II. Origins

i

I was three.

I believe I was playing in the living room of the modest two-story house, stereotypical to that of white, middle-class suburban America. My father was sitting on the floor with me as I climbed the small plastic slide with electric primary colors. I tumbled down the slide, erupting into an adorable toddler giggle — you know the kind. It turns heads with delight as a whine turns them in disgust. I rolled around on the giant persian rug covering the hardwood floor, beside myself with laughter, as my father tickled and gently rough-housed with me. I believe my mom was in the next room over, the kitchen, making dinner, so she didn’t think anything of it when my delight soured into tears.

“Howie!” She called in that way mothers do, that latent threat underneath the playful concern. “Don’t make me put you both in time out!”

“It wasn’t me,” my dad called back, frowning over me, worry creasing his brow further. He hushed me tenderly, gathering me in his arms.

Within his embrace, I felt so safe, so secure, inside an iron fortress. I was fearless there, carefree, though I suppose most children are carefree as they know nothing of the real world.

However, as I peered over my daddy’s shoulder, him rocking me side to side with that lilting soothing voice crooning in my ear, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her:

There, standing across the room was the reason I had eroded into tears. The first time I ever encountered her, hovering in my periphery.

But my father didn’t seem to notice her, and perhaps that’s what had set me off. I don’t know. All I really remember is the smile she gave me, sad and small, much like her. It scared me to see her like that. It scared me more that I could see her at all.

ii

When I was five, I began kindergarten, like most children in the United States. I had a best friend Timmy, and one day, instead of his Power Rangers collection, he brought a brag bigger than he was: his mommy was having a baby. Timmy and his newfound sibling status was suddenly the hottest news any Goldfish-cracker-slimed lips had whispered on the playground, and before the end of the year, Timmy wasn’t the only one with a little heaven’s kiss.

“Mommy?” I tugged at her straight-leg blue jeans.

Between her legs, there she was. Forever in the background. She far from scared me now, and I had just taken her presence as comforting, though she never did anything other than stand far away and give me that sad, small smile of hers.

But now, as I was whining up at my mother, I distinctly caught her violently shaking her head at me, her brows ever so creased.

I paused a moment, jeans in my grasp, before shrugging it off and continuing at my mom.

“Mommy-y!” I shrieked.

“Hush, Ana,” she sternly spoke down at me. “Mommy is talking.”

I gave the other woman swallowing all of my mother’s attention the best stinkeye a five year-old could muster and planted myself firmly between their feet.

She was still just shaking her head in the background.

“Yes, Ana?” My mother eventually called, reaching down to stand me up. “What do you need, sunshine?”

I glanced between her legs at her. Her frown deepened.

I looked back up at my mother. “When are you having a baby?”

Being five, I missed the spark that blew out of her eyes and didn’t understand why she suddenly grabbed my hand and marched me away, telling me that no baby was going to come and that I needed to forget about it.

She just watched my mother drag me away, the sad smile back.

iii

Of course, it wasn’t until I was a little older that I finally heard the truth out of my parents:

I wasn’t their first child.

When my mom’s biological clock went into overdrive, my parents went full force down the family path, but with very little luck. It didn’t matter what magic tricks they pulled, my mother’s body wasn’t having it, and their doctor confirmed: my parents had basically zero probability of conceiving a child.

I could only imagine my mother’s surprise and ecstatic joy when she first read those two little lines. She even retook the pregnancy test two more times before going to her doctor, but everything was coming back positive — my parents were having a baby!

It was like Christmas, Easter, and every birthday ever all rolled into one, neat, with-a-bow-on-top package. Everyone celebrated my parents’ good fortune.

Her name was Miracle Aria King. Miracle was obviously in reference to the fact that she was an impossible baby, and Aria was that special spice to a name that parents like to sneak in. While pregnant with Miracle, my mother had terrible morning sickness and was bedridden most of the nine months. To make matters worse, Miracle tossed and turned inside her womb, and the only thing that would soothe both baby and mama was playing classical music.

Miracle was a healthy and happy baby. She was literally the dream my parents had shared since sweet pillow talk ideas of a candy American life, and my mother never left her side. She was constantly talking to her, telling Miracle all the ins and outs of the world, and Miracle would just coo and drool back, giggling that bubble laughter every baby is programmed with.

When Miracle was four, she fell deathly ill with pneumonia, and during the course of her hospitalization, she was diagnosed with cancer. Apparently, it wasn’t as normal as my parents had taken it be for Miracle to be bruising at every scrape and bang and brush with life.

It was acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Miracle had been sickly, getting infections and things frequently, but she was a toddler. That was the share and explore stage of life, and germs knew no bounds.

Obviously, my parents blamed themselves for Miracle’s aboutface in health. They had so many signs, and they just ran right through all of them.

Miracle put up a good fight, lingering until she was six years old. In fact, she lived long enough to see her last Christmas present: me. But she didn’t make it to the new year.

iv

I was still around five or six, I think, the first time I saw a picture of her. It was hiding behind another one, stuck together like photographs always seem to be. I had found a picture of my parents at Christmas time, standing in front of a decorated tree. Their smiles were hollow, their eyes dark, but they were happy, arms around one another. The parasite picture was almost exactly the same — except for the small body standing between them.

Miracle was wearing a special Christmas dress, the red and black velvet clashing with her washed out blond hair and pale skin. She looked ill, her eyes haunted with pain, and if you flipped between the two stills fast enough, it was almost as if she was never there, a permanent ghost to my parents.

Photos in hands, brow furrowed, I stepped into my dad’s office at home. “Daddy?”

He looked up from the paperwork, his hand cradling his phone and covering half his face.

“I’m on the phone, Ana.” He whispered.

It wasn’t a harsh or angry whisper, but it still hurt.

I retreated to find my mother. She was in her bedroom, folding laundry.

“Mommy?” I called from the doorway, fearful for setting her off, too.

“Hm?” She sang to me, smiling at me.

I guiltily pulled the photos out from behind my back. “Who’s this?”

My mom put down the jeans she was holding and took the pictures from me.

She stilled for a moment, taking the images in. Then, with a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, she addressed me, and her eyes were glassy.

“That’s Miracle.” She introduced us quietly.

I glanced at the girl standing next to the hamper. She nodded encouragingly back.

My mother turned the photos so that I could see them. “This was before I was going to have you. A whole year before. We thought this was going to be her last Christmas, so we took a family photo.”

“Is she my sister?” I asked curiously, flicking my gaze back and forth between the girl standing between my mother and the hamper and the girl between my parents. She didn’t look much different.

My mom smiled, and there was sadness in it. “Yes, she’s your sister.”

