After a tasteless dinner and the bare trace of a conversation with her father, Lacey returns to her room, weak at the knees and heavy in the gut. She paces and stews. Solitary and silent.

Pale fingers rub circles at her temples. "Fuck," she whispers. "Fuckity fuckington." I was just talking to him. He shouldn't be gone. I mean, it's not like it exactly affects me all that much- that's horrible to think. Erie's such a good guy. Such a good guy.

The surrounding air compresses in that special way it does whenever a presence enters. This is an empty sort of presence, though, more open and airy. When the coolness of a dead woman sucks the warmth out of the room, it hardly comes as a surprise that Lacey's arms speckle with gooseflesh. She wants to be bitter, but knows Carol can't help it.

"Now," Carol begins, voice wispy and hardly audible, "we won't be having any of that language in this house so long as I'm here, Miss Waits."

"You ever have teenagers, Carol?" Lacey asks. "'Cause if you have, you're no stranger our rebellious antics. Telling me not to makes me wanna do it more." She pauses. "Fuckin'...shit."

Floorboards creak with no silhouette to match. They circle Lacey until she moves to the bed, ripping back the first sheet to avoid sitting on dunes of dust. The tiny specks flatten against a surface set midair. An arm, maybe. "I did have teenagers. They got over it." The bed dips beside her. "Now tell me: what's scrambled your brain this time, darling? Whisk or spoon?"

"Whisk. It's mixed pretty darn homogeneously."

"Oh, that's not good."

"No. It's not."

Another sigh, shared between flesh and essence. Lacey considers telling Carol the story - one that's happened in the span of less than ten hours - but, knowing there's nothing for the woman to do about it, she keeps her mouth shut, keeps everything to herself. There's nothing else to say.

"It's been raining a lot." Mentioned without warrant. "Has it been like this?"

"Sprinkling just about every day since two months ago. Only recently's it been picking up. But that's just the time of year, I'd say."

Lacey expects Carol to say something more, given the feathery gasp she gives whenever she means to say something else. But she cuts herself short. The air stiffens. Dust settles and the weight situated upon the bed lifts so that Lacey's heavy rump dips further into the mattress.

Curious thing. "What is it?"

"Shh!" Carol hisses. The noise drifts towards the window in a distracted whisper. "Malevolent spirit."

Lacey does as she's told, clamping her mouth shut at the same time the first bead of sweat sprouts at her hairline. She moves not an inch, elbows taut and brown eyes unblinking. It hasn't even been a full day and they've already tracked my ass down. I get it, you can't miss it, but, Christ, man.

Carol's puffs of dust show beneath the window, and Lacey turns carefully to face it. The blinds haven't yet been pulled down - damn it, Dad - and so the glass shows everything of the backyard: each and every blackened, twisted tree dripping in the blue dark, each tuft of grass billowing beyond the fence. It's ominous without a dead woman's fear, but with?

The first round of glass-tapping makes Lacey jump, springs squeaking beneath her. Shit. Why would she do that? She expected it, so why would she do that? Don't move.

The tapping continues, a finger striking lightly against the surface to signify they're here, and that they want to be let in. But she won't let them in, no, oh no, as they're on the second floor, and no figure exists beyond that glass to prove there's anything out there. It could be the rain, but that's stopped for the most part, and this is deliberate. Hard enough to be unnatural. Soft enough to seem welcoming.

Trickster entity. Malevolent spirit, indeed.

The tapping escalates into one quick bang! against the glass, window rattling against the frame, and then nothing. No sweet finger drumming and no frustrated pounding. It's gone.

"Well," Carol sighs. Lacey can envision her pressing a wrinkled hand to her own collarbone in relief. Old ladies do things like that. "Blessed be that we breathed the salt down earlier, then. But I think we could do with another layer..."

Usually, Lacey would simply turn a blind eye and let her do her thing, but this time she takes the time to swallow and nod. "That might be good." Exhale. Easy, now. "This whole deal would be so much easier if the regular shit worked. The salt, I mean."

"Ah, but the regular stuff isn't so strong. If you'd thrown down the normal salt and that thing came back to this window," Carol makes a sound like kissing her own fingertips, "kapish. No more Miss Waits."

In the next few seconds, the emptiness of a nearby presence leaves, and warmth returns to the room (but the chill remains in Lacey's arms). She stands to pull the cord and let the blinds fall against the sill. If anything, it'll imply nobody's home. But an unease jumps into her feet so she flicks a lamp in the corner on. Part of her wants to leave it off, but she isn't too comfortable with not having it on. Walls and furniture taking a yellow sunlight bath is much nicer than the boo, argh, spooky nature of the dark.

