Birthday Ghost
My little sister's birthday was always much more important than mine. December 19th rolled around, and the house was filled; come March, and I was lucky to see a few dead leaves blow through. But in 2009, she got the nasty surprise, and I was glad I wasn't the one born in the winter wind.
Everyone was milling about, saying wonderful things about my sister, while I sulked in the corner and pretended to be interested in my task: taking pictures. Finally, my mother raised her voice: "Time to cut the cake!" I trailed the crowd into the kitchen, hoisting the camera above their heads.
"I want pictures with the cake!" my sister insisted. Now everyone took notice of me, enough to split the small crowd and let me through. My sister pasted on her biggest grin and posed next to the massive Edward Cullen cake on the kitchen table.
The air became cold.
A few murmurs of, "Oh, December," and "Ugh, who left a window open?" rippled through our gathered relatives and friends. But I knew cold. This wasn't just a winter chill -- this was something else. My gaze swept around the room to reassure myself that all the windows and doors were tightly shut. The chill shift to my spine.
"Take the picture, Rafael!" my sister squawked. I started out of my trance and snapped the button a few times. All around me, cheers and the start of an off-key birthday song floated in my unhearing ears.
I drifted back into the living room to take a look at the pictures, hoping to distract myself from this odd feeling. I flicked the zoom button, to make sure they weren't out of focus, and the camera's little screen was filled with a view of the window.
And a face with gouged-out eyes.
I yelped and almost dropped the camera. Dashing into the kitchen, I dragged my father aside and mutely pushed the screen into his line of vision. He gazed at it without emotion for a moment, but then it registered. He stiffened.
"What the hell."
"I don't know, Dad. I just spotted it. I didn't see it when I was taking the pictures..."
My parents conferred quietly in the corner, and subtly shooed the party away. When everyone was gone, they put my sister to bed and sat me down at the kitchen. Long into the night, we discussed it. Could it be a guardian angel? Or a ghost that wanted to terrorize her poor little soul?
We heard a soft sobbing from upstairs. With a sad look at my father, my mother shrugged. Long ago, my sister had started crying -- waking in the middle of the night and sobbing, rocking, letting tears smear her face. Now we were used to it.
And suddenly, it made sense.
The room was cold again.