"I'm sorry!"

I just looked at the body.

"I said I'm sorry!"

I ignored her.

"I just… I just…!"

I looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

She shut up.

I went back to looking at the body.

There was no need to panic.  Even if it was a dead body.

It was my dead body.

So, it was cool.  Sorta.  Maybe not at that exact moment.  I guess it's fine now.  

It's one of those things where you find the humor in it down the line.  Even if it takes an eternity.

My body was speared through the forehead by the bottom of a chandelier.  It was a huge chandelier with a what looked like glass or crystal, I don't know, but the theme its creator seemed to be going for was "sharp."  Which meant there were many pointy metal bits.

When the chandelier fell, it went in one end and…

I would say it kind of looked like a shish kebab, but that would be crass, so I won't do that.

I floated next to my corpse, trying to kneel.  Except I couldn't kneel because I was a goddamn ghost now.

It struck me as weird that I was focusing on my inability to kneel than the death metal album art I'd become.  It wasn't that I was sickened.  Actually, I was quite pissed.  I looked down at my spectral hands, which glowed a kind of bluish tint and were almost transparent.  I then realized something and looked back up at my… "meat" body.  I was still wearing my pajamas.  Pink and black flannel bottoms that were freakin' hideous, and a way too tight white tee shirt of Princess Rosalina, which advertised to the world that I hadn't been wearing a bra when I died.  Oh, and Pikachu slippers.

It was the exact same outfit my ghost body had on.

This revelation caused to me to turn slowly and float over to the ghost that had killed me, arms crossed over my chest for a variety of reasons.

She raised a hand timidly, halfway to a greeting, her face scrunched up into a pained smile.  "Um… hi."

I cleared my throat.

"...I said I was sorry."

I kept giving her a look.

She was now floating backwards from me slowly, both hands up, as if that was going to help.  "Um… I can call a doctor?"

I'm not sure what my face looked like, but this ghost girl seemed both simultaneously embarrassed and a little scared.  We stayed that way a while, with her slowly curling up into a ball, smacking at her own head and softly calling herself stupid.

I sighed and floated back over to my body.  God, it was gross.  I found myself getting lost in the welter of gore.  Was that what I was really made of?  Just… meat.  A bunch of now inert meat.  That's all I ever was.  That's when I felt the girl's hand on my shoulder.

"Don't look.  I don't think you should look."

"I don't think you should kill me.  It's rather rude."

"I honestly didn't mean to kill you!"

I spun around and pulled her hand off me.  This threw me for a loop; I still didn't understand what ghost rules were.  If I kept partially floating beneath the floor when I tried to kneel… then again, this ghost girl had clearly made the chandelier fall… on top of that, did she just give my shoulder a reassuring squeeze?  Now distracted, I asked, "Wait, we can touch each other?"

She shrugged sheepishly.  "Well, yeah.  I did touch the chandelier…," and then she trailed off.

I shook my head and went to turn back to the body, but she grabbed my shoulder.  "No!  Don't!  You… you don't look quite… right when you look at it.  I don't think you should look at it."

"Ya know what, actually?  That reminds me.  The whole reassuring ghost hand on my shoulder threw me off.  Anyway, I've meaning to ask you: HEY!  HEEEEY!  WHAT THE HELL?!"

She flew back, and I thought she was going to flee.  But, she stopped (probably because panic short circuited her brain), and then hid her face behind her hands.  "I was trying to scare you!"

"Oh!  Ohhhh!  'Scare me,' she says!  Well!  How's it goin' so far?!"

That's when she slumped to the floor, and started crying.  Legs folded underneath her, face in her hands, and uncontrollably bawling like a child.  Wet coughs and sniffles, the whole works.  Absolute snotty agony.

This took the wind right out of my sails.  Great.  Not only was I dead, I was also a huge bitch.  Terrific.  I sighed and looked back at my body for a moment, before remembering what this ghost girl had said.  Yeah, maybe she had a point.  Part of me just wanted to stare at it, and stare and stare.  I don't know why.  Looking back at her crying into her hands, I had a thought: maybe she had done just that.  Stared at her own body, for hours.  Hours and hours.  Alone.  Until someone came and carried it off.

Christ.

On top of this, she now had to deal with being a murderer.  Manslaughter, at least.  Whether this was a prank gone wrong… actually, it's a haunting, right?  Whatever, it didn't matter.  Her crying seemed genuine, and she had pulled me away from the corpse earlier.  The "corpse."  Yeah, that smashed thing wasn't a part of me anymore.  I figured it could help to think that way.

