Big Sister

I sit on my bed, the coldness of the sheets a shock through my jeans that sends a tingle up my spine. It's close to evening on a winter's day. The window had been left open, even though the house had been empty all day. Mum must have opened it after I left this morning. My mum gets pretty careless about that sort of thing. In the morning she's all optimism and clean clean clean; by the afternoon she forgets what she's doing and sits on the couch as if she’s wired to the television. She's out now, with Dad. They don't like being home on my birthday. With the cold and all of my belongings packed up in boxes, the room feels oddly hollow. It’s the last night I’ll get to spend in my childhood bedroom before I go off to live in my own flat and it makes me a little sad that it’s happening on my birthday.

         I don't mind being alone. It used to be just another reason to hate this day, but I've learned to live with it. I'd rather be alone than know Mum's crying in her room or hear Dad stumbling up the stairs drunk at 3am. I saw them this morning, before I went out with my friends. They had fake smiles plastered on their faces as they handed me presents. I could see it in their eyes, how sad they really were. It was like a million demons were swarming under their skin, behind their eyes, fighting to get out and self-destruct. I'd rather be alone than watch them fake joy at the anniversary of my entrance to the world.

         Happy birthday to me.

         I won't be alone for long anyway. My sister will be here any second. I only see her on my birthday. She crawls out from nowhere, once a year, when my parents aren’t home. The thought of talking to her makes me want to crawl out of my skin with anxiety, which leads to guilt because she's my sister and talking to her shouldn't make me feel like throwing up. I flop backwards on the bed, iciness spreading through my t-shirt and stinging the back of my arms. A cold breeze drifts through the window, creating little goosebumps along my arms and making the hairs stand straight up. I don't have to sit up to know she's there.

         “Hey, birthday girl.” There's far too much false cheer in Sarah's voice; the same greeting repeated each year. Happy birthday, then I listen to her ramble about pointless things, until she figures she's stayed long enough to appease politeness, and she leaves. I close my eyes, picturing her standing at the door. She's tall. Amazonian. I learned that word when I was ten years old, and when I found out what it meant I forever associated it with Sarah. She's not just tall, but broad, too. Athletic, barely an ounce of fat but she always looks huge. I can see her behind my eyes; dark jacket, long straight hair down her back, blue jeans that made all the boys' eyes go wide. Heavy biker boots, like a walking cliché. Her armor. A smile on her face, a dark eyebrow raised. I open my eyes and push myself up. She is exactly as I pictured, as if the scene in front of me was lifted straight from my mind. She's leaning against the door frame with her hands in her pockets.

         My fake smile makes my skin crawl, and she isn't fooled. “Cheer up, Amy,” she drawls as she steps into the room, gliding with feminine grace. I remember the early years of her teenage life, when she struggled to get her long limbs to do what she wanted. Now she has full control of her size and slips through space like a cat.  I have the petite build of a ballerina, tiny and frail next to her, but I never outgrew the awkward movement of adolescence. I am sharp angles and bony elbows against her thick hips and sleek curves. “What, did Mum buy you that perfume that smells like Grandma again?”

         It's an old joke. Same one every year. Mum hasn't bought me that perfume since I was nine, and Sarah was the one who took great joy in pointing out that I smelt like an old woman’s wardrobe; mothballs and white musk. I didn't care about her jibes back then because it meant that she noticed me. “Nah,” I say. “Now she's buying me fruity stuff. I smell like someone put orange juice in the washer.” Sarah chuckles. It's a strange sound to me. I can't get used to her presence on my birthdays. She was seven when I was born; already a well-established only child with two parents to feed her need for attention. The novelty of my existence wore off fast. When I became old enough to want to imitate her, she was a teenager with no time for little kids. I watched with fascination as she smoked behind the grocery store on a summer's day, peeked through a crack in the door as she made out with a boyfriend. I learned how to fight and how to get my way by listening to her constant fights with Mum. I didn't understand the words, but I knew they hurt Mum's feelings and made her cry. I hate you. You suck. You're a bad mother. You're just like Grandma. “Don't turn out like your sister,” Mum would say later. “You're a good girl.”

