It was dusk as I made the turn onto Stonybrook Court, the sleepy cul-de-sac where my brother and his family lived. I had just driven an hour through traffic after a harried day at work because while they were on vacation on the other side of the world, he gets a notification from his alarm company saying there was motion detected in their family room. He called the alarm company and they said it was probably a false alarm, but they couldn’t reset the alarm remotely.

Hence, why I just drove fifty miles for my dumb brother. Oh, just to make sure we’re on the same page, I was hangry and I had to pee.

“Annie’s sister drove by at lunch and didn’t see anything out of place,” he told me earlier. “Still, are you sure you can’t get there any sooner?”

“Darren, I’m at work. I have to, you know, work. Annie’s sister lives the next block over – why can’t she reset it?”

“She doesn’t have a key.”

I thought for a moment about how that put my sibling relationship with him up a level from Annie and her sister, but that didn’t matter – I knew the drive ahead was going to suck. “Fine,” I sighed heavily. “I’ll leave right after work.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah…”

And that’s why, in the fading light I pulled into the driveway of my stupid brother’s house.

I took the flashlight out of my trunk and shone it around the outside of the house – just as Annie’s sister had reported, nothing out of place that I could see.

I let myself in through the front door and immediately saw a red error flashing on the alarm system panel just inside. “Motion detected – Main room,” whatever that meant. I went into the main room and other than the ceiling fan whirring overhead, everything seemed fine. I systematically checked every room, window, and door and nearly shit myself when out of the darkness of my nephew’s room floated a red helium balloon he’d gotten for his birthday just before they left.

“That’s some serious ‘It’ vibes,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I tied it to the small desk chair in his room to make sure that thing wasn’t responsible for any alarm sensor mischief.

Other than that, though, nothing– everything was secure.

I pulled out my cell and dialed my brother. “I’m here. Everything’s fine.” I read him the error on the alarm panel, told him about the balloon – maybe that was the cause… He walked me through resetting the alarm, everything went green, and a warning chime beeped indicating the system was successfully arming.

I locked the door and started for my car. “Looks like it armed successfully,” he said as I pictured him staring at the alarm app on his phone. “Thanks, sis.”

“Yeah,” I said grumpily. “I’m going to find some food and go home.”

“I appreciate it.”

“I know,” I said and clicked off. I know he did, and I know I was being a little petulant. But did I mention “hangry?” Yeah…

Twenty minutes later, I was halfway home, parked in an In-N-Out dipping my fries into my vanilla shake when my brother calls. “It went off again.”

“You’re shitting me?”

His pause told me he didn’t want to ask, but then he continued, “You don’t think you could go back, do you?”

“Darren, your serious right now?” I asked.

“Please, Cilly,” he said using the name he called me when we were little. He was pulling out the big guns there.

I sighed the world’s biggest sigh. “You owe me, D.”

“I know.”

Twenty minutes later I was back at Stonybrook Court, my headlights shining onto the non-descript garage of my brother’s house. Same drill – checked outside, checked inside, nothing. That damn balloon got loose, though, which was weird… So, I popped it. I mean, okay, it was my nephew’s balloon, but it was going to be out of helium and on the ground by the time they got back next Friday. I was just putting it out of its misery early. And he’s six, he won’t notice.

I called Darren. “Everything is tighter than a frog’s butt,” I said.

“I called the alarm company,” he started. “They said it could just be a malfunctioning motion sensor.”

“Okay, what does that mean for the time being?”

“I don’t know. Arm it again. If it goes off again… I don’t know, I guess we’ll just live with it.”

Yeah, no duh you’ll live with it, I thought. I’m not making a third trip. But, tummy full of In-N-Out, I had regained my patience for my dumb brother and said “Sounds good to me.”

I walked to the panel and the same ““Motion detected – Main room,” message flashed on the panel. I raised my hand to the keypad to arm the alarm and the panel went dark. What’s more, the lights throughout the house switched off one by one until just the front hallway light where I stood remained lit.

“What the hell?” I said aloud to keep myself from freaking the hell out.

Words appeared on the alarm panel. “Please don’t go. I’m lonely.”

“Umm, you’re lonely?” I said, then thought I was an idiot for speaking to the alarm panel.

The words disappeared.

Then another message appeared: “Yes. Please stay and play with me.”

Suddenly, their Alexa speaker began playing some kind of demented slowed-down version of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” at full volume.

I turned towards the door and the red balloon hovered between me and the door as I heard the deadbolt click locked.

Tonight was the last wedding of the season at Dawn Ranch in Guerneville. Even at the other catering company I work with, they’re effectively done for the season as well. The end snuck up on me, but it couldn’t have been a more wonderful wedding – the couple and their families were absolutely delightful. At the end of the night they were still giving speeches when my shift was up and I said goodbye to my coworkers who I’ll hopefully see next spring, but… you never know… So, I’m clearly feeling a little melancholy and nostalgic, and, of course, ghosty.

“Alright, will all the single ladies please make your way to the dancefloor for the bouqet toss!” the DJ announced as Beyonce sang that if you liked it you should have put a ring on it.