I dare anyone, alive or dead, to come up with a more awkward situation.

I floated over to her, and sat next to her on the floor.  It took a few tries, because I kept sinking through the ground.  When I got it right, I put an arm around her and stroked her hair.  It just seemed the right thing to do.  There was no way I could stay mad, anyway, not to her.  She looked a bit young, childlike in demeanor, but she might have been… I don't know, twenty?  Definitely not a little girl.  She also looked like she was wearing pajamas of some kind, but something you'd see in an old movie.  Not a slip, no, more like regular pajama pants and a button up long sleeves top, all hanging loose on her.  Like, old timey proper pajamas.  Probably rich people pajamas, if she haunted this mansion.  She didn't have slippers like I did, just bare feet.  I had no idea which of us had it worse.

It took a while for her to calm down, and when she did, she looked up at me, puzzled.  I let go of her, thinking that she probably hadn't consciously realized I had hugged her.  She was so messed up by all this she'd just gone with the flow.  She apologized softly, and started to push her bangs back into place.  Her hair didn't fall much past her chin, and now was all tousled.

"Um… it's… cool, I guess."  Yeah, neither of us seemed on our "A" game.  "Ah, shit!  Do you understand what I mean?  By 'it's cool?'"

"I think so.  'Cool' still means… actually, I don't think I ever got what it means.  I know you mean… no, you don't mean, um, you aren't talking about temperature, right?"

"Yeah.  Not talking about temperature.  I don't think I get what 'cool' means either.  Um…?"  And I motioned at the body.  I didn't look at it.

I thought that was going to get her started again, but she took a deep breath.  "I just wanted to be alone here.  I didn't know what to do."

"You wanted to be alone?"

She nodded.  "I grew up here, long ago.  Then I went out to school and… I got sick.  I came back here, to be here with my parents when… well…"

"Ah."

"They never moved.  They didn't have any other children, but they didn't move, either.  I… um… watched them.  Until they died."

I looked down at my lap.  Jesus.  What a conversation to have with the person who just killed you.  I tried to hold out, but couldn't help myself from asking, "Are they here?"

"Who?"

"Your parents."

"What?  Oh, no!  No, I don't… I don't know where they went.  Or why I'm here.  I guess these things just happen…," and her voice trailed off again.  There was a lot of that going around, but what could you do?

Well, there was one thing.  "Okay, let's switch the subject.  I'm Dani.  What's your name?"  I held out a hand.

Looking up from the floor, she took it.  "I'm Marie."

We shook hands, and after a moment, I tried not to cringe while saying, "It's nice to, uh, meet you."

Marie cocked her head, made like she was going to say something, but swallowed it.  It seemed we were both pretty bad at this.  Awesome.

"Okay.  You wanted to scare me.  I get it.  But to be alone?"

"People keep trying to move in and change things.  I don't want them to do that."  She was looking at her lap again.

I leaned in.  "You could have just asked me, you know."

"I tried that before!  I've yelled and yelled, but nobody hears me!  I get right in front of you people and you walk right through me like I'm not even there!"

Oh, man.  Ooookay.  "So, you try and manipulate objects.  Got it… wait a second."

"What?"

"The other night, I got up to go to the bathroom.  And, I swear, I totally heard chains rattling."

Marie looked back in her lap, and didn't say anything.

"Did you… did you grab the chains I lock up my bike with and start shaking them?"

She mumbled something so soft I couldn't hear it.

I leaned close and asked her to repeat what she said.

I barely made out, "...it worked in a Christmas Carol…"

I couldn't help but put a hand to my forehead as I sat back up.  Well then.  I only just restrained myself from pointing out that the ghosts in that story actually had talked to Scrooge.  "Okay.  So you were trying to be spooky."

"Yeah…"

"To get me to leave this mansion."

"Yeah…"

"So you messed with the chandelier."

She stood up, suddenly indignant.  "No!  Uh uh!  Are you kidding?!  Were you that oblivious over these past two months?!

"I kept turning out lights!  Turning on the sink!  Moving chairs around!  Starting your car!  Breaking cups, knocking them off tables!  I even stacked all your books weird once!

"And you didn't notice any of it!"

"... um…you did?"

"YES!!!"

"Oh."

