Ava says she is seeing our little brother, Bo, who died more than twenty years ago. At five years old he jumped out of our second-story bedroom window and broke his neck. I was ten.
The fall that killed my brother was actually the second time he’d jumped. The first time, he’d landed in the rosebush. Mom was gardening in the yard. The jump quickly became a story our parents told: Dad crying-laughing as Mom described Bo emerging from the bush covered in scratches, including one near his eye, but otherwise fine. It would become etched into family lore, repeated to new acquaintances and retold on holidays when we felt cheery and close.
When Bo jumped the second time, I think he probably wanted to make everyone shriek and laugh some more. That morning he’d been pestering me to play with him, but I was weary of his antics—putting slugs in my bed, slapping my butt, spying on me. I told him to go play with Ava. The two of them got along better. She’s the middle child and couldn’t remember a life without Bo.
As he tucked a pillowcase into the back of his collar like a cape and hung his legs over the windowsill, I went on undressing my dolls and placing them on top of one another, quietly organizing an orgy. (I thought sex meant lying naked on top of each other for a period of time.) Bo raised a fist, yelled, “Psych!” and then jumped. He’d been obsessed with that word since hearing it on TV but had only a vague understanding of its meaning. He would yell it across the dinner table, sing it outside my room, mumble it to himself on long car rides.
This time he landed wrong.
I remember the hospital: Pretzels and red Gatorade from the vending machine. The Darth Vader sound of the contraption keeping Bo alive. The smell of unwashed skin and bleach. The angry stitches and wheelchairs of patients passing in the hallway. The dopey, faraway look on Dad’s face. (Wherever he went, he never came back.) Mom busying herself arranging the flowers, the get-well cards, Bo’s hair. He was on the ventilator for a week.
Days after Bo’s death, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still spying on me, waiting to pop out and yell, “Psych! I got you!” As our family settled into a quiet routine, I felt relieved in a way, which added a layer of shame to my grief. I no longer had to worry that Bo was lurking behind a door. I’d often dreamed of a life where he’d never been born. When he died, it wasn’t so different from what I’d imagined. I could finally be alone.
Then my parents volunteered to foster a seven-year-old, who occupied Bo’s old room. When the boy arrived, he was somber and hardly looked up from his shoes—so unlike Bo. He had diabetes and smelled bad, so I avoided him, but eight-year-old Ava showed him around, even pointing out where Bo had died. She watched our parents inject the boy with insulin and then pretended to pierce her own abdomen with a pen, saying she wished she had diabetes too. Ava showed him Bo’s hiding spots and how to scare people when they didn’t expect it. This made the boy laugh. When he brought out a Ouija board from his suitcase, the first person he and Ava tried to contact was Bo. I knew it wouldn’t work, of course, but it unsettled me in the same way a pile of laundry looks like a monster in the dark. So I dumped acrylic paint and glue on the board. Ava cried for days. My mom sat me down and said Ava just missed her little brother, and it was normal to want to speak to the dead—as if I were the abnormal one.
After a few months the boy’s parents got their act together, and he went back home. On his last day with us he clung to Ava like a life preserver and sobbed.
The moment he was gone, Mom and Dad announced another boy would soon be arriving and calmly explained how we should want to help children in need. Ava nodded vigorously, then helped Mom clean the sheets and extra clothes. I wandered the neighborhood until dark, wishing I lived in one of the other houses, which all looked so calm and predictable.
Our home became a revolving door. I tried to be polite but never engaged with the foster kids any more than I had to. Every time I came home, I was worried I’d find a new boy there. As time went on, my mom became addicted to caring for people. She managed a book club at a nearby prison, clipped the toenails of a widower up the street, stocked the hospice clinic with mini doughnuts and fresh-cut roses. Dad went along with whatever she wanted. I resented them both for choosing good deeds over me and moved away as soon as I was old enough.
