“Have you enjoyed the peace that has come with Geneva’s moving out?” I asked her, knowing Annabelle didn’t care much for the other females in my family. She wasn’t above doing small things to annoy my sisters. Hiding their favorite lipstick or jewelry, making their bathwater cold, or pulling their blankets off them at night. She was mischievous, and it had always entertained me.

“Yes, it’s more pleasant,” she said in her soft voice that was never more than a whisper.

I nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry to tell you that I’m probably about to make it less pleasant. I need to talk to my mother about something that could make her yell. You may want to go play in the attic for a while.”

She tilted her head to the side considering it. I knew she enjoyed the attic where the few things that had once belonged to her were stored in a cedar box she’d shown me when I was eight years old. I had cast a spell to protect her things for fear my mother would have the attic emptied of the history nestled away in that seemingly untouched part of the house.

“Do you need me to make a distraction? I can burn her with her cigarette or bump her arm so she spills her drink all over herself.”

I laughed. Annabelle often did those things to my mother when my mother was being mean, although I had told her to stop. I shook my head. “Thank you, but it’s okay. Go enjoy yourself. I’ll handle her.”

She smiled brightly up at me then turned to walk through the wall beside my door. Annabelle didn’t remember her death. I’d asked her when I was younger, and she said she woke up one day in the attic, and when she came to find her mother she wasn’t here. The furniture was different and there were people she didn’t know living in the house. She’d been so scared and had cried for her mother and father and brothers, but no one ever came. Then there were others who she found.

Later in life, I had searched the family history on this house, and I knew that Annabelle had died of influenza. I never told her though. She always seemed sad when she talked about her family. I didn’t want to remind her, and I also figured she didn’t need to know. After her death, there were entries in her younger sister’s journal, located in my dad’s library, that mentioned seeing Annabelle’s ghost. Annabelle just didn’t remember being with her family. All she remembered began years later when they had all passed away.