Sylvana's body disappeared more and more every minute, and she soon looked like an ectoplasm without identity. Her features were blurred, her hand a shapeless thing that Adja was still trying to hold. Adja waited for hours without moving, worried that Sylvana would never come back to her senses. To avoid worrying for the rest of the night, Adja talked to Sylvana without expecting an answer.

'I understand that your father murdered you with the help of his brother and sister. I can't explain why they took this decision, though... Whatever they thought, whatever made them believe you were possessed, I can't value any of it. I want you to know that. I trust you, as usual... I thought it would be wrong to believe you blindly, but I don't care about it anymore today. You did nothing wrong, Sylvana, and I'll prove it.'

More hours elapsed. Adja found it strange to live without ups and downs, no feeling of exhaustion nor hunger. She wondered how Sylvana could have stayed sane, because she was already starting to be bored. Without any conversation nor any place to visit, she couldn't find any reason to stay. Adja suddenly felt her friend's hand recover in hers.

'Sylvana, are you coming back?' she asked, looking at her empty eyes. 'I would like you to wake up...'

'A...'

Adja bent over her face, or at least the place where it should reappear. In an instant, Sylvana was back, ready to live another day. She smiled and muttered:

'Adja.. Sorry, I was absent, but you know why.'

'Could you hear me, when I talked to you?'

'Badly, only just before coming back, but I understood enough. Thank you for trusting me.'

Adja smiled and released her hand to walk a little and discover what her new appearance could do, but Sylvana grabbed her by the arm to force her to her side.

'It is more comfortable,' she whispered in her ear. 'There is nothing to do, outside.'

'But we shou–'

'We will talk to him later,' Sylvana replied. She had guessed they were talking about Alphonse Dormeaux. 'You should enjoy your new life, in the meantime.'

At these words, Adja felt worse than ever. She cried without tears, her whole body shivering.

'My parents... My grandmother...,' she sobbed.

'Shhhh,' Sylvana comforted her awkwardly. 'Come here.'

She held her against what would have been her heart in her previous life... and what should have been her dress in the afterlife.

'Sylvana...,' Adja murmured, sad but slightly amused.

'What?' she said with irony.

'Don't you want to put clothes on?'

'I am too tired for this, I just reappeared.'

'Liar.'

Sylvana smirked.

'Well, you should be aware that you are the one making us stay on this bed. If you did not want us to be comfortable, we would be falling halfway through the mattress. You are the only person in charge here, so do not hesitate to create some clothes for me, if you miss them so much.'

She's obviously provoking me... Adja felt Sylvana's breasts through her t-shirt, and a fake heart beating under her skin. She was clearly strong enough to create what she wanted. Adja, being curious, stroked her shoulder with the tip of her fingers. Her pulse hastened along with her breath, without even trying to recreate them, and she feared she would go mad if all of this didn't stop at once. I can't... She saw her grandma's face, flooded with tears, hearing how her only granddaughter died sordidly, her parents rushing to the Maison Dormeaux to find her decomposing corpse under the sheets... No, no, no. Adja imagined thick pajamas for Sylvana.

'Why?' she asked. 'I was offering something better...'

Unable to voice her pain, Adja snuggled against Sylvana and closed her eyes, hoping she would understand the extent of her misery.

'Tell me...,' Adja whispered. 'Tell me when you left your body. I want to know if you were as desperate as I am.'

An awkward silence settled. Adja thought she was crossed a red line, but Sylvana ended up speaking.

'I had not thought of that for over a century.'

'Tell me everything, if you want to,' she asked gently.

'I went on fighting my father until he left the bedroom. I think my hands went through his chest, but I could not see it. I only realized at this instant that I was not alive anymore.'

'Were you scared?'

'I felt safe. I stayed in my room until they picked my body up to bury me in the forest. I followed them, and...'

Sylvana paused and hugged Adja tightly.

'One cannot go very far from the house without a Ouija board, but I did not know this before your visit. I felt completely exhausted... then my soul went blank, and I woke up exactly where I lost my life.'

With an emotionless tone, Sylvana recounted how she had wandered in the house, listening to her family agonizing.

'They all suffered from the same mysterious affliction and emptied their guts day after day,' she explained coldly. 'My father repeated that everything was my fault, and my old aunt too...'

'Your old aunt?'

'My grandfather Alphonse's sister, Sidonie. She never married, you know.'

Adja tried to guess the implications behind this remark. Sylvana had lived at a time when women married to survive, and had no financial independence. Sidonie Dormeaux could either be deranged, bravely self-reliant... or attracted to women.

'And old freak,' Sylvana went on, answering her silent question. 'Always burning some incense or calling spirits with a glass of water... Now that I think about it, maybe she was right! Sidonie came to our home when my grandfather died, to pay him a last homage, which is absolutely normal, but she put her poisonous ideas in everyone's mind...'

