Ginny stepped lightly on the stairwell, hoping to pass like the mist outside, soft and inoffensive, undetectable after a while. She needn't have worried; she ran into no one as she ascended, and found herself in her room safe and alone.

  It was funny, or would be, if it wasn't so frustrating. First Kirsten was keen to sit with the ghost, then she was wanting to leave; first Chad refused to believe in ghosts, and now from that overheard conversation, apparently he did believe and actually wanted to stay. If those two, usually the more decisive ones in the group, were wavering back and forth, what hope did she and Maika have?

  And yet, the two of them seemed the calmest about it all. If anything, Ginny wished she were having a stronger reaction. She would readily invite visitation with a ghost, especially a ghost like Emilie who seemed pleasant enough, not some vengeful shade. Perhaps it was a silly thing to want, given her past experience with death. But she wanted more than just the whisper-touch of Emilie's presence flying through her fingers on the typewriter. Was it possible to speak with her? Or perhaps to see her?

  Looking around the room, Ginny caught her own reflection in the small oval mirror on the wall, and froze.

  Wasn't it supposed to get easier over time? In both regards: wasn't she supposed to see herself as she should be, and wasn't she supposed to heal from her loss?

  Because it never went away, creeping up on her at times, weeks or even months apart: the sight of her twin sister in the reflection, older than she ever had been in life. The idea that Ginny was trying to replace Tessa never quite left her, despite the fact that she knew in her heart, and logically too, that her identity was true, had predated Tessa's loss.

  Replacing her. The notion settled on Ginny's gut like nausea. Maika had just asked her out. At the time it had been awkwardly charming, and he'd brushed off the rejection with grace. But was he also trying to replace Tessa with Ginny?

  Ginny didn't even want to broach the subject with him. If he hadn't been thinking that, then it would be a horrible disservice to him to remind him of his dead girlfriend. And if he had been thinking it, even subconsciously, then that was worse, and she wouldn't want to know.

  She shook her hands out and dove, not for the typewriter as she originally had intended, but for the laptop on the bed, and the company of her Cacophony friends.

  Ginny: Hiya ladies ^_^

  Vix: Gin <3 how's the jet setting life, babe?

  BlackCat13: Ginny! Those photos you shared were EV.ER.Y.THING

  Ginny: Haha, thanks! Yeah I'm doing fine, I

  Her hands hovered over the keyboard as she fought the impulse to brush everything under the rug as she always did.

  Ginny: Haha, thanks! So... things -could- be better. I don't want to be all first world problems, but...

  At their cajolement, she laid it all out for them: the uneasiness during the travelling and the arrival; Kirsten's snappishness, Maika's sweetness, and then Chad's outright unrighteous rage; the discovery that they were all writing about the same dead woman, and therefore there must be a ghost present; ending with the change of hearts of Kirsten and Chad. She did not mention Maika asking her out. That was still to fresh, and she wasn't sure yet if it qualified as a wound, like all the other trials so far.

  Vix: GURL. Uh... have you seen Get Out? Need I say more?

  Vix: Not in the racism part, obvs, but in the like… you know you're in a horror movie, you know you need to get out, right???

  BlackCat13: You're having us on, right? About the ghost shit. That can't be real.

  Vix: RIGHT????

  Ginny: Hand on heart, 13, I shit you not. We are seriously all writing the same story, with no prior planning. I wouldn't believe it either, if I wasn't experiencing it myself.

  Vix: GET OUT.

  Ginny: I don't think Emilie is a bad ghost.

  Vix: Gurrrrrrrrrl what are you doing, get OUT

  BlackCat13: Ok, ok, Vix, just shh for a min. Setting aside the whole ghost thing, which like... Vix does have a point there. But look...

  BlackCat13's typing went on for a while. Ginny watched the screen, tucking her hands into her armpits so she didn't respond pre-emptively.

  Vix: Cat, what?? You're killing me with the suspense.

