“Yes.”

  “???”

  “Yes I do believe in ghosts.”

  “I didn’t think we were still playing.”

  Ever stared at the sequence of messages on his phone, not quite sure what to make of it. He was sitting outside on the front step of the house. Mimi was rolling around on the grass, twisting around and generally doing her best impression of being an earthworm. The warmth of the afternoon was more or less gone with the sun rudely pushed out of the way by some big, fat clouds.

  “Are you angry at me?”

  From all the texting he did with Zoe, he had begun to see some patterns. The presence of bouncing message balls was generally a good thing. It meant the conversation was flowing and presumably, that she was enjoying it. He knew he was. If there were no balls, it meant that she wasn’t typing. She was either busy or maybe glaring at the phone.

  “A little bit.”

  “Because I didn’t answer your question quickly enough?”

  ^Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty!^ Mimi barked excitedly as she dashed past Ever, through the dog flap. The bouncing message balls on the screen were back.

  “Because I didn’t see you last week.”

  “I was busy with work.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Me too.”

  On a whim, Ever hit the call button. He’d done it a few times. Most of the time, Zoe hadn’t picked up. Maybe this time, he would be lucky.

  “Hey.” Her voice sounded tired, but happy.

  “Hello,” Ever replied.

  “You’re smiling.”

  “How do you know?”

  "People can hear people smiling when they talk.”

  “Then you’re smiling too.”

  “Am not.”

  “You are, I can hear it.”

  They shared a laugh, then sat in comfortable silence for a while. The sun managed to push its way past the clouds, a final hurrah before it retired for the night.

  “Is it my turn to ask a question?” Ever asked.

  “I don’t even know what question number we’re up to,” Zoe replied.

  The air around him grew still, almost as if it was holding its breath. He didn’t know what possessed him to ask what he was about to ask, but somehow, it felt right.

  “Zoe,” he said carefully. “Can you see ghosts?”

  Silence - dead silence. There was no hiding on a phone call.

  “Yes.”

  Ever jumped up to his feet. “What?”

  “Yes Ever, I see ghosts." He thought he could hear her smile widen. "I see the ghosts of animals.”

  He paced down the footpath to the letterbox and back again. The first time he brought Mimi to Vets R Us, he thought Zoe had been avoiding the ghost of Bozo the dog jumping on her. So he hadn’t been imagining things.

  “Can you… can you see them too?” She asked, voice becoming small. He went inside and turned the lights on, then he milled around, unsure where to go in the house, eventually finding his way into the kitchen. The fold out chair at the small dining table groaned in protest as he sat on it. He put the phone on the table and stared at the screen.

  “Yes, I can see them too.”