Halloween Story 2.0

When my sister Celine died, mama didn’t make me go to school for two weeks. I was in second grade and Celine in third. Had been in third.  We always did everything together. But between the shock of her passing, and then the funeral…it was all sad and a mystery to me. I’d never known anyone who had died before.

I could hear my mother crying every night, and my father not saying anything, just staring off at the television. Everyone just trying to hold it together as best they could I guess. For themselves, and for me. Still hardly believing it had really happened.   

One night a week after the funeral there was a really heavy rainstorm. Rain pounded on the roof and tapped on the window panes. I woke up and Celine was standing there beside the bed. Beside our bed. Because we had always slept together. She didn’t say a word, just climbed in with me and put her head on my chest. She wasn’t even wet from the rain, and I could feel her breath as I drifted back off to sleep. 

The next night was the same. I woke up and she was standing there. But this time she spoke.

“Get up and play with me Jim.”

And we played almost the whole night, all the fun games we used to play together. It was so much fun to be with my sister again and laugh and play, just the two of us. And when I woke up the next morning I was barely even tired. Just so happy to know that when we put her in that small coffin and buried it in the ground she hadn’t really died. And she could still come back and be with me at night.

We played every night for a while. Sometimes I could hardly believe we didn’t wake our parents, we made so much noise laughing and hiding and chasing each other around the room. It was so much fun, maybe even more fun than before she died. Because the adults didn’t hear anything, and we could play as loud as we wanted. And when I woke the next morning our room was cleaned up, and all the toys put back in their places. Celine must have done that.

One night after we had played Celine looked sad and asked me,

“Jim, would you come back with me tonight? It’s always cold where I am. And dark. I haven’t made any friends there, and spend the whole day shivering, just waiting for night when I can come and play with you. If you came back with me we could play all day and all night, and we’d always be together.”

She looked so sad I thought she was going to cry. 

“What about Mom and Dad?”

“Oh they’ll be ok. You can see they’re already used to not having me around. It wouldn’t take long until they didn’t miss us anymore. Or maybe just a little bit.” 

“It’s time for me to go. Won’t you please come with me?”

She moved toward the open window and I put my shoes on and started to follow. I was thinking how much fun my sister and I would have being together all the time.

And then, as she put one leg over the sill and began to climb through, a light came on, the door opened, and my mother was standing there. 

“Jim, what are you doing up? And with your shoes on?”

I looked toward the window but now it was closed. And Celine was gone.