ENTRY 4
LITTLE GHOST
1997
The white bedsheet kept slipping off little seven-year-old Bella's head. She reached up, her small hands trying to right the sheet.
Two power rangers raced by, bumping her elbow and sending her tripping on her sheet. A kid in the scary Ghost Face mask chased them, arms outstretched and moaning terribly. Bella didn't know what movie that face was from, but she'd seen the mask several times. It was scary.
"Mommy," she whined, wanting to just give up on the whole endeavor. "Can we go home?"
"You wanted to come out," Renée reminded her. "You begged me to take you. I cut holes in my sheets so you could have a costume."
Bella's head dropped. She'd been sick for the last week with the flu. At one point, it had been bad enough that Bella wasn't sure she'd get to come out at all. But yesterday had been a big turning point, and she'd been begging her mom all day to come out.
"Go find friends from school," Renée told her.
Bella looked up at her mom through the sheet. She was waving at a group of ladies sitting on Mrs. Newton's porch, drinking bubbling Halloween cocktails.
Renée turned to her daughter. "I'll be on the Newton porch watching you. Go have fun."
With that, Renée left her little ghost on the sidewalk. Bella could hear her mother greet the women.
This was supposed to be the first year she went with her friends alone while their parents watched from Mrs. Newton's porch, but Bella hadn't been at school all week, and she didn't know what her friends looked like tonight.
She stood on the sidewalk, unsure of what to do.
Another wave of kids came bursting past her, jostling her until she was forced to move. She started down the sidewalk, too nervous to go up to any house on her own, but desperately wanting candy.
"Hi."
The boy beside her was small, just like her, and covered in a white cloth with two eye holes cut out.
Another ghost.
"Hi," Bella said, finding comfort that she wasn't the only baby dressed as a ghost on the street.
She saw his black and white sneakers rub the sidewalk nervously. "Wanna get candy?" He asked.
"Yeah," Bella said immediately. He bobbed his head and held up a pillow sack he was using as a candy bag.
Bella clutched her pillow case, and under her sheet, she smiled.
"I don't know where to start," he admitted.
"Mr. Jenks gives out the good candy, but he runs out fast," she said, reciting what she'd heard at school. The little ghost nodded.
Bella didn't know why he didn't have friends to trick-or-treat with, nor did she ask. As soon as they found each other, nothing else really mattered except for the candy they were both finally able to collect.
1998
"But you went as a ghost last year," Renée said, arching an eyebrow. Bella clutched the white sheet to her chest.
"I want to go again."
The truth was, she didn't want to go as a ghost, but she'd been too caught up in candy last year to ask the name of her new friend. She'd searched the school for him, but couldn't figure out who he was. She wanted to go as a ghost so he could find her.
Renée let the argument go with a shake of her head.
Bella passed skeletons, zombies, and witches but no ghosts. By the time they reached Mrs. Newton's house, Bella felt her hopes falling.
"Have fun!" Renée called, making her way up to the porch.
Bella's eyes scanned the street, her hope diminishing by the second.
She was ready to pull her sheet off her head and run home when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun around, her heart squeezing in joy when she saw the little ghost.
"Hi," he said. He'd gotten a little taller in the last year. He still had those black and white sneakers.
"Hi!" Bella said, immediately forgetting her plan to ask her friend's name. "Come on, Mr. Jenks bought the big candy bars this year. Let's go before he runs out!"
2007
"Bella, you have to come this year."
Bella heard her friend's plea, even as her eyes scanned the halls of the school around her.
Could that guy at his locker be her ghost? Or maybe he was that guy on his phone?
"Bella!"
She turned her attention to Alice.
"What?"
Alice's eyes narrowed. "You blow us off every Halloween. You have to come to the party tonight."
Bella smirked, snapping her locker shut. "Can't," she said. "I've got a Boo-ty Call."
It was the tenth anniversary of their first Halloween. Ten years of a friendship that formed one night a year, ten years of still not knowing his name.
It was a game at this point.
That night, Bella dressed in jeans and a sweater, and tucking the sheet under her arm, left the house.
Bella slipped the sheet over her head as soon as she was outside, feeling the familiar feeling of excitement and anticipation whenever she put it on.
She headed down the street, stopping to lean against the large oak tree that sat in front of Mrs. Copes' house. It was their tree now. Their meeting point.
She didn't have to wait long. He was there soon, taller than he'd been last year.
"Hey," he said, and she noticed his voice was deeper too.
"Hey," she said, and though he couldn't see her smile, it was unmistakable in her voice.
"Happy anniversary," he joked, holding out a small plastic pumpkin bucket to her. She laughed, taking it from him. It was pre-stuffed with candy.
"Thank you. You too!" she said, pulling pairs of sunglasses out of her pocket. He laughed as he slipped them on over his sheet.
