The whimpering picks up again. Crystal clear. But Elliot doesn’t hear it. Slowly, I move towards the stall. A thought suddenly occurs to me: What if everything my mother told me growing up was real? And all this time Jackson and my father were wrong? That would mean spirits secretly walked among us. It’s a simple thought I’ve rejected all my life, that my mother may have been right, but in this moment with Elliot it feels inexplicably true.

I round the corner, peeking into the stall…

A wave of relief washes over me. There’s nothing there. Thank God, there’s nothing there. I laugh at the absurdity of it all. “It’s empty,” I say. “Completely empty.”

“You are really freaking me out,” Elliot says.

A stupid grin plasters on my face. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I think. But my relief doesn’t last long. Soon, a dark mass appears behind Elliot. It’s a bulging shadow that only comes up to his thighs. A little girl.

She’s crouched behind Elliot, facing away from us, a lopsided bow in her hair.

“Oh, no…” I whisper.

Elliot studies me. “What?” He looks around. “What now?”

The pale, chubby legs of the girl quiver as she slowly turns. I pull Elliot into the stall, stretching his shirt, and slam the door behind us. We stand in the cramped space, so close I can smell the spearmint from his gum.

“Ange? What did you see?” Elliot asks.

Lightning shatters the darkness. Once. Twice. It illuminates the stall for a moment, but it’s enough time to see that we’re not alone. She’s found us. That pudgy girl stands on the toilet, hunched over, inches away. Her face is by my torso, her cheeks smeared in blood.

Go away, I think. I don’t want this, and I don’t want you. The pudgy girl crouches down, prepared to pounce, but just before she does, just before I think I might die if she touches me, the room spins. My knees buckle, and I feel a tingling and then gushing from my nose.

I see the wall, the ceiling, and then the floor.

And then I’m somewhere else…

Somewhere bright and warm. And I’m not alone. My mother’s with me, and she’s wearing a long flowing peasant dress, the one she used to wear to readings, and she’s laughing. She’s telling me to come closer, into the nothingness behind her. There are outlines of trees and grass and creatures around us, or maybe it’s the wind? There are no shadows here.

Just the quiet of wherever we are.

A voice, tinny and muddled, breaks through the silence.

My mother furrows her brow. No. Wait.