A year ago my father died from heart failure. He had recently taken up knitting and was at his computer in his crafting room, looking up how to make a sweater sleeve, when it hit him. Soon after, with the determination of an Olympic athlete, my mom began prepping to move to a low-tier (but still not cheap) retirement community in Florida. This surprised me. After so many years of caring for others, she just wanted to relax, she said. She sent me pictures of the small, furnished condo: beige stucco walls, mini blinds, generic beach decorations. The community’s website showed older people line dancing and playing pickleball. I had promised to help her pack and see her off, but I’d never gotten around to it. She would text me blurry pictures of plates of food and the ocean, and I would respond with a thumbs-up.
I advised Mom to sell the house where Ava and I grew up, but she kept it. Now she’s letting Ava stay there. My sister has never lived anywhere else. She’s worked the register at the same bookstore since high school and recently started a side hustle offering alternative therapy and healing kits to people with pain that doctors can’t soothe. She spends her free time on the internet.
I try not to give too much thought to Ava and her small life in our tragic childhood home, but lately she has been sending me weird texts: A link to an article titled “Modern Zombies???” Screenshots of rambling comments on message boards about past lives and spiritual healing. I don’t reply. I figure she is lonely without our parents, but what can I do? I live over a hundred miles away and work long hours for a fast-growing app. Plus I’ve been going through a breakup. Clark and I have been together for two years. Mom and Ava love him. Dad did too. Who wouldn’t? He works for a nonprofit that helps people get sober and find stable housing. He wakes early on the weekends to clean and stock supplies at a shelter. We moved in together after months of him hinting at the idea in subtle yet insistent ways, like the beep of a smoke alarm in need of batteries. It was fine for a while, but his relentless need to help people reminded me of my mom, and I missed coming home to an empty place where I could just breathe. Two weeks ago I moved out without telling Clark.
The hotel where I’m staying is eating away at my savings, but I feel like I have no choice. I’m not answering Clark’s calls. I should. I owe him an explanation. A better person would give him closure, but it’s easier to be a ghost.
My phone buzzes. It’s Ava. She never calls. “Bo is here,” she whispers through the receiver.
“Ava,” I say. “Stop.”
“Please, Olive. Come see for yourself.”
It’s just like her to come up with a story about seeing our brother’s ghost. I don’t want to get roped into her delusions, but part of me thinks she really needs me. I am the big sister, after all. And it’s possible that, if I visit, I can convince her to sell the house and move on.
When I arrive, Ava meets me in the front yard. Her makeup is intricate: dark eyeliner, with blue sparkly eyeshadow up to her eyebrows. Her black hair is cut close around her ears, and she wears knee-length gym shorts and a purple windbreaker. It’s November and near freezing out.
“You’re here. You’re actually here.” She hugs me hard and then holds me at arm’s length by my shoulders.
“Your makeup looks fun,” I say.
“Thanks.” Ava wipes her nose. “Did I tell you I got peacocks?”
In the backyard is a dome-like structure made of chicken wire extending from the shed. The ground inside it is covered in hay, and a baby pool sits in the middle, the water frozen at the edges. Two peacocks elongate their necks as we approach. The backyard is completely destroyed.
Ava picks up a mud-encrusted feather. “It’s for my work. The feathers have healing properties.” The peacocks are actually peahens—females—she explains. Not as colorful as the males but still striking. A crest of feathers stands straight up on each of their heads like a mohawk. The shed has been emptied and turned into a coop with an electric heater to keep the birds warm.
“Is this legal?” I scan the yard for more damage. The rosebushes along the house are naked and knobby.
Ava tucks her chin to her chest. Despite her strange fashion choices, she looks beautiful, healthy, better than I expected. “I bought three birds and named them One, Two, and Three. A few weeks back, someone stole Number Three, the male. He was gorgeous.”
“A fox probably got him.”
“Definitely a person.” Ava points to the shed. “They also took some hemp plants I was keeping warm in the coop.”
“You’re growing marijuana?”
Ava laughs. “It’s just hemp.”
“Whoever stole it will come back.”
“I moved the rest of the plants into the house, so it’s not a problem.”
Inside, it’s the same as it’s always been—dark florals, wood paneling, yellow carpets, low lighting—except for the eight large planters of hemp standing at eye level. The smell of dirt is stronger than outside.
