"We'll be just fine. I know it's been a long walk, but we're almost there. I don't want you to worry about anything." Juniper spoke to the baby on her shoulder more to assuage her own tremors than to soothe Evangeline, who'd been sleeping for most of the trek. The fourteen-year-old recalled a time not so long ago when she'd stood at her sisters' attic window and stared out into the pouring rain, pondering the notion of being underwater, the sort of deep sea creatures she expected to see drifting past. Walking through these unfamiliar neighborhoods at night gave her a similar sensation of having sunk into an encroaching abyss. Street lamps had flared on at least half an hour ago, but every time Junie moved beneath one, it flickered spasmodically (several had even crackled out), and the infrequent golden lights blinking from house windows furthered the illusion of moving amongst unidentifiable bioluminescent creatures. She wasn't afraid, though. Juniper had been walking for nearly an hour and a half, but she knew she wasn't alone, and that dulled most potential fears.

How she knew where to go was something of a mystery. Junie just walked, following sidewalks and crossing streets, no attention paid to signs or landmarks. Her friend told her where to go, and so Juniper went. She'd been standing in that backyard, knowing her mother and her mother's friends were up to something personal and dangerous, when she'd sensed the urgency open like a little package inside her. With no nearby adult to ask for help (and the certainty that her friend didn't want her to ask, anyway), she'd just set off alone. Junie knew by now that it was best to listen when her secret companion called or the thing might begin to get feisty.

"You know my friend, too," she said quietly to the sleeping baby. "It told me it knows you." The girl kept a brisk pace. Late summer crickets trilled around her; cicadas droned in distant trees. School would be starting again in a matter of days, and yet how far from her every mundanity seemed. Autumn and the twins were no doubt getting ready, buying school supplies (Hazel and Mabel were always adamant about every item being different from the other's), meeting teachers, shopping for fall clothes. Juniper wasn't upset to miss any of it; she'd go through the motions but always fake her excitement to please her mother. It wasn't that she saw such outings and purchases as trivial (she hadn't the capacity for superiority) but more that she was unsure as of yet what did actually interest her. All of the things at which her sisters thrilled—boys, clothing, music, social media—for whatever reason brought her little joy. Juniper appreciated the resulting happiness of her siblings more than she desired the source of it.

In any case, she was unsure when exactly she'd be headed home to join her siblings in their routine pursuits. Right now, she felt as if she'd never return.

"You don't have to follow me," she said somewhat irritably, her words not intended for the baby this time. "I'm doing what you said. And besides, you've caused enough trouble." Juniper looked left to right before jaywalking across a four-way intersection toward a quiet, orange-lit suburban street. "Nobody would understand that," she added absently. To any onlooker, the girl would've been speaking peevishly to herself. "Sometimes you don't play very nicely, you know; it's not how people do things, here. You've got to be nicer to him, this time. You thought it was a game, with the sofa, but I promise nobody else did. It wasn't funny at all. And you've got to stop throwing things around . . . I know you didn't do all of that, but you started it . . . oh, don't tell me you didn't. I can guess you much better now, and I know half the time you're being a complete liar . . . Oh, just shut up! We're here now. None of your jokes, now, all right?"

Juniper turned up the empty driveway and walked until it met a path leading to the front door of the small but trim house. There wasn't much to it, really; it was a little brick building in a sort of gingerbread style, with arched doorway and diamond-shaped stained glass panes in the front windows. The garden lining the path and front patio was interesting enough, though, with its strange statuettes of pint-sized grinning devils and gnomes and multicolored ceramic mushrooms sprinkled amongst shrubbery and creeping groundcover.

Rubbing the back of the stirring infant, Junie stared at the wooden door. "It's all right," she told Evangeline. "We can do this."

The doorbell chimed within the home the moment it was pressed, a jarring sound against the silence. Several very still minutes followed during which Juniper wondered whether she should try again, but then there was rattling at the door handle, and the door pulled inward to reveal a small boy.

"Silas?"

The child nodded solemnly, eyes widened beneath his tight black curls.

"Don't be scared. My name is Junie. My mom is friends with your mom, and I just came over to stay with you so you don't have to be alone."

Silas's chin quivered, but he didn't open the door more than the few inches he'd already drawn it in. "Is it with you?"

Juniper bit her lip, unsure how to respond. "Is what with me?"

"The ghost."

Relieved, the girl shook her head quite confidently. "No. There's no ghost with me."

Though he still appeared hesitant, Silas's fear was ameliorated enough to allow the newcomers entrance. Junie slipped inside with the now-squirming baby held against her chest. When she stepped into the entryway, the boy closed and locked the door behind them and proceeded to walk past Juniper into a brightly lit living room. He switched off the blaring television, but Juniper noticed an array of pillows on the floor, which told her Silas hadn't felt confident enough to sit anywhere else.

Junie plopped onto the sofa and laid Evangeline on her back on the cushion next to her. The little boy nearly protested, but the girl beat him to speech: "You're fine. It promised me it won't do that to you again."

Her words had the effect opposite her wish. Silas gaped, protested, "You said it wasn't here! You said—"

"I said there wasn't a ghost here. It's not a ghost."

"But—I s-saw her—"

"Her?"

"She left her handprints on the door. She was bleeding." Tears brimmed the boy's eyes. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he began to suck in little gasping breaths.

