She stared at it.
She’d been poking at things, pushing things, trying to blow on things now for over a year and she’d never made even one of Sally’s drawings on the refrigerator so much as sway.
But that book was half an inch off-kilter from the rest of them and that was not how Little Miss Tidy and Perfect Isabella Evangahlala left it.
Then she heard it and her ghostly head snapped to the side.
Jason.
She dematerialized and materialized in his room.
She should have known when he got out the guitar. It happened every time he brought out her guitar. It hadn’t happened in awhile, so long, Fiona thought it was over.
He was screaming.
Nightmares.
He’d had them since before she died. So, when she was just sick in bed and too weak to get to him, she’d heard that screaming with her true ears and she’d detested it but detested it more that she was the cause of it.
She still detested it.
Prentice was in the room in a flash and he knew the drill.
Hands on Jason’s shoulders, he sat on the side of the bed, his naturally deeper than deep burr rumbling with sleep and emotion. “Jason, mate, it’s a dream. Just a dream.”
“It’s not a dream!” Jason shouted. “She’s gone, isn’t she? Gone!”
And so it began, the battle, loud and agonizing.
Jason would often get physical and tonight was one of those nights.
Fiona hovered and watched for awhile then she floated through her bairns’ bathroom to Sally.
Sometimes she slept through it.
Tonight, unfortunately, wasn’t one of those nights.
Sally was sitting up in bed, her head turned in the direction of the noise, her little face pale.
Then she threw back the covers and Fiona knew where she was going.
She always went to Prentice’s bed, got in, pulled the covers over her head and waited until it was over and Prentice was back. Then she’d cuddle close, his arms would wrap around her, and she’d sleep with her Daddy.
When this happened, Fiona would stay with them for awhile and then she’d spend the rest of the night hovering next to Jason.
Sally jumped out of bed and Fiona floated with her.
But Sally didn’t go to Prentice’s room.
She ran to the stairs. Then she ran down them. Then she ran through the great room, down the hall and she turned to the stairs to the guest suite.
Fiona’s ghostly bottom half kept floating forward even as her ghostly torso locked in place and she stared with ghostly eyes at what she saw.
Sitting on the stairs, leaned nearly double, her elbows at her knees, her forehead resting in the palms of her hands in a pose that screamed anguish, was Isabella Evangahlala.
As Fiona’s legs settled back, Isabella’s head came up and her eyes locked on Sally.
Then she opened her arms and legs and Sally, who had halted, raced into the woman’s arms.