“This is just temporary until I dry and cure them for my healing kits,” Ava says.
I want to lecture her on how there are more-efficient ways to make money—like selling the house—but if I come on too strong, she might not listen. I’ll talk some sense into her gradually. “I still can’t believe Mom’s in Florida,” I say, stepping around the plants.
Ava shrugs and kicks off her boots. “It’s a fresh start. She’s finally focusing on herself.” Her cheeks are pink from the cold outside. “Bo is in the kitchen,” she says.
I hang my bag on an overburdened coatrack. “So we’re doing this now?”
“Don’t be scared.”
I walk into the kitchen. A man stands at the counter eating a thick pastrami sandwich, using the butcher paper it was wrapped in as a plate.
“Hey, Olive,” he says through a mouthful of food.
I stumble backward and hit my head on the cupboard.
“Are you OK?” Ava asks.
I turn to face the man, ready to fight. “Who are you?”
“I’m your brother,” the man says, then swallows. He is tall and burly with deep-set blue eyes and thinning hair. He wipes his nose on his flannel sleeve and forks some coleslaw from a plastic container.
I laugh, but my heart is thumping. “No, you’re not.”
Ava grabs my shoulders. “Olive, it’s true.”
I shove her aside. “This is crazy.”
The man steps forward, as if to protect Ava from me. “Hey, now. No fighting.”
I scream at them. I curse and demand answers, and then I yell louder when they try to respond. I threaten to call the police, but Ava reminds me about the peacocks.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” she says. “Let me explain.”
“He needs to leave,” I say, pointing at the man pretending to be Bo. Looking at him makes me sick, but I want to know where he is at all times.
“I’ll let you two catch up,” he says, and he goes upstairs.
Ava and I retreat into our father’s old crafting room and shut the door. She tells me the man showed up in the backyard soon after Number Three went missing. He was covered in mud and asked if he could clean himself off with the hose. She could tell there was “something more he needed” from her, so she showed him around. After helping her feed the remaining birds, he asked if she knew who he was. And that, Ava says, is when she put it all together. She couldn’t remember which one of them mentioned Bo’s name first, but that detail doesn’t seem important to her.
“I don’t need any more proof,” Ava says. “He has Bo’s eyes.”
“Lots of people have blue eyes.”
“Not like Bo’s.”
How can I convince her this is a scam? On the wall behind Ava are framed photos of our foster brothers at family picnics and Little League games. They smile at me like they’re waiting for me to figure this out. Often when I meet a man a little younger than I am, I have a sudden fear he may be one of the boys who stayed at our house, trying to insinuate himself into my life again.
“What if he’s one of the foster boys pretending to be Bo?” I ask.
“Now, that’s crazy.”
I lay out the situation for her slowly, like she’s a child: “This guy shows up at the house right after Mom has moved out. And he knows about Bo? It’s all too convenient.”
“You know I’m still in contact with a lot of the kids that stayed with us,” Ava says. “Some of them came to Dad’s funeral, remember?”
“Not all of them were there.”
“OK. Who is he then? Which brother?”
I scan the line of photos and then point to one—the first boy who stayed with us. “What about him?”
“Ryan? I follow him on Facebook. He lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and kids. Who else?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember all of them.”
“You never liked them.”
“I liked them fine, but that’s beside the point. We have no idea who this guy is.”
Ava sits in our dad’s rolling desk chair—the one he died in—like it’s nothing. “You’ll understand once you talk to him.”
“He might be the person who took your peacock.”
Ava laughs. “What would he want with Number Three?”
“Who knows what he wants? That’s what’s scary about this whole thing.” I pick up a skein of yarn from a wicker basket and dig my fingers into it like it’s a stress ball. “What has he told you, exactly?”
“He told me that all he remembers is falling from the window and then seeing me in our backyard. Between that it’s like a blank space in his mind.”
“A blank space?”
Ava clutches her chest. “Bo has helped me deal with things.”
“Don’t call him ‘Bo.’ It’s offensive and gross. He’s probably sick.”
