After I Died, My Family Lost Their Minds

I felt the floor drop out from under me, so I closed my eyes and waited quietly to die.

Then came a solid smack.

She'd lunged crooked, missed her footing, went down face-first, and rolled the whole flight.

Which is how I dodged Tessa Ashford's plan to shove me to my death.

I opened my eyes, looked at the empty space beside me, and shrugged.

Too bad. Still alive.

Tessa's sobbing tore up the stairwell.

I ignored it, turned around, and went looking for a good spot to tuck myself into and wait for the end in peace.

One loop of the second floor and I found it: the ventilation duct above the bathroom, its cover not quite shut.

Dark, narrow, wrapped in sheet metal.

A perfect drawer in a morgue.

I climbed in, folded my hands over my stomach, and closed my eyes, satisfied.

Downstairs, Tessa's crying had summoned the entire household.

"She said that as long as she was here there'd be no place for me in this family! And then she pushed me down the stairs on purpose!"

Mom, Dad, and my older brother Ryan came up the stairs in a fury, ready to confront me.

They tore through the rooms one by one. Finally Ryan kicked the bathroom door open.

A flashlight beam swung up into the duct.

And lit up me, lying flat and straight inside it.

The air went dead for a second.

Tessa's crying cut off like someone had stepped on a squeaky toy and then taken their foot off it.

Mom pointed up with a shaking finger. "You just said... she pushed you down the stairs?"

Tessa's face went white, then blotchy. She forgot to keep crying.

But she recovered fast, threw herself into Mom's arms, and wailed even harder.

"No wonder she dodged me when I tried to say hello.

"I wasn't even going to fall. I'd just gotten up and I heard something moving in the ceiling. I thought it was a ghost.

"I panicked, my foot slipped, and I went down. That's why I thought she'd pushed me."

She twisted her fingers into Mom's blouse. "Does Claire hate me? Was she playing ghost up there to scare me off?"

Ryan heard that and glared up at me like he wanted to put a hole through the metal.

"Claire! You've got a whole house and you'd rather hide in a vent like a rat?

"I think you crawled in there on purpose to scare Tessa and get her to fall down the stairs!"

I opened my eyes a little and gave them a hollow glance.

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know lying here could scare her.

"I'll shift a bit further in and keep quiet. Would that be better?"

I scooted deeper. My back knocked the sheet metal with a dull boom.

That noise was what finally set Dad off.

He came up with a golf club from somewhere and swung it hard against the metal duct.

"Claire! Tessa's been in this house seventeen years and never had so much as a hair on her head harmed!

"You come home and the whole place is in an uproar!"

His face was thick with disgust.

"Are the Ashfords short a bed for you? Get out here. Now."

I didn't get out.

Even if I had, I wouldn't have known which room to go to.

Because they hadn't given me one.

In the end two of the security men hauled me out of the duct by force.

I came out coated in dust and got dumped on the living room floor.

Mom patted the trembling Tessa with one hand and looked down at me.

"Go get cleaned up. Pick any room in the house you like.

"But you are not — ever — to play ghost and frighten Tessa again."

To make sure I couldn't get back in, they had the grilles welded shut over every duct in the house.

Still covered head to toe in dust, I walked the second floor.

There were plenty of rooms.

A music room, a study, an art studio, a gym, a dressing room.

All Tessa's.

Even the little junk room at the far end of the hall. The maid rolled her eyes at me.

"That got turned into Tessa's yoga studio yesterday."

I nodded. Fair enough.

If there was no room in this house for the living, I'd find somewhere fit for burying the dead.

So I pushed open the door of the greenhouse out back.

Perfect — a few long empty planter boxes in the corner.

I picked the one with the softest soil and lay down in it.