The Headstone

I was woken up by a soft voice calling my name. "Bonita…Bonita…" I groaned and covered my head with a pillow. "Go away." Mediators have the oddest guests, and not much time for sleep. Believe me, when my mom or dad comes downstairs in the morning with dark circles under their eyes, I just know they've been mediating a ghost who can't move on because of something they forgot to do in this life.

The voice pulled my pillow away and threw it across the room. I sat up, groggily, and was surprised to see a pale figure sitting on my bed. A girl. A ghost. "What is it?" I whispered, careful not to wake my mom and dad sleeping across the hall.

"I've come to—"

"Tell me how you died? About how you hate being stuck here?"

The girl shook her head, blonde curls bouncing, her dark eyes alight with amusement. "No, no, no." Surprisingly, this ghost was patient. Most would have the mirror shaking, or at least the pillow floating in midair.

"What then?" I was beginning to think that this ghost needed to show me something—and that it would require me to sneak out. I sighed and started pulling on a pair of jeans and a spring jacket over my nightgown. "My shoes are downstairs." I told the ghost. "Just be quiet."

The girl nodded as I opened my bedroom door and looked down the hall. Empty. I crept down the stairs and was careful to avoid the second-last step, which creaks. The ghost just stepped on it and it made no sound. No noisy creak. Nothing. Sometimes I envy ghosts.

After finding my shoes, I put them on, and slipped outside. The air was cool and the sea was calmly slapping the shore. I took a deep breath of the air and sighed, it was really relaxing with the streets nearly empty and the sound of the waves. Very pleasant.

I turned to the ghost, who was pulling out a bike. Mine. "Get on." She said, "You'll have to go to the Mission for what I'm about to show you." I gave her a strange look and obliged. Pedaling slowly as to not wake my parents, I soon sped up once out of earshot. The only problem was that to get to the Juniper Sierra Mission Academy, you had to go downhill. And through an intersection, to boot. After crossing that, I got off my bike, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "So now that we're here…" The ghost tugged at my arm and I gasped, trying to stay upright.

"Should be back here…" She muttered, taking me to the mission's cemetery, to a well-worn path. Suddenly, I saw it. A headstone. Nothing out of the ordinary, considering my job as a mediator. But what made me stumble back a few steps was the carving in the stone:

HERE LIES HECTOR "JESSE" DE SILVA. 1830-1850

BELOVED BROTHER, SON, AND FRIEND.

That hit me like a punch in the stomach. De Silva? 1830-1850?

"This must be a mistake…" I whispered, "This Hector must be an ancestor—"

"He's your father, miss Bonita De Silva." The ghost whispered, putting a hand on my shoulder.

" No, no, no, my mother would have told me. My father is very much alive, thank you very much!"

The girl stood, crossed her arms over her chest, "Jesse De Silva is your father, no?"

"Yes but this headstone says Hector, it couldn't be—but then, if it was true, that would mean he would've been a…"

"A ghost? Dead?" The girl supplied, arching a pale eyebrow.

I nodded, numb.

"He was. Until Susannah brought him back from 1850 and…"

I fell to the soft earth, the air becoming suddenly too hot to bear in my jacket. The world was spinning and I could hear a ringing in my ears. I put a hand to my head and groaned, standing up and running behind a bush to empty my stomach of my supper. The ghost put a slender hand on my back and I pushed her away.

"Why did you show me this?" I demanded, wiping my mouth. God, this was embarrassing.

The girl smiled, "I just thought you'd like to know." The ghost then faded away, leaving me alone in the cemetery. I sighed and lay down next to the headstone; the stone strangely warm in the cool air. This. This was like the job of mediators. No ones willing to believe me of my gift, and yet it's the truth.

If a ghost says that my father, Hector Jesse De Silva, was a ghost, this headstone was bare truth of it. There was still doubt, yes, but who was I to judge the word of a ghost?