Epilogue - Where It Counts

At the Walmart, I rummaged through the remains of Valentine's candy along with an assortment of bloated lavender peeps and a bounty of intentionally-purple candy lining the shelves for Easter.

Almost four months and so much had changed.

Lacy didn't find her final answer on All Souls Day or even in the weeks to follow. Her mom had a brutal blow up at her which made me worry all our progress might be lost. But she laughed off her mother's infantile efforts at control.

My dad still blew like an impotent hurricane against a rocky shore. He claimed victory for being the loudest, but it won him nothing.

Naturally, I doubted myself, but just for a long moment before letting it go. Lacy followed my example during Thanksgiving when Riona loomed and returned to lord over her daughter with a full serving of revenge. She found no easy meal. Our grandparents, even though I doubted they remembered their experiences as young Riona and Mark, had a revived presence. It began with unnecessary apology and reflection, as grandpa heaped upon that morning amidst energetic reflection.

A certain moment later stuck in my head when he peered out the window and, with calm resignation, remarked, "Everything ends eventually. A play must conclude and the house lights come up. Nothing lasts forever. All we can do is put on a good show while we can..."

Of course, grandma had an immediate counter with the love she felt for Orson, what he shared with her, and what we had together. So, our grandparents brought their full force to bear against Riona and her waves of guilt and manipulation. He brought out the theatrical allusions at one point, referring to her as "Goneril and Regan" in one body. Lacy withheld her version of "gonorrhea and reeking" because she knew they would be wasted on Riona, who left Thanksgiving early and refused to even send a text when it came to Christmas.

Still, she received a polite card and messages from our grandparents on their new phones. I got one too as part of a family plan with Lacy. Mine was one of the smaller models and made sudden, weird noises. At least, it was relatively new. I still needed to get a flip-up case for it but it had a plastic sleeve that saved me a few times already.

I'd downloaded several paranormal podcasts recommended by the Frostwell Paranormalcy forum. The humorous ones were the best. I expected an explosion of posts about the bananas and the candy especially, but nothing much came of it.

That was good, I hoped. It meant that nothing bad came of that night. I did have a few weeks around the early part of the year where every little sound in the apartment made me sit up with my heart racing. Rooms felt cold for a good while, but the weather dipped into the negatives with plenty of snow. Still, the furnace left areas suspiciously cold. I didn't see any creeping Bogarts at least. But my fridge started blinking like something was drawing electricity out of it. Or there was a loose plug or wire. It went away without explanation though.

I skipped over the podcasts referring to shadow people and those with supernatural electrical powers because thinking about them seemed to summon problems. Others on the forum came to the same conclusion. It was like that Halloween vanished out of everyone's consciousness. But that was the past.

What made me smile the most every day was Lacy texting me (on a phone I could actually respond to her with) about her experiences at Oak Rivers College.

I delighted vicariously in her recounts of challenging professors. She pronounced the academic emperors to be stark naked when all they had to hide behind were co-authored, rambling tomes or paper-thin Ph.Ds. They earned her respect through actions instead of demands or mystique. She listened and worked hard. She adored an older drama instructor who actually remembered Orson when she talked about her grandfather and appreciated she didn't play favorites because of it.

Hefting up a discounted bag of leftover candy hearts, I rolled my eyes at a little lavender one marked "LACY" but felt briefly tempted to buy it for a laugh. Working my way around to the produce, I had to pause and stop when I sighted a familiar blond loitering by the bananas.

Heavy flannel pants wrinkled loosely to her sneakers. A green top traced a silvery wilderness landscape. And matching golden studs in her ears barely peeked out from a long river of flaxen hair that gave her a slight, adorably-elfin appearance. Automatically, I opened my mouth. But what could I possibly say?

From the evidence Lacy/I took from Ryan's computer, he had some interaction with this girl. Or he was this girl. Or something. Either way, we were strangers to one another. I leered at her twin as she hunted for purple bananas. And, despite how personal I got with body parts, my innate feelings hadn't changed. I had winced once when I saw a woman with her bra clearly pinching her shoulders red, but it didn't require me having them myself to feel sympathy.

Looping around like I was coming into an orbit, I held my breath and eventually managed to inquire, "Zelda?"

We both appeared stunned by my words. Since there was no one else around, it felt unnaturally quiet. Before I could add something to smack away the silence, the blond...Lina?...answered with a glance down at her top and the high, bounding words, "Oh! Yes yes! Zelda! Breath of the Wild. It's my second favorite trilogy. Heh. Did you want to...know...I mean...you played it? I mean with the new one. Sorry, hi! Sorry!"