"That's it?  That's it?!  'Oh.'  WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'OH?!'  What the devil is wrong with you?!  How did you not notice any of that?!"

"... I'm working on a new book."

"With those damn things in your ears!"

"Those what?  Oh!  My headphones!"

"YEAH.  THE THINGS THAT BLAST THAT MUSIC IN YOUR EARS WHEN I DROVE YOUR CAR UP AND DOWN THE DRIVEWAY THAT ONE TIME."

"...oh!  That makes sense!  I was wondering why my car was all parked weird!  I figured I just got absent minded again, I get like that when I'm working on a new book…"

"IT WAS BORDERLINE DEMENTIA."

"Hey!  Hey, now!  I'm a respected author!  I could afford this mansion!  Granted, it was discounted, because people kept… suddenly leaving…"

"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY JUST REALIZING THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT RIGHT NOW?"

"...it's all gothy and it looked cool.  It's a big house, but not palace big.  McMansion big.  I might be able to take care of it myself, with hiring only a few people part time.  Plus, it fits the kind of stuff I write…"

Marie screamed at the ceiling (and presumably God) and floated off, and I could just make out, "Great!  I'm a murderer because she can't pay attention!"

I got up and went right after her.  "Now wait a damn minute!  What drove you to mess with the foyer chandelier!"

She glared poison at me, and I realized how stupid a question that was.  I backpedaled, "Okay, um, point taken, but really Marie?  It was two in the goddamn morning, I'd fallen asleep on my couch, and was getting up to go to bed.  Why then?"

"Because I'd lost patience," but the recent memories of my death were creeping up on her.  I could see as her face lost it's angry look; she could slip back into despair at any moment.

Now it was me putting up my hands.  "All right.  So you were desperate.  You shook the chandelier?"

Looking dejected, she nodded.

I floated up to her.  "Okay.  What's done is done.  This is the situation we're in, and there's no use dwelling on the past.  But… you didn't do it on purpose, right?"

She looked up, defiant.  "I would never!"

I closed my eyes, drawing a breath.  "All right, I believe you.  And… and I guess I forgive you."

"I would hope you would believe me!  If I wanted to kill you, I would have smothered you in your sleep!"

That… that wasn't the reaction I was expecting.  "Huh?"

"You sleep like the dead!  …Pardon the expression.  Slept?  Slept like the dead?  

"Oh, forget it, it doesn't matter.  If I had wanted to kill you, or any of the other people who moved in before, I could have easily done it.  How can you not see that?"

Shit, she was right.  Yeah, if Marie could manipulate objects, she could have killed me so many other times.  Oh, man.  This whole time I was suspecting her, too.

She sighed, and put a hand on my shoulder again.  "I'm… I'm sorry."

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"Yeah, me too.

"This is so goddamn stupid."

She actually laughed at that.  "I suppose it is."

"OH CRAP!"

Marie floated backwards and through a wall.  After a moment, she peaked her head out, frightened.

I blurted, "My mom is coming to visit me this morning!  She has the code to the front gate, and the door is unlocked!"

Marie cocked her head, and floated slowly towards me.  "I don't follow."

I grabbed her by her shirt, and hissed in her face, "I'm not leaving my corpse out in the goddamn foyer for her to find!  Especially as it is!

"We're gonna have to hide the body.  And you're helping."

===+++===

I wanted to bury me in the back flower garden, but Marie scoffed.  "That's where the butler would bury you in a bad mystery novel."

"I don't think anyone is going to look there.  Nobody knows I'm dead."  I dropped some of my brain into a bucket.

Marie, trying to not look at the corpse, was scrubbing the wood floor.  "We'd kill all the flowers!  If we rip them all out of the ground in a hurry, then try and replant them, they'd all die in a few days!"

"Who cares?"  I mopped up… some kind of goo.  "Nobody is going to see."

"How long is your mother going to stay?"

"I dunno."

Marie took a breath, and finally took stock of my body.  Moving one of my legs out of the way, she started scrubbing the floor around me… it.  Whatever.  "She might stay here and wait for you!"

"I'll leave a note I'm in Paris or something."

"That wouldn't make any sense!  Why would you suddenly fly off to Paris?"

"I dunno.  Secret author stuff.  Publicist said so.  Ah!  I'll say that there's going to be a French adaptation of one of my books!"

Marie stared me down with her hands on her hips.  Still holding two sponges brimming with gore.

