The Sisters of Nowhere

t w e n t y - f o u r : c a d i l l a c

Two days before a full moon, ghosts were bound to be more ample in the clearing. During an eclipse year, even more so.

But Wyatt had been watching the clearing almost every night from the greenhouse.

There were barely any.

"The forest is stealing their energy," Marigold Marigold said.

She and Wyatt were taking a lunch break from working on the car. It wasn't anywhere near lunchtime (it was only nine thirty), but Marigold needed a break.

If Wyatt asked why one more time, she was going to banish him from the shop and work on the Cadillac herself.

Her eyes wandered to the sleek vehicle. It was the newest car she'd ever seen: a 1951 Sixty Special with creamy white tires, leather seats, and a shiny exhaust pipe that could be described with no other word than "extravagant".

Marigold hadn't figured out the problem with it yet, but she was more than excited to find out.

Wyatt took a long drink of water, not even noticing that he was placing a greasy hand on the perfectly polished hood. "The forest is hanging onto its existence by a thread. It has to be getting energy from somewhere."

If they summoned the forest, would it make the problem better or worse? Once it had enough energy to be permanent, it wouldn't need to keep feeding off of the energy meant for the ghosts of Nowhere. Would it?

All they knew was that it was only a matter of time before questions would be raised about the shortage in the ghost population around town.

"I guess we'll find out in two days," Marigold said.

"And you're sure you want to do this?" Wyatt asked, watching her with concern etched in his brow.

Marigold's heart fluttered again. She told it to stop, but it tickled her ribcage nonetheless. She shoved a piece of hair behind her ear, wondering how a rich boy from California with a dreamy pair of eyes was enough to make her head all foggy, and said, "I don't think we have much of a choice. If we don't summon it, we might have an angry enchanted forest on our hands."

"And if you do?"

Marigold shrugged a shoulder and finished off her half of the turkey sandwich. "If we do, then the forest will be happy and will stop stealing energy from our ghosts. If the ghosts don't have enough energy to show up for the eclipse, then they could be lost forever."

Wyatt wiped his hands off on his jeans. "I guess that's as good a reason as any. My father always said that the most effective way to do it, is to do it."

Marigold snickered.

They fell quiet for a while, each one avoiding the topic of the car. Neither one of them felt like arguing over it anymore.

Marigold asked, "What was your father like? And your mother? You never talk about them much."

Wyatt immediately wished he hadn't scarfed down his sandwich so quickly--his stomach twisted at the question, immediately making him feel sick. He liked being unknown here in this unknown place. There was freedom in it. But he said, "My father wasn't around. Before we got rich, he was working in an auto parts factory in Holland day and night. I can't say we suffered because I don't remember much of my childhood. I remember being hungry." He left out the part about the bombs. The memory of it seized his heart with fear, even then. It was cowardly, the way he let it hold him captive.

"But then Father struck oil," he went on. "He made a deal with a tycoon in California, which got us the plane tickets out of Holland that people were quite literally killing each other over to get themselves. He worked hard to forget after that. And forgetting looked an awful not like a new car or a new house or a new swimming pool."

Wyatt shrugged again, blinking up at the dusty warehouse ceiling. "And my mother is a lot like the ghosts in Nowhere. There, but not quite. She's always been sickly after those years in Holland. I'd go to tell her goodnight and she'd just put a hand over her eyes and say that now wasn't the time. After Father died, she wouldn't have known what to do with me. She's living with our old nanny after we lost everything."

"I'm sorry," Marigold said, coming over to sit beside him on the hood of the Cadillac. She cast him a sideways glance. "Do you like it in Nowhere? Even with our ghosts and forests and hard work?"

Wyatt grinned. "Yes. I do."

Marigold smiled back. "Good. Then let's fix up this car so you can drive around and see more of it."

~~~~~~~~~~

Birdie, Marigold, and Ophelia sat on the stage in the empty cafeteria. There were only two lights on above the stage, making the rest of the room seem even more empty than it already was.

It was a good night to summon the forest. The moon must've been particularly powerful tonight because the girls could feel it on their skin. The prickle in the air. The steady thrum of energy coursing through their veins.

It was on nights like these that they instinctively stayed together. Maybe it was because there was a subconscious part of them that didn't want to be alone with all the power surrounding them. Or perhaps it was like positively and negatively charged magnets being activated and stuck together.

But maybe it was fear for what they were about to do.

Ophelia was mindlessly sewing a skirt for a costume. Birdie had read the same sentence over and over in her book after her mind kept getting distracted.

Marigold did nothing except sit in a chair and stare off into the empty cafeteria.

Part of them knew that they were embarking on something bigger than them. But the other part of them kept lying to that one, saying, It's to help the ghosts.

They all knew that Silas was more than a ghost. That the forest wasn't merely a forest.

But then again, the Penny sisters weren't merely girls. They were coincidences of a divine sort, the kind that was meant for a purpose, and that purpose was to help ghosts pass into the afterlife.

If there were no ghosts to fulfill that oath, what were they?

And yet, with all the fears and questions running through their minds, not one of them was, Should we be doing this?

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