Switching on the mirror light, I looked at the mirror. I seemed to have two reflections for a moment, as if I had double vision.

I shook my head and then I could see more clearly. Everything was back to normal…

‘Sophie, there you are.’

The bathroom was empty. Going out to the bedroom, I looked around; no one was there. I was getting seriously spooked. My door was locked and you need a swipe card to get in. What was going on?

‘Sophie, its me, Hannah.’

‘H…Hannah, where are you?’

‘Inside you, silly. Isn't this fun!’

And now the story continues…

I sat down heavily on the bed.

‘H…Hannah, is that you?’

‘Who else do you think it is, you dummy?’

‘W…where are you?’

I looked around, frightened that some sort of ghostly thing might pop out from behind the wall or something.

‘Inside your head.’

‘I’m going bonkers!’

I wondered if I had eaten too much birthday cake or something.

‘You are no more bonkers than you normally are.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t either. One minute, I’m on a plane with Mummy and it was diving down and then I had a strange dream and Mummy hugged me, told me to be a good girl and look after you and then she turned away went along a long tunnel towards a bright light and hear a big bang and then I end up here with you. Oh hell Sophie, I’m sorry, I think that Mummy’s dead.’

I could sense an intense sadness.

‘You both are.’

‘What? No I’m not, I’m here but somehow inside your head. Its freaky, I can feel and touch and see through you…’

‘You died eighteen months ago…’

‘Don’t be silly, the crash only happened like what, yesterday?’

I went over to my iPad and opened it.

‘Look at the date.’

‘Oh…oh, so where have I been for eighteen months?’

‘I don’t know.’

It was strange. I could hear her talking in my head but I was answering her out loud. I was beyond being creeped out by all this. Then it was obvious, I was hallucinating.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Can’t you read my thoughts?’

‘No, all I hear is a fuzzy noise. Can you hear what I’m thinking?’

‘No I can’t, because you aren’t real. I must be getting skidsoid or something.’

‘The word is schizoid, dummy.’

‘Whatever.’

I decided to have a lie down and shut my eyes for a minute. I had obviously done too much and I was having some sort of funny turn. I looked down at my locket. The two halves were definitely one now and there was no join. What was happening here?

‘I’m glad that you are still dressing girlie. You were always a better girl than a boy.’

‘I can’t hear you.’ I said, putting my hands over my ears.

‘Yes you can. Look I know that I’m not a figment of your whatsitsname.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos I remember things.’

‘Like what.’

‘Things that only I know and not you,’

‘Like what?’ I repeated, letting my hands fall to my lap.

‘Are you turning into a parrot or something? Look, do you go into my room much?’

‘No, it…it hurts too much.’

‘Oh sweetie, that’s so nice. Look, do you know anything of my secret hiding place?’

‘What the one in the back of your wardrobe?’

‘No, not that one.’

‘Oh, I know; the one where you have a false bottom in the chest of drawers?’

‘No…I thought that was a secret.’

‘Not from me it wasn’t.’

‘Hrmmph, well anyway, I bet you don’t know this one.’

‘Well go on then, you figment of my imagination; tell me then. Where is this fantastic, hiding place, that no one and that includes me, knows about?’

‘Right, go into my room.’

Hannah’s room was next door and a mirror one to mine, except the en-suite was the other way around, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t locked, but no one except me and I suspect Dad sometimes, went into it. I kept it clean and tidy, but as no one actually slept there or used the room, it stayed fairly clean.

‘Oooh this is strange?’

‘What?’

‘You have a willy and ball thingies. I can feel them when we walk. They don’t feel very big though, in fact quite tiny and shrivelled. Felicity Boothryoyd said… ’

‘Never mind Felicity whatsit, don’t be disgusting.’

‘Just telling the truth.’

I thought that my manly stuff was quite big actually, last time I checked. Then I wondered if I was going mad even thinking of my down below bits at a time like this and having an imaginary conversation with my dead sister. But I would just go through with this silly pretence and go into Hannah’s room.

The room was almost as Hannah left it. I always got a lump in the throat when I went in there. Before, when she was alive, I used to borrow some of her clothes, but I hadn’t since she died. It just didn’t seem right.