         I rub my arms to make the goosebumps go away. The tip of my nose tingles with cold and I sniff before the snot can drip. I watch Sarah as she picks up a little pink statue of a fairy from my dresser and studies it. It’s the only thing I haven’t packed away because I feel oddly comforted by its presence. “Where'd this come from?”

         “You gave it to me. My tenth birthday.”

         Sarah's mouth turns down in a frown. “Don't remember buying it. You sure it was me?” I nod, and she turns it in her hands again, forehead wrinkling as she tries to place the statue in her memory.

         On my tenth birthday she had appeared from her bedroom, pulled the fairy from her bag and slammed it on the kitchen table with a curt “Here you go” before disappearing out the front door. Mom had yelled after her, so loud the whole street had heard, but I didn't care. The fairy was a treasure, because it was from my big sister. No matter how I grew, how I changed, the fairy remained on my dresser, even after I realised that it was probably lifted from a shop or a friend's bedroom, just for the thrill. That was Sarah. A whirlwind, leaving devastation in her wake and never looking back.

         She looks at me. Her head tilts and her eyebrows knit, as if I'm something new and strange that she can't figure out. The immeasurable distance between us makes me feel ill and I drop my gaze to stare at my shoes. I want this to be over. The silence stretches and I sniff again.

         “When did you cut your hair?” she asks.

         I want to tell her that I haven't worn my hair long in years, but do I really want to make her feel bad? “A while ago,” I say, “I wanted a change.” That part at least is the whole truth, more than anyone could ever understand. I've tried so hard not to be me. I guess we’re alike in that regard, at least. I look up when she snorts.

         “Yeah, I get that. Boy, do I ever.” There's sadness in her voice that stabs at my heart. You didn't have to be a shrink to figure out who she was really angry at for all those years. It's the first time I've ever seen her so vulnerable, and my throat constricts so tight I can't breathe. We both think about our demons in silence for a long moment. She's the first to recover.

         “So where's Mum and Dad? How come they're not spending this special day with the prodigal daughter?”

         “They're out. Somewhere. Doesn't matter, I'm not a little kid anymore.”

         “I can't believe this shit,” Sarah says with a wave of her hands. “They never let me stay alone in the house when I was fifteen. If I were you, I'd have everyone I know in here, trashing the place.”

         I'm nineteen. I want to tell her this. But there are other things I need to say first, because I won't get the chance to say them again. This is the last time I'll ever see her.

         “You shouldn't be here.” I'm disgusted by how weak my voice sounds. I've never been the rebel that Sarah was, but watching her over the years taught me how to defend myself, build walls and hide behind armor. Now, her influence has failed me and I am myself. I feel small, and not just because I inherited the opposite of her Amazonian build. My throat is dry and tight.

         “Relax,” she says, as she sits beside me on the bed and sprawls backwards with her arms above her head, not close enough to touch. “If Mum comes home, I won't start anything. Promise.”

         I shake my head because it's hard to get the words out. When they do come out, they are powerless, a whisper. “You never used to care about my birthday. You barely noticed me.”

         She snorts and sits up. It's a sound she has always been free with. It made girls giggle at her behind her back and boys smile at her. “Oh boo hoo, Amy. I have my own life, you know? Look, seven years is a lifetime of difference. It's not like we could go drinking together. In a few years, maybe, when you're old enough.”

         It's freezing, with her sitting beside me. It feels like my marrow has been replaced with crushed ice. I start to think that I can't do this, that I'll have to come back here a year from now to see her again. My nose drips. My eyes are the only part of me that feel warm, hot, as tears blur my vision. I wipe them away and she sighs.