I shrugged.  "The movie rights for three of my books paid for this place," and I waved my hand around.  "It's not too crazy to leave a note saying I had to leave on business.  She'd be mad, but it's better than finding this."

Marie rolled her eyes and sighed before getting back to the mess.  "What makes you think your mother will make it inside in the first place?"

"Front door's unlocked, like I said."

Marie zoomed right into my face.

I leaned back, "What?"

"Why is the front door open?!"

"Beeeee-cause the gate to the driveway is locked.  I gave my mom the code to it."

"What if someone was to climb the gate or wall?!"

"What, at three in the morning?"

"That's the perfect time to scale a wall illegally!"

"Nah, that wall is huge, besides, that's what it's there for.  You know, to stop people."

She turned her back to me, working while muttering to herself, before rounding on me, "Why did you buy this place if you weren't going to care for it?!"

"Huh?"

"How could you just be so… lackadaisical?!"

"Whoa, hey now, I have people who come and take care of it a few times during the week.  I only bought it because it's not a super huuuuge house.  It's just a big house with a big wall and gated driveway.  And it looks kinda gothy.  Which is pretty cool."

She looked like she was about to start crying again.

"Please don't look at me like that, Marie."

"Do you even care?"

"Of course I do!  My mother and I lived in a crappy studio apartment for years!  I wanted a big, cool place for myself!  I went through hell before I made it with those Veronica books!  This was on the market, and cheap… actually, people kept moving out of here.  Was that because of…?"

"Yes of course it was!  This is my house!  All you people keep moving in and… and… changing it!  Mess with it!  Try to take it from me!  So, I… scared them off.  Well, except for one person who kept listening to their music, didn't notice me driving her car around…!"

"All right, all right, I get it."  I sighed and went back to work.  I honestly feel awful whenever I see Marie go to pieces like that.  Even that first night, it cut me up inside, and I never wanted to see it again.  So, I let it ride.

Plus, yeah, people had been telling me for years I spent too much time in my own head, coming up with dialogue while listening to music.  I'd told them it's how I made my living.

Ha, ha.

I gently implied we should focus on the floor, and we went back at it.  After a while we had most of the slop up, and all that was left was the chandelier and my corpse.  We could throw a rug or something over the stained wood.

"Crap, we still don't know where to bury me."

"Well, the last family here put a concrete floor in the tool shed, so that's out."

"Oh!  Is there a wood chipper in there?"

She looked utterly disgusted with me.

"What?  What's the problem?"

"Are you seriously suggesting we use a wood chipper?!"

"Hey!  It's my body!  So what?"

"That's heinous!"

"Oh, it's not gonna hurt me any."

"You're just going… going to… spray yourself all over the backyard?"

"We got buckets."

There was a silence for a time.

Floating over slowly, and with a sympathetic yet stern look on her face, she put a hand on my shoulder.  "No."

"Come on."

"No.  The living can't see us, but they will definitely hear and see… that.  The neighbors aren't that far away.  You can't forget this is a gated community."

"Crap, you're right.  Too noisy."

"That is honest-to-God the least problematic part of that plan, but, yes, too noisy."

We floated outside for a while, trying to find a spot to dig.  We settled on a spot behind the toolshed, where the grass was patchy.  We cleaned off the chandelier, broke it down into pieces, and hid them all over the basement.  We left the ceiling alone for now; it was two stories up, the foyer had a big staircase that went to the second floor, you see.  Nobody would probably notice.  Maybe.

Next came the body.  We didn't wrap it in anything at first, figuring maybe that would make it decompose faster.  It seemed like a good idea.  Then we realized there might be "leaking" as we dragged it outside.  So, I went and got a tarp.  We would ditch the tarp in the trash when we finally dropped the body in the hole, which would hopefully speed up decomposition.  Yes, there would be human juice all over the tarp, but nobody would think to check it for my DNA until I was declared missing or dead; so, we could probably get away with throwing the tarp in the trash, as long as nobody found out I was dead.  

Marie kept looking to me for advice, being that the Veronica books were murder mystery novels, and it seemed she'd read some while haunting me.  It meant Marie was putting a lot of trust in me in regards to covering up my killing, so I had to keep a stiff upper lip the whole time.  Despite the gooey mess.  And smell.  God, human bodies are gross.  Do yourself a favor and never die.

