Love.

Arielle had never been in love, not once. She'd had a few boyfriends, a couple of torrid affairs in college, many crushes... but never love. Never. Nor had she ever had the craving to go through such emotions. Not after witnessing her friends experiencing heartbreaks, being cheated on, falling out of love.

Leave it to me to fall, and for someone who has died. And... a girl?

That was unexpected. She'd always drooled over guys, melted for soft green eyes and chiseled torsos and muscular arms. She enjoyed the flirting and the kisses and the sex.

But... a girl? A woman? And of all women—her best friend?

She shivered, returning to Stella's rant about the lack of thickness of the milkshake she'd ordered. "... and I mean, why? What's the point of a liquidy, slushy mess like this, huh?"

"So true, Stel, so true."

Her thoughts didn't subside as they left the diner. Jade jimmied about in her mind as she drove to the hotel. She heard her honeyed voice as they checked in, smelled her Chanel as they settled in their room, felt her arms wrapped around her as she showered off the remnants of their eerie day.

And as they slipped into their beds, the visions only grew worse. Jade's beautiful, bouncy curls, and how she twirled them around her fingers. Her contagious laugh when Arielle failed at telling a joke. The way her hips swayed while wearing her drunk-girl stilettos, dancing to the rhythm of some outdated techno song. And the curve of her figure when she glimpsed her reflection and complained.

Arielle always believed she had nothing to complain about. She was perfect.

I thought I admired her, envied her... but was it more?

She tossed and turned, thankful her subconscious pictured Jade alive, for once. Not as a specter swooshing down hallways and leaving bloody scratch marks on the walls.

***

"But Mom—"

"—I mean it, love, you should be paying attention." Mrs. Sullivan's unctuous voice buzzed out of the phone.

"—Mom! Seriously, listen to me—"

Arielle shot up, panting, freezing. The balcony door was open, letting in a cool breeze as Stella stood in the threshold, speaking in a loud whisper to her mom—who was on speaker.

"You should listen, Stella!"

"Mom, enough!"

Rubbing her arms, Arielle peeked at the flickering light sweeping across the tiny patio, then checked the time—two in the morning.

Splendid job on the discretion, Stel.

"Sweetheart, it's a sign."

"A sign of what? Food poisoning? I swear that cream cheese tasted funky—"

"—no, of power! People in tune to their spiritual selves don't get nauseous, but those who refuse their gift and shove it down do!" The woman's usually airy, in-another-world tone laced with a firmness Arielle didn't recognize.

She rubbed her eyes, bracing to yell at Stella to pipe down.

"But people who ate something bad become nauseous, too! That was not the point of my text! I asked for a remedy so I can quit taking stupid Tums, not for this late night call!"

Arielle slithered further into her covers, pulling them up to her chin, closing her eyes and pretending to sleep.

She's still sick? I thought she was okay... she ate normally at the diner.

"It's too coincidental," said Mrs. Sullivan, her timbre piercing through the speaker, squeaky and impatient. "You visit a well-known center of intense spiritual energy, and the second you pass its entrance... your insides twist? Nothing regular about that. It's a manifestation of your abilities, I'm telling you. They sensed your negativity, your reluctance... and tried to prove their presence to you. They wanted your help, and I know the door-slamming stuff scared you—"

"—Mom!"

Arielle gripped the blankets tight.

She told her mom about that?

"Don't deny it! Your text... Arielle pushed and it worried me—honey, I can read through the lines. It's scary when you first have those sensations, I remember mine—"

"—ugh, you sound like you're giving me a sex-talk, not trying to convince me I have your stupid medium gene."

"It's not stupid, Stella!" Again, Mrs. Sullivan raised her voice. Arielle imagined her massaging her temples and taking meditative breaths. "Nausea aside, you did feel something... someone... in that prison, right?"

Silence. Arielle opened her eyes and caught Stella glancing at her bare feet, wiggling her toes.