         “I'm sorry, ok? Guess I'm as good a sister as I am a daughter. But that little fantasy you have of us being best friends and doing each others hair was never going to happen, Amy. Besides, all you ever did for me was make me look even worse in comparison. You got all the attention and all the praise. I could have come out a brain surgeon and it still wouldn’t have been enough. God, it used to bug me the way you'd stare at me like I was a saint, no matter what I did.”

         “I worshipped you.”

         “I know. And I always hated you for getting to be the person I wanted. Funny how genes work, huh?” Sarah plucks at her jeans. The light outside is fading. Dead. The room is darkening into shades of blue and grey. I could switch on the light, but the warmth of my bedside lamp would feel wrong and real. “I'm a sucky role model, Amy. Even I don't want to be me. Don't take it personally.”

         “We all love you. All the fights, all the times you got busted drinking or smoking or ditching school, none of that matters. If you knew...”

         “Knew what?”

         “Nothing. But it's true. It just took you not being here for all that shit to not matter anymore.”

         She turns to me and smiles, though it doesn't reach her eyes. “Not being here? I am here. That's the problem. I'm only on the other side of town, Amy. It's not like we never see each other. No one ever bothers to reach out to me.”

         It hasn't been like this before, this honest. I've never used the opportunity of her annual visits to fix things, change things, because it always seemed too late. Maybe she knows what's coming. I can certainly feel it in the air. She's not as strong as she once was, as if she's fading like the sunlight.

         “Why did you come here?”

         “Because it's your birthday.”

         I look at her, and she laughs.

         “Yeah, didn't think you'd swallow that one.” She huffs, puffing out her cheeks. “Mum called. Said she was tired of me missing out on your life. She said you were upset, cos some dumbass boy had dumped you. I yelled, she yelled. I'm not going to lie, I didn't want to come. But I did anyway, because I thought it might score me some points with Dad and he would lend me some money.”

         I didn't know. The part of me that never gave up on her thought she did it because she cared. Turns out she was thinking about herself. “Sarah, that was four years ago.”

         “Are you high?”

         I almost laugh, and not because it's funny. I'm trying to tell my sister she's been dead for four years. Nerves twist and expand in my chest like a creature with a life of its own. “You were angry when you were coming over here for my fifteenth birthday. You drove too fast.”

         “Shut up,” she says, like I'm telling a bad joke.

         “Someone pulled out in front of you, and you swerved.” I'm shaking. “It was instant. They said you wouldn't have felt a thing.”

         “You've lost it, do you know that?” Her long dark hair ripples in the fading light as she shakes her head.

         “I'm nineteen. You haven't missed my birthday in four years.” I swallow down bile. “The night you died, you showed up here, just like tonight. Mum was in bed, sedated. Dad was downstairs with Aunty Ruth. I came up here to get away, because no one knew what to do with me. All of a sudden there you were, standing in my doorway, and God, I couldn't even speak to you, and that just pissed you off. You yelled at me for wasting your time. I puked my guts out when you left.” Brave, or maybe just desperate because this could be my last chance, I reach out and touch her hand. I don't think I've touched her since we were very young and she would allow such things. She is ice cold, unnatural, yet solid. “Remember it, Sarah. Just try.”

         She's staring at the floor, eyes wide and mouth open. I read everything I could find about ghosts over the years. I read about exorcisms, too. I didn't like the idea of them. If I had to get her to let go, to leave, it had to be on her terms, just like everything else in her life. I wanted time to talk. I hear her dead, fake breath hitch and she gasps. “No.” It comes out as a question, and I know she remembers. The car, a twisted wreck. Her body, lifeless. No open casket at the funeral. Some sick fucker at the police station had leaked the photos to the darker corners of the internet. One friend had the decency to warn me. I never gave in and looked; my imagination conjured worse than reality could manage.

         “Why?” she whispers. “Why are you making me remember?”

