I heard a noise. “Woo!”
I thought it was the wind but it was something far from the wind.
But then, I heard, “Come, come, KC.”
I stepped off my bed. My feet touched the cold bare floor. I put my slippers on. I looked out my window. I didn’t see a thing. I turned around. I screamed. There was a ghost.
***
30 years later…
“Jane, go tell your sister to come on.”
Jane said, “Liz, Mom wants you to come and see the new house.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” Liz said.
There was music playing.
Five minutes later…
“Why is there salt on the windows? There’s salt everywhere.”
“I don’t know,” said Jane in a very cheerful way, “I call the waterbed!”
“They’re all waterbeds.”
“Okay.”
“Mom, can I go to town?”
“Why?”
“Because I just want to.”
“Yes, but you have to bring your sister.”
“But why?”
“Jane, go grab your coat!”
“La la la,” Jane skipped on the road. “Can we get a cookie?”
“Fine.”
“Hello, miss. What are you doing out so late?”
“Yeah, it’s late, but I’m thirteen. I can walk around.”
“Oh, you’re the new family in town.”
“But don’t you know what happens when it’s this late?”
“No, what happens?”
“You don’t know the myth, do you? So a long time ago, about thirty years before, there was a girl named KC. She used to live in the house you live in. One night, she was in bed, and she woke up and she was bleeding. She had a knife in her leg.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, but she’s never gone back to that house.”
“That is why there is salt on the sides of the house?”
“Oh, she put that there when she sold the house.”
“Liz, can we get a cookie now?”
“Yes, here is some money now. But where does she live now?”
In the old car going home, Liz decided that she would be sure to go to talk to her mom about it…