Ghosts Never Lie
Georgetta saw faces in places where there should be none: in the trunks of oak, the whitewash of walls, the ad signs of city buses… anywhere her eyes centered for more than a second. Worse than their abrupt manifestations were what they said to her, things she didn’t want to know about–like the sidewalk face that told her yesterday Benny busted up his face, pushed front teeth through his lip, and nearly bit his tongue in two. Two days after that, it said that a dog hemorrhaged and crapped out its intestines. Some of the blood had dried and made up the dark red lips on the face.
No one else seemed to hear or see them, and Georgetta suspected they were linked to her burdens, haunting reflections of guilt from her miscarriage and her sister’s death. There had always been jealousy between Georgetta and her sister Pricilla, but she never thought one of their fights would lead to death.
The face in the women’s bathroom stall, sluttish from lipstick graffiti, told her that a boy hid in there often and jacked off to the backsides of unsuspecting women. “He relieved himself on the floor.”
Georgetta zipped up and fled with soap still slinging from her hands.
But the worst faces were those that appeared in the water, specifically the sunless depths of the cold marsh by her house. Bloated with gray, peeling skin, they rose to the surface like relentless nightmares, asking her things she didn’t want to answer. They knew secrets no one else should know about, and with only one route to and from school, Georgetta was forced to confront them daily.
“Why don’t you visit your sister’s grave, Georgetta?” one of the faces asked on her way home from school.
“Shut up! You’re not real.”
On the way home, an angelic layer of snow was beginning to cover the planks of the bridge. Georgetta slowed her step.
The faces never missed an opportunity. “Do you think the authorities believed you?”
“It was an accident.”
Fog-ridden, blue-jelly eyes of the face had entrapped Georgetta’s thoughts, and her foot slipped out from underneath her. She grappled for the railing and struck hold of the post. Her feet dangled above the still, dark mire, a watery black hole that threatened to swallow her just as it had her sister.
Another face rose to the surface–Pricilla’s, with soiled rot at the temple where her head had slapped into a rock.
“Was it really?” Pricilla said. “Too bad you’re not going to have a little one to pass down your sins to.”
“You can haunt me all you want, but I am alive, and you’re dead!”
Pricilla’s face sank back down into the marsh with a satisfied grin. Georgetta ran home, hid under the covers (the one place where the faces never appeared), and cried.
Georgetta’s parents were arguing upstairs again while she was washing the dishes. She began to zone out when a face emerged from the greasy, brown suds. This one had a bullet hole in his head.
“Bet you’re wondering what room I did it in?” he said to her.
“No. I really don’t care,” Georgetta replied with a tightened lip. She reached for the plug.
“Wait!”
Georgetta paused with her hand on the drain knob.
“Your sister,” the face began, “she kept secrets too.”
Georgetta looked behind her–she was still alone. “Like what?”
The face told her to go the bathroom and look inside the cabinet, underneath the bottom shelf. Georgetta found a piece of paper, a receipt from Herbal Remedies–miscarriage blend: black walnut, elecampane, and mistletoe.
Georgetta slammed the cabinet closed. The face in the mirror, the one that always lied, spoke to her.
“You can’t see her reflection, but Pricilla is standing behind you.”
Georgetta refused to believe in her fears. But the smell of frogs and mud permeated the air, and the sharp coldness of water splashed against her ankles.