         “We sold the house. Mum and Dad found somewhere smaller, away from here. They’ve already moved most of their stuff, and I move tomorrow. It’s too hard on them being in this house with all of its memories. I’m sharing an apartment with Rachel. I’ve got a job at our old school, helping out at the nursery.” I take my hand from hers, the cold burning. “I won't be here next year. I didn't want you showing up and thinking we had left you all alone.” I didn't want her trapped here, alone and frightened. I didn't want her to show up and find some stranger living in this room, or to get angry and be trapped here forever.

         Sarah sits, and just stares. Her mouth is hanging open and her eyes are glazing over with tears. I jump when she jolts all of a sudden, and doubles up in pain. Her head jerks to the side with the memory of the car hitting her. She makes a sickening sound in her throat; half a squeal of pain, half a cry of despair. She remembers now. I see the tears roll down her eyes.

         “I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” My voice sounds too harsh and I choke on my tightening throat. “I just wasn’t ready to let you go.”

         I watch as she straightens up, her mouth still hanging open and her breathing heavy and ragged. I wonder if she needs to breathe, would she notice if she stopped? It’s a grotesque imitation of a living being designed to help her believe.

         “It’s over?” she asks quietly, without looking at me. “That was it? That’s all I got?” I see her shoulders tighten and her lower lip tremble.

         “I’m – “

         “You’re what, you’re sorry?” Sarah lunges across the room, whirls and thumps the wall. “That was it? All those years of fighting myself, never being happy, and I die?” She picks up the little pink fairy statue from my dresser and hurls it across the room. My heart stops as it shatters; little pieces of memories litter the floor. “That isn’t fair!”

         I run to her, wanting to hug her like I never could when she was alive. But she pushes me away with such force I land on my back and can’t breathe. Pain bursts in the back of my head and I feel like she has sunk one of her heavy boots into my ribs.

         She’s a dervish now, spinning and grabbing anything she can get her hands on, throwing things to the floor, punching every hard surface. I lie there, struggling to breathe with tears in my eyes. I’m an idiot. I had this dream that Sarah would just accept this, we would hug like the sisters we never were and there would be a flash of white light and she would be gone. I forgot her anger, the pain that tortured her life. I forgot that she never had a chance to figure things out, to really live instead of hiding behind her harsh exterior. She never got the chance to stop being afraid. And now she never would.

         I push myself up and look at her. Whatever strength or connection to this world that had begun to fade was now stronger. She seems to glow in the blue-grey light. I thought she had begun to grow weaker; tired of haunting and ready to move on. But her anger has fuelled her now.

         “Sarah, you have to move on.” My whisper is barely audible over her harsh breathing. She is standing with her back to me, her shoulders rising and falling and staring into the open doorway. My room lies in chaos. Whatever hadn’t been packed for the move lies across the floor. My mirror is shattered and the pieces glitter in the little light that is left. “I know life didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. I know you were hurting, I know you were angry because you just didn’t like who you were. And I’m sorry you never had the chance to figure all of this out and stop being angry at yourself. But you can be at peace now.”

         All I can hear is my own breath and my pulse in my ears. There isn’t any noise from the street, no passing cars, and no neighbours coming and going. It’s as if we’re trapped in a bubble. Her voice is husky when it breaks the silence minutes later. “Amy. If you died right now, would you feel cheated?”

         “Of course.” I don’t see the point in lying. She’ll see right through it.

She snorts. “You, with your perfect little life, would feel cheated. So how the hell do you think I feel?”

         Sarah is standing so still I no longer see any humanity in her form. There is no pretense of breath and her long hair is still in the evening breeze. My hackles are standing straight and my arms are covered in goosebumps again; a shiver makes my head jerk to the side. But the coldness isn’t coming from the open window behind me. It comes from my poor dead sister in front of me. She is between me and the doorway, and I hate myself just a little for registering that fact. She is not real. She is my sister. And I am scared of her now. She turns to me and I see the shard of broken mirror in her hand. It glints in the dim light and I can’t look away.