Eased by mechanical radiance, she breathes easy, and - with the knowledge that she's protected in full by the salt-breathers - even considers sleeping in her own bed that night. No demon will find her there. They can't get past the salt. She turns, ready to sleep.

But when she turns, there stands a pungent force, waiting for her.

Gasping, Lacey steps back, fumbling into the lamp and only catching it with the tips of her fingers. The figure in the middle of the bedroom is unfazed. Doesn't even follow her with her eyes. Cold, bitter brown eyes. Baby-fattened cheeks, pale under streaks of water, or maybe sweat. The girl seems too short for her age. Her hair is dark and had been pulled back at some point in time but now most of it hangs droopily against her neck, stray locks plastered to cheeks and cheeks downturned into a deep frown. A deep enough frown that shouldn't ever be seen on a child. Downcast. Despondent.

Dead.

Lacey's seen many ghosts, but this time she shudders. What a creepy little bugger. But the clairvoyant takes a deep breath: if the child intended harm, it wouldn't be in the room. It would've been hanging outside the window, lurking under the trees, locked out and ignored. The fact that she's here means she's harmless.

Okay. Give her the benefit of the doubt.

She has to. She can't exactly make a spirit go away. It isn't within her realm of capabilities. If it was, she'd never look another ghost in the eye (or socket) for the rest of her life.

"Who are you?" she asks, taking one subtle step forward. Make them feel comfortable.

Without raising a gaze, the little girl answers back, fingers hanging limply at her side. "Who are you?"

Chills race. The voice is small and accusatory. Lacey's reminded of a mature child testing its parents. That's all the kid must be up to here: little kid challenging the big kid. "Okay. Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?"

"I live here." Her teeth grind against one another. "Listen, kid, if you're lost, I don't know what to tell you. I don't dabble in spiritual guidance, I simply communicate. If you don't communicate, I can't help you. And I'm really...really too tired for this. I've had a rough day. I just want to sleep. If you're gonna play copycat, I'd appreciate if you did it tomorrow."

Aglow with newfound confidence, Lacey places a hand on the bulge of her hip and lifts her chin. Down her nose, she watches the little girl. The little girl doesn't watch back, but she does show some semblance of having once lived. She tilts her head slightly. The sopping hair follows.

"I will communicate. You will help me."

There's something more off about that statement, something more certain in the smallness. Like the girl knows things'll go her way. But if Lacey gets any say in anything, she's not going to let some snobby kid waltz up in here and start making demands. That isn't how this system works. It's like a trade-off. Be nice and offer protection, and you get as much talking and helping as you like! (Or as much as Lacey has a capacity or willingness to offer. She has a life still, which wanderers often forget. She needs things like sleep and personal space. Lots and lots of personal space.)

So, crouching, she smiles, very kindly (perhaps too kindly) in fact, and starts, "Honey, we'll see. A-"

The little girl's hand flashes out, and pressure builds on the front of Lacey's shirt as she tugs the fabric closer, closer, and closer still to the flickering and cold atmosphere of her face. She inhales sharply and tastes dirty water. Fuck. Little bugger is strong. Okay. Alright.

"Listen."

"I'll listen, go on."

"I'm dead."

If not for their close proximity (and the anxiety building), Lacey would've rolled her eyes. "Well, yes, that's self-explanatory."

"I'm not supposed to be. It's not fair." Childlike. More childlike, more real. Why does that make her seem more sure?

"Life isn't fair." It isn't meant to come out rude, but it does. Whatever; it's a truth she's learned, or at least learned to repeat. In no world is it fair for her to have to bear the brunt of all these entitled corpses alone, either, but here she is.

The babyish fingers release Lacey, and she falls back on her rump, tumbling against the floorboards and sincerely hoping her father heard nothing of it. Even still, she scrambles away on all fours. My bubble. My fresh, clean bubble.

Somehow, the little girl's look is darker from below, the eyes more hollow than a child's eyes ought to be. But she isn't stone. Her lip - her thin little lip, it quivers. Lacey wants to apologize, she really does, but the girl opens her mouth before she can say, "I'm sorry."

"Help me, please. My momma doesn't know where I am. My poppa cries all the time. They never buried me because they can't find me. I need you to find me so momma knows where I am and poppa can stop crying." A pause. The wee fingers curl up against her palms into fists. They shake with tightness. "And I need you to find who did it."

Nothing else processes other than confusion. "Who did what?"

"Who made me dead."