“You haven’t changed,” she says. “It’s just like when you destroyed that Ouija board.”
“You’re still mad about that?” My phone buzzes. “Clark” flashes across the screen. I silence it, but Ava sees.
“How come Clark didn’t come with you?”
“We broke up.”
“What happened?” Ava asks, sounding genuinely disappointed. “I liked him.”
I slip the phone back into my pocket. “Let’s focus on the man pretending to be our dead brother. He better not be living here.”
Ava doesn’t look me in the eye when she says, “This is his home too.”
I go into the backyard, where the peahens bob their heads as if in greeting. I’m actually impressed with Ava’s handiwork. The enclosure stands at least ten feet tall with wooden posts holding the chicken wire in place and pebbles along the edges. A cross-shaped beam acts as a perch for the birds, and the shed—now the coop—has a fresh coat of paint. I wish she could channel her energy toward something normal.
I sit down on a lawn chair next to a bag of feed and a bucket filled with dead bugs—crickets, worms, and slugs, all pounded into mush. Shivering, I kick the bucket aside and dial Mom.
“Ava has completely lost it,” I blurt out when she answers.
“It’s so good to hear your voice,” she says.
“There’s a man living in your house. Do you know that?”
“Yes, his name is Bo. It’s strange, right?”
“Ava thinks he actually is Bo. Our Bo. Back from the dead.”
“Ava thinks all kinds of things,” my mom says, sounding distracted. I imagine her cleaning the windows and pausing to spy on a neighbor.
“We don’t know anything about this guy,” I whisper. “He could be dangerous.”
“Oh, honey, some people really mean well. They’re not all out to get you.”
“Mom,” I say. “She let a stranger in our house. A grown man.”
“She’s old enough to date who she wants.”
“They’re not dating!” I stand and walk the perimeter of the enclosure. “This guy is pretending to be Bo. You should be angry.”
“I thought maybe you were calling to check on me, ask how I’m doing.”
“This guy has to be one of the foster kids, right?”
“Take a breath. You and your sister should talk it through. Help each other out.” She sounds like someone trying to imitate my mom but not getting it exactly right.
“You’re not listening. Something’s really wrong with Ava. She needs to get out of this house. It’s not good for her.”
“But she loves the house. She’s been making changes to it, helping with the mortgage.”
I stop pacing. “What?”
“She offered to pay it since she’s the manager of the bookstore now, and her new business is doing well. Since Daddy died, she’s been handling all the house stuff.”
“When were you going to tell me this?”
My mom sighs. “You know, Ava checks in on me every day, and you haven’t asked once about how I am or how I like it here.”
I heighten my pitch and say, “How do you like it there? How’s the food? Is the ocean warm and just so blue? Don’t worry about us and the man pretending to be your dead son.”
I hang up, out of breath and on the verge of tears, just as Fake Bo comes out. He grabs handfuls of pellets from a canvas bag and scatters them into the birds’ confinement, feet crunching dead leaves and yellowed plants. A cigarette hangs from his mouth.
“I don’t remember my little brother smoking,” I say.
He smiles, showing stained teeth. The dark circles under his eyes make him look like he’s been in a fight, and his shoulders are hunched as if from the cold or a neck issue. I try to match him with a memory of one of the foster boys, but it’s like trying to identify someone through a fogged window.
“I don’t blame you for not believing any of this,” he says. “It’s a strange situation.”
I shake my head. “It’s perfectly normal. Our little brother is back from the dead and a chain-smoker.”
He chucks his cigarette behind him. “I was curious what it’s like to do adult things. I never got the chance until recently.”
When Ava and I were barely teenagers, I saw her smoking with one of the foster boys in the woods behind our house. I thought she’d confess it to me later, but she never did. Could this be him?
“I just want a normal life,” Fake Bo says. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Go have your normal life somewhere else.”
“If you have questions, you can just ask me.”
“If you’re Bo, prove it.”
He picks up the bucket of dead insects, scoops a handful, and studies it. I think he might be about to eat it, but then he says, “You were playing a game when I died.”