‘Okay, I bet you don’t know where it is. You don’t know do you?’

‘No, I only knew about those two other places.’

‘Right, go over to my bed.’

I sat down on the bed, wondering if I should do a 999 call to my therapist.

‘You don’t think that I’m real, do you?’

‘Nope.’

‘Right, will you believe me when I show you my secret place, the one you don’t know about, I mean?’

‘I might.’

‘You are hard work, Sophie. Well, firstly, you have to promise not to flip out.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Promise.’

‘All right, I promise.’

‘Well, stand up and open the under-bed drawer and pull it out.’

I did it; there was a quilt in the drawer but nothing else.

‘So you hid a quilt, big deal.’

It was a good job that I wasn’t being observed, as it would have sounded like I was having a conversation with myself, a one sided one.

‘Right Miss Smarty Pants; put your head in the drawer space.’

I put my head in, feeling foolish, to say the least.

‘Look to the left.’

There was a small white button, near the top, to the side. If I hadn’t have been looking for something funny, I wouldn’t have noticed it.

‘Press the button.’

‘Your bed won’t go up in flames or something?’

‘No silly; just do it.’

I pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

‘Well that was interesting.’

‘Patience, little sister. Now come out of there.’

I struggled out of the confined space and stood up.

‘Now go into the bathroom.’

‘Is this some sort of game, if it is, I’m not laughing.’

‘What’s happened to your sense of fun?’

‘It died when you and Mum did.’

There was silence for a moment.

‘I miss Mummy.’

I could somehow hear a catch in her voice as I walked into the bathroom.

‘Yeah, me too. Anyway, enough of that; I’m in the bathroom’

‘I know, I can see.’

‘How come – oh never mind. What next.’

‘See the shower base panel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Push and then let go of the left hand side, near the bottom.’

I bent down and did it, not expecting anything to happen.

There was a click and the side of the panel slid open, like a drawer.

Inside was a pink diary, a locked one.

‘Well, have you ever seen that before?’

‘No, where’s the key.’

‘Maybe I’ll show you later; its hidden, but the diary is kinda private with all my secret thoughts in it. The button under the bed is a Bluetooth one and it releases the catch in here. Now do you believe me? I showed you a secret place that you didn’t know about.’

‘Maybe; tell me something that I don’t know.’

‘You are very hard work Sophie, do you know that? OK, I can do that. I can tell you all about my school and my friends. You don’t know any of them, as you never went there. You can check up with them if you like. I can give you my Facebook and Twitter passwords too. You know I never told you any of my passwords.’

I went back into her bedroom and sat down. Somehow I knew that she was telling the truth without having to do the Facebook and Twitter thing. I just knew that I wasn’t just hearing voices in my head, I was somehow hearing my sister, Hannah.

‘It really is you and I’m not going mad?’

‘Yep, its me. I don’t know what’s going on, the same as you, but I’m sure that I’m here for a reason.’

It was so hard to believe all this, but I knew my sister better than anyone else in the world. If this was still me losing my mind, at least I wasn’t alone any more. I would just assume that what I had been hearing was the truth…mind you, there was one more concrete way of knowing…

‘The plane that you was on, when you died…’

‘I don’t like the “d” word…’

‘Sorry, when the plane crashed.’

‘Yea, what about it?’

‘Do you remember the flight number?’

‘Yea, it was easy to remember, flight SWR007. I thought James Bond, You know?’

‘Yes I know. I’m not thick.’

‘Who says?’

‘I say; now shut up a minute, will you?’

‘Sorry I spoke.’

I went back into my bedroom and over to my laptop and then googled the accident, I just knew that I did not have the flight number as I was never told it and I had never looked up the details of accident as it was too upsetting. As far as I was concerned I had my head in the sand over any details of the crash. Things were hard enough for me without seeing the horrific details of what happened.

I clicked on a link that went onto one of the news websites that reported it. I soon found details about the plane crash, which upset me enormously, but I had to find out about the flight and I was soon looking at some specific details.