Murdered. She was murdered. Lacey's palms slide against the floor, slick with sweat, and she nearly cracks her head on the side of the bed. Murdered ghosts are always unpredictable - willing to switch sides at any time. Less twitchy. More capable. That's something she learned in a less-than-conventional way. Not that this whole deal has any conventions. She makes the rules, point blank. Who else is gonna? And because of that, she has the right to say

"No." Heavy swallow. "No, I don't think I can do that."

"Why not?" Some of the furniture rattles in its place at the violence of her accusatory tone.

"Because!" Lacey exclaims. Fingers tug at her tangled waves in a state of disquietude. "I don't even know who you are! And I can't get involved in some whole serial killer deal, I just can't! I don't want to get my ass slaughtered in the process! Do you get it? No. No freaking way."

"You refuse to help." Light and simple.

Finally. "I refuse to help."

Wrists trembling, she waits. Waits for the ghost to leave. Waits to be left alone. At this point, she cares not for the little girl's distress or her wishes or anything of the sort. Even little kids have to learn there's a limit. Leave. Please leave.

The little girl, for the first time, raises her chin and stares straight ahead. She doesn't look at Lacey; she instead sets her sights on the window, and slowly, with a bit of a drag in her step, walks towards it. The clairvoyant watches from the floor. Perhaps she'll walk through the wall and phase out. Poof, like that.

She hopes for it so much that she counts on it, and when the spirit simply stops at the window, Lacey huffs. "Okay? Is that all?"

"No."

The little baby fingers swipe over the sill, and a collection of miniscule specks of dust trickle to the ground.

"Hey!" Lacey clambers to her feet and charges at the window, arms outstretched, as if that'll do anything.

The girl turns and stomps her foot and Lacey halts, unsure of the meaning of that. She stomps again - something that should've usually translated as a light thud, given her deceased status, but comes out loud and clear. And with it, all the dust blows off the windowsill, cast into a corner where it'd be absolutely useless.

"It'll be like this everywhere," the girl says bitterly, "all the salt blown off the doorways and windows. You're not safe anymore."

Anger flushes in Lacey's cheeks. "Oh yeah? I've still got everyone else. They'll just breathe down the salt again and this tantrum? It'll've done nothing."

"No they won't!" A sharp wheeze billows beside the voice in unison. "I won't let them! I won't, I won't, I won't! They don't want to!" Composure falls over her face too fast. There's a ghost of a smirk on her thin, busted lips. "A whole lot of them are tired of being taken advantage of. Anyone can see it. So I'm going to make their lives better by taking you out of it."

"The hell d'you mean? They literally all went around breathing down salt the day I got here. So I smell bullshit." But what does she mean by that last line? Oh, God, where's Carol when you need her?

"'Cause they knew they had to in order to talk to you. But," the girl laughs, "not anymore. 'Cause I say, as of now, that nobody protects you anymore. Not 'til you do something for one of us. Me."

"Nobody's gonna listen to that," Lacey states. Her voice cracks.

"They don't have to. I'm strong enough to block it off. So help me."

Lacey narrows her eyes - not at the girl, but at the doorway, at the corners, anywhere she might find Carol. She should be done breathing salt by now. She would've heard the banging and pounding and felt another presence in the house. But she isn't there. Not at all.

Warily, she turns back to the girl. "No. Do you really think it's fair to put me in danger just because I don't want to hunt down a murderer? In what world is that fair?"

At this, the little girl cocks her head again, and a lighthearted smile fills her cheeks so completely that it would be endearing under different circumstances. "'Life isn't fair.' Remember?"

"I-"

And then, like Carol's leave, the presence in the room evaporates, and warmth hums into the empty space once more.

She waits in that room for quite a while, unmoving, waiting to hear the whispers of a spirit breathing down salt again, waiting to feel a new presence come to talk as they usually did at unreasonably late hours of the night. This time, she won't even mind. Even parts her lips to say, "If anyone wants to talk, I'm right here."

Where something would usually jump at the chance, there's nothing. Nothing.

With nothing else to do about the situation, she sways, and just staring at these four walls and the bed makes a sour taste settle in her mouth. So sour that she yanks the blanket from off her old bed and bundles it all nice and dusty in her arms. She flicks the light off and hurries out, then bounds carefully down the stairs and into the desolate living room to toss everything down on the couch.

Her body trembles. She tells herself it's justified to be scared of the dark this time.

Bathed in blue flickering light, she curls up under the blanket and lays down, eyes open with no intent to blink. There she'll stew. Solitary and silent.

Tiptoe, by Gracie and Rachel