"How do I look?"
Bella couldn't stop her giggles. She slipped her own sunglasses on, and though it was almost ridiculously dark, it was worth it.
"Come on," he said. They made their way to the park, sharing pieces of candy from the bucket as they went.
"How's school going?" he asked.
Bella groaned around a mini Snickers. "That assignment from Ramirez is killing me," she complained. "Like we don't have enough going on with college applications."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I've got a stress rash from those."
They laughed together as they made their way to the swings. They knew they were in at least some of the same classes—they had to be. Forks High was too small for them not to be.
Not for the first time, Bella wondered if she should ask him who he was. He'd tell her, she thought. He'd be honest, because he was always honest, and she'd finally know who her Little Ghost was.
But there was magic in not knowing, and Bella didn't want to break this last precious piece of her childhood.
So instead, they sat on swings and ate candy he'd brought and laughed until both of them had to run home to make curfew.
2011
This was the first year she wasn't going home for Halloween.
Every Halloween since she was seven, she'd been there to meet her Little Ghost. Even after leaving for college, she'd been able to get home, but this year Halloween was on a Monday, and she had class.
Alice was dragging her to a costume party on campus, taking advantage of the fact that her friend was finally available.
"It'll be great," Alice insisted. "This party is always one of the best of the year."
Bella didn't have a costume to wear, having worn the same thing for the last 13 years.
Alice managed to squeeze her into a skimpy black dress, and after drawing three lines on her cheeks told Bella to call herself a black cat. Bella was unconvinced, and as they were leaving their dorm room, she managed to slip her sheet under her arm.
It just wasn't Halloween without it.
The party was loud three blocks away. Alice, dressed as some neon-colored fairy, danced her way toward the frat house, singing monster mash at the top of her lungs.
Ten minutes after being in the house, surrounded by drunk, sweaty bodies, Bella couldn't take it anymore. She slipped the sheet over her head and made her way out to the back porch to hide.
There was a swing hung up in a tree in the backyard. It looked long forgotten, but Bella made her way over to it anyway. After testing it out, she tentatively sat on it. It held her weight fine, and she sighed, swinging gently back in forth while her toes dragged in the dirt.
She should have gone home. She should have found a way to be there. They had never missed a year, and here she was breaking tradition. She was letting them both down.
Black and white sneakers fell into her line of view, and she looked up, startled. Standing before her was a tall guy in a white sheet. Her heart flipped in her chest.
"This is going to sound so weird," he said slowly. "But are you by chance from Forks?"
He'd found her. All the way in Seattle, her ghost had found her.
She didn't care how or why. She scrambled to her feet, and in a second, launched herself at him. He was solid as he caught her, his arms wrapping around her waist.
"Oh my god," she cried. "I thought… I mean…"
His arms squeezed her tighter.
"I know," he sighed. "I thought too."
They clung together for another minute before Bella realized she didn't even know the name of her ghost.
Enough was enough.
She pulled back from him, her eyes seeking out his. The only part of him she'd ever really seen.
"I think it's time," she told him. He nodded in agreement, and she saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a breath.
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
They both reached up to their sheets, and after a pause, tugged them off.
"Edward!"
"Bella."
Both smiled sheepishly at the other. They knew each other, of course, because it was near impossible to grow up in Forks and not know everyone, but they'd never been close in school.
Bella realized as soon as the sheet was off, they should have done this years ago. How much richer would her high school experience have been had she known the name of her best friend?
Overwhelmed, she reached up to hug him again. He pulled her against his chest and let out a long breath of his own.
The past was past, and now they had nothing but a future, bright and shining ahead of them.
2022
"Just like that, yes!" Bella grinned as Edward held up their four-year-old son, both of them covered in white sheets with little eye holes cut out. Bella giggled as she snapped the photo, and Edward chuckled, setting their son down.
"Can we go?" he demanded, looking at his parents. Bella pulled her own sheet over her head, her swollen stomach making the fabric bump out.
"Yup," Bella said. "Let's go."
Mason cheered and rushed to the door. Edward reached for his wife's hand, his fingers tangling with hers. He brought her fist up to kiss the back of her hand as they left the house, trailing after their eager son.
"Happy 25th anniversary," he whispered to her. He could see her eyes crinkle under the sheet, and he knew she was smiling at him.
"Happy anniversary," she repeated to him, her hand leaving his to go around his waist. He tucked her into his side as she leaned up, kissing him through the sheet. They both laughed when she missed his mouth and kissed his chin.
Twenty-five years ago, two little ghosts had found each other on a dark night, and since then, their lives had never been sweeter.
You can find the image that goes with this entry in our FB group A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words and on our Instagram page Instagram dot com slash twilightimagecontest
Please leave the creator some love.
