Dark shit, Natasha said. Loud music, loneliness, anger, all coming from Daphne’s house. People steered clear of that place. At seven feet, her nose was longer than our fingers, her head twice the size of ours. And her hands? Fuck, guys, she could palm a basketball like it was a grapefruit.

Did she play ball? Dana asked. Because someone had to ask it. Everyone in the room wanted to be taller, closer to the rim. Imagine what they could do with that.

No, Natasha said. And that’s the thing, right? From middle school on, the ballers were like, Hey, you should play, join our team, play with us, you could score fifty a game with your size, come on, don’t be a loser, don’t say no, why are you saying no? Get out here, Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I pick Daphne. What do you mean you’re not playing? You better be playing, because you’re gonna be the reason we win and if you don’t play you’re gonna be the reason we lose and one day, when we’re older, we’re gonna come to your house and kill you because you let us down, Daphne, you fucking loser who won’t play ball, yeah, we’re gonna come over when you’re sitting in your car blasting shitty music and you won’t hear us coming and we’re gonna knock you over the head and close your fucking garage door and you’re gonna die that way from the fumes, alone and huge like you lived your whole pathetic life.

Jesus, Natasha, Dana said.

Some silence then. Kit tried to visualize the next day’s game against Chaps, but the Samhattan High gymnasium felt far out of reach then, and she imagined herself shooting a basketball in a stranger’s garage as the stranger gasped for air in her car.

Did someone really kill her? Beck Nelson asked.

They sure did, Natasha said. Angry ballers who played for Samhattan long before us. They got shitty drunk on wine and went to Marris Street with a baseball bat and found Daphne in that garage and they said something to her and she said something back and—

What did her voice sound like? Melanie asked. Kit thought it sounded like Melanie was looking for holes. But why? Was she beginning to believe this? Was she also feeling a sense of déjà vu?

Real deep. And slow, Natasha said.

Oh, how would you know that? Emily asked.

You’re right, I don’t know that. But I know some girls and some guys from the basketball team cracked Daphne on the side of the head and closed the garage and left her there to die. She turned blue from the fumes. And since then? Daphne has killed, like…dozens of athletes from our high school. Her ghost. And she still wears makeup. Kiss makeup. To hide her blue face.

Wait, Dana said. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Why?

Because we’d know if there was some fucked-up history of athletes dying. We’ve played sports our whole life, Natasha.