Reggie was having to postpone his college work over the next few days as he took over the full time care of AJ, Miranda and Gabby while Bianca was with Marissa in hospital, in New York.

He had kept the kids busy with daily get-better pictures and they built a Day of the Dead shrine, like the one at Kendall's, in the den so Marissa could see what she had missed from the party. Bianca and Marissa talked to them on Skype after day two, and Marissa was looking very pale but smiling. He tried to keep them distracted but whatever he did he couldn't stop the kids from missing their moms.

…

Miranda and AJ were looking at their Day of the Dead shrine. It had been four days now since their moms were away and the orange marigolds were drooping and there was a dead fly floating in the glass of water.

"I think we should tidy it up." said AJ. "Mom's not going to want to come home to see dead flowers. And her mom and dad and my dead mom probably don't like it either."

"Do you think they are still here?" Miranda asked, looking at the pair of photographs in the centre of the shrine. "Do you think they really came to the party?"

"Maybe." said AJ. "I think it would be nice if they were."

Together they got a trash bag from the kitchen and started to pull the dead flowers from the shrine.

"So you believe in ghosts?" Miranda asked as she dropped a handful of dead petals in the rubbish sack.

AJ looked at his birthday-twin.

"Don't you?"

Miranda bit her lip.

"I like the idea that there are good ghosts. But does that mean there are bad ghost too?"

"You mean like scary ones?"

"I mean like… my daddy. What if he was mad that he wasn't on the shrine? What if he was the reason your mom got hurt."

"You think your daddy did it? I thought Madison hurt them because she was sick." said AJ in surprise. "Sick like daddy was when he hurt your mom."

Miranda sighed. She knew that Madison was the one that hurt Marissa but that didn't stop her other thoughts.

"Bad things keep happening to our moms. What if he cursed them? What if he keeps making bad things happen because he doesn't want my mommy to be happy?"

AJ could see how upset Miranda was at speaking the words out loud, but the expression on her face showed that she had been thinking about it for a while.

"Bad things do keep happening..." he said with a slow nod of his head.

"I talked to Dr S about it." said Miranda, referring to her psychiatrist. "He said sometimes bad thing happen to good people. He said it's very easy to be good if nothing bad happens, just as it's very easy to be bad if you never know anything good. Being good in the face of all adversity; that is the hard part. He says it's how you deal with your problems that shows the kind of person you are."

"So how do we deal with this problem?" asked AJ, signalling for Miranda to hold open the trash bag so he could drop in a particularly large armful of flowers into it.

"I don't know." said Miranda. "I don't know very much about ghosts. Only from Scooby-doo and they are never real ghosts anyway."

"We could ask Reggie or Uncle Jack." said AJ brushing the dead petals from the front of his shirt.

"They might think we are playing a game." said Miranda.

"So…" said AJ. "Even if they think we are playing, they might give us some good advice.

"Maybe." said Miranda slowly.

"Oh! Oh!" AJ exclaimed suddenly. "I know who we should talk to!"

"Who?" asked Miranda.

"Opal! She has the sixth sense. She can sometimes feel when something is going to happen. She'll help us find out if your daddy's spirit is the one doing all this. And maybe she'll know how to fix it!"

Miranda nodded, she liked the sound of that plan. She started picking up the last of the dropped marigold petals from the table cloth; and then they just had to change the water; find fresh flowers and their tidying up was all done.

"Do we tell Gabby our idea?" Miranda asked.

"Better not." said AJ in practical tones. "We don't want to scare her!"

…