We started to float outside, dragging the body behind us.  It was actually hard to lift it up; Marie explained that it seemed to be you kept most of your living strength when you died, but not much more; and neither of us were power lifters.  You could lift more if you concentrated really hard, but it left you very drained afterwards.  Basic tasks were able to done indefinitely, however.  You no longer had muscles to get tired.  But doing something beyond what you used to be able to do would make you feel tired for some reason.  Whatever, I don't make the rules.  We decided it would be easier to just drag me outside, once I was plugged up and no longer leaking.  And properly wrapped.

Seriously, dying is gross.

Marie said living people couldn't see us, and there were enough trees along the fences to keep anyone from seeing what we were doing.  The neighbors lived pretty far off, anyhow.  At least, I thought so.  All we would be carrying were shovels, and from that distance you wouldn't notice.  Unless you had binoculars out at three in the morning.  Pointed at a woman's house, where she lived alone.  I'd like to think my neighbors aren't like that.

To keep our minds off the… off what used to be me, I kept up the questions about ghosts.  Could sunlight hurt us?  No, of course not, that's vampires, not ghosts.  Could people touch us?  No.  Could we… posses people?

We were halfway through dragging my corpse out the back door.  Marie dropped her end and looked at me.

"What?"

"Why would you even think to do that, Dani."

"Haven't you watched one haunted house movie?  That crap happens all the time in them!"

"I've… I've never considered it.  I mean… that's so… wrong."

"It could be kind of cool, though."

"Dani!"

"It could be!"

She shook her head at me.  "I'm seriously starting to reconsider helping you now."

"I'm just kidding!  Kidding!"  I was only mildly curious about usurping some poor mortal's will so I could impose my own for fun.

Don't act like you wouldn't think of it.

Like, imagine if you concocted some kind of scheme to get the president to visit your haunted house, and then you could be president for a day.

C'mon!

I decided to change the subject and ask Marie how many haunted house movies she watched.  Did she check out that one show on Netflix?

She actually looked a bit sad when I asked her.  She said she didn't like to think about death much.  "It's… it's just a circumstance.  Not something I study."

I lugged my head over the door jamb with a thunk.  It hit the patio with a nasty crack.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I guess I can understand that.  I'm not too sure if I'm crazy about it myself."

"Did you watch a lot of those things?  Or read books?"

"Not really.  Was never really into ghosts.  It's pretty funny I became one."

She quickly blurted out, "You must have not wanted to leave.  Maybe because of unfinished business."  It was all in one breath, and then she was quiet, looking down as we dragged my corpse.  She looked incredibly uncomfortable, her face all screwed up like she was keeping something in.  I'd been wanting to ask about her parents, but decided that would be a terrible idea.

Instead, I asked her if she was a reader.  Books had come up more than once between us, and I did write corny murder mysteries.  She still looked a bit uncomfortable, but it was easing up.  "Come on," I tried.  "You look a bit like a reader."

"Because I'm in my pajamas?"

"Hey, yours look better than mine.  They're a nice pink.  And they look like satin?  You get to wear satin as a ghost?  Geez.  I'm stuck in Pikachu slippers."

"Aren't those from a children's card game?"

"Um… yes."

She looked at me quizzically.

"Don't judge."

She held up her hands in a pleading gesture, dropping my body on the ground.  She hurriedly picked it back up, saying "No, no!  No judgement here!  I just… was surprised."

I sighed.  "Okay, I'll admit it.  I like Nintendo.  A lot.  I have a ton of Amiibos, figures, and shirts.  I still have my WiiU.  I still play my WiiU.  I don't know why.  I honestly think it's out of spite for everyone that said it sucked.  I have two Switches, but I still play my WiiU."

Marie was quiet for a while, leaving me with the awful noise of a body wrapped in tarp being dragged across grass.  She finally said this, "I know what, like, four of those words mean."

"You know what?  That's actually great."

"I know they're children's toys."  I could feel her smirk.

"Okay!  First off, they're for all ages, anyone can play them, it says it right on the box!  And, like, video games haven't been seen as kid's toys for a long time!  And more people watch e-sports than the NBA…!"

"I thought I heard they proved that false."

"How the hell would you know?!"

"People leave the TV on.  Oh, and some of the children who used to live here were talking about it once."

"You said you wouldn't judge!"

"I'm not.  I'm teasing you to take the edge off dragging a corpse across my backyard."

"Hey, I bought this place!"  But I was cracking a smile now, too.  The absurdity was becoming obvious again, and I was glad she was back to talking to me.  "It's my lawn too!"