         “It isn’t fair, the difference between you and me. Same parents, same house, same school… You always had a best friend you could trust. I had friends who used me and threw me away. Same with boys. You did well in school; I could never do well enough. You were praised and I was told to do better next time.” She looks at the shard of glass in her hand and turns it in the light. We are both hypnotised. “You were always so confident of who you were and where you belonged. I can’t remember ever feeling that way. All the drugs, the drinking, the parties, the boys… I did it because there’s a monster inside of me. It doesn’t like it when I sit still, or when I try to do good. That’s when it tries to destroy me and eat me up from the inside. When I run wild and get high and shout and scream at everyone around me, the monster is happy. It’s quiet.”

         Sarah takes a step towards me and I stumble backwards, my eyes still on the shard of glass. Her icy presence envelopes me and despite my thudding heart and raging fear I feel no warmth in my blood. I think about the distance to the door and how I could get past her. She is so much bigger, and I remind myself, not human anymore. When I touched her arm earlier, she was solid. She holds the shard of glass tightly, but there is no blood on her hands.

         “Sarah, please. This isn’t going to change anything.” My plea comes out choked and weak. I look into her eyes hoping to break her anger, but all I see is rage and sadness in dark eyes that are glazed with tears.

         “Amy. Why did you get to be the lucky one?” She raises the shard of glass a little higher and steps towards me once more. I’m running out of room and if she keeps advancing I’ll be on the bed. My knees are like jelly and it takes all of my strength to stay upright.

         “I’m not! I didn’t. It’s not my fault!” Our youth flashes before my eyes. We were strangers. Hadn’t we always been? I wanted her to be my big sister; it was all I ever asked of from her. I never wanted to compete or steal all of the attention. In all of my successes I looked to her for praise that never came. When I was heartbroken I hoped she would cheer me up with words of wisdom but was left wanting.

         I try to tell her this but the words are stuck in my throat. I’m on the losing end of a battle with my body as fear makes my limbs feel boneless and my muscles refuse to respond. Sarah backs me towards the bed and I sit when it hits the back of my knees. She is towering over me and I want to scream and tell her that it isn’t my fault; that I would have helped if she had only reached out. We all would have given anything for her to be happy.

         But the look in her eyes tells me it’s too late for sorry. It’s too late for ‘would have’ because that isn’t going to give her a second chance. She was so angry in life and I realise there is never going to be peace for her in death. As I stare at the glass in her hands I make one last desperate attempt to soothe her.

         “Sarah,” My throat is like leather. “You have a chance to get rid of that anger forever. I don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t know if some bright light will appear and you just walk into it. But if you go now, you can be at peace. If you stay you’ll never be happy.”

         “I know something that will make me happy. Something that will make things even.”

Her icy hand burns on my arm and she grips tight as she raises the shard of glass like she’s about to sacrifice a lamb. I squirm and squeal and kick but I don’t even know if she can be hurt. I grab her wrist to hold the glass away and we are locked in a battle of strength. Sarah is grinning above me as I twist my body.

         “Little sister, isn’t this what you wanted? You and me together forever. We could even stick around and get mum and dad to join us.” She pushes down a little harder and my elbow bends. “We could be a proper little family. That’s what I always wanted, you see. But no one ever asked.”

         I’m not strong enough and my arm bends. The shard of glass is distorted in my vision as she forces it closer and closer to my eye. I want to cry and scream but adrenaline is rushing and all of my energy is focused on trying to straighten my left arm and keep that awful, sharp glass away from my eye.

         “No one ever asked, because you all just gave up! Sarah’s just a bad seed, bad blood!” She is yelling and it echoes unnaturally around the room. I turn my head and the sharp end of the glass scratched my cheek. I feel blood trickle down into my ear, hot and ticklish. “At least there was you! I was just a failed first attempt at a family!”

