The girl didn’t take her hand away from her knife. “My sister died. Months and months ago. If you want me to believe you’re her, and not her corrupted spirit, prove it.”
The thing with her sister’s face chewed its lip. Its gaze swept over their parlor and came to settle on the table just beneath the windowsill. On the gods and monsters board.
“Could a corrupted spirit beat you at gods and monsters?”
“My sister couldn’t even beat me at gods and monsters.”
The thing put its hands on its hips and smiled just like her sister smiled. “Is that so?”
It wasn’t so. It was a test.
The thing came toward the window.
The girl drew back, afraid.
It raised its hands, then slowly reached for the black and white pieces scattered on the table, so as not to scare her again.
“Would a corrupted spirit know that this piece is your favorite?”
The thing sitting at the board lifted the ivory caged queen. The girl took it, still wary, then slid down off the sill and sat across the table.
“If I win,” said the thing, setting up the board, “I want you to come cliff jumping with me.”
Its fingers ran gently over the chiseled pieces, as if this was the last game it would ever play and it wanted to memorize everything.
“If you were my sister, you’d know I hate cliff jumping.”
The thing looked up, and their eyes met. “But I love it. I want to do all the things I love tonight. With you.”
The girl softened.
She gave in and played the game.
When the thing wasn’t looking, the girl studied it. It had her sister’s ebony eyes, black frizzy braids, and soft round cheeks. It even had her snaggle tooth. Every now and then, when their father’s voice would float down the halls, still telling stories, the thing with her sister’s face would look up and the girl would watch an unbearable sadness flicker in her eyes.
When the candle was on the verge of guttering, the thing said, “Would a corrupted spirit know the secret code?”
The girl looked up, surprised. Back when their mother suffered from debilitating headaches, on her very bad days, their father instituted a no-talking-in-the-house rule. So the girl and her sister made up a series of complex gestures. They didn’t remember most of them. The fun was in making them up.
One, however, had stuck.
The thing smiled. Very slowly, it reached across the table and touched the girl’s wrist. The girl shivered, even though its hand was warm, its fingers soft. When it found the girl’s wrist bone, it tapped twice.
Pay attention,it meant.I’m about to win the game.
The girl looked to the board and saw, indeed, the game was over. She turned to the grinning face of her sister, who laughed a golden laugh. It was so familiar, that laugh. It was her favorite sound in the world.
“I believe you,” she whispered. “But if you aren’t corrupted, why are you here?”
The grin faded. “I couldn’t cross,” she said, and there was the ache of sorrow in her voice.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Her sister was here, in her true form, to walk among the living on the last night of the year... because she hadn’t been relinquished. She was uncrossed.
“How much time do we have?”
Her sister looked out the window to the sky. Half the night had passed already.
“Just until dawn.”
