Laura Ditto | 1

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy

“What happens if we can’t find her tomorrow?” Madeline grumbled from the back seat,

her eyes wide with late night thought.

Sam, Maddy’s sister, sighed from her seat in the front, pinching the bridge of her nose;

Madeline had said she would go to sleep ages ago, but this was the seventh question she had

asked.

“We’ll find her, don’t worry,” Sam replied. Because we have to, she thought. Because

this is our last hope.

“But what if we don’t?” Madeline asked again.

“Maddy, trust me,” Sam said, twisting in the reclined driver’s seat to look at her sister.

“We will find mom tomorrow. Now get some sleep, please,” she said.

Maddy nodded solemnly and rolled over, pulling her blanket high around her neck. Sam

turned back to face the roof, finding the actual silence of the car more upsetting than her sister’s

incessant questions. It would be a long while before she’d get to sleep.

***

Sam woke up the moment the sun began to stream into the windows of her old

Volkswagen. Their breath had gathered on the windows overnight, but it didn’t stop the bright

autumn sunrise from blasting directly into her eyes. Sam squinted and shuffled around quietly,

groping for her jacket and beanie before she creeped out of the car, shuffling towards the

Haggen’s. She liked the sound of early mornings—or at least, the lack thereof. The parking lot

only had a couple of cars near the back end, and the roads had the quietest hum of traffic.

After using the surprisingly clean supermarket restroom, Sam wandered the aisles

looking for something to eat. She hoped for some sign that today would be different than the rest,
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but all she found were some off-brand Pop-Tarts. The salesclerk didn’t look pleased to be

working the morning shift but greeted her with a classy customer-service smile regardless. She

made some tactless joke about the toaster pastries and dropped them into a white plastic bag.

Sam paid with a bill more wrinkled than an elephant’s trunk and trekked back out to the car.

When she returned, Madeline was sitting awake in the passenger seat, her head lazily

slumped against the window as she dangled a crystal pendant in front of her face. It swung back

and forth like a pendulum that she stared at with a bored expression. Sam slid into the driver’s

seat and quickly snatched the pendant away.

“You know better than to play with these,” Sam chided. Madeline huffed and rolled her

eyes.

“I wasn’t playing,” Maddy quipped.

Sam was taken aback by the tone and stared at her sister for a long moment. Maddy

looked older than Sam remembered. Her long legs were curled into the seat so tightly that her

knees nearly hit her shoulders. A tired look that didn’t belong on a child had settled deep into

Madeline’s eyes. Sam blinked, trying to remember if Maddy’s last birthday had been her

fifteenth or sixteenth. Clutching the pendant and plastic shopping bag in her hands, Sam cleared

her throat loudly.

“I got breakfast,” she said, tossing the pendant into the center console before unwrapping

the box of toaster pastries. They were dry, and didn’t have enough frosting, but they settled the

girls’ stomachs enough the get them back on the road. Sam leaned over to open the glove box as

she pulled out into traffic. She stuck her hands between the miscellaneous papers, feeling around

until she gave up.

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“Maddy, can you find the map in there?” she asked, sitting back up properly in her seat.

Maddy was quick to find the large street map and unfold it in her lap.

“We’re looking for mum’s old address, right?” Maddy asked.

Her sister nodded slowly. “It’s by a library or something.”

Maddy found the address and promptly informed Sam they were going the wrong way.

But it wasn’t long before the two finally found themselves in the right neighborhood. The

little town-houses passed them by, the yards all half-coated with yellow and orange leaves. They

kept going, however, aiming for the small park at the end of the twisting road. The girls had

heard of the park many times growing up, as their mom had spoken to her first ghost there. She

was a medium of sorts, and while neither Maddy nor Sam had gotten the gift, they both had

gotten quite proficient with artificial ways of contacting spirits.

The park wasn’t much more than a field with a playset and a half-dozen benches, but in

the golden morning light, it held a special charm. A slight breeze sent the leaves cartwheeling

over the field as Sam and Madeline clambered out of the car.

“What are we trying?” Maddy asked, opening the trunk. Sam tugged her jacket closer and

gave the park a grave look before she answered.

“Everything. The dowsing rods, spirit board, cards—pull it all out.” Sam didn’t want to

miss any opportunities at this lonely-looking park—the last place they had to check.

There had been a long list of their mother’s favorite places when they had started

searching a few weeks ago, not long after the funeral. They were hoping that they could find her

somewhere along the trip, but each place they visited left their hopes a little lower.

