Oh great. Another family is coming. I wonder how long they’ll last—the record so far is only a month. They’re on a tour, so I have to scare them. Dang, I was just starting to get comfy.

Here comes the introductions, “Hello, I’m Ivanna. I died here in a house fire in 1915. They built this house over my house”.

But of course no one hears me. “Oh my gosh! There’s a kid—just like me!” Well technically I’m 125, but who’s counting?

Here we go again, “Hello, I’m Ivanna. What’s your name?” I hate being trained to be polite.

“Did you guys hear that?”

Wait—what? He can actually hear me! This is about to be fun.

“Stay” I whisper scarily.

He jumps. “Whoa!”

His parents are too distracted by the beautiful house to notice. I introduce myself once again and stand in front of him, extending my hand out. To my surprise, he actually sticks his hand out and tries to shake my hand. He could see me too!

The next week they move in. The house only has two massive bedrooms, so I lead him to mine and tell him we can share.

“I’ll stay on one side of the bedroom and you’ll stay on the other side.”

He gives me a weird look, and I say “What—you’ve never shared a room with a ghost before?”

He says no. I ask him if he wants to go into town tomorrow and he agrees. Bright and early the next morning, I wake him up with the scream I used during the fire. I go downstairs while he gets ready. He tosses me a waffle as we head out the door.

“I never got your name,” I say, curious.

“Oh, I’m Brian,” he replies.

Brian was my older brother’s name. Memories of the fire flood back… I shake my head violently.

“What happened?” Brian asked.

“Nothing,” I reply with a forced smile.

I show him around town and introduce him to my other ghost friends. Even though he can hear them, he can’t see them. At the end of the day we hug, of course he was just hugging an air mass though.

“You remind me of my brother, his name was also Brian” I tell him reminiscent.

“Wow, I’m honored” He smiled.

That night, for the first time in over a century, I sleep peacefully. I think I’ve finally found peace.