don''t think about it don''t think about it don''t think about it -


    "Help me, Emilie."


    Ginny felt stupid for breathing the words out into the air, and for the way they hung there unanswered. What would a ghost help her with anyway? Well, a connection to the dead, perhaps. Besides, for a ghost, Emilie seemed to have some kind of tangible power-set.


    If their last interaction had been real.


    If Ginny wasn''t going out of her mind.


    Perhaps talking to the dead wasn''t the answer. There was too much of that happening right now. Since last night, everything had changed. All of this was a lot more serious, a lot more scary. Now with the sun going down on the next evening, Ginny lay on the crisp white bedspread and faced the ceiling, all the indecision and grief in her brain manifesting in the inability to so much as move a finger.


    please don''t think about it, forget it, don''t think -


    "I miss Tessa," she confessed to Emilie, if she was there. "So much. Every single day. I wish I had died in her place." Such a confession might have brought tears in the past, but tonight, it was the bare truth.


    In the silence, her curtains fluttered in a light breeze. The first dip in the evening temperature brought goosebumps out on her arms, below the lace-scalloped short sleeves of yet another cream-coloured vintage dress.


    "I don''t want to think about last night. Can we go back to what happened yesterday, around this time? Can you explain to me what that was? Why it happened? Maybe you can tell me more about your lover. I''m more than happy to listen. I''m like you, in that regard. I''m like you both were. I understand. I don''t know what you would have called it back then. Homosexual? We call it lesbian these days."


    Ginny blushed and covered her face. It was mortifying explaining all this to a ghost; worse still if she wasn''t even here and Ginny was talking to no one.


    Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, and she snatched it up, eager for a distraction. The icon for Cacophony popped up, a string of notifications, and she opened the app. She prefered to check it on her laptop, but that was over on the desk, and she didn''t feel like rising just now. She browsed through the various things she''d been tagged in, dropping emoji reactions here and there. By the time she''d caught up on the chat, Vix had clocked that Ginny was online.


    Vix: hhhhheeeeeeeeeyyyyyy Ginny, how''s the rich bitch villa life???


    She couldn''t possibly tell Vix or the others who would read it later the truth of what was happening in her mind right now, let alone in the house. The burden of death, and the claustrophobia of being stuck here with Kirsten and so much guilt and blame, with sickness hovering like a miasma out in the wider world, an invisible cloud. Especially not with everything her American sisters were currently going through under the assclown dictatorial regime over there.


    She''d better think fast, and make something up.


    Ginny: it could be a bit better, to be honest. How are you?


    Vix: gurrrl, same old bullshit. What do you mean, a bit better?


    Ginny: there was an argument last night. One of our housemates was um... -sneaking through the walls-?!?!


    Vix: Um, I''m sorry, WHAT? <the-what.gif>


    Ginny: Yeah. Yeah, it was super fucked. We all laid into him about it. He''d busted up some of Maika''s stuff by accident, but it was trashed. Like, he knocked over a few bottles of duty-free alcohol, and the glass smashed, it all got everywhere. Then he got all weird and defensive, and then accused Kirsten of wanting to trap us here for some sick revenge story or something. It was really weird. The vibes around the house are so cooked right now


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Vix: GURL. What did I say to you? GET OUT


    Vix: Can you? Please, say you can?!


    Ginny: Um, unfortunately, it''s a little complex with our country''s Ministry of Quarantine and stuff


    Ginny explained it in brief. Of course, MOQ was only part of the problem. Kirsten had said she''d get them a private charter, when they''d first arrived and learned of the lockdowns. But over breakfast that morning, she''d tersely explained that, apparently, it was going to be much harder to arrange than she''d first thought.


    Who was Ginny to complain? Kirsten was bankrolling this whole thing. She''d be the one bankrolling any chartered flights home, that was for sure. Ginny didn''t have the money to scrape together for a trip home, even in cattle class. Her parents had little in the way of liquid assets, only just having finished paying off their mortgage. They couldn''t help.


    So in truth, Ginny was trapped on all sides.


    But it wouldn''t do to share all this with her sistren.


    She dragged on the conversation for a little while long, defensive and lacking in detail as she left out the unpalatable truths of what was really happening to the group. Her email app sent her a notification, which she ignored for a few minutes while she finished her conversation with Vix, then said goodbye. She flicked open the email.


    Her thumb hit the notification as quick as it could.


    It was from Kirsten''s mother, and it said:


    Dear Ginny,


    I hope you don''t mind me writing out of the blue like this. I got your email address from your social media, I hope that''s ok? I know we''ve never spoken much except hello, how are you, goodbye, but I am becoming desperate.


    You''re on holiday with Kirsten right now, aren''t you? I haven''t been able to get a hold of her in a while. We had an argument a month ago, and now she isn''t speaking to me. Please, will you tell her that I am sorry, and I only want to speak to her again? Tell her I won''t bring up the topic again, I promise.


    I just want my daughter back.


    Kind regards,


    Sharon Shufang Lee


    Ginny swallowed, scanning the scant paragraphs again and again for meaning. What was Kirsten arguing about with her mother? Bad enough that she wasn''t even taking to her about it? This wasn''t like her.


    She opened her text app to message Kirsten, typed out a message, then deleted it. After doing this some five or six times, she finally sent:


    Hey, can I come and speak to you? It''s about your mother. She emailed me and said she wants you to know she''s sorry and she just wants to talk to you. I can send you the whole email if you like? Or I can talk about it if you want? Let me know.


    The reply came within half a minute.


    Disregard all communications from her. Nothing to talk about.


    Ginny stared at the screen, her stomach tight with an ill feeling. How was she supposed to just ignore an email like that? Besides it going against every instinct of politeness drilled into her, it made her heart hurt to think of Mrs Lee worrying, half a world away.


    But this was Kirsten''s business, not hers.


    Still, her heart didn''t accept that answer. Family mattered so much. You never knew when they might be taken away from you. What if the pain of Mrs Lee, and the reflection of that pain that Kirsten must be feeling, could be resolved with a conversation?


    don''t think, she tried to tell herself, but it was too late, she was thinking -


    Had there been a conversation Ginny could have had with Tessa which might have saved her? A digging into why, when she always talked about how bad addiction was and how she was going to save Maika from his, why was it that party drugs seemed to hold such an allure for her? Had there been a secret pain Tessa had buried under the fun-loving, easy-going personality? For all the times that Tessa had talked Ginny out of depressed funks and even a close-call attempt of self-ending, had there been a reciprocal line of inquiry which could have saved Tessa''s life?


    Ginny stood abruptly, her eyes watery. She needed company. The impulse to wallow had always been a strong one in her. She owed it to Tessa to go and find a sympathetic human ear right this minute.


    She picked up her phone again.


    Maika, can I talk to you?


    Minutes passed, and there was no response. Her patience ran out.


    She didn''t really want to go out into the corridor, but she did. She didn''t want to go up to Maika''s room either. It would bring last night screaming back to the front of her brain, when all day long she had been trying to avoid thinking about it. But Maika wasn''t answering her messages. She needed to see them.


    So she went.


    When she arrived in their doorway, she found them sprawled on the bed, completely dead to the world. She stood and watched for a while, amusement spreading across her lips.


    Like the moon waning, the grin faded back to a frown.


    "Maika?"


    She stepped forward, to shake them awake.