“How come you never told me her name?” I asked, watching my apparent sibling across the room stand at the edge of one of Daddy’s shirts.

“Well, sweetheart,” my mother soothed, crouching before me, “Miracle died right after you were born. You never knew her.”

I frowned. “No, she didn’t.”

My mother froze. Concern overwhelmed her face as she flicked her eyes throughout the room. She frowned at me.

“Do...do you see Miracle?”

I nodded while Miracle ferociously shook her head.

“She’s right there.” I pointed her out.

Miracle scowled darkly at me, her hands in fists at her sides.

Suddenly, the breath caught in my mother’s chest, her hand flying to her lips. “Oh my God.”

Miracle kept standing there angrily.

My mom choked back the tears as she turned to me. “Ana, listen to me, darling.”

I focused on her. Some of the tears had already escaped, spilling down her cheeks.

“Miracle died right after you were born,” she explained slowly. “What you are seeing is her ghost, understand me?”

I made a face in disgust. “Her ghost? That’s gross.”

She shook her head. “No, honey, it’s a special gift, okay? You can’t tell anyone that you can see her.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Had I told anybody yet?

“Mommy, she doesn’t even talk.” I crossed my arms. “Nobody else pays attention to her. I won’t tell on her.”

“Ana, promise me you will never tell anyone you can see Miracle.” She took my shoulders in her hands. “You may see others, too, but you can never tell, do you hear me?”

I nodded, exasperated. “Okay, I won’t tell!”

Miracle copied me in crossing her arms and shook her head at me.

“What?” I shouted at my sister. “I won’t tell! Promise!”

I huffed at my mom. “Why doesn’t she ever talk? She just follows me around all the time.”

My mom looked back in Miracle’s direction.

“Be nice,” she instructed, assuming Miracle was still there despite being unable to see her again. Miracle’s shoulders drooped in submission but nodded and then looked at me expectantly.

“She says okay.” I told my mom.

My mom looked back at me. “Be nice to her, too, okay? She’s your sister, and if she wants you to see her, then you be nice to her, okay? It takes a lot of energy for ghosts to let you see them, and even more for people like Daddy.”

I frowned. “How come if you and Daddy can see Miracle you never told me about her?”

My mom sighed, a small smile returning to her lips. “Daddy can’t see Miracle. He can’t see ghosts.”

“But you see her!” I pointed at her.

“Only if she lets me see her, sweetheart.” My mother’s voice was hollow. “I can see ghosts like you, baby, but only if they let me.”

I glanced at Miracle. She was swinging her dress back and forth, swaying a little as she rocked herself. She smiled at me.

v

Miracle Aria King.

The letters etched with expert precision into the little urn sitting in the china cabinet. I didn’t notice it until I was tall enough to see the second shelf.

Her name felt so uplifting on my lips as they tried out her full name.

She stood by my side as I stared past the glass. I glanced at her.

“You have a pretty name.”

She beamed.

I was eight.

Miracle and I were best friends. She came to school with me, sat on the floor next to my desk, and sometimes she’d make faces at me, causing me to giggle in class. I got sent to the principal’s office easily five times that year. I hated third grade.

My parents wouldn’t say much at dinner, unless to scold me, and I’d mainly just watch Miracle as she’d mime when our parents finally did say something. Then, my parents would get onto me for being disrespectful.

Third grade was the year I began my life of trouble. I was always getting yelled at for something. For the most part, it was because of Miracle, but it was all in good fun. I understood that. I was merely enjoying myself and laughing alongside Miracle.

She never actually laughed. She would just throw her head back, her body shaking with the silent giggles invisible as she was. She never spoke either, and it was probably for the better because when I spoke with her, me often times out loud with words and her with gestures, I mainly got dismissed as talking out of turn or being in my own world. Most of the other kids just pointed.

“Look Ana’s talking to herself!”

I stopped throwing rocks at the swingset, purposefully missing the girls wearing their dresses. I glanced at Miracle who shrugged.

Her name was probably Jessica or Natalie. Something boring and stereotypical. I hated her. She had pretty hair, pretty teeth, pretty voice — but she was one of those. She grew up into the straight-A student with a brilliantly white smile and a deep part in her long, straight hair; everyone wanted to be her, date her, kill her. She was the one who gave speeches and volunteered. She probably liked puppies and small children, too.

But here, in third grade, when the hottest news was who still ate their boogers and who was holding hands at recess, this Jessica or Natalie wasn’t quite queen. She was like a royal ant in training, only having enough authority to walk like she was sixteen and talk like she was legal.

She stood by the swings, her goons encircling her, mirroring everything she did — I hated elementary school. She stood there, with that smug look on her face, like she was tattling on me to the entire world.

My parents had raised me to stand my ground against bullies, to be aggressive enough to protect myself and others who were being teased. So I stood up, calmly brushed the grass and wood chips off my eight year-old butt, and walked down the slight slope toward the metal swing set.

I could feel Miracle standing at my elbow. If I had turned my chin to my right, her eyes would have been level with mine, but I didn’t need affirmation from her as I crossed my arms and stared down Jessica-Natalie, et al.

Jessica-Natalie did that annoying head cock thing where her chin jutted to the side, her eyes simultaneously zipping me into a body bag. “You’re a freak, Ana.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. I mean, what she said was technically true. I was a freak. My best friend was the ghost of my dead sister.

“So?” I asked simply, my arms hanging loosely by my sides.

“So, you’re weird.” Jessica-Natalie drew out the word unnecessarily so, and her cohorts snickered and echoed her.

Again. Technically correct.

I just stood there.

My silence freaked her out more than my mumbling to Miracle. She scoffed and threw up her hands.

“Say something, freak!” She screamed in my face.

I raised my eyebrows at her challengingly.

“Something.” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, freak. Who were you talking to? Your imaginary friends?”

Her goonies giggled. Imaginary friends were so last year.

My face relaxed into a smirk. “Jealous?”

Her face screwed into such a pretty horror, and that was when I realized what it was: she feared me. I was untameable. I had no need to respect her or for her to do me the same favor.

“Please,” she recovered smoothly. “Me? Jealous of you, freak? In your dreams.”

I actually snorted out loud. “I would never dream of you.”

“Oh?” She perked up, her pretty eyes flashing to her band of soul-sucking thieves. “You dream about girls? You like girls?”

“Wouldn’t you like that?” I leaned in.

A couple of the girls around her giggled as Jessica-Natalie’s face flamed.

“Go play with your imaginary friends!” She whipped back crossly, her cheeks burning. “I hope they have your face and smell like butt, you freak.”

I had to applaud her on that one.

“At least they’re real friends.” I countered, casually leaning against a metal pole from the swing set. “Unlike your squad of fakes.”