         I do not want to die here. I do not want to be trapped in Sarah’s world where there is nothing but anger and fear. I want to live, God I swear I want to live. I call out as the glass pushes deeper into my cheek and I think of hot toast with lots of butter, the soft lips of boys I’ve kissed, waking up in the warm cocoon of my bed on a winter’s day. I want to experience all of those things again, over and over. I don’t want to die here, trapped in my childhood bedroom with ice in my soul.

         Sarah is leaning over me with her weight in her arms. I twist and struggle until finally my feet are flat against her thighs and I push with all of my strength. She stumbles backwards, off-balance, and I have just enough space to launch myself off the bed towards the door. She growls like a wolf and lunges towards me and hits her mark. The glass sinks into my left calf and is dragged downwards with her weight as she hits the floor. I scream with the hot burning pain.

         But I can still run. I’m out the door and down the stairs, too desperate to let the pain in my leg slow me down. It will sink in later. I have too much momentum going down the stairs and my body is only stopped when I slam against the front door. Winded I pause, leaning against the door. My head is spinning and the pain in my leg is radiating throughout my body. The empty, dark house is silent except for my wheezy breathing accented by small moans on every exhale.

         “Don’t you want to be with me, Amy?”

I spin around. Sarah stands on the staircase, her head cocked to one side like a puppy hearing a new noise. The glass glimmers in her hand.

         “Do you want me to be alone forever? We can be sisters now, just like you always wanted.”

         I shake my head. “Not like this,” I sob, “Never like this.”

Sarah’s head bows but she keeps her eyes on me, the dark curtain of her hair framing her face. “Yes, like this. It’s time I got my way, Amy.” She raises the glass. “It’s time for me to get what I want for a change.”

         My hand seeks out the door handle and struggles with it. My palms are sweaty and slippery on the cold knob. Sarah steps down, one stair at a time. Just as she reaches the last stair, the knob turns and clicks. I pull the door towards myself, whacking my shoulder as I turn to slip through the opening. Sarah lunges as I escape and the shard of glass just catches the sleeve of my t-shirt. It tears as I fall outside, pulling the door shut with a slam.

I lie on the cold porch, weeping and staring at the door because I half-expect it to open. My mind starts to spin and before shock can fully set in I push myself up and run. I run, without direction, until my chest burns and my body aches. My left leg gives in and my head spins from the blood that is running down my leg and into my shoe. I don’t look back, not once, until I am collapsed in a heap on the side of the road. I look back and realise I’m streets away. I can’t see my house from here. The world is different now that I’m outside. I can hear the last birdsong of the evening. I can hear cars on nearby roads and see headlights in the distance. There is life out here. I lie there, just listening, and hoping that I never hear my sister’s voice again.







It’s my birthday again. The year has passed in a blur of moving house and beginning my adulthood, though part of my mind has stayed anchored to what happened with Sarah. It’s like a dark little corner of my brain that I try to keep out of sight. But my thoughts always end up going back to it, like a cut in your mouth that you just can’t stop poking with your tongue despite the pain.



I haven’t told anyone what happened. I spent the rest of the night in hospital, telling the doctors that I had been chased by a dog and cut my leg climbing over a fence. I don’t think they believed me but they were too busy to care, really. As if to prove Sarah’s point my parents came and stayed with me, lavishing me with attention rather than scolding me for something so silly. I went back to the house once to pack, in daylight, the next day. I stood at the top of the stairs for a long time trying to talk my body into moving, one step at a time. Mum was singing along to the radio downstairs while Dad packed up books in the livingroom. There was a renewed sense of joy in them that made me feel ill. It was the last anniversary they would have to spend in that house with so many memories. They were joyful with the thought of a fresh start. I trembled as I finally stepped into my room. Tears burned in my eyes at the sight of the chaos. The mirror, the shattered fairy: it was real. I bit hard on my bottom lip and forced myself to breathe deeply. The room was still freezing and I wanted out of there. I could still feel Sarah. The atmosphere of the room pressed down on me and I felt myself wanting to destroy the place. Her anger was palpable. I had to be quick.