  BlackCat13: Ummmm... far be it from me to say this, Ginny, but... why are you even friends with these people? I mean, Maika, they seem lovely, so I'm not including them. The other two though. Chad seems downright hostile. And Kirsten... sounds... difficult? I suppose you get mad perks like this trip you're on for being her friend, but... is it worth the drama?

  Ginny whipped her hands out to reply, but her fingers froze, many answers at war to spill forth from them. Why? Because she still had a crush on Kirsten. Because the group put up with her always sending her same story to them time and time again, year after year, through all the rewrites and overhauls. Because she knew in her heart that they were all good people and loved each other. Even Chad, she had thought, though she wasn't so sure about that anymore.

  The main reason could never be said, of course.

  Ginny: It's... really complicated. Some people, you know, you just... have like, a history with, yeah? And you can't get rid of them because if you do, you're excising a part of yourself

  BlackCat13: Ginny, I love you, but that is some co-dependent asshatery right there

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Vix: Cat?!?!?!

  BlackCat13: and I'm pretty sure you know it

  BlackCat13: sorry, but it needs to be said xoxox

  Ginny: maybe

  BlackCat13: Sorry Gin. You know I'm only saying this out of love, right?

  Ginny: Yeah. I know.

  Vix: You could -maybe- have put it a little nicer?!

  BlackCat13: True, but... I think it's time for tough love. Ginny, Vix is right, but for a different reason. Get out - not just of the house, but away from Kirsten and Chad too, before one of them murders you, or each other. That shit is TOXIC.

  Ginny: I'll give it some thought.

  Most of her wanted to do nothing of the sort. She made her excuses, said her goodbyes, and shut her laptop lid, dropping her head on it with a sigh.

  After a moment, she faced the typewriter, trying to drum up the will to sit in front of it. No. Her mood was ruined. A trip to the kitchen for a hot chocolate might help.

  She met Maika coming back inside while she waited for the jug to boil.

  "I thought you'd be writing?"

  "I got distracted, then I got into a weird funk, so I decided a hot drink might help shift my mood. Do you want one? I'm making hot chocolate."

  "Mean! Yeah, hook us up."

  Ginny went about the motions of getting the mug out, spooning powder into them, not ready to face Maika completely in case they saw in her eyes how ragged her online interaction had left her. But Maika spoke instead. "Gin, I think... I think I might have sorta... felt Emilie with me just now. I had a smoke while you were gone, and then I sat down to write, but... it was like a waking dream. It was like she was looking over my shoulder. I wonder if the others have felt this. Have you?"

  She shook her head and forced a smile as she brought over their steaming mug. "No. Nothing quite so intense yet." She hoped they couldn't see or hear the intense wave of jealousy rollicking through her gut at present. Why hadn't the ghost touched her in such a manner yet? Did Emilie not like her, or approve of her? Could a ghost be transphobic? That would be pretty fucked. Maybe Vix was right. Maybe she should get out.

  The hot drink burned the roof of her mouth as she rushed to finish it. There was only one thing for this feeling: get back upstairs, sit at that typewriter, and hope to feel Emilie's presence.

  Too hot from the drink, breathing heightened from the dash up the stairs, Ginny sat at the typewriter and stared at the blank page.

  Come on, Emilie. Where are you?

  Her gaze floated past the page and the keys to the small assemblage of books arranged to the side. She picked up Orlando: A Biography and stroked the cover. A painted figure of hard-to-determine gender graced the cover, between the title and the author's name.

  Ginny rested her hand there, and looked vaguely up, letting her eyes unfocus, as if that might help her find Emilie. "If I could tell you to read one book and you'd understand me, this is the one," she murmured to the room at large. There was no discernible response. She pointed at the artwork on the cover. "This is like me." She pointed to the name Virginia. "And this is where I got my name." Okay, that part was a lie. Or a personal myth, but Emilie didn't have to know that. How would a ghost from over a century ago understand picking a name from a popular children's book only to regret doing that when the author revealed herself through tiny electronic missives to be a hate-filled mould-dwelling swamp creature? No, the reimagined origin of Virginia Woolf as the source of Ginny's name was far better a tale.