Along the rocky beaches of the Northwest, they had met spirits of sailors. In their

mother’s favorite restaurant, they had met a lady who had choked on an oyster. In the grand
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forests of the Olympic National Park, they were greeted by an old member of the Civilian

Conservation Corporation from the other side. But no matter how many places they tried to reach

out, not once had they heard mention of their mother.

The girls hauled out their spirit-hunting tools, trudging them over to an open spot in the

field. Maddy’s cardigan billowed around her before she sat down on their picnic blanket.

“What if we don’t find her?” Maddy asked again.

Sam glanced up from the deck of cards she shuffled urgently. “We will. Mom wanted us

to find her, you know that.” After all, their mother had taught them all they knew about talking to

spirits. Sam hesitated a moment before she spoke up again. “If we can’t find her, then I’ll take

you to that diner we passed on our way here and buy you waffles.”

As the hours went by, Sam became frantic. The cards turned up without any clues, both

dowsing rods kept twisting around constantly, a candle could hardly be lit with the breezes that

came through, and the only person they were able to talk to on the spirit board was someone

named Charles—certainly not their mother. The girls had spent hours sitting in the grass, with

little to no evidence that any spirits were near.

The last hope they had was the finnicky ghost box. Maddy hated how loud it chattered,

but as far as accuracy went, it was their best bet. Many spirits seemed drawn to the ease of

speaking through radio waves, even if the connection was shoddy at best.

Sam switched the little radio box on and drowned out the world around them with the

choppy static noise.

“Hello?” Sam asked aloud.

The box continued to buzz.

“My name is Sam. Can you say my name?”

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“Hey, Sam,” the box said between loud buzzes. Sam felt her heart patter a bit and her

stomach coil.

“Who are you?” Sam asked loudly. Maddy peered at the box, a glimmer of hope in her

eyes.

“It’s cold here,” a different voice stuttered through the static.

“Is Vee Paine there?” Sam asked. A long silence followed, filled only with chattering

static.

“No,” a loud and clear voice finally answered. Sam froze a moment before she turned off

the spirit box and tossed it onto the blanket.

Maddy leaned slowly into her sister, wrapping Sam in a hug. “Mom’s not here, Sam.”

Sam felt a tear roll down her cheek and the girls embraced one another for a long while.

“Maybe we could check—” Sam began, but Maddy cut her off by pushing her away.

Madeline held her older sister by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “No, Sam. We

told Dad a week ago we’d be back soon. And he needs us. More than we need to find Mom.”

They had left him in his own sorrowful state, and while Sam desperately wanted to find

their mother’s spirit, she knew that the journey had to come to an end at some point.

“Let death bring families together, not apart,” Maddy quoted their mother. It was a phrase

Vee often told the people who hired her to find lost family members. Both sisters knew it applied

to their own family as well. Sam gave a heaving sigh and wiped away a tear, wondering when

Maddy had become so insightful—after all, Sam was supposed to be the wise older sister.

An hour later they found themselves enjoying two large plates of waffles and reminiscing

over mugs of coffee.

“This is payback for keeping me company these past weeks,” Sam told her sister.
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“I’d do it even if all you got me were those awful toaster pastries.”

Both looked far more tired than their age permitted, but soft smiles grew on their face as

they shared the quiet brunch together.

***

The drive home felt shallow. Sam couldn’t tell if it was Maddy asleep next to her, the

failure of their goal, or the emptiness of the darkening road. She assumed it was a mixture of

them all. The quiet hum of the AC left Sam to think as the old car rumbled down the highway

away from their mother’s hometown.

A glint in the rearview mirror caught Sam’s attention and she glanced up from the road.

There, in the back seat, her mother sat upright with a knowing look in her eye. The hair rose on

the back of Sam’s neck and she held her breath as the rest of the world seemed to fade from her

thoughts. She didn’t even realize that her car slowed to a halt in the middle of the highway.

Hot tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as Sam continued to stare. Vee raised a

quizzical brow, studying her daughter. Sam blinked once. Twice. Rubbed the sleep from her eyes

and glanced back up at the mirror where her mother’s reflection stayed. Sam thought about

shaking her sister awake, but Sam’s mother stopped her with a simple movement. Vee smiled

softly at her older daughter, reached out, and touched her shoulder. The chill that ran down

Sam’s spine rattled deep into the marrow of her bones. When she finally stilled and looked back

to the mirror, her mother had vanished.