         I scooped up the broken fragments of the fairy statue and tossed them into the waste bin by my bed. I bundled up my duvet and pillows and threw them out into the hallway. I moved as quickly as I could, as if I were on some strange gameshow and every second counted. Each box and bag was thrown out into the hallway. When everything was out, I looked at the broken mirror in the corner. It would stay, I decided. I couldn’t see the broken shard that had slashed my leg open. I didn’t want to think about where that had gone. I leaned over, on my knees, and looked into one of the shattered pieces. I looked like a ghost myself. My face was pale and marred by purple circles under my eyes. I stared for a long time, wondering if anything would ever be the same.

         Then I saw Sarah’s reflection, standing above me and grinning. I leapt up and threw myself out the door, and slammed it shut behind me. I tripped over my boxes and pillows and just about managed to catch myself from falling headfirst down the stairs.

         Then I heard her laugh. I haven’t stepped foot in that room in a year, and I was very thankful that my parents had already started sleeping in their new house.

         I moved into my new apartment with Rachel that night. What should have been cause for celebration was ruined by my paranoia and shock. It took a long time for me to get used to being left on my own. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when I was finally rested and recovered, that I realised Sarah wouldn’t follow me. She was tied to the house because that was where her strength came from. She had no ties to my new building. I comforted myself with the knowledge that she couldn’t leave our old house. I repeated it to myself over and over again until I believed it.



I’m trying to move on, but on this day of the year it’s hard not to look back. And that’s why I ended up here, sitting in my car outside of my childhood home. Tonight is just like my last birthday. The sun is fading and there’s an icy chill in the air. It’s winter and everything feels crisp and fresh despite the death associated with the season. I always loved winter and I’m trying to recapture that feeling instead of associating it with bad memories of the last five years. I open my window and breathe it in. I need the fresh air to calm my nerves.

         The house is up for sale again. A family had moved in, with a 12 year old daughter. A lovely, straight-A student according to the papers. After the family moved in, little Laura started acting strange and aggressive. Her grades slipped and she fought with her family. She would scream at night and draw strange pictures of a girl with long dark hair. Eight months after moving in, Laura hanged herself in my old bedroom.

         That was two weeks ago.

         I pull on my gloves and step out of the car. I close the door and lean against it. I will not go inside. To be honest, even if I needed to go in, I’m too terrified. The thought of opening the front door makes me feel nauseated and my knees start to shake.          

         I don’t need to go in because I can see Sarah standing at my bedroom window.

         I try to keep my face blank as I watch her. She isn’t alone. A young girl stands beside her, looking sad. I recognise her from the pictures in the local paper. Poor Laura. Guilt stabs at my gut and I swallow it down. I couldn’t have known Sarah would do this. And I don’t even know what I could have done about it.

         Sarah grins at me. I thought perhaps she would be happy now that she had the company she wanted – she had stopped a little girl from living the life Sarah had never had for herself. But her smile doesn’t say that. It is wicked and deformed. She raises her hand and curls one finger, beckoning me.

         She is saying, ‘Won’t you come and play with us?’

         I hold her gaze, and shake my head. I came to say goodbye. Reading about Laura’s death had been too much, and I remembered my research about exorcisms over the years. I had found a priest who was sympathetic and believed me. Tonight I just wanted to confirm that Laura hadn’t been a horrible coincidence.

         I shake my head as Sarah drags her nails down the inside of the bedroom window. Laura just raises a hand and presses it against the glass in a silent plea. Don’t worry, I think to myself, you’ll be free soon enough.

         I turn away from the grotesque tableau. I am comfortable with my cowardice. I will not try to scare myself for the sake of looking brave. I climb back into the car and call Father Donovan. The new owners of the house are due to move in next week. They have two teenage daughters.

         I ask him to come as soon as possible.