BONUS: ROSALIE WAS STUCK IN A WALL
In the morning, as always, the family gathered in the dining room.
Today was Halkara’s turn to make food, so there were generally lots of vegetables.
In cooking, everyone’s personalities showed themselves. Laika used a lot of eggs in her cooking, and Flatorte always made rich meat dishes, even in the morning.
When I cooked, I thought my meals were comparatively balanced, but I wasn’t actually sure.
At the very least, it was much better than the orange juice and done! kinds of breakfasts I had when I was a corporate slave. Whether it was “feminine” or “masculine” wasn’t the issue; it was just hard on my humanity.
“Oh, Rosalie isn’t here today,” Halkara said, gazing up at the ceiling.
Even though she was a ghost and didn’t eat anything, Rosalie was usually floating near the ceiling, just enjoying the company of her family.
“Lack of sleep? But I suppose sleep isn’t really a thing for her.”
Since she was dead, Rosalie led a life without what we’d call our three basic needs. It must be hell for a ghost to see such tantalizing food without being able to eat it like she wanted, so I thought she was doing well in that department.
I decided to call for her.
“Rosalie, where are you?”
It was like calling out for a house cat, but Rosalie was much easier to lose track of.
No response.
She wasn’t above me or below me.
I peeked into the rooms on the first floor and the wide shared space in the wooden extension that Laika built, but she wasn’t there, either.
Her absence started to worry me…
I headed for Rosalie’s room on the second floor. Rosalie wasn’t disadvantaged by having to physically go upstairs, so she used the second floor.
The door opened with a clack, but she wasn’t there.
Her personal stuffed dogs and cats were there, and that was all. She liked stuffed animals, so she would save up her allowance and buy them sometimes.
“Huh? If she’s not here, then where did she go…? I mean, she can go to Flatta or Nascúte or wherever…”
And when I was about to leave the room—
“Big Sis, Big Sis! I’m here!”
I heard Rosalie’s voice.
But it sounded a little different than usual, almost slightly muffled.
And I still couldn’t see where she was.
“Hey, Rosalie, where on earth are you? I can’t tell where you are when you just say here!”
She was definitely close by, so I gazed around the room.
That’s when I noticed it.
At one spot on the wall, the wooden textures looked like a ghastly face.
“Aaaah! It’s haunted! Like something from a horror flick!”
Monsters and spirits and stuff didn’t scare me after all this time. Demons came by the house pretty often, after all.
But I could not handle hauntings and unexplained phenomena! It gave me the shivers! And goose bumps!
I have to run! I have to get out of here now!
“Big Sis, wait! It’s me!”
Rosalie’s voice echoed around me again. And it somehow sounded like it was coming from…
“Hey! Don’t scare me like that! That’s you, right, Rosalie?!”
“Yes… I had a little accident…”
I guess once Rosalie got caught in the wall, a terrifying visage appeared. Was this another part of a ghost’s power…?
“Whatever, just come out right now. This is terrible for my heart.”
“Well… I can’t…” The wall sounded embarrassed.
“Huh? Isn’t it a piece of cake for a ghost to slip through walls?”
“Actually, I was just sitting here for a bit. Then, for some reason, I got caught and couldn’t move…”
Was something so bizarre possible? But, I guess it was happening in real life…
I had no idea what to do about this on my own, so I called the whole family in (except Halkara, who had gone to work at the factory).
But no one could think of a quick fix.
Not only was it the rarest of cases, but none of us had been ghosts before.
Shalsha brought in dictionaries from her room and started looking up words.
I didn’t think that would solve anything, but it would be bad for her education if I told her outright that it wouldn’t work, so I just watched.
“I learned that stuck in a wall was an old idiomatic expression.”
“Huh, and what does it mean?”
Was it maybe a phenomenon that had happened a lot in the olden days? Ghosts themselves had been around forever, after all.
“It means—nothing can be done. To be at a loss. A situation where giving up is the only solution.”
“Okay, that’s not helping!”
Whoops, I ended up shooting her down…
“As the one who built this part of the house, I’m loath to suggest it, but why don’t we break the wall here? Rosalie may be able to get out then.”
Laika offered an aggressive, dragon-like solution.
Before I could say anything, Rosalie resisted. “That’s scary, so don’t do it! I might be cut into tiny pieces!” I couldn’t say for sure there was no risk, so I agreed.
“What if you space out again and end up slipping out? That’s how I, Flatorte, have lived life so far.”
Flatorte’s ideas didn’t deviate much from one another…
But sometimes things just come off by the time you’ve forgotten about them, more often than you think. Like when you go back to open a lid on a bottle and it comes right off even though it was stuck the first time.
“By the way, Rosalie, how do you feel right now?”
“If I had to describe it… Nothingness.”
Her response sounded vaguely religious.
“It’s been a while since I died, but this is the emptiest I’ve felt. Futility, maybe, or nihility… I want to get out of here soon…”
I guess we couldn’t just leave her.
“All right! Falfa will push you out!”
Falfa rolled up her already short sleeves—
—breathed in slowly—
—and rammed right into the wooden wall. Bam!
Whoa! That was a full-bodied blow!
As a result of that…
“Waaah, ow, oww! My arms feel tingly…”
I saw it coming, but Falfa just got hurt.
“Aww, Falfa, you should think carefully about doing something before you do it, okay?”
She was still a child, so I wanted her to be more thoughtful at times like this. I looked at Falfa’s arm.
“Are you bleeding? There’s no blood. Good, good.”
I stroked Falfa’s arm.
“This’ll make the pain go away. Pain, pain, go away!”
“Wow, Mommy, that’s incredible! I think it actually hurts less! You’re like a magician, Mommy!”
I’ve been a witch for three hundred years, by the way.
Whether or not it actually had any effect, Falfa stopped crying, so that was good enough for me.
—But then, I got an idea.
I slowly stood before Rosalie (and the wall she was in).
I gently brushed the wall, stroking it back and forth with my right hand.
“Ah-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! Stop, Big Sis! That tickles!”
The voice came from the wall in response.
It was working, but it was unclear if it would help her get out.
“You know, I noticed we hadn’t touched the wall at all. Since you melded with it, I wondered if it would tickle you if I touched it,” I said as my hands continued to stroke the wall.
Anyone just looking on might think I was being perverse, but I was super serious about this.
“Gyah! Ee-hee-hee… Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha… Stop, stop! I’m gonna die…!”
“You’re fine! You’re already dead!”
Her reaction was promising. And it was getting more and more effective.
Wouldn’t giving the wall a good rub like this bring her out of it?
If she didn’t—well, we’d cross that bridge when we came to it! We had nothing to lose!
“Everyone, pet the wall with me! Like you’re tickling it!”
My two daughters, Laika, and Flatorte all lined up with me and started lightly touching the wall.
“Yaaa-haaaaaaa! Wah-ha-ha-ha! I can’t do this anymore! This is hell, hell! Eeeeee! Yaaaaaa!”
Rosalie sure was cracking up. Now come on out!
“I can’t take it anymore!!!”
Then, suddenly, Rosalie popped out from the wall.
Her eyes were watering, even though she was a ghost. Maybe it really was ticklish for her.
“Sheesh! You guys went way too far! I’ve never been tortured like that before!”
“But we succeeded in getting you out, right?”
Rosalie looked around to see where she was.
“Oh, you’re right… I didn’t think that would work…”
And so Rosalie’s ensnarement in the wall was solved peacefully, and she never spaced out in a wall again.
We all needed to be careful not to trap ourselves between a wall and a hard place.
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