Hannah kept quite and didn’t say anything. I think that this was the first time that she had seen details of the crash and that wasn’t surprising as she was supposed to be dead.

As I looked at pictures of the crash site, I could hear a sobbing in my head. This was bad for me, but it must have been even worse for her. Tears coursed down my face as I relived the horrid things that happened eighteen months before.

‘Hannah, can you close your eyes?’

‘I…I haven’t got eyes,’ she said, sounding really upset.

‘Well imagine you have or at least do something to take your mind off things.’

After blowing my nose with a tissue and wiping my eyes with another, I waited a moment and then continued my reading. There it was in black and white. SWR007 was the flight number.

I had seen enough. I was convinced. I knew that I did not have a clue about the flight number as I refused to even look at anything to do with the crash until now.

I sat there for some minutes fingering my newly merged pendant that still felt strangely warm to touch. Up until now, I had thought that I had voices I my head. The fact that I now had the proof that I wasn’t going mad was nice, very nice. Then I recalled the weird thing where Hannah’s pendant and mine had suddenly merged and the flash of light and gust of wind occurred. This was all sort of supernatural and downright unbelievable, or so I thought.

It was obvious that I was in a sort of shocked state. My sister was in me and appeared to be part of me now. How weird was that? I thought that I had lost her and I had kind of, but she was back, I hoped forever, but I didn’t know if it was forever. Maybe she had gone already…

‘Hannah, are you there?’

‘Can I come back now?’

‘Yes Hannah; you really are here aren’t you?’

‘Yes I am. I can sense that you now believe me.’

‘Yea, I do and I would give you a hug if I could.’

‘Same here. I wish that Mummy could have come back somehow too; but I can sense that she’s looking over us.’

‘Its strange, I have thought that ever since the crash. I had dreams about her being in a happy place, just out of sight. Maybe that’s what Heaven is, although I’m not sure that I believe any more after all that’s happened. The funny thing is, I can’t remember you being in my dreams.’

‘For me, its like it just happened. I closed my eyes, there was a sort of a flash and I felt like I was being sucked in somewhere. I couldn’t believe it when I realised it was you. I couldn’t see, cos it was dark, but I just knew somehow that I was with you. It was only when you opened your eyes that I could see anything.’

‘You know that I can’t tell anyone about you. They would think that I had gone weird in the head or something.’

‘I know. It’s a shame because I want to cuddle Daddy and tell him so much.’

I wanted to change the subject because we were both getting upset.

‘Hannah, how much can you feel. Can you control our body?’

‘Our body, I like that. Its your body really.’

‘Not any more, we shared everything before and we’ll share everything now.’

Somehow, I could feel her hugging me. It was a strange but nice sensation.

‘Thanks hon, anyway, what am I feeling? Well to be honest I think that I can feel most things; I'm pretty sure that the only things I can’t do is control you and read your thoughts.’

I pinched myself and we both went, ‘ouch.’

All the time I had been speaking out loud, so I tried to speak to her with my mind instead of talking out loud.

‘Can you hear me,’ I shouted in my mind.

‘Ouch, you’re shouting!’

‘Ooh, it works. I thought that you couldn’t hear me think?’

‘Well I heard that, loud and clear. Try thinking of something.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know, anything you like. You weren’t as thick as this when I was alive.’

‘Hey, watch who you are calling thick.’

‘All right, sorry. Look are you going to do it?’

‘What?’

‘Think of something.’

I thought about an ice cream cornet with chocolate sauce.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘Well what?’

‘What was I thinking about?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well that worked anyway; I can think of things but unless I verbalise you can’t hear me. I must have some sort of switch thingie that knows when I am talking to you and when I’m not. Let me try another…’

I thought about Hannah been short, ugly with spots on her nose, while I was pretty and sweet and gorgeous looking.

‘What was I just thinking?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘Probably a good thing’’ I giggled.

All this conversation was inside my head. I could talk to her and her me without my saying anything out loud.

‘This is so cool. I might be dead, body wise but at least I have something going on here.’

‘You know that I can’t tell anyone. They will think I’m mad and send me off to some exclusive funny farm with special rooms that are nicely padded for my protection.’