The sun fights its way through a bank of clouds, and I shield my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man flings the bug mush into the enclosure, and the birds trot forward to eat. “Before I jumped out the window, you were piling your naked dolls on top of each other. I didn’t understand, but I wanted to. It’s one of the last things I remember before returning here. Maybe you can explain it to me.”
“I don’t know who you are,” I say, “but what you’re doing is sick.”
The man turns the corners of his mouth down in an exaggerated expression of sadness, like a drama mask. “Why did you have to be so mean? I just wanted to play.” He hangs his head for a moment, then grins. “Psych!” he yells, crouching low and pointing at me.
I have the sensation of a spider crawling up my throat. My nose starts to run, or maybe it’s bleeding, but I don’t dare wipe it. The slightest movement could be seen as a sign of weakness.
“I got you,” the man says. “I got you.” His laugh turns into a cough.
“What did I miss?” Ava calls from the back door, smiling and hopeful. Her hands are covered in flour from baking something sweet she will want us to eat later—reunited siblings catching up over dessert.
“Oh, Olive and I are just having some fun,” the man explains with tears in his eyes.
My phone buzzes. I exhale and look at the screen. Clark.
I beg Ava to leave the house with me so we can talk somewhere, just the two of us, but instead she suggests we all eat dinner together, break bread and restore the peace. Needing to get away, I take a walk. I consider driving off and never speaking to Ava again. Something is wrong with her, with our family, and this man has sniffed it out. Our tragedy. Our weakness. He’s getting fat off it. I’m afraid of him, but I fear for Ava more than I do for myself. She’s still a vulnerable little girl, befriending strange boys, and this man knows it. I decide to stay the night to see if I can set her straight.
It’s well after dark when I return. I navigate carefully through the hallways, afraid the man might be hiding around every corner, waiting to jump out at me. On the kitchen table is a lit candle and a plate of food for me. It looks too perfect, not like real food at all. I scrape the meal into the trash and then go upstairs to find Ava in our old bedroom, sitting on the floor and tying feathers together with yarn. Next to her is a stack of healing kits, ready to be mailed to her customers. My bed is still on the left side. Ava’s is on the right. The window Bo jumped out of is dead center between them.
“Where’s Fake Bo?” I ask.
She secures a feather bouquet with a tight knot. “He’s making sure the shed is warm for the birds.”
“Where’s he staying?”
“I’m done arguing about it,” she says.
“What room?”
“His room.”
“You told him too much about Bo. He’s using it to trick you.”
She shrugs. “He remembers more than I do.”
“He knows about Bo saying, ‘Psych,’ all the time.”
Ava smiles. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“No,” I say. “You told him.”
She throws her craft supplies into labeled bins. “Look, I know you’re going through a lot, especially with you and Clark. You should’ve told me.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m fine.”
“You never talk to me,” Ava says. “We’re like strangers.”
“We’re just older. We have our own lives.”
“Even when we were little, you shut me out.” Ava has scrubbed off her makeup, and the skin around her eyes is red and puffy. For a moment she looks like my little sister again.
I kneel beside her. “You were so close with Bo and the foster boys.”
“Because you wanted nothing to do with me. You never asked me anything or invited me to go on one of your walks. I felt invisible. Like I was dead to you.”
I consider holding her hand, but it isn’t something we do. “You know, people grieve in different ways,” I say, not knowing where I’m going with this.
“Well, your grieving sucked. And it wasn’t grieving. It was erasing.”
“That’s not fair. I was a kid.”
“And you haven’t changed. It’s like you want to erase our entire childhood.”
“Why not? It’s better than trying to fill the Bo-shaped hole with a bunch of foster kids. That’s not normal.”
“I should never have asked you to come here,” she says. “This is too much for you.”
“Too much for me?” I stand up, feeling hot and out of breath. “I’m not pretending our dead brother is alive. I’m not selling junk to desperate people. I’m not raising peacock hens or whatever the hell you call them. Living in this house, in this old room—it’s made you crazy.”
