Everything Turns to Ghost

Chapter 4

Jessica didn't believe her sister was actually serious about letting Terry sleep in the filthy garden shed. But she waited for her sister to be done with her shower and get in bed before Jessica crept upstairs and fetched fresh sheets from the linen closet to prepare Terry's guestroom downstairs. While doing so, she heard the lock of Elizabeth's bedroom turn. Elizabeth never locked her room, which meant she expected Jessica to not listen to her and to have Terry rest inside the house.
As Jessica was thinking that, her phone notified her of an incoming text message.
"Lock your bedroom door before you go to sleep," the text said.
Jessica grinned. "Classic Liz."
Later, when she placed her head on her pillow, Jessica had forgotten all about Terry. As if the events of that night had just been some weird daydream she was having in order to cope with Skippy's death.
She pulled the sheets tighter around her body and the last thing she saw before she fell asleep was the image of a German Shepard running towards her across a sun-streamed meadow.
Jessica woke up with a strange feeling. With the sun shining in her eyes, since she liked to leave a part of her drapes drawn open to be woken by the natural light, she stretched her arms up against the headboard, wondering what felt different about this morning.
Soon it hit her. Terry Fae. He was downstairs. The image of his curved-up smile and of his haircut in the pictures on social media Jessica had looked at once, or twice. Now he was downstairs, and he was more than just a passing thought to her, more than random pictures online. Jessica couldn't wait to see him again, to have conversations with him.... to see where those conversations might lead.
Without wasting another second, she jumped out of bed and went to get ready in the bathroom, which she managed to turn from squeaky clean to a wild mess in ten minutes.
But now she looked the exact opposite of a mess. She didn't go too far, though. Somehow, Terry felt different. Like she wouldn't want to impress him with a shiny dress or sexy shoes. She'd impress him with the kind of clothes she wore every day to work, but with a few added touches here and there. As little make-up as her usual workdays, but now so carefully applied. Same style of work clothes, plain skirt and blouse, but with a special kind of scented lotion worn underneath. She'd curled a few strands of her straight hair, giving it the perfect amount of volume.
As her hand grabbed the stair railing, she got flanked by a sense of perturbation. What if Terry wasn't downstairs? What if he'd left?
She glanced towards Elizabeth's room. The door was open and when she walked there to look inside, she found it was the way Elizabeth left it every morning after she woke up. The white bedcovers pulled all the way to the foot of the bed to let the mattress breathe, the windows wide open for the fresh morning air and sun to flow in.
She then heard voices downstairs, but the more steps she climbed down, nearing those voices, the more a kind of bad feeling came over her. Was Jessica wrong? Had she misread that strange feeling she'd woken up with as something good?
Something didn't seem right, for those weren't just voices, they were chortles. An animated conversation. Was Elizabeth actually enjoying a laugh?
As soundlessly as possible, Jessica went down the last few steps. Once she reached the ground floor, with the whole living area now spread in front of her, she tried not to make any movement while watching the two people sitting on the sofa. They were both facing each other as much as they could while keeping their feet on the ground. Terry was fiercely nodding his head, the sunlight bouncing off his eyes and prominent cheekbones. He seemed so engrossed in what Elizabeth was saying.
"And whenever I'd throw the frisbee far past our garden, poor Skippy wouldn't stop barking at the fence till I'd let him out into the forest. He could've barked at it for hours if I let him and once he actually did. That day, I didn't open the back gate for hours just to see how long he'd keep at it. He didn't stop till sunset. Jess was mad at me that day, calling me a sadistic bitch." Elizabeth's voice cracked as she laughed out loud, as though she was crying and laughing at the same time. "I miss him so much already."
Jessica's jaw dropped. Before Skippy they had Sunshine, a golden retriever, and before Sunshine a hound called Salvador. All broke their hearts when they died, but Jessica had never seen Elizabeth open up about any of those dogs the way she seemed to be doing now. And with no other than a stranger.
It also weirded Jessica out how her sister seemed to be having a chat that lasted longer than ten seconds and that wasn't about scientific studies, or work, or how-to topics. Not that Elizabeth was incapable of having a chat, she just wasn't interested in normal human stuff. The only conversation Jessica believed Elizabeth had actually enjoyed was one about how to get rid of it mold growing in apartments. A weird component, Jessica thought, for a thrilling subject.
She watched as Terry, after a little hesitation, lay his hand on Elizabeth's knee. Jessica gave an evil smile, knowing how her sister would react. But to Jessica's uttermost surprise, instead of instinctively removing his hand, Elizabeth gave Terry the most glowing smile Jessica had ever seen. Her heart sank. What was going on?