My heart rattled about with her nerves. I tried on a smile and said simply, "Hi. I'm afraid I haven't played it. Any of them. My grandfather knows the series though."

She let out a long breath. "And now I have dissolved to dust and bone. Just kidding. That's awesome! No one in my family is really into it. Video games in general, I mean."

That should've been the awkward moment where we drifted apart, strangers chatting for a moment before going about our separate business. But my curiosity made me linger. I dug up memories of the Sega system which had gotten more use since Halloween than it had seen in years. Lacy was looking for used titles that could play in it and it was an easy hook to talk a little more.

"Lina", as she confirmed/gave her name, knew not only every used game store in the tri-county area but could recount the history of who had occupied which location in what era and how many nail spas had replaced them. The disdain for each loss was unmistakable in her tone. While she helped me add the places on my phone, she also casually mentioned a fun and free Korean-developed MMO which was not far from version 4.0 and its 15th story "episode".

For as eagerly as she chatted with me, I couldn't bring myself to talk about the mental elephant trampling on my brain: Had she met Ryan, thinking he was her, that Halloween night? Had she been freaked out? The forum was no help as the webmaster swept Halloween under the rug just as much as everyone else. Or he was the reason no one talked about it.

Even though he'd moved out of the house down the road, I could probably track him down. It was a small town, but I had other things to worry about. That's why I left the elephant alone. I promised Lina I would download that game and check out those places for Lacy. She shyly mulled on having more people to talk about games with, but completely blanked on exchanging information with me. I could've said something, but it already felt like I was stepping over a line. She wasn't the girl I met who started this. That one was a copy and this was the original.

Still, she had an odd look before we parted company, like she was frustrated and mulling something. As though she missed an in-joke that everyone else knew. Turned her head when something incredible happened. I was once so wrapped up in a random comic book as a kid that I missed Mark screaming about a store robbery. They caught the guy and apparently there was a huge fight and I didn't know until all the excitement was over. Naturally, he berated me about it for months in a dozen different arguments I wasn't allowed to win because I'd been the dumb kid who didn't see a store being robbed.

"Lina. Wait!"

She turned back and waited expectantly for what I was going to say. I could've told her so much. I could've talked about my encounter with...her. I could've mentioned paranormal things and led into what I thought. I could've told her so many things but...no. Instead, I just reminded her about my cousin and offered to give her Lacy's Facebook ID so they could talk about games or whatever.

Her eyes widened as she realized she'd forgotten to get that info. She friended Lacy right then in the Walmart and grimaced at her "oversight". I bid her a good day and I made my orbit slowly away from her. Lacy probably would've seized Lina by the shoulders and done a whole dramatic announcement that she gained a clone on Halloween and what happened to them?! Did they meet? Are there secrets?! Is it El Chewacarbra?

Only Lacy didn't know most of that. That was me. As her. And it was over. It was a fresh year, a better year than those past, and a fresh start for all of us.

Around the hollow plastic bunnies, I got a text message with a warning about the identity of the number. I opened the app to delete it but paused at the title. It was a name, one I hadn't heard in a long time and which I'd only thought about vaguely that Halloween night.

CELIA

The girl from grade school who seemingly vanished like foggy ether, like sublimating snow with just a whisper of breath. I held my breath and shook my head. Just coincidence or some bastard flinging names to scam me.

The contents were a single, soundless video file of a view in the woods. It was grainy but decent, not an old transfer but something more recent with not enough light. But that was impossible.

Standing in a clearing was Celia, exactly as I remembered her in the haze of my memories. A fair, delicate bird of a girl with shimmering, straw-like hair. She still wore that gingham dress and all those ribbons from square dancing, as if the years in between had been the passing of a single day.

She danced in mime without a partner, but they were the same nervous steps we'd practiced a dozen times as children. I tightened my fingers around the phone case and jumped at the logic of an AI turning an old VHS recording into home-brewed CGI.

Someone on the forum must've made it to screw with me, even though most of the people were nice. I hoped no one had sent it to Lacy. With all the fun stuff she planned to do, with turning the attic into a private theater for grandpa's acts revived, she didn't deserve strange questions. And she never EVER would be dicked around by anyone.

But, right before the video ended, Celia stopped. Her relaxed expression twisted in pained alarm. With her hands reaching out, she spoke without voice but my gut sensed her words. They were two simple ones.

"Help...me..."

[Lacy, John, Orson, Lucy, and others will return in Frostwell Paranormalcy: Celia Later]