Jessica-Natalie just gave a cough of laughter, a snippet of a chortle. If this was a game of chess, I was clearly losing.

A smile swept across her face, and my stomach twisted funny as I realized she was about to deliver a low blow.

Jessica-Natalie took a step forward, closing the charged distance with a coolness she only perfected as she matured, making it her signature move.

Her lips were so close to my face. I could feel her breath hot and fast against my cheeks as she cut to the quick:

“At least they’re not dead.”

My jaw clenched so tightly I could feel a wiggly tooth cave in.

Jessica-Natalie withdrew, her face smug, and I knew my face was betraying me.

Miracle was a blur through the tears as Jessica-Natalie backed into her fan club. Her eyes shone triumphantly, knowing she’d thrown down a gauntlet I wouldn’t dare accept.

The moment the back of her shoulder greeted me was the instant electricity jolted through me. Before I even comprehended what I was doing, I was whipping her shoulder back around, my fist already cocked back, and I punched her squarely in the nose, her shriek multiplying a tenfold as it spread cacophonously through her goonies.

Jessica-Natalie lay on the wood chips, stunned, blood trickling from her nostrils. She didn’t even cry at first. She just lay there like she’d never been touched before, and as the circle of girls scattered with shouts, the teacher already running over, I towered over her. I watched that gleam of pride in her eyes blow out, and she slowly began to cry, fingers tenderly and shakily hiding her broken nose.

That’s when my hand started hurting. I gritted my teeth against the pain while the teacher knelt over Jessica-Natalie. A second teacher ambushed me from behind, dragging me off to the principal’s office for the second time that month, and I watched Miracle stand there. She seemed torn, eyes flicking from Jessica-Natalie to me. In the end, she dissipated into thin air — and that was the first time she hid herself from me.

My parents were furious at me. Not only was I going to be at silent lunch for the rest of the semester and two strikes away from suspension, but I also had broken my hand. Miracle never showed up at the hospital as I dejectedly swung my feet over the edge of the seat in the emergency room.

I wanted to get a black cast, but my mom wouldn’t let me. Instead, I got purple. It wasn’t that big of a deal because the cast was so small and mainly isolating my fingers which I’d sprained.

“You know how to pack a punch.” My dad whispered over me as he tucked me into my bed that night. His voice was a strained mix of obligatory disappointment and fatherly pride. He smiled down at me, his fingers brushing my cheek. “We gotta redirect your energy, kid.”

I shrugged and squirmed under the covers. I’d already told them the story a million times, and once they’d heard that Jessica-Natalie had gone after Miracle, they were less angry at me — not much, but enough that when my mom looked at the cast, her eyes would smile with sadness.

“My tough little warrior.” My mom smoothed my covers down. “I love you, Ana.”

I peeked over the lip of the comforter. “I love you, too. I’m sorry I broke my hand.”

My dad chuckled as my mother admonished me for not apologizing for punching Jessica-Natalie. I told her I wasn’t sorry about that. She fixed that by not only making me write a formal apology, but also taking her a Get Well bear the next day at school. Jessica-Natalie accepted them disdainfully — but it was the kind of bear that she would sleep with for a long time after stuffed animals ceased to be cool, long after blood and insults had faded from memory.

My parents kissed me goodnight and turned off the light. I reminded them to leave my nightlight off; I was a big girl now.

I never told them it was because Miracle hated nightlights and always felt scared with mine on.

When I woke up in the morning, I found a little black permanent marker heart scribbled on my cast. Miracle was nowhere to be seen, but I knew she had done it. I smiled.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered to my room.

vi

One of the girls in my class had a sleepover Halloween party. First, we were to go out trick-or-treating, and then we would watch scary movies and stay up all night gossiping. For twenty-odd eight and nine year-old girls, it was an ideal party, and everyone was going.

I felt like a cross between Mulan and Cinderella. I got an invite, but I knew how the other kids, particularly the girls, felt about me. I also knew that there was no cool way to incorporate a cast into my costume, so I told my mom I didn’t want to go.

She made me go anyway.

My mom was like that — aren’t moms always?

She took me to Party City to look for a costume, and I just grumbled as she showed me idea after idea. She was more excited than I was. Parents were also invited to join for the trick-or-treating part of the party as there would be an adult table with real food and alcohol. My mom had recently been a little booze heavy, so she was ready to schmooze with the other parents, especially since her kid was rapidly gaining a reputation for being a little dickhead.

“Come on, Ana,” my mom pleaded with me, holding a mermaid outfit. “You love the Little Mermaid.”

I shook my head. Miracle was shaking her head, too.

“Mom, I don’t want to dress up as anything. All of these costumes are dumb.” I leaned back in the neon orange shopping cart. “Why can’t I just be, like, the Hulk or something?”

My mom’s mouth flattened as she gave me one of those mom looks. “Ana.”

“Hulk smash!” I growled, pounding my cast against the cart.

My mom shook her head. “You can’t be the Hulk because I refuse to let you paint your skin green. The dye in the paint will take forever to wash out, and you can’t go to school looking green.”

“I could just be the Hulk forever.” I countered like it was obvious.

My mom brightened. “Oh! You could be a ninja!”

I frowned at the costume she was holding up. It wasn’t bad, but Miracle, who was standing next to her, shook her head.

I shook my head, too, though I kinda liked the look.

My mom groaned in frustration. “Fine!” She threw up her hands in disgust. “You pick out something. No painting your skin!”

“Okay!” I hopped out of the cart, excited. Miracle motioned to me, and I skipped down the aisle behind her.

We rounded the corner, and I could hear my mom calling after me warningly. I shouted something back as Miracle pointed to a costume hanging on one of the lower shelves. I smiled.

I held up my cast at her. “Except it wouldn’t work too well for this.”

She just shrugged, grinning. She really wanted me to do her idea, and I pulled it off the rack, holding it up to me. Upside down and from above, it seemed all right.

My mom turned the corner and immediately lit up.

“Ana, it’s perfect!” She nodded, Miracle sticking her tongue out at me.

I frowned at the two of them. I was warming up to the idea, but I was having some serious doubts because of my cast.

“You sure?” I asked her. “But my cast.”

My mom shook her head, grinning. “It’s very you.”

I took a step over to the mirror around the column in the middle of the aisle to look at myself. They were right. It was the right costume.

I was the only one at the party who wasn’t a princess of some sort, a witch, or some member of the undead army. Actually, when my mom pulled up the driveway, and all eyes were on me as I stepped out of the Toyota Camry, I was met with applausive admiration and “Oohs” and “Aahs” I hadn’t expected.

Eight year old me made for one badass archer. Even with a purple cast.

