I can see my sister's ghost

chapter 5

"Shh! It's me, Sam," says the intruder as he turns on the light.

"Oh, my goodness! What do you think you're doing here?" I screech at him.

"Can we talk?" he asks.

I shrug and turn off the light. He jumps onto the bed with me. When we were younger we used to sneak into each other's rooms at night, yeah it was a long walk, but we knew a short cut.

We talk catch up on the eight years we missed together, and by five in the morning it's like we've known each other for all the eight years we didn't.

We sit on my bed for a while in companionable silence.

"Sam," I say.

"Yeah?" he sounds tired.

"Why did you come here?"

"Emma, I had a really bad dream."

"Oh, wanna talk about it?"

He laughs. "Sure."

I turn toward him.

He sighs. I look at him oddly, although he can't see it.

He sighs again. "I'm just going to summarize it. You fell off a cliff and I couldn't do anything about it." I gasp.

"I told you it was scary." He mutters. I start to laugh.

"How can you laugh?" he screeches.

"You always have that dream," I tell him with a shrug.

"But, but-" he starts.

"No buts. The only time you finished that dream, I ended up coming back to life, remember?"

"No..."

I laugh again. Normally he wakes up right after I fall off the cliff. One time he didn't wake up until a lot later, though. He said that we had been running and then someone had pushed me off the cliff. He said he had tried to stop me from falling, but he couldn't. The one time he hadn't woken up, he said he had sat down and cried. A few minutes later I had popped up next to him, laughing, safe and sound.

So now every time he tells me the story I always laugh.

"Kids! Get down here!" my aunt screams. What? I check my clock to see the time; it's six in the morning.

"Come on! You're burning daylight!" she says. I didn't know my aunt was such an early riser.

"Well I guess I better go," Sam says.

"Yeah, what do you think auntie would do if she found you here?" I ask. Sam has a look of horror on his face.

"We're about to find out," he mutters.

"She would tell Sam to get his skinny little behind downstairs for some breakfast," my aunt says as she crashes into the door.

We both stare at her. My jaw drops. She smiles at us. "Be down in ten minutes!"

After she leaves the room we both stare at each other openmouthed.

"How did she know I was here?" Sam asks, looking confused.

"You were always here," Natalie says. She's leaning on the doorframe, smiling.

I jump at the sound of her voice. How long was she standing there?

Sam laughs. "A little jumpy today?"

I roll my eyes. "Says the boy who still squeals like a little girl."

"Hey!"

"Later, love birds," Natalie says as she goes out the door.

"We aren't love birds!" I tell her as she goes. She turns around and sticks her tongue out at me.

Sam just laughs as we follow her downstairs.

"Good morning children!" my aunt says as we thump down the stairs.

When we get to the table Natalie takes a pancake and pours about a gallon of syrup on it.

"Whoa, take it easy," Sam says, taking a pancake for himself. Nat just pours more. I laugh.

"I bet I can eat more pancakes than you," Sam challenges.

"You're on!" Nat and I say at the same time. By nine o'clock I have eaten five pancakes, Sam ate seven and Nat ate eight, plus her weight in syrup.

"Ugh, I'm stuffed," Sam complains.

"Yeah? Well I'm starving," Nat says, grabbing another pancake.

We both stare at her in awe. She just laughs.

 "Honey, phone," my aunt says, handing the phone to Sam.

Sam takes the phone and listens for a while. He looks worried. A few seconds later the phone is on the ground and he's standing there, frozen.