kelly up, even though it really was hurting the child. But not physically. Physically she was perfect, but her emotions were running rampid with diseases carried on by this psycho of a dead person. Kelly seemed to sense it, but she let go and kicked her in the back for good measure.
“Get out of here… Go downstairs and wait for me… don’t touch anything.” The woman hissed. Joy nodded and obliged. Well, at least for the ‘go downstairs’ portion.
She knew that there really wasn’t anything Kelly could do to hurt her. She was already dead, and the only thing left to do was to see if she could figure anything out about Kelly and what… happened to her.
She went to the only place that she had seen before: the chair. She didn’t look at the corpse… she couldn’t, but the book seemed as though it could be a family photo album, so she flipped it over. She was shocked at what was on the page. This, probably the last thing Kelly had ever set eyes on in her life, was a page with several different very beautiful pictures. There was a Kelly in all of them, but she was holding something red… Joy couldn’t quite make out what it was, but she looked harder and harder to try and see. It became increasingly clear moment after moment. She wasn’t holding something red. The red marks were from a pen, and they were x-ing out something. As Joy looked closer, she saw that what she was holding was a baby… in all of the pictures… and it wasn’t just any baby. It was yours truly: Joy.
A tear fell from her eye and landed on the page, leaving a damp circle of water damage. The tear was because she could remember this… all of this. These pictures were taken when they went on vacation a couple of years ago. ‘They’, as in Kelly and Joy. The two had been very close because Kelly had been her babysitter. She had permission to take the baby on this trip, and they both had a very good time. So what happened that made Kelly hate Joy? She hadn’t the slightest idea.
Joy couldn’t keep looking at these pages, so she flipped through a couple others. She wasn’t in any of the others, which made her stomach feel a little less queasy. However, it was strange that where lots of the photos were clear, some of the more recent ones had everything perfect about them, except that some of the faces were blurred out enough that you couldn’t see who it was. But that was just the photo, not someone having been tampering with it. Before Joy knew it, Kelly was looking very, very angrily over her shoulder, examining the sight that was laid out in front of her: a child very directly disobeying direct orders, AND looking at a photo collection that she had stated before that she did NOT want her to see.
“Well, well, well.” Came a soft hiss, as smoke seemed almost to escape Kelly’s ears. Joy’s head spun around like a top, and with a bang, her hand closed the book. “Look what we have here! A little disobedient child!” She laughed an ugly laugh, seething through her teeth.
“I-I… I just wanted to see…”
“I don’t care.” The woman barked, “Come with me!” She grabbed at the child’s hand and practically dragged her out of the house. “Do you have your stone?” Joy just stared at the woman, her eyes in a bath of fury, shooting down at her. “I SAID: do you have your stone?”
“Yes… it’s right here,” said the naïve child as she held it up with her free hand. Kelly reached for it, but missed. By then it was obvious to Joy that she was going to try to steal it. Joy was not about to let that happen. She may have been young and defenseless in life, but now she could practically do anything that she wanted. She felt as if she could almost fly, but she ran. She ran faster and faster and faster until she reached her house, where she hurried in and locked the door. Nobody was home but that didn’t really matter anyways. The child ran directly to her room where she hid the stone underneath the carpet, hiding herself underneath the bed, shuddering in pure terror. Here, rolled up in a ball with the dust mites was the first time in a long while that Joy could actually get a good look at herself.
From what she could see, and judging by the fact that she could barely fit under the bed, she had grown a lot since she was a baby just this morning… or at least… what she thought was this morning. Right now she looked as if she was about ten years old.
“Oh my gosh!” she whispered in awe as she literally saw her feet grow before her eyes. All this time she hadn’t been paying any attention to herself. She was still wearing a pink dress, but it wasn’t nearly as childish. It had formed itself to fit the form and style of a ten-year-old, it being sleeveless and definitely less poofy. The skirt was long still, but not down to her ankles. It was probably knee-length and very modest at the top. She sighed as she realized this is what she would have looked like, had she not died. She got out from under the bed and went to stand in front of her mirror. She could see that she was definitely still a child, but on the edge of growing up. Her shoes were gaining height, and her face was maturing, along with her figure. It was like a fairy-tale except not. Because it was actually happening, and there was nothing she could do about it.
*Tap, tap, tap*, the girl spun around to see a woman, in her late thirties standing at her window. The sight scared the girl near half out of her wits. She screamed, and the woman laughed. Her face was growing wrinkles, and her hair was in a bob, and an ugly bob at that.
“I have to do something.” Joy thought out loud to herself. “But what?”
“I’ll tell you what!” The hissing voice was still the same, Kelly was this woman, who was aging faster than most women at that age…. As was Joy. “Let me in, and I’ll tell you all about what you need to do.” Joy shook her head, “You don’t have a choice.” The voice was stern and solid. Apparently the wall was not, because in a moment, Kelly had walked directly through it and was standing next to Joy.
“Okay.” Allowed Joy, “Enlighten me.”