The trick-or-treating was business as usual. I just hung around in the back with Miracle, all of our parents a camera-wielding horde behind us, a perverse paparazzi pursuing us to dash our dreams and reign us in.

I snuck all my Snickers to my mom as they were her favorite, and as she walked beside me momentarily, she asked me why I wasn’t with the other girls. I shrugged, trying hard not to look at Miracle, who’d fallen behind us.

But it was too late. My mom had noticed my gaze. She twisted over her shoulder, and for a moment, her eyes just took in the empty space. Her eyes filled with sadness, and she took my cast hand in hers, my other tugging my loot.

“I love you,” she whispered to me, smiling down at me.

I grinned back. “I love you, too.”

She tapped her index finger against my nose. “And you have the coolest costume here.”

I nodded my agreement.

When we got back from trick-or-treating, one of the girls popped in the first VHS and one of the parents popped off the first bottle cap.

It felt like the universe was being unusually tricky that night with the scary movies, but it quickly became downright unfair when it came time for the last movie.

I was snuggled into an armchair that could have easily fit three of me, and Miracle was sitting next to me. Most of the other girls were asleep, and all the parents had gone home. I had this uncanny knack of staying awake during a movie, no matter the time of day. I could always watch a movie, and while I wasn’t particularly fond of the movie selection (Nightmare Before Christmas is not a scary story), I was enjoying myself nonetheless.

Until the last movie. What a cruel, sick sense of humor the universe must have.

Sixth Sense was a fairly new movie. It had just come out on VHS, so whomever it belonged to was not only up to date with hot flicks but they also had good taste. Although, looking back, why they showed it to a bunch of eight and nine year-olds, regardless of whether they were asleep, was beyond me; it wasn’t exactly appropriate.

However, to an eight year-old who could identify with Cole Sear on more levels than she cared to admit, Sixth Sense was quite possibly the most horrifying movie I’d ever seen. I had never been able to watch it. It was too real. I mean, it was obviously dramatized because I never saw people who were half-decaying or dying or whatever. I wasn’t charged with some notion of ferrying souls and helping them realize that they are indeed dead, thank God, but I knew what Cole felt: he carried a burden that no one else could understand, no matter how hard he tried to explain it. He just came across as a freak. No one, not even Cole, really wanted to be around him. Except for the ghosts, and even then...

I woke up screaming in the middle of the night, trembling. It was embarrassing waking up my classmates and not being able to explain my nightmare. It was worse because my mom could understand. When she picked me up the next morning, she spoke with the mom of the house, questioning why on earth she would show third graders that movie, and then she took me to get waffles. Despite making me go that party, my mom always understood me.

Every now and then, I would wake up like that night, trembling and scared, and after a while, when I screamed myself awake, Miracle would be there, standing over me, comfortingly patting my cheek. She hadn’t liked the movie either, and that made three of us who boycotted Sixth Sense.

I still hated those cursed words: I see dead people.

Not a joking matter.

vii

People were always talking about how they wanted their lives to be more like the movies. Well, I strongly disagreed: movies were already about life. Real life. Even if they were fiction, on another planet. They were still about humans. Our problems, our desires, our fears. It didn’t matter if there was an imaginary language; we still understood it. Because it was written for us, by us, to us. People who wanted their lives to be more like the movies didn’t really know what they were asking for. They didn’t realize that they were already part of a movie, with nothing but Karma as an audience, acting more like the moderator than a spectator. People who wanted to live in the movies really just wanted attention. They wanted to get lost in the public eye. They wanted their names on the lips of fans and critics alike, their faces digitally altered and plastered on billboards. They were selfish and full of themselves, prideful.

They were mistaken when they wished for stardom. There was nothing fabulous about it, no reward.

I wasn’t saying I was a celebrity. Dead people made the worst paparazzi. If they did follow you around, it wasn’t because they wanted to pry into your life. They were just excited a living being could interact with them. I hated it. I hated everything about being able to see dead people.

Except for Miracle, of course.

viii

Writing with my cast was difficult. Since I was right-handed and had my fingers all bandaged up, I had to become an honorary lefty. My friend Timmy thought it was pretty cool because he was no longer alone in the graphite-smeared-hand club. We’d sit together at lunch while I practiced my writing, and he would laugh at me when my letters came out all blocky, barely legible scrawlings on the wide-ruled notebook paper. We’d dissolve into giggles and turn the botched calligraphy into a battle scene in which his handwriting devoured my mutants.

Miracle would sit across from us at the lunch table, silently laughing along with us. She hadn’t been writing for all that long, so she didn’t know her way around a pencil any better than my left hand did. That was a small comfort.

Jessica-Natalie didn’t talk to me much, and that was fine by me. However, Timmy was a different story. If she couldn’t bully me directly, she’d do it via my best friend.

Every third grade boy knew it was uncool to like girls, especially if the girls were really, really uncool. So, if a boy were to like a girl, it better be a Jessica-Natalie. Not anyone like me.

One of Jessica-Natalie’s cronies approached our little table that was stationed over by the door — for an easy escape, Timmy and I had joked. Miracle flashed me a look that made me cock my head curiously. Then, I realized that the crony was headed straight for us, specifically Miracle’s seat.

Nothing bad happened if a living being came into contact with a ghost, but normally, if the ghost wasn’t prepared, they received a nice, little shock from the difference in energy types — something about ectoplasm. I was never too concerned with the physics behind my cursed ability.

Miracle knew the crony was about to sit on her, but she didn’t want to move, I suppose. So Jessica-Natalie’s goony sat down on her, Miracle exploding into little ectoplasmic feathers, leaves, and wishes. I watched the pieces drift back together while the Jessica-Natalie wannabe jabbed at Timmy.

“Steven told me that you told him you like Ana.” Her poisonous honey words dripped from her lips glossed with sour apple Barbie, her eyes pointedly shifting between the two of us.

Timmy wasn’t a big kid. I easily had the physical upper hand, and by the class average, I was a little under myself. But even I could see Timmy fold into himself, shrinking by a third of his size, and I felt my jaw clench.

Here we went again.

The brainwashed bimbo smiled to herself, pleased. She stared me down, her eyes challenging my cast.

“What a perfect match.” She quietly jabbed.

“We’re just friends.” Timmy struggled, studying his light up shoes — also out of style.

I nodded encouragingly.

Jessica-Natalie 2.0 just shook her head sadly at us, and Miracle made faces behind her back, pretending to attack her.

I snickered.

Clone’s eyes darted to mine in a scowl. “Just friends? Nuh-uh, you guys like each other.”

I knew the next words that were about to seep from her venus fly trap of a mouth. I knew them, and my shoulders tightened with anticipation, expectation, knowing full well she would deliver.

