The next day, Sarah was two and a half books into her library haul when the call from Principal Orr came. She'd need a visit to the local pediatrician ("You're missing quite a few booster vaccinations, young lady"), but after getting the required jabs, she would be free to attend classes. For the first time since Jane had first proposed this trade-off, Sarah was excited about the possibilities.

But Doctor Lee couldn't see her until Thursday morning. It had also been raining for almost twenty-four hours, so tidying the garden was out of the question, as well. Resigned to finishing reading everything she'd checked out, Sarah made herself a fresh mug of peppermint tea and hunkered down on a big armchair in the parlor.

A fire roared in the hearth, not only warming the air, but also giving it a scent of burning pine. It was pleasant at first, but after finding herself re-reading the same paragraph three times from being distracted by the stuffiness, Sarah slammed the book shut, placed the hardback on the chair, and stepped to the nearest window.

She unlatched and lifted the pane, and a cool breeze blew through the screen as rainwater poured down from the overflowing gutter.

"Sarah? Could you come into the kitchen for a second?" Jane asked from the other side of the house, drawing her away for a moment.

After helping her aunt take the stand mixer out of a high cabinet, Sarah returned to read. But she hadn't made it two pages before sweat was rolling from her brow.

"What the heck?" she mumbled, looking at the window and finding it closed. How odd.

Sure that the old hardware must have just allowed the pane to slide back down, she went to the window again, reached down and pulled upward. But it wouldn't budge.

Sarah checked the latch and gasped. It had been turned to the 'locked' position.

She stepped back in surprise. What in the world was going on? There was no one in the house besides her and Jane, and neither of them had been back in the parlor since she'd first opened the window. Could it have both slid closed and automatically locked itself?

Sarah knew it was impossible, but what else could explain it?

After inspecting the newly open window one more time to make sure that it was securely up and unlocked with nothing in the way, she returned to her book. Although the bang of a pan or the sound of the mixer from Jane's latest baking endeavor occasionally broke the silence, Sarah finished two more chapters before looking up again.

While the sun was now lower in the sky, the window was still open and it was still raining.

A glance at the fire told her it was time to throw a few more logs on to keep it from dying, so she reluctantly left the cozy seat and fed the diminishing flames.

Bang.

Sarah snapped her head toward the loud sound, dropping the piece of wood in her hand in shock. The window had shut so vehemently, the drapes were now swaying from the disturbance. And Jane was definitely not the culprit because from the chopping and humming coming from the other room, she was clearly still in the kitchen.

"Jane!" Sarah frantically yelled out as she rose from her crouched position at the hearth.

Her aunt ran over, butcher's knife in hand. "Is everything okay?" she asked as her eyes scanned the room for signs of an intruder or any other evil based on Sarah's panicked call.

Sarah pointed to the window, which now appeared to be as ordinary as any other in the house. "The window," she said, unsure of how she should describe what she thought just happened, without sounding like a complete nutcase. "I think there's something wrong with it."

A look of relief flashed across Jane's face. "Oh," she exhaled, lowering the knife. "What's the problem? Is it stuck again? You know--"

"The opposite, actually," Sarah interrupted. "It won't stay open. It's happened twice now. Every time I look away, I guess it slides back down? Is that something you've had happen before?"

Jane laughed and walked to the window. Trying the lock, she flicked it to the open position again and lifted the pane.

"What's so funny? I swear I'm telling the truth. I didn't close and lock the window, if that's what you're laughing at," Sarah said, feeling increasingly defensive at her aunt's reaction.

But Jane waved her off. "Oh, no. Not at all. I'm laughing mostly out of relief," she said. Sarah must have looked extra confused because after a short pause, her aunt continued, "You see, I was wondering how long it would take her to show up or even whether you'd get to meet her. But it only took her less than three days to reveal her presence. That's quite complimentary."

"Sorry, but I don't follow. Like, at all. Who are you talking about?" Sarah asked, looking around. "There's no one else here."

Jane smirked. "Oh, I'm talking about Mabel, my ghost-in-residence."

Sarah took a step back and stumbled into the armchair. "Your ghost?" she asked, partly relieved that she wasn't the only potentially crazy person in the room, while fearing the greater implications of the discovery. After all, her mom was--

She stopped her train of thought in its tracks. Her mom's condition was her own, and it had nothing to do with Sarah or Jane. And it certainly had nothing to do with a ghost named Mabel.

Jane sat on the near end of the couch and wiped her hands on her apron. "It's all conjecture, of course," she admitted with a smile. "I mean, no scientist has ever found definitive proof of spirits of the dead haunting the living, now have they?"

Oddly, the pivot to skepticism made Sarah feel a bit more reassured. "Then who's Mabel?"

Her aunt leaned closer. "I've lived in this house most of my adult life, right? I know every creak and the contents of each corner," she said. "And over the years, things have just happened that I could never explain."

Sarah's interest piqued. "Like what?" she asked, feeling the hairs on her arms stand on end in anticipation.

Jane leaned back again and sighed. "Oh, I don't know. Like objects moving from where I'm certain I'd last put them. Or appliances turning on or off when I'm not even nearby."

"Or like the window locking by itself?" asked Sarah, with increasing relief. If these were the only signs of a haunting, it sounded less like Jane had a ghost than that she was becoming more forgetful with age in an equally deteriorating home.

"Yes, like the window, too," Jane confirmed, but seeing Sarah's increasingly doubting expression made her continue. "And I know that this all sounds like stuff off a subreddit, but I can feel that there's something here."

Although she believed that her aunt was totally serious in what she thought she experienced, Sarah was nearly ready to forget the whole silly conversation. But there was still one more thing she had to clarify. "And her name is Mabel?" she asked.

Jane laughed. "That's what I call her, yes," she said. "But honestly, I don't even know if she's a she, much less what her real name is. There's just been an overwhelming feeling of--how can I put this--maternal compassion, I guess, in what she does."

Sarah must have looked confused again, because she continued.

"I mean, many of the things she--my ghost--has done for me were things that a good mother would do. Like, I can't even tell you how many times I've misplaced my keys and then in the last minutes before I had to leave the house, they'd be right there in the middle of the counter or next to my purse," she said.

It still sounded to Sarah like her aunt was just really bad at keeping track of her stuff, but she rolled with the theory. "So she closed the window because she didn't want me to catch a cold?"

"Yes!" Jane exclaimed. "I'm so glad you're getting it. And that you aren't frightened because you really shouldn't be. Mabel has never shown me or anyone else who's experienced her presence any ill-will. I guess if I had to be stuck with a ghost, I couldn't find a better one than her."