"Oh, come on, I was here first."

"I play you in Smash for it."

"Do what now?"

"Oh, I'm teaching you how to play Smash.  It's part of my new plan to get even with you."

She actually laughed at that one.  Good.  I was finally getting somewhere with her.  And then I realized I would have to clean up the living room; all the bags of potato chips and Nintendo crap dropped all over the place.  I did not want my mother to find all that either.

"I'm generally surprised," Marie said.  "Your books are so morbid, and I thought you moved here because it seemed like the 'moodiest' thing to do, if that's even a word."

"Believe it or not, it is."

"But that… is that a cartoon princess on your shirt?"

"...yeah."

"Well, I will admit that she is very cute."

"Yep.  Thanks."

"I just didn't expect the author of those Veronica novels to wear something like that.  Those books can get so… dark."

I sighed.  "I dunno.  I'm not much of a people person most of the time.  I'm a bit of a homebody.  I did go out, and I used to have more friends before my career took off, but I spent most of my free time in my head, even as a kid.  And I just like Nintendo.  I kept getting told to get out more, but I said I could make it just fine if I concentrated on my writing."  And look at me now!  "I never shut out the outside world entirely, or ran from nasty things.  I mean, I obviously didn't.  A lot of research went into those Veronica books.  I wanted them to feel real, like a real young woman going up against these absolute monsters."  I reconsidered my words.  "Well, wait, in light of present company, I don't mean werewolves, I mean…"

"I read them, I know what you mean.  Like the oil baron who wanted to shape his daughter into what he wanted, and ended up pushing her down the stairs, then blackmailing the fiancé to take the fall, or the father would stop paying for his mother's cancer treatments…"

"Yep, I know, I wrote it."

"Oh.  Yes.  Sorry."

"Actually, I didn't really like that one."

"Really?!"

"Too convoluted.  I don't really remember why I thought it was a good idea.  I always did like the one with the two serial killers in competition with one another.  I based that off of Randy Kraft, who… I forget the other killer's name, but Kraft copied one of his kills.  Ugh, what a creepy world."  We reached the back of the toolshed.  Marie went and grabbed us some shovels, and we started digging after I the time.  Three thirty.  Goddamn, neither of us had been very strong in life; it had taken nearly a half an hour to drag the corpse out here.

"Is that why you like that princess character?"  Marie pointed at my shirt.

"I like her because she is fabulous.  I love her purple fingernails."

"They are quite… interesting."

"I bet you wanted to say 'alluring.'"

"Maybe.  Maybe not."  She had a cheeky smile on.

I grinned back at her, and kept digging.  "I don't know, don't know why I play both extremes.  How I go from that vile world back to Breath of the Wild.  I guess the Nintendo stuff centers me.  Some people go fishing.  I play with my WiiU.  Actually… you've read all my books.  I think that says something about you."

"Well, you've caught me.  I am a reader."

"A reader of murder?"  I drew out the last word, and made a flourish with my hand.

She lost some of her cheer, though not very much.  "I actually became a more avid reader after I became Ill."

"Ill?"

She smiled apologetically.  "You might find this silly, but I've honestly completely forgotten what exactly did me in.  It was quite long ago.  It was a sickness that went to my chest.  But I think it was brought on by a something or other that compromised my immune system, or something like that.  I'd always been quite anemic, but it suddenly got quite serious when I went out to college.  I was all right for my first two years, but by the time I was around twenty-one I started collapsing."

I made a pained noise.  "That's terrible."

She nodded sadly, but was still smiling a bit.  "Yes, I ended up coming home.  Coming back here."  She gestured around.  "The doctors said this would probably be the best option.  Unless I wanted to be sent away.  My parents didn't like that.  By then we knew it would be terminal.  So, they brought me back here.  I was mostly up there, in that room," and she pointed to a window on the second floor.  "I used to look out towards the forest, watch the birds.  But I never really was one for birdwatching, no matter how hard I tried.  It was awfully boring."

"I bet.  Screw that."

Marie giggled.  "Yes, screw that.  So, my parents brought  me books.  I didn't read much at first, because my friends would come by and visit me.  But… as time went on… they…"

She'd stopped digging, sticking the shovel straight into the ground and leaned on it, her hands folded on the tip of the handle.  She was definitely looking more downcast again, so I floated over and gave her hand a squeeze.  "Hey, it's okay, you don't…"

"No, it's all right.  They had their lives, and I had mine.  Whatever was left of… it's in the past.  I became a bigger reader.  The end."