And I had my response ready.

“Timmy and Ana, sitting in a tree,” she sang accusatorily, her eyes rolling with pleasure, and even Miracle standing over her tensed, her head shaking at me warningly.

But it was too late.

She shrieked before my cast ever touched her, and once the makeshift bludgeon finally did make contact, me stretched across the table awkwardly, I knew it was one of the best mistakes of my life.

The entire cafeteria stilled, and even Timmy, who was gawking up at me in a strangled mixture of awe and horror, froze.

Miracle shook her head in disappointment at me, but I brushed her off, pushing right past her as I gathered my backpack and stalked off toward the principal’s office, our teacher rushing to Jessica-Natalie’s proxy and another hot on my heels.

That was the second strike.

I sat on the bench by the playground at recess, my privilege to play momentarily revoked, our teacher hovering not too far off and gossiping with another.

Miracle was the first to join me. She sat on the bench next to me, swinging her feet. She didn’t do anything other than sit there and swing her feet. I didn’t have anything to say to her, so silence it was.

Timmy was the second. He shyly approached the bench, like a mouse waiting for the hawk to swoop in and tell him to back off, but the teachers let him come over.

He stood in front of me, his hands clasped behind his back. He studied the wood chips at his feet, the same spot Miracle and I were analyzing.

“Thanks.” He whispered through too long blond bangs.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Do you have to sit here all of recess?”

I met his gaze. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” he dropped his eyes.

I looked past him to see Jessica-Natalie strutting across the wooden castle in the middle of the playground, her flock of apprentices copying her every move. Except for the one I’d clocked who was pitifully sitting on a swing, an ice pack pressed to her face, where an imprint of my cast was waffled into her skin.

Timmy kicked a little at the dirt at his toes. “Well, I’m gonna go play on the monkey bars.”

“I can time you.” I offered, smirking up at him. “You still can’t beat my high score.”

“When I time it, we’re tied.” He grinned at me.

“You cheat.” I crossed my arms.

He shook his head. “I’ll see you after recess.”

“Don’t fall.” I waved him goodbye.

Miracle waved goodbye, too, and I looked at her.

“I have the high score fair and square.” I informed her.

Miracle just rolled her eyes and silently giggled.

I watched her push the right toes of her Keds into the wood chips, and her face screwed up with concentration as she drew a smiley face.

I slid over on the bench toward her, grinning, and added angry eyebrows.

She frowned at me and shook her head. Her lips formed a silent “No”, and I cocked my head at her.

“How come you never talk?” I motioned to her lips.

She just shrugged, looking around for something. Her lips puckered into a ponder, and she knocked on the wooden slats of the bench.

“Hard?” I guessed.

Her face lit up as she nodded.

I leaned back against the bench, watching my classmates frolic. “I wish I could talk to you, Miracle.”

She gave me her classic sad smile.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble when I get home.” I huffed, my chin falling onto my hands as I rested my elbows on my knees. “But it was fun hitting her. She deserved it.”

Miracle frowned at me.

“What?” I made a face at her. “You would’ve done the same.”

She just stared at me.

“Okay, okay!” I grumbled.

I turned my chin toward her, still resting on my hand. “You know, since you can’t talk, I mainly just make up what I think you’re saying, and I really hope you think what I have you thinking.”

Miracle laughed, her shoulders shaking. She grinned and nodded.

I begun swinging my legs, too, and watched the toes of my velcro shoes come and go.

Miracle waved at me, and I looked up to see her miming opening a book. A smile parted my lips as the idea clicked in my head.

I hopped off the bench and approached my teacher. She did that sideglance where she knew I saw her but pretended not to notice, so I stood there as patiently as I could muster while she finished her conversation with the other teacher.

“Yes, Ana?” She asked me, her smile just a little too plastic for comfort.

“May I go to the library?” I asked, nicely and politely like my mom would want.

For a moment, she just narrowed her eyes at me, as if all the millions of possible outcomes had to run their course in her head before she could properly make a decision, and I couldn’t blame her for taking her time. I don’t know if I could let a kid like myself out of my sight.

She must have seen some good in me — or something hopeful — because she handed me a hall pass, with pursed lips and a curt nod.

“You will be back in the classroom when recess ends.” An ultimatum I couldn’t ignore.

“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded promisingly. “Thank you!”

My slightly chubby fingers closed around the hall pass, but she had yet to relinquish control.

My teacher leaned down toward me, her piercing blue eyes stabbing daggers.

“Ana.” She said, low and gruff, in that voice every adult has mastered to scare a kid but not enough to warrant any trouble. “You are one strike away from being suspended. Do you understand what that means? No school. No lunch, no recess, no library. Just you and your delinquency. You are only in third grade, Ana. There’s no reason to be suspended.”

My teeth clenched together, my stomach shrinking away from her hot breath. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her eyes darted from my right to left and back, a mind control dance I refused to play.

She nodded once and surrendered the hall pass.

I blew my breath out in a huff between my lips as I walked inside. Miracle was already waiting for me.

“That was so weird.” I told her, my eyes blinking against the adjustment of light, still too wide from shock at my teacher’s strange corrective stunt.

We walked to the library, and after signing in, I followed Miracle into the Nonfiction section, wandering the encyclopaedias. Suddenly curious, I decided to look up “ghost” but was disappointed. Miracle was the soul separated from her body? I hadn’t already figured that one out. All the article did was talk about beliefs and superstitions. Even if someone tried to report an actual sighting of a ghost, there was a dubious taste of incredulity. Seeing wasn’t actually believing — people didn’t believe in ghosts anyway. It was mere speculation with a dash of blind hope.

I slammed the book shut with a hard, dampened thud and looked around for Miracle. Where had she disappeared to this time?

I worked my way back toward the low tables, hoping I’d be able to look down all the rows of bookshelves.

The library was uncharacteristically quiet, not a class or even couple of older kids around. It was unsettling, and I frowned to myself. I was unaccustomed to uneasiness, and the low rumble of nerves tightening my stomach was the first time I ever experienced a chill running down my spine, an obvious cold spot Ghost Hunters searched all their lives to uncover.

When I finally saw Miracle standing by one of the tables, as if it were possible, she looked paler, more translucent, visibly fatigued, and it wasn’t until I was older that I realized this was a side effect of Miracle bridging the gap in energy types. Like I said, I had never been too concerned with the science of it all, and frankly, I flat out didn’t care.

But this moment was an important one for Miracle. Not only did she actively partake of my world, the living world, but she did so for the both of us, impacting me with a single motion, a little push that had an attached butterfly effect that would have blasted a gust of wind across the face of God had any such thing existed.