"Ugh..." Stella's head tipped back and she faced the navy sky sprinkled with stars, shaking out her sleek curls that shone silver in the faint balcony light. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but... yes, I sensed activity. Something or someone, as you said."

"Of course you did! But you're visiting places with heavy history and you're not prepared, you didn't do the cleansing rituals I gave you!" Sadness spilled from Mrs. Sullivan's tone; the disappointment she always had at Stella's refusal to acknowledge her heritage. "It would have helped, I promise."

"Right, but you barked orders at me and shoved your crap about spirits and the dead and seances down my throat, trying to force me to believe. It doesn't work that way." Stella swerved to glimpse into the room, so Arielle sealed her eyelids and feigned sleep.

"Then how does it work? You can't push me away forever. Every woman in this family has the gift and declining it... will only make it manifest in harsher and more painful ways." Mrs. Sullivan swallowed. "Like now."

"Fine." Stella's voice carried out onto the balcony again. Arielle dared a quick peep and noticed her friend had stepped past the threshold, standing out in the cold. "Then tell me this—how do I make it stop? I don't want this, I don't. There has to be some... some ritual you can do to pull this shit out of me. I can't have these genes, Mom, I can't."

"Stella Sullivan!" More sternness, more disgruntled discontent at Stella's denial. "How many times do I have to remind you? There's nothing I can do. Genes are genes, and you, my sweet, have the gene. Every single woman in our family does."

"Yeah? Well, it's a fucking curse, and I want it out." Stella's tone near matched her mom's—an outsider would listen to them and guess at once that they were related.

Arielle pictured Mrs. Sullivan. Her identical platinum hair—not dyed, the vivid color was hereditary—with her plummy, indigo eyes. Appearing as a celestial witch, always garbed in black silks or navy velvet. A goddess, a queen, a fierce believer in the occult. Slender, unlike Stella and her curves, Mrs. Sullivan had the same tendency for vibrant, red-hued nail polish and eccentric jewelry.

They're more alike than Stella wants to admit.

"It's not a curse, daughter of mine. It's a gift, and you wouldn't be texting me late at night for stomach pain relief if you didn't want me to call you. You know me, I worry. My crystal—"

"—oh please, don't start with your crystal." Stella's groan resembled an animalistic growl. "Stop spotting ulterior motives in everything I do! I texted you because I couldn't sleep and needed a quick fix for it!"

"Uh huh, well, sorry—there's no quick fix for ghost-induced nausea, Stella." The line was silent for a moment, and Arielle slid to the edge of the bed, eager to hear the rest. She almost tumbled onto the floor in her haste to eavesdrop.

Stella was pacing outside, drawing the phone away from the door, muffling their conversation. Arielle wondered why she used the speaker... but then she remembered Stella had a multitude of quirks. One of them was fear of holding a phone receiver to her ear, because it would ruin her ear-drums.

"... and why haven't you told Arielle, hm?"

Stella resurfaced and Arielle crammed her eyelids shut again. "I don't want to worry her! She's already so deep into all this... she's channeling Jade, or something. I have no idea. She keeps... zoning out, and then at the Penitentiary she... I've never seen her do that. I'm not even sure Jade would have done that."

Arielle frowned.

Does she actually think I'm not listening to this?

Mrs. Sullivan sighed. "And you said she has proof, yes?" Stella grunted. "Is there any way you could have her send it to me? I'd love to analyze it. A black mass... those are bad, you're aware of this. You didn't see it, correct?"

Stella snorted. "Uh, no? I was a little busy trying not to puke my brains out at that point."

"Watch your tone, young lady." Mrs. Sullivan breathed heavily into the receiver. "I'm worrying for Arielle, too. Seeing things like that..."

"Wait, you believe her?" Stella shifted about. "The picture is there, sure, but... I'm not positive she saw that with her own eyes. It's so... so weird."