“You want to sell the house,” she whispers. Her steady voice infuriates me. It’s as if she’s trying to prove that she’s the normal one, and I’ve gone crazy.
“Of course I want to sell the house!” I shout.
Ava pushes her bins under her bed and wipes away tears. “I know you think my life is dumb,” she says, “and that I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I don’t. Maybe you’re right and it’s all a big scam. But I’m happy. I’m really happy here.”
The paint on the wall above my old bed is blistered. I used to pick at it when I couldn’t sleep, waiting to hear the creak of our door in the dark: Bo coming into our room, as he did almost every night. “I know you’re there, Bo,” I’d say, wary of his pranks. Then I’d hear his small feet scamper back into the hall. But some nights he’d return, tiptoe inside, and sleep on the floor between us. Sometimes Ava would invite him into her bed. Maybe that’s all Bo ever really wanted: to be invited in.
I say, “I just think you’d be happier if—”
“We’re not selling the house.” Ava stands and flops onto her bed, facing the wall. “You can sleep in Mom and Dad’s room. You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
I carry my suitcase into our parents’ old room and sit down on the bed. My hands shake as I scroll through the missed calls from Clark. I tap on his name to call him.
“Olive?” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp.
“What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You disappeared.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m not fine.”
“Clearly!” he says, and then he floods me with questions, but all I can manage to say is that I’m safe and I’m sorry. “I need more than that,” he says.
My throat tightens, and I feel tears coming on, but I keep my voice steady. “I know. I’m sorry I shut you out. I want to talk more, but I’m exhausted. Can I call you tomorrow?
He reluctantly agrees, makes me promise to call early, and then says, “I’m so mad at you. But it’s good to hear your voice.”
I hang up. It’s going to be OK. I’ll leave in the morning, forget all this. I crack a window and drink in the fresh, cold air. I take off my pants and put on a large T-shirt, one of Clark’s. I don’t bother to brush my teeth or wash my face—it all seems too much to bear. Before I crawl between my parents’ sheets, I think of the bucket of bugs outside and how Bo would put slugs in my bed, and I pause, afraid to pull back the comforter.
That’s when a high-pitched screaming comes from out in the yard, like a ghost, or a pair of ghosts. The cries are persistent, identical. I run to Ava’s room and flick on the lights.
“What’s going on?” she says, squinting at me from her bed.
I throw open the window and peer out. A security light illuminates part of the backyard. The birds continue to shriek while Fake Bo runs around behind the enclosure where the light doesn’t reach. Ava joins me at the window, a blanket our father knitted wrapped around her. We watch in the dark as the peahens stop their screaming and Fake Bo returns with a heavy object draped over his shoulder like a bag of soil. It has a long neck and a colorful train. He lifts it over into the light for us to see.
“No,” I say in disbelief.
“Is that Number Three?” Ava calls down.
Fake Bo nods. “Don’t know how it got back here.”
Ava clasps my hand. Hers is cold and clammy. “Is he alive?”
“Maybe. I think barely,” he says, laying the peacock in front of the rosebushes. The bird’s feathers shine with blood. Its neck curls in an unnatural way, and a swollen tongue slips out of its beak. I think I can see it taking desperate, painful breaths.
The second time Bo jumped, when I went to the window and saw him lying contorted, his mouth stretched open, I laughed. I was expecting him to hop up and reveal the joke, how he’d fooled me. I laughed at my little brother’s broken body.
“Jesus, are you OK?” Ava is holding my shoulders.
I’m laughing now, howling. Tears are running down my cheeks, and the muscles in my face burn. I can’t breathe. “This is so stupid,” I manage.
Fake Bo calls up, “Is she OK?”
“Come help,” Ava says. “She’s choking.”
I crumple to the floor, and Ava slaps my back. I can hardly see through my tears, but I hear Fake Bo tumble into the room. He kneels beside me, cradling me. He’s cold, but his flannel is soft, and he smells like cigarettes and dead leaves. The three of us huddle together on the floor, and he whispers in my ear, his breath warm and meaty, “It’s OK, Sis. I got you.”