  "I'm closer to you than you might think," she whispered, putting the book down on the desk. "I'm half dead. My twin sister... she's gone." She squeezed her eyes shut. "All right, maybe that's a little melodramatic when I say it like that, but... but it feels true."

  A breeze stirred the curtains in the room, and that was not possible. The door was shut. The windows were all closed. The trees outside, silhouettes in the mist, were still. There was no wind at all. Ginny stayed as still as she could, and closed her eyes.

  "I'm here, Emilie." Nothing. "I'm -"

  Something touched her. Ginny fought every instinct to move, resisting her eyes opening, her hands wanting to flail. The only thing she couldn't fight was the harsh inhale and the stiffening of her spine. "I'm here," she gasped out, her hands finding the keys and flashing across them before she knew what was happening.

  She opened her eyes.

  Virginie, c'est toi?

  Struggling to get her breath back, Ginny gripped the sides of the paper. Her hands were shaking.

  Oui! she typed back.

  And then she was typing, the fever gripping her as the words spilled forth, more rapidly than any of the previous writing sessions of the last two days. Another dimension of Emilie was opening up to her: something about the neighbour was important - no, so much more than just important. Ginny wept as the truth came into being at the tips of her fingers, without the intervention of her own imagination, or so it felt.

  When it was done, Ginny clasped her tired hands to her chest and sobbed. When she had her breath back, she whispered to the room, "Thank you. I'm so sorry this happened to you, Emilie. I will write for you. I will let the world know what happened. I see you, Emilie. You don't have to stay trapped like this. If I could hold you and comfort you, I would. I'm so sorry."

  Ginny closed her eyes, and breath from another mouth brushed against her lips.

  She fell, and arms took her up, until she was sure she was floating. To look would be to break the spell. She kept her eyes closed, and surrendered to the questing sensations roving over her body - even when the rending of her precious dress tore through the stillness of the room, even when she felt for mere flashes of moments breath on her neck, real flesh under her hands, moisture against her lips and tongue.

  Yes, she either thought or said, it was hard to know which in her breathless state. The urge of ecstacy was upon her. The insistence of why and how, negligible, as her body twisted against the impossible.

  When she returned from that place, she found herself sprawled on the floor, her chair lying on its back, as if she had fallen backwards in it. But her dress was dishevelled - no, more than that, torn in places, but she didn't mind - and something had definitely happened, if a certain moist feeling was anything to go by. She hurried to the nearest bathroom, still thankfully undiscovered, cleaned herself up and changed into a fresh dress.

  Looking in the bathroom mirror, she saw only herself this time. A woman, affirmed by another woman - especially now that she understood what exactly had happened with Emilie in life, who she was, her secret life. Ginny smiled and sighed, then giggled and hid her blushing face.

  None of the others were going to understand this. Okay, maybe Maika would. One day, eventually, she might tell Maika what had happened. They might even believe her.

  In the meantime though, she needed to tell all three of them what she had written on the typewriter. "They need to know what happened to you, Emilie. Is that okay? I can understand if you wouldn't want people to know, but you have to understand, in this time, people are somewhat open to these things. It's all right. They'll understand. If you don't want them to know, give me a sign."

  There was no response.

  Ginny rushed past her room, chucking her ruined dress in through the door and hurrying down the stairs. She'd left Maika in the kitchen, so hopefully they were still there. Chad and Kirsten had bedrooms on the floor below, so she went in search of them first.

  She came to Chad's room. The door was ajar. She knocked, and when there was no answer, she peeked her head in. "Chad?"

  He wasn't there. She turned to leave, when she heard it.

  Ping, ping, ping, ping, wa-ping, ping, wa-ping - a constant barrage of notifications, the sound turned low enough that it was only just audible from the doorway. What was going on over there, on Chad's open laptop?

  Ginny stepped closer. The screen was lit up, and the right hand side was a constantly-updating screed of the same notification popping up over and over again.

  Your remote machine 'AI Writing Slave #69' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.

  Your remote machine 'AI Writing Slave #69' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.

  Your remote machine 'AI Writing Slave #69' has suffered a critical error and needs to be manually restarted.