I walked into the clearing of desks, saw Miracle teetering next to one, so pale and translucent, and joined her. I saw it, then, perched on the edge of the table, barely balanced, and it swayed back and forth with Miracle as she teetered. I snatched up the book before it could fall, and Miracle gave me the smallest smile, her tired eyes shining with a grateful light.

My face must have screwed up into a stupid mixture of disbelief and confusion because the relief in Miracle’s face blew out faster than a match in the wind, something clicking off in her own face. I was just a beat too slow for her intentions to sink in, and when I realized what she had been trying to communicate to me, not only did the irony resound through me like a hard slap across the cheek, but I also collapsed into the chair, humbly and apologetically falling to her.

“Right,” I breathed to myself, fingers slicking across the crisp edges of the pages in a condition too pristine for my liking. I shook my head at my thick-headedness and smiled up at the ghost of my sister. “Miracle, you’re a genius.”

Her face brightened then, but she was still too exhausted to move. My mind immediately gave her eyes a voice, and I knew this was for the better. We needed a better, more efficient way to communicate — and there was no perfect medium than American Sign Language.

I glanced back down at the bright block lettering cheesily done in ASL. Neither of us knew anything about American Sign Language, so it was about to be a very interesting adventure, to say the least.

I checked the book out and returned to my classroom. My teacher didn’t question the book although that didn’t stop my classmates, but I owed them no explanation and merely took my seat and buried myself in the strange new world.

ix

If I’d thought writing with my left hand was a challenge, learning an entirely different system of communication was a seemingly impossible feat. Luckily, every Saturday at the library, which also doubled as a gathering place for local events, was always some sort of outreach program to various disabilities. Every third Saturday was for deaf and mute people, so there were classes for ASL as well as mixers and other social activities.

“American Sign Language?” My father’s eyebrows inched up higher on his forehead, and if it weren’t for his balding spot, they’d have gotten lost in a sea of mousy brown hair. Instead the furry creatures just migrated further back as my dad erupted into deep laughter.

I grumbled a little as my arms crossed themselves across my training-bra-wearing chest. “Yeah, I wanna learn.”

“I think it’s a fantastic idea!” My mom chimed in from the other room. She was sorting through mail or something while I stood in my dad’s office, embarrassing myself.

My dad shook his head, his soft eyes studying my face. “You’re sure about this?”

I nodded. “I don’t have anything else to do on the third Saturday of the month. MMA is on the second and fourth Saturdays, and dance is on the first. Besides, this way I can help the community.”

He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing my face — calling to mind how my teacher dissolved me with her suspicious scan.

“It’s a good idea, Howard.” My mom, like all moms I suppose, had this habit of making up my dad’s mind for him, convincing him with that strong, matter-of-fact voice devoid of any doubt, using his name like a final whack of a judge’s gavel.

My father’s narrowed eyes relaxed into a roll as he called back. “Thanks, Selena.”

He didn’t always appreciate my mom making up his mind for him, so with a sarcastic bite and twisting jab of her name he retaliated.

I just stood there in the middle of their long distance volley match. I only wanted my dad to sign the form saying I was allowed to participate. Both of my parents and/or legal guardians needed to sign it, and right now, I felt like I was sinking in a whirlwind of quicksand, tightly gripping the form like a lifeline.

“Fine.” My dad snatched the paper from my hands. “I’ll sign the stupid thing. I still don’t understand why you’re doing this, Ana, because we both know you couldn’t care less about those people, but if you want my signature, you’ll get my damn Hancock!”

I frowned. “Hancock?”

My dad’s wrist snapped upward as he finished the elegant flick of the ballpoint pen, and he chuckled, returning the sheet to me. “Yeah, it means a signature. John Hancock’s signature of the Declaration of Independence is really prominent.”

“Oh,” I nodded.

“Howard.” My mom leaned her head into view of his office, her brow furrowed. She had that mom voice inflection of disapproval.

“Don’t swear.” My dad patted my shoulder, twisting his plump office chair back around to his desk, fingers tapping away at the keyboard again.

It was my mom’s turn to roll her eyes, and she disappeared from view again.

Getting her signature had obviously been easier than unlocking a door — I didn’t even need a key. My mom immediately lit up with pride, beaming that her daughter wanted to get involved in the community, but I had to admit my dad was a little closer to the truth. I mean, I really did want to master American Sign Language, but it was for Miracle, not the community. The library stunt was really to get free classes out of an apparent good deed and get out of my house.

Thankfully, I experienced both of those. Signing with one hand in a cast wasn’t quite a cakewalk, but signing surely beat struggling through the cramping scrawling of my left hand. The best part about the ASL classes was Miracle could join in, too, and we spent most of our third Saturdays at the library, learning new signs and practicing everything we knew.

For the first time in our collective life, we could truly communicate, and if Miracle had been able to cry, she would have done so the first time she signed to me and I understood it:

This is harder than I thought.

I snorted out loud, and the entire class turned to look at me. I reddened and pretended to drop something on the floor just to give myself an excuse for disappearing from the public eye. I ducked below the table and snickered. Miracle was already under there, her eyes wide, her lips round.

You understand? She signed, or more or less signed. Our abilities were really crude still, so a lot of the gaps were guesstimates. Technically, the first thing Miracle had signed to me was this-hard-I-think, and I just kinda took liberties with her motions — which aren’t gestures. Gestures and signs are very different. More than once the teacher had yelled at me (can it really be called yelling if she signed it to me?) for using the two words interchangeably. I repeat, they are not synonyms.

At first, the signing was my new escape, and I taught Timmy the ropes, too. We’d sign at each other during class and go over different techniques at lunch or recess, and while it certainly gave new fodder to the Jessica-Whatevers of the world, there was a certain power in signing they just couldn’t touch. If anything, they feared me more than ever. I could say whatever I wanted without ever opening my mouth. There was nothing they could do to silence me — not even my casted hand slowed me down.

Eventually, when my cast came off, signing became easier, and I found I could be more precise, especially since my right hand was the dominant one. In actuality, everything became easier: I could write again, I could use both my hands at practice, and I could twirl or poiret or whatever the French with my balance back to normal. It was comforting, the returning balance, and being able to talk with Miracle quicklt consumed me. I would sign to her at dinner, under the guise that I was merely practicing; I would sign to her during class, but I had to be careful because of Timmy. Though mainly, Miracle would do the signing, and I would sign, write, or simply speak my response.