Sylvana sighed.

'She told them it was my fault if Grandfather had fallen ill and had not survived, that I had occult powers killing my victims slowly... I have never done any of those things! But the worst is that just after my great-aunt explanation...'

Adja could guess the rest. She cleared her throat and asked:

'Georges, Jules and Elisa fell ill too?

'Exactly. And so did Sidonie, by the way.'

'It looks like an epidemic of a random disease, nothing more! You were most likely immunized against it and didn't catch it!'

'Sidonie thought that I cursed everyone else to obtain my grandfather's inheritance.'

Adja fell silent, not knowing what to say.

'You don't believe me either, do you?' Sylvana asked her sternly.

'I do, but I wonder... Is is possible to curse people? Does it really exist?'

Sylvana straightened up abruptly, making Adja roll on her side. She closed her eyes, replaced her horrible pajamas with her lace dress and crossed her arms.

'I did not kill my family, Adja, you have no right to believe it!'

'But... I don't, it was an actual question!'

'You are making fun of me,' Sylvana attacked. 'I look like a f–'

'SILENCE!'

Adja had raised her voice, tired of her behavior.

'Stop taking me for a liar! Your jealousy, your accusations... stop! I stayed here for a week and you occupied my thoughts day and night! I am almost happy to spend the eternity with you, even though I'm leaving my grieving family behind, and you still think I hate you? All people are not awful, Sylvana, I'm not like those fools who slaughtered you!'

Sylvana made her legs go through the bed to reach Adja without circling it.

'I will stop,' she murmured. 'But I am scared. I do not want you to be disappointed, and after all these years not talking to anyone...'

'It's okay, Sylvana.'

'I have become strange.'

Adja embraced her.

'You will manage. We always do.'

'I would like to correct my mistakes and understand if I have done something wrong... Could I have been possessed by a demon? Something living here before us, that protected me and killed all the others?'

'I don't know much about curses,' Adja conceded. 'I just know that one shouldn't do whatever they want with a Ouija board.'

'Ask... Léon... to search it.'

Adja felt like this effort had cost Sylvana a thousand points of vital force.

'We will ask him. Maybe tomorrow, if he comes back.'

My body is still in a bed on the first floor, she remembered instantly. I'm glad I don't have organs anymore, otherwise I would be throwing up already. Sylvana saw her uneasiness and stroked her arm with kindness.

'It is difficult, at the beginning, but I will always be here to help you.'

'You discovered the afterlife by yourself, alone, I hate myself for being like this and...'

... and destroying your kinky fantasies because I'm depressed instead of enjoying it? I'm doing what I can, I shouldn't blame myself! Her shame was misplaced.

'We have the eternity to live in harmony,' Sylvana said. 'If we can call it a life. In any case, do we have a choice? I will stay here until my soul finds some peace, and it is not going to happen soon. My family angered me so much that I do not feel ready to disappear.'

'Will I disappear, now that I know why I'm dead?' Adja freaked out, touching her cheeks to comfort herself. 'I don't want to leave, not before talking to my family to tell them I love them!'

'You are still conscious because you want to remain here, I think. I need answers, you need to talk. God knows what will happen in the future.'

Adja nodded and dared to kiss Sylvana on the cheek to thank her.

'You're kind. You could have made me shut up with the power of you mind, but you've been nice, you have told me what happened to you and sad stories...'

'I do not want to use my little magic tricks to use you as I see fit, you know.'

She addressed her an impenetrable smile that made her shiver. Adja knew exactly what she was certainly thinking about. Always in the mood, right...

'I would like to talk to Alphonse,' Adja asked to change the subject. 'Is it too early?'

'Meeting him would be a delight, but I am afraid he will escape us. If I scare him, it will be complicated.'

'I will take the first step, then.'

'That will not be necessary,' Alphonse Dormeaux suddenly said, entering the bedroom without a sound, his ghostly feet weightless on the floor.

The old man looked determined, dressed with a grey costume. He stood very upright.

'I am glad to see you walk with such ease, Grandfather,' Sylvana said with a polite smile. 'Your back was so painful...'

'I listened to the whole conversation,' Alphonse said, not looking at her. 'How can this young woman see you, Sylvana?'

'I'm dead,' Adja answered without a warning. I'm a ghost too.'

Alphonse Dormeaux looked thunderstruck.

'The horror! Sylvana, what have you done?!'

'My health has always been fragile,' Adja intervened. 'My heart gave up because of my lack of sleep, everything was my fault.'

Thankfully, Sylvana didn't look at her with a dead fish stare that would have given her lies away.

'I am very sorry for you, young woman,' the old man said with a solemn expression. 'I hope you will not be bored in your new life.'

