The three of us are sitting around my oval glass table that doesn't look like it belongs in this old-fashioned kitchen. My grandmother's furniture was in poor condition, so most of it was either sold at sale or trashed. I kept some items meaningful to me that withstood the test of time, like the solid oak furniture in my childhood bedroom.

The tabletop has scattered aged parchment paper across the surface containing the answers to our questions.

"It looks like you're not the first person in our family to become a guardian ghost," I say, bringing my beer bottle to my lips and savoring the bitter taste of the ice-cold beverage.

"What do you mean?" Faith inquires, her eyes flickering with curiosity.

I move the papers towards Eliza. "Am I reading this right?"

Eliza takes a moment to study the contents.

"From what I'm reading, through hundreds of generations, twin babies were born into your family, but only one ever survived. The other went on to be ghosts that watched over and protected their siblings until they reunited upon the previous living twin's death. At that time, the secret returns to this box," she says, absentmindedly patting the lid of the family heirloom,

Faith and I stare knowingly at each other.

"Our grandmother had a twin that also died during childbirth," Faith tells Eliza.

"What's the point of revealing the twin upon the death of the previous living twin in your family?" Eliza asks while flipping over the page I handed her, looking for the answer to her question.

My hands shuffle the papers around until I find what I want. "Here it is," I say, waving the found paper proudly in the air.

"Do you want to do the honors," I ask Faith, placing the document in front of her.

Her eyes meet mine before dropping to the floor. She pushes the paper back to me. "I don't know how to read; you read it," she whispers.

"What? But weren't you with me my entire life, watching over me, protecting me? Wouldn't that mean you heard everything the teachers taught?" I inquire, not believing she never learned to read when by my side.

Finally, she lifts her eyes to meet mine, her mouth curving into a sly smile. "Can you blame me? I was not interested in the nonsense dripping from your teacher's mouth. What was the point? I did my job: keeping you safe. Remember when you were eight, chasing after a ball that escaped your hands and rolled down the driveway? You took off after it but fell as the ball went into the street, getting hit by that car? That was me protecting you."

"What did you do, push her down?" Eliza said, laughing.

Faith's eyes sparkle with mischief. "Maybe."

"I scraped my knee, broke my pinkie, and got a concussion from my head smacking against the pavement. How was that protecting me?" I ask, stunned by the discovery that my injuries were the result of my sister pushing me when she was to protect me.

"Did you die?"

"Well, no, but..."

"You're welcome," Faith says, smiling smugly.

I roll my eyes and continue scanning the strewn papers before me when something catches my eye. "Well, would you look at this," I say while handing Eliza my find.

She takes a minute to read what I found.

"What? What did you find?" Faith says, sounding like an anxious little girl.

"The reason that I can see you," Eliza says, grinning at me before squeezing my hand. "I feel the same way, Bestie."

"What?" Faith demands with a hint of irritation in her voice.

"The reason that Eliza can see you," I explain.

"Oh, why can she see me?" Faith says the look of annoyance, replaced with curiosity.

I smile one more time at Eliza, answering Faith.  "It says in the third paragraph that the first person the ghost meets when they become visible to their twin can see them. However, the living twin has to care about that individual."

Realization washes over Faith's face. "Oh, yeah, that does make sense. So no one else will be able to see me?"

"No, only Eliza."

Faith lets out a breath of relief. I get the feeling that she was nervous about others being able to see her and that they would freak out when they saw she was a ghost.

We spend our time combing through the entire document till darkness takes over, hoping to find something about this strange phenomenon and to discover when and why this happened to our family.