Because of the amount of practice I effectively put in, I became pretty proficient in ASL. It was the summer before fifth grade, and I was still going to the library every third Saturday. I had accidentally gotten myself into a teaching position, and my specific task was helping parents and children connect, especially when the kids were the deaf-mutes. Adult fingers weren’t often as nimble, too stiff or too old to learn the inner workings of signing, and so many parents were frustrated at their seeming inability to communicate with their children. My job lay somewhere between comfort and honing precision, but more often than naught I channeled the kids’ frustration. At least when the adult couldn’t effectively express themselves they could shout it out with their partner. The poor kid had no one else and no other outlet; they were stuck with signing, whether they liked it or not.

Miracle really liked these kids. I think she felt like she was one of them, bound to silence by nature, and I probably stuck with the volunteer program for as long as I did because of her. I guess, somewhere deep inside my mind, by helping these kids find their voice, so to speak, I was helping Miracle. I knew that if our roles were reversed, and I was the roaming soul, Miracle would have helped these kids. She was just one of those people, good through and through, and rather selfless. Even though she forever looked like a six year-old little girl.

See you next month, the head lady volunteer signed to me, and I waved a quick see ya!

Miracle was standing by the door like a puppy, but I frowned when I realized her hackles were raised, eyes locked in on a target.

I peered then through the bookshelves and saw a couple girls from my class whispering between the books. I gave Miracle a look.

What? I shrugged. They’re allowed to hang out here. It’s a public library.

Her eyes flashed at me, and she didn’t have to sign for me to understand. They were up to something.

I drew in a breath and quietly tiptoed around the perimeter of the shelves, hoping to get close enough to eavesdrop. I dropped to all fours and crawled up alongside the shelves, curling my knees up under my chin, hunkering down below the books. Miracle appeared next to me, eyes squinting between the books at the girls.

“...totally likes him! Everybody knows it!” Girl Number One. I think her name was Allie Or Something, and she was scribbling something in one of those diaries that has a lock on it.

My eyebrows arched up in disappointment. This is what you wanted me to hear?

Miracle rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but what about that other girl, Ana?” Girl Number Two. Claire De’Lusional. She was holding a yearbook and circling various pictures of girls in our grade.

The breath I was holding began to burn in my throat. What about Ana?

Allie Or Something laughed haughtily. “Timmy doesn’t actually like Ana. She’s, like, a tomboy or something, and he doesn’t like that in a girl. He definitely likes you.”

Claire De’Lusional sniffed, lips pursed. “Of course he likes me! And I don’t know if Ana even counts as a girl!”

I frowned. Say what now.

Allie Or Something nodded somberly, scribbling something else down. “You’re so right! She totally doesn’t! Do you—” Her voice suddenly dropped in volume, next to nothing on the decibel scale. “Do you think she likes girls?”

Claire De’Lusional shook her head. “No way!” She whispered harshly, almost angrily. “She still thinks boys actually have cooties.”

I struggled to stifle my snort, and Miracle shot daggers at me with her blue eyes.

Well, they do. I grinned.

She rolled her eyes as Allie Or Something scoffed. “She is so weird. Why does Timmy even hang out with her? I don’t get it.”

Claire De’Lusional shrugged, tapping my picture. “Maybe she just doesn’t like anybody yet. Maybe Cupid even thinks she’s weird.”

Allie Or Something’s giggles were both refreshing and incarcerating, and with one last jab, they dragged my physical outbursts into the spotlight.

I rolled over, done, as they returned to gossiping about Timmy, and I crawled away.

The library wasn’t terribly far from my house, so I walked home, Miracle at my side.

Does it hurt your feelings? Miracle’s brow was furrowed with just enough worry and concern that I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen her hands.

I shook my head honestly. “Cupid can think I’m weird if he wants to. I don’t want to like people.”

The skin around her eyes crinkled in a way that reminded me of our mother.

“Stop worrying.” I cut her off, placing my hands over hers.

Her hands pushed through mine. It doesn’t make you mad?

I chuckled. “I don’t want to beat them up if that’s what you’re asking. They’re right, Miracle, and you know it. I am weird. I like getting in fights, I’m a tomboy, I don’t like girls, and boys do have cooties. I’m not mad. I’m just me.”

Her lips twisted into a crooked smile of disbelief, and I had to laugh.

“Maybe I’ll like someone another day.” I mused, turning my attention back to the sun slowly sinking toward the horizon. “When I don’t hate everyone.”

Miracle signed something, but I didn’t catch it, her fingers barely in my periphery.

“What was that?” I asked for clarification, looking at her again.

You don’t hate everyone.

I smiled. “No, I guess not. I don’t hate you.”

Her eyes darkened, and that infamous sad smile of hers returned.

“I know, I know,” I said before her hands could even sign her depressing retort. “There are actual people that I don’t hate. Like Mom and Daddy, and Timmy. I like them.”

Miracle silently sighed, eyes rolling.

“What about you?” I prompted. “Any crushes?”

She shot me a sideways glare that cut through her hair just a little too sharply.

“Uncomfortable topic?” I backpedaled apologetically.

Miracle hesitated for a moment, her head literally rocking from left to right as she pondered her response.

There was one boy in the hospital, she began slowly.

I shook my head, feeling my throat close up at the foreshadowed end, my mind full of frail bald children holding hands. I couldn’t do it, closing my eyes against the images.

Miracle gave another silent sigh. I liked him.

I nodded encouragingly. “What happened?”

I didn’t know why I actually asked her. I didn’t want to know, my stomach queasy, and somewhere deep in my mind, I already knew.

I sat in his room a lot, and we laughed a lot. I think because of me he died happy. His parents seemed to like me, and they invited me to his funeral.

Her eyes hardened suddenly, her jaw taught, fingers curling into her palms.

I frowned. “What?”

I never got to go.

My breath caught in my chest. “Oh.”

But his parents came to my funeral. Miracle signed half-heartedly, eyes studying the asphalt.

It was then that something struck me, and I cocked my head in curiosity.

“You were at your own funeral?”

Miracle nodded, her face screwed up in a look that read: Seriously, Ana? Why wouldn’t I be at my own funeral?

“Hey, I didn’t know!” I threw up my hands. “I’ve never been dead. I don’t know how it works!”

She shook her head at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to strike me.

“Did you ever talk to him again?” I asked quietly, changing the subject. “Do you ever see other ghosts?”

Miracle nodded. Yeah, sometimes I see other ghosts, but for the most part, it’s just me. And no, I never saw him again. I even hung around his parents just to see if he would show.

“Guess the haunting life isn’t for everybody.” I concluded, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Miracle’s eyes crossed for a brief moment, her annoyance at a new level. With a shake of her head, she signed at me that I was an idiot.