"She had to have seen it to know to capture the photo, honey." Silence, static. "She might need a cleansing. Oh, I should have insisted to see you both before you left, I—"

"—shit, Mom, enough! We're in Richmond, not Ohio. My stomach won't fucking stop gurgling, Ari is seeing black smoke and taunting it full on Zak style, and we don't have time for your incense cleansing crap! Can't you do something over the phone?"

Arielle's eyelids almost pried open from that comment.

Comparing me to Zak Bagans?

It usually took a lot to rouse Arielle from slumber, which might have explained why Stella didn't filter her conversation. But with Arielle's current state of mind, her tormented soul, her heart unable to beat normally, the emotions she'd repressed swooping out to make her dizzy... she couldn't sleep.

"I... I mean I can try, but sweetheart..."

"Mom, I swear, if you bring up my acceptance one more time, I..." She mumbled something under her breath and stomped. "Look, yes, I'm sensing ghosts that I'm not sure are there and it's making me too sick to finish this trip and... I have to finish it. For Jade. For Arielle."

"Well, step one is admitting they're there. Because they are. Specters, lost souls, confused dead... whatever you call them, they're real, Stella. You hate it when I tell you, but I've spoken with ghosts my entire life, and your grandmother has, and your great-grandmother has... your turn will come." Stella grumbled, but Mrs. Sullivan wasn't having it. "You have to open yourself up! The more you push back those feelings, the sicker you'll feel, and you won't complete the objective of your trip! You won't get closure!"

"Mom..." Stella's tone softened, trembled. Arielle opened one eye halfway and realized her friend was crying. "Why here? Why during this? Twenty-two years... I've been around your junk and seen you contact beings and never believed... so why is it attacking me now?"

Arielle envisioned Mrs. Sullivan reaching out to hug Stella—something she'd often done when Stella came home after being bullied for her weight, her eccentricity. "I'm not sure. Maybe the tiniest part of you has come to terms with this and... they could tell, they wanted to give you a little nudge. A painful one, yes, but... it's all for the greater good, I promise you."

"Please, do you have any tea blends or weird incantations I can say? I'll do anything at this point." Arielle saw Stella cringe and clutch at her lower abdomen. "It's getting ridiculous."

"Start by indulging in the feelings you get while visiting places... and I'll send a recipe to you. You need tea and sugar and a spoon." She became quiet for a few instants. "The sooner you accept this, the sooner you'll be closer to Jade. I'm sure she hovers around the two of you, or a remnant of her soul does. She won't have passed through, not yet. Not after leaving the both of you with so many questions."

Passed through?

Mrs. Sullivan's spiritual jargon was often lost on Arielle, but she opened her other eye, watching Stella, waiting. Did she understand what her mother meant?

"That's what you want, right? To be closer to Jade, to get answers?"

Stella scratched her temple and bit her lip, reentering the room and closing the door with her foot. "I... don't know."

"You don't want to find out where she went? How she is? If she has any messages for her family?"

Chin slanting up, Stella sniffled. "How she is, yeah... but where? We can't find that out... she can't... she won't tell us. And that's..." She wiped a few tears that drizzled down her cheeks, sparkling in the light swimming in from the window, "that's Arielle's mission, not mine. I want to... give her a proper send-off... since her parents..." She sniffled again, louder, "since her parents never let us attend the funeral! And I want to move on, Mom, I'm... so sick of crying all the time. I... I do want closure."

An electric shock fizzled and fried Arielle's nerves.

Closure.

She yearned for it, too, but it appeared they had taken this trip for different reasons. Stella wished to forget Jade, to wish her well but continue her life without her. Arielle wanted to see Jade, sit and chat about this afterlife possibility, understand death.

A large lump formed at the top of Arielle's throat as she pivoted to put her back to Stella, who bid goodnight to her mom. She inhaled and exhaled, and her eyes welled with salty liquid as she squeezed them shut. Begging her sorrow to leave her alone, she sank deeper into her cushions. She needed to sleep, needed a night away from nightmares and flashes of Jade and their joyous moments.

Because she'd never be happy again.