“I knew you’d warm up to me, little miss!” the whispery voice cooed.

“Well,” Joy whispered, hunched into a compact version of her thirteen-year-old self. “Please tell me what I need to do… Because being stuck anywhere near you for the remainder of… my life… is absurd and it’s not going to happen.”
“I’ll start where I feel is necessary,” Kelly sat on the bed, her dress growing longer little by little and her back hunching more and more by the minute. The colors she was wearing began dimming and her face drew down, gray, sagging in places. “There’s no good that can come of me, there never was. In fact, it was my fault that you died, but I suppose I’ll get to that in due time. But I have, in death, learned to vaguely regret the terrible things I did, and though I can’t change my own outcome for the better, I can keep it from getting worse by lending a hand in yours.”
“But you’re chasing me! How can that be helpful?”
“Oh, no. I don’t want to help you, in fact I’d very much like to see your pitiful porcelain face smashed with the others, but I can’t let that happen, not without my own decay. See, I’m already growing old past the point of no return, and I’m not even alive anymore!” The woman was growing even older, yet. Her grey hair fell from her head in clumps, thinning like a fraying rag.  “I can only stop myself from decay by passing on the information to someone younger. You.” She snorted and pulled a hand to her forehead to push back some remaining strands of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were dark and her hands grew thin and brittle, the skin on her fingers outlining the very bones beneath the surface. “There’s nothing you can do if you don’t give your family closure. That’s the only thing that can stop this from happening to you.” She gestured to her face which had grown hollow and empty, lacking luster even of blood. Her voice began to get softer and cracked badly. “Make sure you have a funeral. That is the only way to free your spirit. It doesn’t have to follow any plan, but if you don’t bring your family together, they won’t let your memory live within them. They will fall apart and you, too, will forget them. That’s how I became the way I am. Soon I will pass from this body for good, and since I didn’t retrieve closure, my spirit will have to wander about the universe free, but lost. I wish you good luck with your closure.”
The girl stood, taller than she was a few moments ago, and saw the… life... fading from the woman in front of her. “What would have happened if you didn’t pass on the information?”
The woman’s shrill laugh pierced the air and stung Joy’s heart, “That’s simple. I would have been stuck in my previous body! As in, the rotting corpse back in my old home, to await… nothing.”
A chill went up the growing girl’s spine and she molded a final question in the pit of questions that needed to be asked. “What happens if I give my family closure?”
“I suppose that’s for me to know and never see, but for you to see or never know.” With that, the last breath of dead energy passed from the dead woman’s dead figure as her body fell into a pile of dusty powder.
There was nothing left for the girl. She was dead – and the only person she could have talked to was gone… dead even in the world of death.

A shriek deafened the girl’s ears as she shut them she realized it was the same voice. Of the dead woman. Then it was gone.
Her spirit was left to roam the corridors of death – hopefully – as far away from Joy as possible. Joy walked to her mirror to see what form she was taking on. Before her stood a woman – about twenty years old, and beautiful. She noticed that her hair had grown to the middle of her back and her whole self had turned into that of which any young woman would envy. Joy chuckled. If only she had a life to appreciate it.
Now to get down to business. She didn’t know where to begin. All she knew was that she was dead, and her parents and siblings… how many were there again? Was it just one? No. She had two siblings. Yes. Two. The rock in her pocket reminded her, as she lifted it out and looked at it. She guessed that the three lines represented her and her two siblings. Something about what Kelly had said, about her blank stone and forgetting her family. Looking at it further, Joy noticed that her own stone had dulled. Almost as if it had been in the sand for years, for a lifetime. But it had only been one afternoon, right? It couldn’t have been longer: the sun never set. Come to think of it, she didn’t remember ever even seeing the sun, at least not since she… not since she died. She glanced over her shoulder in a panic, as if she expected Kelly to come waltzing in, hollow and shriveled like she had been. Kelly said… to give her family closure.
Glancing back at the mirror, she noticed herself aging, as if she was now twenty five. She had to hurry if she was going to help herself. She went to her parents’ room. Everything was there just as she had remembered it, except that she was taller and everything seemed to be very small. A note sat on the desk, scribbled as if it was just a reminder.
There was only one word she could read. “Erin,” Joy said it out loud. As if it could make a difference. Sure enough she remembered. That’s my sister. She was pretty, she had short curly hair but it was never a mess. Her eyes were blue like diamonds and she always dressed so well. Joy couldn’t believe she had forgotten her sister! She put the note in her pocket with the stone to remind herself if she ever forgot. As she picked it up, though, it was as if she duplicated it. The note was both in her hand and on the desk simultaneously. She tried to push it out of her mind and turned around. There was an opened letter on the ground at her feet. Upon reading it, she realized that it was from Erin to her parents. Something about how great her grades were and how she hoped to graduate early, or something. Joy turned the envelope around and copied the address down on the scrap of paper in her pocket. If there was anything she could do, finding her sister would be a good place to start. As she left the house, she noticed people walking around. And before she knew it she was outside of her sister’s school, note with the address in hand. It hadn’t taken any time, it seemed, and she didn’t remember how she had gotten there. It was like all she had to do was want to be somewhere, and poof. There she was. ‘This whole being dead thing is really weird.” As she said it to no one in particular, she noticed her voice had gotten far more mature.