Adja tilted her head and nodded silently. Alphonse seemed to be a good, understanding person, and maybe naive enough to believe his sister's rants. And my stupid made-up explanation. She waited for Sylvana to say something, to at least pretend to start a discussion, but nothing happened. I won't handle this much longer.

'You must surely have a lot of things to tell each other, right? I can move away, if you'd like it.'

'Stay,' Sylvana implored her, surprisingly startled. 'I cannot say anything anymore without making mistakes... You have to help me, it has been too long.'

'We are the same, Sylvana,' Alphonse sighed. 'As always.'

They made eye contact but didn't move, embarrassed. That's horrible... I can't imagine staying away from Grandma as they do! They're supposed to be from the same family, it's ridiculous!

'Move closer,' she muttered.

'Sorry?' they said, together.

'Move closer, hug each other! I don't know!' Adja exclaimed. 'If I hadn't seen my grandmother for centuries, I would fall into her arms! Do it, it's depressing to witness!'

Adja must have had a very severe look because Alphonse Dormeaux, an eighty-year-old man who had run his family for years, obeyed to her without fighting. He walked to Sylvana and awkwardly parted his armes. Sylvana shot a glance to Adja, then gave up, eyes shiny with tears. She embraced her grandfather, her face buried in his shoulder.

Adja laid back on Sylvana's bed and listened to the Dormeaux talking for hours. They recounted anecdotes after anecdotes that Adja was unable to understand, but she was fascinated.

'Do you remember the little cat who stole our milk? It was so difficult to bring that milk from Toulon...'

'Of course, Sylvana, I remember everything.'

'It was so adorable! All white, cute, even if it made our lives impossible for weeks... And this old man who brought us the mail!'

'I always gave him a few coins so he could take care of his grandson. I hoped he would come to thank us... and maybe build a friendship with you. I imagined even more, sometimes.'

Sylvana burst out laughing, but Adja didn't find this story funny at all.

'You gave money to a young man so Sylvana would meet him and marry him?'

'Yes, and?' Alphonse frowned. 'This is a normal process to ensure the sustainability of my family. Of course, all of this obviously failed, since we are all deceased.'

'I find it too... paternalistic, I guess,' Adja said. 'We're not from the same era, and it's not normal for me to organize your own granddaughter's sentimental life, that's all.'

'In a few hours only, you have become like me,' Sylvana smirked.

Adja squinted her eyes.

'Like you?'

'Jealous.'

Adja looked at Alphonse, not knowing what to say. Did his era accept homosexuality? No, surely not, it was hardly legal a century after his death... Sylvana didn't fear anything, mentioning it in front of him...

'Grandfather will not be surprised,' Sylvana said with a shrug. 'I would not have married Monsieur Tourdieux's grandson.'

'I was the only one in the family accepting your... preference,' Alphonse nodded. 'Your father Georges was constantly livid and talked to me everyday about it. He hoped you would change your mind, which I doubted.'

'Sylvana... Did Sylvana date women?' Adja asked, her mouth artificially dry. 'Openly?'

'I refuse to know what she did with her cousin when she was thirteen, my acceptance does not go that far,' Alphonse shook his head.

'Your cousin?'

'I have never done anything with Edith!' Sylvana replied. 'You have interpreted my behavior the wrong way! She was... she was miserable with Aunt Sidonie.'

Sylvana told them how her cousin Edith, who lived with Sidonie Dormeaux since her parents' death, endured a living hell in her company. The old woman made her participate in seances that terrorized her. She even used her as a bait to attract evil spirits that prevented her from sleeping.

'I spent countless hours with Edith so she would not end her life, and what you deduced was... this? A romantic story?'

'Sidonie could be trusted, sometimes,' Alphonse protested calmly. 'She was simply different, away from the norm.'

'She sent you all to your death!' Adja yelled, forgetting any notion of tact.

Alphonse Dormeaux stayed paralyzed, frozen in a torpor that didn't bode well. As for Sylvana, she didn't seem terrified at all.

'Adja is worse than me, Grandfather,' she said. 'What she meant is that Aunt Sidonie seems mysterious to her.'

'Sidonie accused your granddaughter of provoking your death. She thought she was possessed by a demon! Are you... are you aware of what happened in this house after you left?'

'During a few days,' Alphonse recounted, 'I wandered in the forest until I lost consciousness, thinking I was on the path to Heaven and I had to follow it. You do know it is not possible to go very far without starting again, at the beginning of the afterlife... When I finally accepted my new existence as a ghost, my sister Sidonie had already arrived to pray for me. I stayed in shock in front of my body until three doctors took it away. They promised to come back with more information about my death.'

'They never did,' Sylvana said. 'Other doctors came when my father, uncle and aunt died, but since I was not alive anymore... they did not talk about it openly. I was not good at reading thoughts yet, so I still do not know what they knew. But they absolutely knew.'