A dozen women crowded on one end of the dancefloor as the music returned to top volume. Most of the women were about the same age as the bride with a few older women being cajoled into the crowd. The bride, with her back to the gathering women, took her bouquet from the wedding planner smiling and nodding, their exchange lost beneath Beyonce instructing everyone to put their hands up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

The music faded out quickly as the DJ came back over the PA, “Just a few more minutes now. If you’re a single lady, please head onto the dancefloor now!”

A few moments later, the DJ said, “Here we go, everyone! On three…” and all the guests chimed in to count it down, “Three! Two! One!” and then with a squeal the bride tossed the bouquet over her head behind her.

The flowers reached the zenith of the arc and began falling back to earth with the crowd of women surging forward to be the one to catch the bouquet. Suddenly, a pale dark haired woman split through the crowd, moved past the other women and caught the bouquet.

The entire room fell silent.

The woman now clutching the bouquet and smiling furiously wasn’t just pale – she was translucent.

The bride’s gleeful smile turned to a curious frown at the silence and she turned around to see who caught the bouquet and froze.

The bride stared into her same blue eyes framed beneath jet black hair. She could only manage to get out one word: “Julie?”

The ghost’s smile turned upon seeing the bride’s reaction. She let out a nervous little laugh and said, “Hey, sis.”

“But…” the bride stammered, “You’re…. you’re…”

“Dead,” Julie finished, sadly. Her eyes falling to the flowers in her hands. “I know.” Then she brightened and looked back up to her sister. “But I couldn’t miss your wedding!”

Tears welled up in the bride’s eyes. “I’ve missed you so much…” her voice cracked. “It’s been 15 years…”

“I know! I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

“You’re… You’re old, too!”

“Hey now, sis, who are you calling old? We’re the same age!”

“I’m fifteen minutes younger,” the bride said reflexively, the words loosing the tears that started down  her cheeks.

The ghost laughed sadly.

“Stay?” the bride squeaked out.

“I can’t,” Julie said. “I wasn’t supposed to do this,” she gestured towards the bouquet in her hands. “But I… you know I can’t follow the rules.”

The bride laughed.

“I’ll be around…”

“I know…”

And the bouquet fell to the dancefloor.

I’m aware my house is haunted.

There have been quite a few unexplained creaks and sounds at various times, and footsteps in the dead of night. Occasionally an item will go missing and then show up again somewhere else I or my husband couldn’t have placed it – my car keys balanced precariously atop the closet pole in the guest room, for example.

Our washer and dryer are in the basement. If you’re not imagining how creepy the basement of a house that’s obviously haunted above ground is, then you, dear reader, lack imagination and should probably just stop reading right now.

Usually, it’s just innocuous things like I’ll be downstairs folding laundry and the door leading upstairs closes on its own with a slam. Or the light gets switched off and the creepy basement is plunged into terrifying darkness. Once, it did all the above at the same time – door slam, lights out, and – oh yeah – menacing laughter. What the ghost or ghosts didn’t factor in, though, was I was having a truly awful day and what was clearly meant to make me quiver in terror just pissed me off.

“Ghost!” I bellowed. “I do not have time for your shit. Knock it the hell off!”

Instantly the lights came back on and I heard the door to the upstairs creak open.

At least that proved the ghost is mischievous and not malevolent.

From then on the ghost backed off a little bit – it’d still do the items individually, but never all at once. And it seemed to get better at reading my mood, remaining quiescent when I’ve had a bad day.

One thing that stayed constant, however, was mismatched socks.

No matter how diligent I was making sure matched pairs went into the washer and were transferred to the dryer, when I pulled the laundry and started folding it, inevitably most of the socks were missing their mates.

I was folding the laundry one evening and lamenting the sad, sad state of our mismatched socks when I heard a giggle from the corner of the basement behind a support pillar. I eyed the dark corner and listened. There was a swooshing like fabric being moved back and forth. I set down the mismatched pair of socks and slowly, stealthily moved towards the dark corner. I heard the giggle again and I stepped closer, and closer. I popped my head around the pillar and froze.

Staring back at me was a translucent ghost draped in dozens of mismatched socks! The sock-covered ghost squeaked and then flew towards the far wall, disappearing straight through it while the socks it slapped against the wall and fell to the floor.

“Hey Phil!” I called to my husband – he had to hear this!

I explained what I had just witnessed and he inspected the wall the ghost disappeared into, tapping the wood here and there. At a particularly hollow knock, he crooked an eyebrow and experimentally knocked a few more times close by. Then he shocked me by suddenly rearing back and kicking the wall. His foot punched through the thin veneer. He pulled back his work-booted foot and shone a flashlight into the hole he had just made. He looked back at me and shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

He reached into the hole and pulled out huge fistful after fistful of mismatched socks.

“Ghost!” I called out, “I’m getting sock and tired of this!”

Phil groaned and somewhere an unseen voice groaned so loudly the whole house shook.

But we never lost another sock!