“No, it isn’t.” She turned the phone again, then set it down so all I could see was the white ceiling. Frankie had put a sticky note up there; I couldn’t read what it said. “I’m just kidding.”

“It’s not funny.”

“Ghost messengers aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t even real,” she said. “I watched a documentary on what happens after we die. Spoiler alert: it’s nothing. We just disappear.”

The ceiling in Frankie’s room didn’t notice I suddenly had tears streaming down my face. Neither did my sister, whose volume had gotten faint like she was across the room doing something else. These days, I felt like a balloon with tears instead of helium inside, and the tiniest pinprick would make them leak out.

“Aunt Maureen has breakfast ready,” I said, trying to make my voice sound sturdy. “I’d better go. Will you tell Mom I’ll call her and Charles later?”

“Uh-huh, yeah,” Frankie said. I knew she’d probably forget. “Bye.”

She thudded across her bedroom, and I saw her thumb come in close. The call disconnected.

Half an hour later, when breakfast really was ready, my phone buzzed with a new text. The phone stuck to the tablecloth when I picked it up.

FRANKIE

Sorry

I sent back a question mark, then:

TESS

For what?

For making you cry.

I didn’t think you noticed

I notice everything

Thanks. I accept

Accept what?

Your apology

That’s such a weird thing to say

I accept

So frmal

*formal

Sorry

It always came back to that. To me being the one to apologize.

Her read receipt told me that she saw my response, but she didn’t write back. I left things there, too, not wanting to talk in circles. And her apology had helped.

That doesn’t mean I stopped thinking about the seed Frankie had planted in my brain, about Colette trying to contact me. The mean voice shouted in my head that it was a ridiculous thing to consider, but looking back, I see that’s when it started. I wonder if things would have gone differently if I’d never called my sister that morning.

Or maybe it all would have happened no matter what.

chapter 4

After a restless night in and out of dreams I couldn’t remember in the morning, it was time to start art camp.

The whole ride there in the minivan, I stared out the window, my shoulders so tight they were creeping up to my earlobes. When we went under the animal crossing, even though the windows were closed this time, I got the same spine-tingling feeling when the world went dimmer for a brief second.

I quickly turned around to look back at it; still there was nothing.

You’re scared of an overpass! Mean Me sneered. There is seriously something wrong with you.