“Probably.” I agreed, the driveway of my house finally coming into view.

x

My parents weren’t any kind of religious, so when my mom suggested that we go to a Christmas Eve service after my ballet company’s version of The Nutcracker, my dad and I were more than a little shocked. She hadn’t given us any heads up either, so we showed up at some contemporary, non-denominational church (I don’t know if it really even counts as a church with those identifiers) with me in my leotard, coat, and leg warmers. My dad grumbled as we got out of the car, and he grumbled when the ushers greeted us at the door, handing us programs. He grumbled all the way to the section of pews my mom chose, and he continued to grumble as happy people with shiny Christmas glows about them introduced themselves, babbling a million words a minute.

I couldn’t blame him, really. This was far from our scene, and I was more than uncomfortable, dressed like I was with extravagant makeup painted across my face. I felt rather out of place, so when my mom announced she was going to the bathroom, I hopped on that train faster than I ever had over going to the women’s restroom with another.

I locked myself in a stall. “Mom, can I wash this makeup off my face? I look stupid.”

“No, you don’t look stupid, darling.” My mom’s soothing voice surrounded me, floating over from another stall. “You look beautiful, but if you want to take the makeup off that’s completely fine.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, chin falling into my hands as I doubled over onto my knees.

Alarm. That’s about the only word I could use to describe the panic washing over my stomach and settling in my lower abdomen, which was suddenly twisting up in a way I had never known.

“Mom?” My voice cracked embarrassingly.

“Yes, Ana?” She replied. I could see her now, through the crack between the stall wall and door. She was washing her hands.

“I...I think — I...I think I...” My shoulders shook a little too much as I drew in a deep breath, my attempt at calming down. “Mom, there’s blood.”

My mom paused for a moment, spinning on her heel toward my stall.

“I have my period.”

I was too shocked to be anything else, but as my mom gave a joyous clap of her hands and handed me a pad under the stall door, my jaw began to clench, my fingers just a little too stiff for my liking.

Miracle appeared then in my stall, phasing through the door. Her eyes were wide in disgusted fascination.

You’re so lucky. I signed her. You’ll never have to do this.

Her wide eyes pinched at the corners a little as they darkened.

No, no, you don’t want to do this. It sucks being a human. I informed her, gagging just a little as I flushed the toilet. The smell, oh, God, who invented this?

Well, you don’t want to be a ghost either. Miracle crossed her arms in a silent huff.

They’re the only options you’ve got. I bit back, struggling to pull my tights and leotard back on.

Miracle sneered, her upper lip curling back, and I caught a glimpse of how she could terrify, that bright flame in her eyes sucking the warm color from her skin; for a moment, she appeared so brittle and angry, too pale and too angular.

Sorry, I signed single-handedly, still worming my way back into my leotard.

With a hurt shake of her head, she was gone.

Miracle didn’t often disappear on me, and when she did, it was usually because she felt she was distracting. It was rare for me to upset her like this, and even rarer for her to take it out on me.

I pushed the stall open and saw my mom standing at the sinks still, happily bouncing just a little.

“Aw, my baby is growing up!” She enveloped me in a hug.

I groaned. It wasn’t so much the comment as she’d been making a lot of similar ones this past year as I shot up and filled out. No, what bothered me was this was just another tally on the Ana Is Weird list. No other sixth grade girls that I knew of had gotten their period yet, so of course, I would be the one to lead the way.

I wrapped my coat around me tighter as I shuffled along behind my mom back to our seats, and as my mom animatedly gave my father the news, who was much less enthusiastic about his congratulations, I shifted and fidgeted, trying to ignore the new alien bulge in my underwear.

After a few Christmas carols and short prayers came the meat of the message: the cantata, a strange dance as entertaining as the Nutcracker. As the wise men made their way across the stage, I noticed a fourth figure standing behind the real camels that were following the wise men.

Miracle nodded solemnly at me. Happy birthday.

My lips couldn’t help but twitch into half a smile. Thanks. Some birthday, right?

You’re officially my big sister. She was a little too far away for me to be sure, but it looked like she was crying.

My chest tightened. You’ll always be my big sister. Don’t be silly.

My mom frowned at me. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing.” I stumbled over my thoughts. “Translating. I don’t know all these words.”

I looked back at Miracle, something eating at the back of my mind. She stood in the shadows, her pale face protruding from the darkness, and I half-expected her to break out into “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

My mom glanced in Miracle’s direction, but her dead daughter was playing hard to get. She frowned at me again and patted my knee. I wasn’t sure if she knew that Miracle and I communicated through American Sign Language, but she could probably guess it. As confident as an almost-twelve year-old could be about herself, I liked to believe that I wasn’t as translucent as my ghostly counterpart.

The choir broke out into “We Three Kings”, gradually being bathed by hot stage lights. Miracle lit up, too, her skin almost disappearing in the bright white, and again it struck me just how much of a ghost she was really being today — but then I noticed her attire.

For most of my life I’d known Miracle, I had seen her in one outfit: a faint Barbie nightgown, a very young lady in white; to see her in anything other than her eternal sleepwear was more unsettling than surprising. To make matters worse, Miracle hadn’t just chosen some random get-up. Her choice was purposeful and specific, and I narrowed my eyes at her keenly, wishing I could read her mind.

Miracle stepped downstage, each step slow and pointed, as the wise men and camels made their way to the stable where baby Jesus was sleeping.

Sneaking a glance at my parents, I quickly signed, What are you doing?

Miracle just stood at the end of the stage, her head tilted ever so slightly to her right, her arms heavy and straight. Her stance was all too familiar, and the chill that jolted down my spine made me grit my teeth. Miracle was certainly in a way tonight, wasn’t she?

I wasn’t seeing the choir nor the business on stage. The only image burning in my mind was a photo. The first time I realized that my sister wasn’t alive — that family Christmas photo, Miracle in that green dress she was wearing now, sandwiched between my parents.

My mom stiffened beside me, her hand clenching my knee, and I couldn’t help the faint cry of surprise, unprepared for the pain.

My mom gave a small whimper, and I realized her lips were parted in silent shock. My dad’s face wasn’t too different, eyes round and oddly framed with fearful disbelief.

I looked back at Miracle. She was still standing at the lip of the stage. She slowly moved to the floor and made her way up the aisle. She phased through the knees of the other people in the pew and perched herself next to me. I frowned at her questioningly, but she ignored me, focusing her eyes to the stage. I looked back at my parents, and they were still frozen, staring where Miracle had revealed herself to them.

I blinked a couple times, trying to digest what just happened, but for the life of me, Miracle was refusing to make sense and continued to ignore me when I tried to get her attention. When she did finally look at me, she wasn’t taking any questions, merely signing in her typical calm manner:

This Christmas we’re a family.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just copied her and my parents and turned my eyes on the stage, where the lights were dimming, obscuring the manger scene before us.

I didn’t understand the spectacle.


Next Chapter: III. Still