Lily and I spent the summer together at Cynthia’s house.

The halls of the pink house outside Tannersville-- usually quiet, dusty, and cold-- were filled with the sound of her laughter ringing and echoing through the rafters and between the walls. She would scream such things as “I’ve never seen a house like this,” or “I can’t believe how stunning these windows are, dahling.” She would dance along the hallways and float in and out of the rooms, only stopping for a moment to skirt around my father or Cynthia as they walked down a hall.

Though occasionally, and I will reiterate only occasionally, she would lay down on a couch or lean against an armoire and get very solemn and serious, if only for a moment. That was where she was at this time, her shoulder sitting lazily against an old mahogany wardrobe in my grandmother’s room and me standing in front of her staring into her bright blue eyes.

“Dahling?”

“Hmm?”

“I was wondering . . . have you ever wondered what happens to you when you die?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, what do you think happens,” she asked, flashing a bright smile.

 I thought for a few moments and then said “well, I guess I believe in a Heaven.”

“Do you, now?” 

Lily’s hair was drooping down the right side of her face again, which always irritated her. She moved it away and sat down with her knees up against her chin. Patting the floor for me to join her, I sat down beside her.

“I wonder.”

“You wonder?”

“Yes, I wonder, dahling. Perhaps there’s more than Heaven and Earth.”

“What else could there be?”

“Ghosts.”

I couldn’t stifle the laugh that rose up from deep within my belly. Ghosts? This girl believes in Ghosts? I couldn’t take it, I had grown out of fear of ghosts years before. It was nonsense, that there were these invisible people floating all around us, jumping out of the shadows and yelling “boo!”

Well, obviously I would learn my lesson, and not so long after this.

But, at that time, Lily was pouting. Her lower lip was shooting out towards me, with bright shiny lipgloss reflecting the orange glow of the incandescent light in grandma’s room.

“I-I’m sorry.” I stammered, a little embarrassed.

She got up and turned to walk away before switching back and kicking me between the ribs with her army boot. I let out a gasp.

“What was that for?!”

“You don’t get to disagree with a princess if you’re a peasant.”

“What?”

“I’m telling you, dahling, ghosts are real!”

“Wha’?”

“I can prove it.”

And, with that, Lily stormed out of the room and walked down the hallway towards my bedroom. I struggled and got up, gripping my side as I limped after her.

The hallways of the pink house were long and narrow, with walls painted dark browns and paintings from semi-famous artists hanging from the walls. The dark hardwood floors sucked out the little light that was in the hallway, creating long stretches of near-total blackness only alleviated from the tiny pools of yellow light shining every 6 feet along the walls; as you walked on them, they creaked and moaned.
There was a cool breeze blowing down the hall from the doorway that led into my room, and I used that to guide my footsteps as I stumbled down the hall. Finally arriving, I leaned up against the doorframe and stared down at my friend.

She was laying in my bed, brown hair flowing down around her, and creating a brown halo around her porcelain face. Her white sundress was riding up a bit, exposing her knees and a tiny hint of her thigh. When I walked in she shot up and stared before collapsing back and laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, dahling, I’m sorry. But it’s your face! You just look so dejected, like a lost puppy. Poor Freddy.”

I was the one pouting now, and though I went to sit beside her on the bed I made it very clear that I wasn’t happy about it.

She had fallen silent then and was staring up at my ceiling. It was a plain ceiling, white drywall with a single small fixture sitting in the middle of it. I couldn’t imagine what fascinated her so much about it.

“Dahling?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to know a secret?”

“Sure.”

“I know that ghosts exist because I’ve seen one in this house.”

I tried my best not to laugh this time because there was no way I wanted to get kicked again, but having lived there for months at this point and having only ever seen a Ghost once-- dismissing it as my imagination-- her claim seemed ridiculous to my ignorant mind.

Lily crawled up beside me and put her hand on my back, before pulling me down onto the bed and putting her leg around me like a vice. I couldn’t move as she inched her mouth close to my ear and started whispering. 

“Dahling, have you ever really looked around this house before? Have you stared at the walls and the ceilings? Have you touched the floors with your fingertips? Have you felt the cold of the granite countertops press against the palm of your hand?”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

She reached up and pressed her index finger against my lips.

“Shh, dahling, it’s Princess Lily’s turn to talk and your turn to listen. This world, this spaceship that we all stand on as it hurtles around the sun, isn’t the only one. There is more than here or Heaven, and there are things that we as mere human beings will never truly understand. There’s a chaos here, and it creates a chaotic pain that can only be alleviated by searching for the binds that may keep us together and hold us away from the precipice. If we don’t find them, the entire card castle falls over and we tumble down with it. The salvation is the reconciliation between existence and non-existence, and the return from a zero-sum game. Existence is pain without first properly addressing how we can exist in this world

I don’t know that you will ever forgive me or meet me halfway or truly find the answers, but dahling you must try. The only other solution is for us all to end and leave toward whatever other simulation we can conjure in our minds. Nothing exists unless it is first told that it exists, the same as everything has the capacity to exist until we decide what is allowed to exist and what isn’t. Humanity can ensure its survival, or it can decide to disbelieve and disprove.

Guilt and suffering may prevent the binds and tethers from being formed, so the first task is to believe in ourselves and believe in our Ghost.”

With that, she pulled her leg off me and sat up. 

I was staring at her, long brown hair falling down her back. I had never heard her talk like that before, and I don’t just mean the strangeness of the phrases she said. She was so serious. Even more than when she goes dark and leans up against a wardrobe or lays on a couch. It was as though a switch had been turned off or on. It was night and day. Usually, she was so bubbly and energetic, but now she was strange, sad, and very serious. I wondered what had brought it on, especially given that she had made very little sense.

But then she turned back towards me, the normal Lily now. White teeth shining as she smiled broadly towards me, light dancing in her blue eyes. Lily, the real Lily. The Lily I knew.

“Dahling?”

“Hmm?”

“I was just wondering if you had ever actually met your grandmother?”