While lost in shock, Jessica must've unconsciously made a movement for the two of them looked up at the same time.
"Jessica," said Elizabeth. "A wonderful morning, isn't it?"
"Huh?"
"How about some fresh juice from our oranges in the garden." She jumped up from the sofa before she looked down at Terry, who was trying not to touch his knee, as if it still hurt but he didn't want to infect it or make it worse by laying a hand on it. The fold Jessica had made was still there, holding above his knee, exposing his cut, which Elizabeth glanced at with a tilted head and a smile.
"Need a hand to get up?"
Terry's face blushed, and it was obvious he tried to act casual but failed. "Uh, eh, yes, um... Sure."
No, thought Jessica. This was so wrong.
He took Elizabeth's hand and she pulled him up. "You are a baby, you know that. A small cut wouldn't have a grown man babying up to me like that."
The amount of flirtation and effortless jokes streaming out of Elizabeth was uncomfortable. What made it more uncomfortable for Jessica was how comfortable Elizabeth seemed to be while acting that way. Like it was a part of her nature after all. Which Jessica knew wasn't so.
But none of that mattered, for Jessica believed that as soon as Elizabeth would be busy picking oranges from the garden, Terry would turn his attention back on Jessica, and everything would be like it was the night before. Magical and fun, and whatever weird spell Elizabeth seemed to be under would be gone.
But that wasn't what happened at all.
Terry walked towards Jessica. "Good morning, Jessica."
"Good morning, Terry." She was about to suggest they make coffee together, but Terry passed her to follow Elizabeth out the kitchen into the back garden. He didn't even give Jessica a flicker of a glance when she tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave him a bright smile.
Something hard dropped in the center of Jessica's chest. It wasn't disappointment, nor was it the sense of being left out. She was Jessica Wakefield, the only left out she knew was the leftout takeout food she'd save in the fridge for the next morning. Or was that called leftover?
When they were kids, she sometimes teased Elizabeth and called her a leftover gene. It made her sister mad. Jessica smiled at the memory. The reflection of her face in the window, as she watched Elizabeth and Terry picking oranges together, looked sad, though. She stopped smiling and then saw her usual reflection plastered there, the one she'd recently been seeing now whenever she looked out any window of her house. Then she discovered what the ill-feeling in her chest was.
Terry's arrival had served her as a distraction. Now she had nothing but to go back to her own thoughts, the thoughts that were currently nothing but a little silent web of nightmares that twisted around her brain even while she was awake.
Jessica sighed and turned away from the picture of abundant cheer and humor that surrounded a pony-tailed blond tossing oranges at an injured – barely injured, in Jessica's opinion – but happy man.
Making the coffee on her own was a better idea. Coffee was always been made by one person, anyway. It was so stupid to suggest she and Terry make it together. Good thing he ignored her. Or didn't care enough to ignore her. He simply didn't notice her.
His smile from the night before flashed through her mind, but she pushed that image away.
Less than an hour later, the three of them were in Jessica's car. They had to be at work at seven thirty. Terry had suggested they'd take him along with them as he didn't want to make them late, and from the parking lot of where the twins worked, he'd order a cab and go home.
"So where do you work?"
"No, you'd have to guess," said Elizabeth, turning around in her seat to face Terry. Jessica's eyes grew wide. Usually Elizabeth would list her full job description within the first twenty seconds of being asked that question. Guessing games were way below Elizabeth's level.
What was Terry doing to her twin? Or was Jessica having a hard time accepting Elizabeth to be getting along with him so well?
Still, it would've felt a whole lot better if her sister was getting along with Terry while being her usual monotone, systematic, boring self. Or would it?
Jessica decided to ignore reality right now and focus on her driving. This went on smoothly, with her blocking out Elizabeth and Terry's conversation and letting the consistent popping of trees along the road distract her. Until something else other than trees and street lamps appeared. Something dark and furry.
Skippy.
Her car swerved and she brought it to a stop at the side of the road.
"Jessica," cried Elizabeth in shock. In the rearview mirror, Terry looked disoriented.
"I'm sorry," said Jessica, drumming her nervous fingers against the steering wheel. "I thought I saw..."
Elizabeth and Terry remained silent, both out of the residual shock and out of waiting for Jessica to finish her sentence.
"What?" Elizabeth said impatiently.
"Nothing, nothing."
Jessica pulled the car back on the road, cursing under her breath, frowning in the rearview mirror. She pretended her frown was just concentration on her driving but it was actually due to how she'd embarrassed herself in front of Terry. She hoped he didn't realize that when their eyes passed each other in the rearview mirror.