Juniper stood up. "Listen to me. I know who you mean. The outside girl. I've seen her, too. But my friend isn't the same thing. It doesn't like her, either." She put her hands on Silas's shoulders until he calmed a little, then gave him a sincere nod before looking askance. "Oh, don't think it means I trust you!" she said, confusing the child before her. "I've never trusted you, but I know it's not all that simple . . . all right, I'll tell him." Junie snapped back to Silas. "It wants you to know that it didn't mean to hurt your father. It did hurt him, but it didn't mean to . . ." The girl cocked her head again, listened. "Oh, all right. It did mean to, sort of, but not the part of it that—well, it was somehow not itself, because it was—oh!" Juniper huffed. "You're confusing me! Just forget about it!" She shook Silas into looking directly into her face. "I'm trying to tell you that it isn't going to hurt you like what happened to your dad."

The bewildered child could only stare.

"It might play tricks, but it won't hurt you." She sighed. "Right?"

A side table nearby rocked slightly on its legs.

Junie humphed in satisfaction. Wrapping an arm around Silas's shoulders, she tried to convince him of her veracity. "Look, I know you just met me today, when . . . when all that happened. But I need your help. Our mothers have too much going on. Don't you have an aunt? A new one?"

Silas pursed his lips in thought, then brightened. "Marie," he confirmed. "She's probably at the hotel."

"Can you call her?"

"I . . . think so. There's a phone in the kitchen."

"Good. You need to tell her to come get us. And tell her to check on your sister, too."

The boy had begun to head into the kitchen but paused and turned at Junie's works. "Bibi?"

Juniper nodded. "My friend told me she's been up to something naughty. She might be causing trouble. Of course, I don't always trust what it tells me."

Newly determined, Silas spun on his heel and marched from the kitchen, leaving Juniper to return to the sofa where Evangeline still lay on her back. The baby was too young to roll, but she was wide-eyed, now, taking in the world around and above her. Junie wondered how much and how far the infant could make out. Was Evangeline's vision one swath of color, faces and items indistinguishable from one another? Was she constantly searching for a distinct solid bit to focus on, the sound of a familiar voice to call her attention to something other than the fuzzy emptiness? And when she found that voice, that known being, did Evangeline aim to corner it, to possess its attention completely? Juniper had heard how difficult infants were, how they consumed their mother until she was no longer herself for a while, until she was a ghost of what she normally was, so that the only thing that mattered was the baby's needs—

Understanding suddenly sank in. Junie gasped. "That's how it is for you, isn't it?" the girl said to her confidante. "You aren't really sure what's there, are you, until something catches your attention. And then—then you . . . you want it? Is that what you said? . . . Not me, though You don't want me like that? Well thanks a lot. I don't want you either, anyway . . . I'm—I'm what? How? . . ." Her friend had become somewhat difficult to comprehend, by this point, communicating in its strange unspeaking manner. Its messaging was fast twining into a tangled knot, as if it'd grown excited by something, and the noise within Junie's mind began to prickle in the space between her brain and her skull.

Evangeline started to cry. Junie shut and tightened her eyes, placed her hands on the sides of her head and squeezed, trying to get free of her friend's insistence. Where was Silas? Had he disappeared? And what was happening to everyone? Why was this companion of hers so fierce, suddenly?

The baby's crying shrilled, pierced Juniper's chaotic thoughts, pulled her from herself and caused her to open her eyes just to make sure the infant was all right, but to Junie's dismay, Evangeline most certainly was not. Right before the girl, who sat with her body twisted toward Danielle's daughter, the baby's limbs contorted themselves into impossible positions, its bare legs and plump feet flopping about as if they had no bones within them, its arms straining and curling upward. Juniper's breath caught as she watched Evangeline's belly bubble and rise, bloating until the onesie unsnapped itself and the belly split down the middle, peeling back skin to reveal no bones or inner organs but only a hollow crimson cavity.

Juniper scrambled backward off the sofa, falling onto the floor, and screamed. The last she saw of Evangeline before fleeing into the kitchen was the thing's face caving inward.

Silas was just returning the cell to the counter charging station when Juniper reached him. She was hysterical, and the little boy's terror returned full force. He blubbered out a string of ill-formed questions, but Junie couldn't answer. Instead, she wrapped her arms about him.

Calm had settled into her brain, in spite of her outer panic, and quite abruptly, Junie knew what her friend had been trying to say: it moved in. It resided in the space created for it, and then it sought to please, to give what was asked for.

And it told Junie its secrets, then.

Hadn't her mother hated her body, her very flesh? Hadn't her mother wanted to tear it away, to be literally less than what she was? And hadn't the boy Benny's mother wanted, for once in her life, to stand up for herself? And the girl . . . the outside girl . . . she'd wanted something too . . .

"What?" Junie seethed, her body beginning to shudder, her face heating and her teeth clenching. "You could've found a better way to tell me, you monster! You—you shitty horrible monster!" She kept Silas in a tight embrace, even as her fear was traded for rage.

In the next room, Evangeline began to cry a healthy, normal baby cry.

The outside girl had wanted to turn herself out, her friend had told her, to be seen by what was inside.

"I hate your jokes," Juniper fumed, wiping her running nose, drying her tears. "They're not funny at all."