Edema Rue

The girl’s dress was bloodstained and torn. She was giggling. With clumsy, childish fingers she played with a doll, bobbing its head up and down in a forced nod. The girl started to lift it, but suddenly her hand went through a beam of sunlight, and the doll fell to the carpeted floor.

The girl frowned and reached to pick it up. Her hand went through it. She tried again; nothing. The girl started to cry. No one comforted her. She ran away from the doll, bare feet pounding on thin air until she arrived in a small kitchen. A tall woman stood at a stove, stirring a pot of something that smells like apples and cinnamon. The girl ran to her and tried to wrap her arms around the woman’s legs. The woman didn’t notice, and the girl fell through her. She cried louder, snot running from her nose. 

The tall woman put a spoon into the pot to taste it. “Ela!” She called. “Come try my cider!” 

The little girl stopped crying and tried again to tug on her mother’s skirt, to get herself a spoon, a cup, anything. It didn’t work.

“Ela?” Her mother asked. “Ela, darling, where’d you go?” The woman wiped her hands on an apron and walked towards the room where the girl just was. The girl followed, screaming and crying. 

“Mama,” she begged through her tears. “Mama…” 

The woman entered the other room. She saw the doll on the floor, abandoned, and her lip trembled. “I…that’s right.” She knelt down next to the doll, picking it up. A single tear rolled down her cheek to the sound of Ela’s crying, which was getting louder. Then she stood up briskly and walked back to the kitchen, where she started stirring the pot again. This time, though, a few salty tears fell into the cider. 

Ela sat at her mother’s feet, sobbing. Then she looked up and saw someone she wasn’t expecting. There was a boy sitting in a chair at the table, a boy she did not know. She stopped crying, mostly out of shock, and the boy smiled.

“Hello there,” he said. Ela’s lip trembled. “No, no, don’t cry,” he said kindly. “I’m here to help you. You don’t like being stuck between, so you?”

She shook her head.

He nodded. “I understand. Never forgotten enough to fade completely, but not remembered enough to make a difference…how would you like to be seen again?”

The girl started to cry again, quieter and deeper now. The tears of hope, rather than desperation. 

The boy smiled.

***

Ela’s dress is bloodier now. She is bloodier, too. She sits at the foot of a wide bed, crouched in an almost catlike pose. There’s a lump in the bed, a chest that slowly rises and falls. The girl reaches out a single hand and touches the figure’s shoulder.

The figure stirs slightly, but doesn’t wake yet. She shakes it hearder, and the figure turns over, a blanket falling away to reveal a teenage boy. Ela giggles. “What?” He mumbled sleepily. Ela creeps forward until she’s sitting directly on his chest and looks into his eyes. The boy screams. Ela laughs harder; he’s playing with her! He sees her!

Ela smiles at him.

“Ghost!” The boy screams. He pulls his blanket over his head, trembling. He’s too old for this. Ela knows that older kids usually stop playing with younger ones. She’s very lucky to have so many friends to play with her! And Ela knows the game they’re playing. It’s her favorite.

She pulls the blanket down and smiles at him, unaware that her childish face is splattered with deep red blood. The boy screams and pulls the blanket up, and the girl pulls it back down, laughing.

“No hiding!” She giggles. 

“G-g-ghost…” The boy whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut.

Well. Ela knows what to do next! When friends say her name, she goes to them! Ela slides closer to him, touching his forehead and pulling her hand downward. Her fingernails are long and sharp, like claws. Bright red liquid spills out after them. Ela draws a picture with it, a pretty pretty picture, because Mama likes pictures! The boy stops moving, and the girl finishes her picture, then turns to go. There are, after all, more friends to play with!

More friends who will call the girl by her name, who will play the silly game with the blankets, and who will help her draw pictures for Mama! She floats aimlessly through a dark city, smiling softly. She can hear the joyful screams in her mind: “Ghost!” They cry. The girl knows they mean her; she has an army of friends, and they call her Ghost, and so surely that is her name. Ghost is grateful that they play with her. They’re always so excited to see her!

Somewhere far, far away, a woman kneels next to a tombstone holding a single pink rose. "I miss you, Ela," she whispers, her cheeks wet.

Ghost floats into a new window, and a moment later, a horrified scream echoes out into the night air.

“Ghost!”