‘Yea, that sucks; we can’t even tell Daddy.’

‘Bummer,’

‘Tell me about it.’

'Look, why don't you try and raise my arm or something, that will tell us if you can control my body.'

'Okay,'

I let my arm go limp on my lap, but apart from a funny tingling sensation, nothing happened.

'Oh well, it was worth a try.'

I yawned and noticed that it was two in the morning. I was tired and needed my beauty sleep. I scratched at a nipple that seemed a bit ticklish and then I said.

‘I’m tired and need to go to bed. Will you sleep or do you need to do that any more?’

‘I haven’t a clue, but I do feel weary, maybe my brain or whatever I have in here with you is linked very closely to you and when you sleep, I do. Lets try it, shall we?’

I nodded, too tired to verbalise anything. So I went back to bed.

‘G’night Hannah.’

‘G’night Shorty.’

I smiled. When she was alive, she often called me that, as I was a quarter of an inch shorter than her. Then, I could somehow feel her drifting off and I followed soon after.

Waking the next morning, I stretched and looked over at my clock. It was 7.30 and the sun behind the curtains lit the room. Picking up the remote, I opened the curtains and sunlight flooded in. the sea the sky was blue and it looked like it was going to be a glorious day. seagulls were wheeling about in the air and a yacht was sailing along close to the horizon, its white sails stark against the blue of the sea.

I recalled a strange dream that I had last night. I had a vivid imagination and I could have sworn that…

‘So you’re awake too. I didn’t want to say anything.’

‘Hannah, are you there?’

‘In the flesh, well not in the flesh, in your flesh, well you know what I mean.’

‘So it wasn’t a dream?’

‘Nope, I’m still here.’

‘Did you go to sleep?’

‘Yea, I did. It seems like we go to sleep and wake up pretty much at the same time; isn’t that neat?’

‘Yes it is…’

The internal phone went off.

‘Hello?’

‘George, did you forget?’

‘Hi Julia, what did I forget?’

‘Bike ride ten minutes ago,’

‘Oh sorry, I didn’t sleep that well last night. Can you give me twenty minutes?’

‘Sure, see you soon.’

‘We’re not going for a bike ride, are we?’

She sounded a trifle fearful.

‘Yes, it’ll be fun.’

‘You know I hate riding a bike. Maisie, now that’s different,’

Maisie was Hannah’s pony. I didn’t like her and she didn’t like me. It was just one of those things. After Hannah had “died” I tried to get to know Maisie better, but nothing had changed, she just didn’t like me and I was nervous to be around her. She was still in the stables with the horses that Mum and Dad had and they were all being looked after by the groom.

‘Can we go and see Maisie?’

‘Maybe after the bike ride, but I’m not going too close to her as I don’t want to get nipped.’

‘Coward.’

‘Yes I have this lovely yellow streak that goes down my back.’

We both giggled.

With that I stripped off, had a quick wash and then put on my bike kit. My sky kit was mainly black and I loved it. As I may have mentioned, it was almost unisex, but not quite, although both seem the same, the girls kit is cut slightly different. I had a boy’s kit, but at least it looked a bit like a girls one.

As I dressed – it felt a bit tight in places, probably all that Birthday cake – I had to endure Hannah’s complaints about cycling.

‘It makes you sweat and the kit is too tight. I hate going up hills and any time I ever tried it, my legs were like jelly afterwards.’

‘Hannah, that isn’t as bad as riding your flaming pony. When I had riding lessons, I had a numb bum for ages and the riding a pony made me feel sea sick, what with all the gigging about and then…’

‘Erm Sophie.’

‘And then there’s the smell, ponies smell and they drop their doings on the floor and…’

‘SOPHIE!’

‘Eh, what?’

‘You’re in front of the mirror, look at yourself.’

‘What are you…Oh-My-God!’

My reflection didn’t look right; it didn’t look right at all, as I now had slightly larger hips and my bum seemed a bit bigger. However, what took most of my attention were the two small but very pronounced mounds that could be seen clearly through the tight fitting top.

I had girls breasts.

What was happening to me?

---

 
To Be Continued...

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