"What did you read?"

She seemed a bit a elusive.  "Well…"

"Agatha Christie?"

She sighed.  "Yes, I started to re-read Agatha Christie novels.  It's not Nintendo."

"It's kinda the same and I'm taking note that you can easily pronounce the word 'Nintendo.'"

Aha!  She looked up, a bit stunned.  I pointed a finger at her.  "You damn well know what Nintendo is!"  I was smiling like an idiot at her.

"Well… all right, I'll admit I used to watch people play Smash Brothers a lot."

"Wait, you even know what Smash is?"

"Children who used to live here played it!"

"You watched it!"

"I… I liked the colors!"

"...that had to be the worst goddamn excuse I've ever heard."

"I panicked.

"It looks fun."

"Look, grab my dead body's feet and chuck me in this hole, I'll let you play it later.  Don't forget to take off the tarp."

It was getting brighter and brighter, now.  We had to act fast.  People would start getting up for work soon.  We hastily slopped dirt into the hole, not really caring how messed up the lawn looked.

Marie's face was screwed up with concern.  "This is going to be the most obvious shallow grave ever dug."

"Wait, my grave is shallow?"

"Dani, it can't be more than three feet down."

"Holy crap!  That took forever!  How do people do this for a job?!"

"They use excavators.  They had those even when I was alive.  I thought you just said you do a lot of research?"

"Well, it was mostly on illegal burials.  Like this one."

"Which was a rather rushed job."

"I never planned on putting it to practice!  Just… we'll put the tarp over it.  Weight it down with rocks.  The landscaper isn't coming by tomorrow, and there is now way my mom is going to mess up her manicure on this."

"I'm glad she won't be concerned."

"If she loves me, she won't be.  Come on.  Fill in the hole.  So, um, if it's not too weird to ask…"

"Yes?"

"Did you keep reading after you died?  Because I don't think I was even born yet when you died."

"Ah.  Well… yes.  I slipped away in my sleep, and then found myself here.  My parents  couldn't see me, and I couldn't leave.  I watched them mourn, and then put their lives back together.  And I let them be.  It just seemed the right thing to do.  They'd been through enough.

"At night, when they slept, I was all alone, unable to watch them.  I didn't want to think on what I was, about the fact that I couldn't leave, so, I kept reading.  I'm sure you saw the little library inside?"

I responded softly, "Yes."

Another smile from her, warm, and a little sad.  "I went through it all.  Every single one.  And… I suspect they knew I was still here.  They would buy more books I would like, and try to read them.  But they never finished them.  They would just leave these books around, and at night, I would read them by moonlight.  Or by the small lamp in my old room."

"You never reached out to them?"

She shook her head and looked sad.  "They'd been through enough.  I didn't want them to know I was trapped here for some reason.  That would have broken their hearts.  As I was dying, they never once showed their fear to me.  They would be sad, but they didn't want to bury me with their devastation.  So, after I died, I kept out of sight, and watched."

"Why are you here?"

"I… I don't know.  I think it's because I wanted to make something of myself in college.  And just as that was starting to happen, I died."

"What did you want to be?"

She looked up at me with pride.  "I wanted to teach English."

"Like to kids?"

"No, like the language.  I speak fluent French, believe it or not.  I wanted to teach people how to speak English."

"Oh, wow."

Marie let out a slow breath.  "It never came to be.  I just ended up as that bookish girl who lived here."  She turned to the house.  "It is a nice house."

"Mmm-hmm."

"My parents loved it very much.  It never came up between them once to leave.  And they never divorced; their marriage lasted fifty-one years."

"Oh, wow."

"They're probably still together.  I wonder if they're waiting for me."  We both looked up towards the fading stars.  Purples and reds were starting to cover them, like someone accidentally spilling watercolors on the dark velvet of the night sky.

I patted down the last patch of dirt on my crummy grave.  "You don't have any siblings?"

"No, I was an only child."  She fetched the tarp, and I gathered up some rocks to weigh it down.  "I… I will admit, I have been selfish."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to keep this place for myself.  I didn't want anyone to… to change it from what it was.  I just wanted to keep it the same."  She sat in the grass, legs folded underneath her and her hands in her lap.  "I knew it wouldn't last.  That it would start to fall apart.  I had no ability to keep the house up.  I hated the idea of haunting it.  Like in those stories."  She looked up at me.  "The house that is completely dilapidated, and children dare each other to enter.  But I couldn't stand the idea of anyone taking this place from me, making it their own.