There were a couple of people wandering around the campus, none quite interested in the mysterious appearance of a complete stranger, so she figured people couldn’t see her. In the distance there was a girl, seated on a park bench, who was looking directly at Joy. It made her feel uneasy, as if the girl was judging her, even though it was unlikely that the girl could even see her. But just as she thought that, the girl stood up and headed straight to Joy. When she was probably three feet away she nodded in the direction of a little corner in the shade of a couple of trees and the school itself.
Joy followed the girl to the secluded little area.
“I know you’re wondering who I am. I guess I am too.” She turned and looked very seriously at Joy.
“What do you mean? Are you dead, too?”
“No. I’m glad you know you’re dead, though.” She sat in the grass and gestured for Joy to follow. “I found out that half of the people I see are actually nonliving when my mother questioned my sanity and sent me to a therapist. When the therapist didn’t see the people in the room with her, I figured that’s what was going on. I’ve set out to try and help you guys.”
“Well, thanks.”
“To start… why are you here?”
“Um, I… I guess I’m trying to find my older sister. I know I look pretty old now, but just this morning I was a baby, so I don’t really know what’s going on…”
“I know. That’s what I hear. Do you know your sister’s name?” She asked as if she was talking to an infant.
“Of course! It’s…” Joy thought for a moment. There was like a block in her memory that made everything hard to think of. “Erin. Her name is Erin.” The girl in front of her nodded and asked if she could see a picture, a letter, or anything that could help in identifying Erin. “I don’t have anything.”
“I know. You just have to think back to your house and find one. Meet me back here right away. I won’t wait too long, so try not to get distracted.” The girl was serious. If that was all a ghost had to do – to think back to somewhere, this wasn’t going to be as difficult as it could be.
She closed her eyes and thought about home. When she opened her eyes, she was in her sister’s old room. Scrambling to find something of use, she came across a notebook with her full name on it – a last name she barely recognized. It was full of drawings. Really good drawings. For a minute, she flipped through the pages before she realized that she was wasting time. Thinking back to the school, she appeared back in the little corner.
The girl looked relieved. As if she had been waiting for hours. Grabbing for the notebook she said, “Hurry. We don’t have much time. Follow me and don’t bother saying anything. It can only mess me up.”
They practically sprinted into a nearby building. On the inside there were computers and people. One was Erin. Joy almost ran up to her for a hug, but realized that there would be no recognition, not that she could see Joy anyway. “Erin!” the girl shouted and waved her over. “Come here.” She looked like she had been crying and stood, confused and dazed in the world.
“What is it, Beth?”
“I’m, uh, really sorry about your sister, hun.”
Erin burst into tears and gave her a hug. “She was only four!” Joy almost laughed. To think she had only been four… and now, in less than a day she had become probably upwards of thirty years old.
“Hun, you know how I told you about that thing?”
“What?”
“You know…” Beth got really close to Erin’s ear for a whisper, “Now your sister is here.”
“Oh my gosh!” She looked almost happy. “Can you tell her I love her? And I miss her? And she’s amazing?”
“SHHH!” Beth was red. Apparently shouting about somebody’s secret can be a little upsetting.
“I’m sorry.” Erin looked down. “I just didn’t realize it was really possible.”
Glancing at Joy, Beth grabbed Erin’s arm and dragged her outside where no one was around.
“Here. Your sister came to me like the other dead people and she needs help. They all tell me that their souls or whatever are going to die if they can’t give their family closure, or whatever. That means your family isn’t planning a funeral, or talking to each other, or anything. Have you talked to anybody about it?”
Erin shook her head, “Not since I found out from mom.”
“Okay, you know how I feel about people not getting over death, right? Not for the living people, but for the sake of the dead. It doesn’t do them any good for their families to hate everybody. Figure it out with your family, okay? I’m out.” With that, Beth left Erin and Joy alone.
“Joy, if you can hear me, I will fix everything.” Joy was listening. “Don’t worry about a thing. I will talk to mom and dad, and Elliot and we will get together. For you. We will not cry and we will be happy. We will never forget you, okay?” With that, she burst into tears again and crumpled to the ground. Joy didn’t know how to get to her. She sat down next to Erin and hoped that she could feel a happy presence. “Oh, Joy…”
Joy leaned to her sister and gave her a hug. “I’ll meet you on the flipside, sis.” Something about it stopped the tears, and that was the last they saw of each other again. After that, Joy found herself growing old, but not ugly like Kelly had. She had a peaceful life in death, and since her family had reunited, her spirit clung to the hearts of her family, where it stayed forever.