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31

Opening the door with her keycard, Virginia tried to make her face as expressionless as possible. As soon as she stepped in the room, however, Catherine noticed something off about Virginia's demeanor.

"What's wrong?" asked Catherine, setting her computer down on the desk, giving Virginia her full attention.

Virginia chewed her lip. "I think you know that something's been up with me for a while."

Catherine laughed shortly. "Yeah, I've noticed. Do you want to talk about it?"

She nodded and crossed shortly across the room to sit next to Catherine. With a small smile, Catherine grabbed the stuffed panda bear named Kelvin that had been sitting on her bed. Catherine had received it as a present for her eighth birthday and never travelled anywhere without it, and now held it out to Virginia as a comfort object.

"Thanks," Virginia took it, cradling it close to her chest. "But you should probably hold onto Ivy Bear. This one is a bit of a doozy."

Frowning, Catherine reached out to get the green and white stuffed bear she got in high school from Build-a-Bear. She sat it in the lap of her crisscrossed legs and looked intently at Virginia.

Taking a deep breath, Virginia tried to remember how Greyson had broached the subject with her. She anticipated a far bumpier transition than his, but she decided it would be easiest to start with herself.

"Will you bear with me through a little bit of crazy before I get to the point?" asked Virginia. Really, it was about twenty feet of crazy before a hundred feet of bat-shit insanity, but the point was still made.

Catherine nodded, silent.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Virginia.

Her roommate gave her a face, but answered anyway. "I guess so. I've never seen one or anything, but I don't like to discount anything. And I'm pretty sure one of my friends from back home's house was haunted."

Virginia laughed a little. "Okay, well, I believe in ghosts. I believe they exist when they die but have some kind of unfinished business that keeps them here."

"Okay," Catherine nodded slowly, careful to wait and see where Virginia was going with this line of thought.

"Well, when I came home after the masquerade with this," she pointed to her black eye. "That sort of has to do with that."

"With ghosts?" blurted Catherine.

"Unfortunately," Virginia felt like a crazy person even saying this, but she had to tell her the whole truth, otherwise she would just be lying the whole time. "You remember everything that happened that night with Col?"

Her face went dark. "Of course I remember. How could I forget?"

"Well, Greyson took care of him by—" her skin crawled even at the thought of it. "He buried him in the cemetery."

Catherine looked like she was going to throw up, which was about how Virginia felt.

"The night of the masquerade, I went looking for Tracey in the cemetery, because she goes there to write sometimes," Virginia continued, and Catherine made a face. Since that was the least crazy part of this story, Virginia worried about Catherine being able to handle the rest. Still, she went on. "Well, something about my presence there disturbed Col."