"So, I started to scare them off.  I didn't want anyone ever to be here, even you.  No offense.  I just wanted to be alone.  And… well…," and with that, she slowly raised up her hands, then let them drop and hit the sides of her thighs.

Well, it was starting to make sense.  I had only just started to make a decent name for myself before I had died.  Had finally sold the movie rights, and was going to own my own home.  Sure, the realtor had said seven or eight (I hadn't been paying attention, exactly) families had fled this home in terror, but that had made this awesome house really affordable.  And then I had gone and died.  No wonder I ended up haunting the place.

"Hey, c'mere," and I stood and held a hand to help her up.  I pulled her to her feet, and we both floated back inside, double checking for evidence of history's dumbest manslaughter.  Actually, that word barely fit, especially since no men had been involved.  "You kept reading," I said, just to say something, "as people came and went, you kept reading more."

Marie was very quiet all of a sudden, so I turned to face her.  She was fidgeting, and I made to come closer when suddenly, she let loose, "I've been reading your mystery stories while you were sleeping about that one girl Veronica and the mysteries she solved in the town she's so smart and cool and knows, like, literally everything which is so cool and she always catches the bad guy and when the serial killer had her tied up I was so scared but then she used those nail clippers to break free and hotwire that automobile which was soooooo cool…!"

I just kind of let her go on for a while.  This sort of thing happened at book signings all the time.  You get used to it.

Some time later she noticed it had gotten light out and I hadn't said a thing for quite a while.  The words slowly stopped as embarrassment crept onto her face.

I tried to smile and look cool, despite my ridiculous outfit.  "So… you liked the Veronica series."

"...yeah."

"I was actually thinking about stopping it."

"What?  Why?"

I shrugged.  "It was getting kind of old, and I didn't want to spend my whole life doing it.  But, well, now…," I chuckled a bit.

"You're going to keep writing?"

"Wait, huh?"

"Well, why not?  Well, maybe that's silly, because you are dead, but I figured a creator wouldn't be able to stop… what's wrong?"

It was like a surge of electric.  A bundle of circuits connected inside my brain.  "Wait, nobody knows I'm dead."

"Oh, yeah… oh my god!  Your fans…!"

"Wait, shut up!"

"I beg your…!"

I floated over and grabbed her shoulders.  "I can actually keep writing."

"Yeah… you could…"

"No, listen!  I can email my manuscripts!  Nobody has to know I'm dead!  All we have to do is get away with my murder!

"I've already bought this house outright!  Because of your haunting, I was actually able to afford it!  Now all I have to do is pay people to keep it nice!  And we then have it to ourselves at night!"  I beamed at her.  "These books are selling pretty good.  And even if the series isn't popular anymore, I have an eternity to think up new stuff!  

"We can fix up the house anyway you want!  The way it used to be!"

It finally sunk in.  She lowered towards the floor, looking almost in shock.  "Do… do you mean that?"

"If we are stuck here, we might as well have fun, right?  Hell, if we get bored… we'll just hire an exorcist or something!"  I burst out laughing, and so did she.

I held out a hand to her.  "How 'bout it?  Become my partner in crime."

Giggling, she took it.  "All right!  Partners in crime!"

And so the scheme was hatched.  My mother bought the stupid note on flying to Paris I wrote up, and then I went to work convincing the whole world I was now a recluse.  Said I needed space, was going through stuff, blah blah blah.  It took some work, but eventually people started to buy it.  Some folks tried to come by to check on me, but they got no response.  Marie and I both felt pretty rotten about that, but what could ya do?

We have a landscaper and housekeepers who take of this place.  I was going to sell my car, but Marie actually likes driving it around.  We can't leave the property, so she just goes from the driveway gate to the front door.  Better than nothing, I guess.  She never got the chance to drive in life.  We have to leave the strangest instructions for the help to fill the car with gas for us, but they do it without question.  We hear them say that this is both the weirdest and easiest job they have.  I mean, it makes sense; the owners are dead.

I don't know how long this will last, but I don't care.  Neither does Marie.  For now, I guess we'll both take it as it comes.

I still have yet to get Marie at least marginally decent at Brawl.

One day someday, I guess.