C.E. Phillippi

Jessica stands at the top of the stairs; she is a flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. Most people assume being a ghost is about the haunting, but for her, it is really about the waiting. She waits for the dust to settle in the shafts of afternoon light. She waits for the new family to notice the way the air chills when she enters the kitchen.

In this latest chapter of her story, the girl in the blue dress finds a discarded drawing under a floorboard. It is a sketch of the house from a hundred years ago, and seeing it makes her heart ache with a phantom rhythm. She remembers when the porch didn’t creak and when the garden was filled with peonies instead of weeds.

She tried to show the drawing to the youngest Edwards girl yesterday. She moved it just an inch onto the rug, hoping the bright colors would catch a child’s curious eyes. But the wind from an open window blew it back into the shadows. Jessica sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement, and settled back into the walls to wait for the moon to rise. Even in silence, she is determined to be heard.