It was amazing how one simple question could bring back so many memories. Some of those memories were heartwarming and others were frightening, but they all came rushing back when Ricki innocently asked that one simple question.
"So, Letti, how did you and Meg meet?"
And now the story...
FOREVER FRIENDS
It was amazing how one simple question could bring back so many memories. Some of those memories were heartwarming and others were frightening, but they all came rushing back when Ricki innocently asked that one simple question.
It was late February of 2008 and we were gathered in Ricki’s basement. The five of us had planned to go out to a movie and a pizza parlor, but the weather changed our plans. There was a snowstorm that was supposed to pass to the north of us but it came right at us instead. After the first foot of snow fell, we decided to have an impromptu girls’ night in Ricki’s basement. Ricki had just moved into town over the summer and we were just getting to know her. A girls’ night was a perfect way to do that.
Ricki’s basement was nicely done in plush carpets and upholsteries. The basement had a big plasma screen TV, shelves of books and games on one wall, and a small bar in one corner. A mahogany card table stood in another corner. There were two couches and a coffee table near the fireplace, where Ricki had built a roaring fire. It was a wonderful room that offered versatility without sacrificing coziness.
We had watched a romantic comedy and after the final credits we began chatting about real-life romance.
“So, Letti, how did you and Meg meet?”
Meg and I exchanged glances. We had never become accustomed to addressing that question because we never knew how the inquirer would react to the answer. Slowly, I looked over at Ricki, smiled at her and gave her the simple truth.
“Meg’s dead friend introduced us.”
Ricki looked at me as though I had antlers growing out of my head. She was the hard-nosed skeptic type who didn’t believe in anything spiritual. She laughed and smiled at me.
“You are so full of shit! Seriously, how did you two meet?”
Meg and I exchanged glances again.
“I told you. Meg’s dead friend introduced us.”
Ricki laughed again — a bit nervously.
“Bullshit.”
Meg looked at her somberly.
“Her name was Lexy. She died in February of 2002.”
Meg put her arms around me. I reciprocated and gently squeezed her. Ricki’s laughter died in her throat and she stared at us with an expression of shock on her face.
“Oh my God, you’re totally serious!”
I nodded.
“Deadly serious.”
I was not joking, but the rest of the room chortled anyway. Ricki stared at me dumbfounded.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m hearing this!”
Cathy shrugged.
“I didn’t either at first… but now I do.”
Ricki stared at Cathy and Meg rolled her eyes.
“Ricki, you’re way too skeptical. I mean, I believe very deeply in being skeptical, too, but skepticism should be sensible, not closed-minded.”
Ricki smiled at Meg.
“Hey, listen, babe. If being sensibly skeptical means believing things that have never been proven — and probably never will be — then I want no part of it!”
“I’m not necessarily saying that it does. I am only saying that dismissing a theory without evidence is as bad as believing one without evidence. An unproven theory belongs ‘on the table’ until someone proves it right or proves it wrong. For instance, if you tell me that there’s no such thing as ghosts, then you are also saying that something other than ghosts is responsible for the phenomenon that we call ghosts. That is not just a statement. It is a theory and just like all other theories, it should be verified before it is accepted.”
How I loved that brain of Meg’s! Ricki sighed.
“How about we agree to disagree?”
Meg chuckled.
“Oh, all right!”
Ricki changed the subject before Meg changed her mind.
“So, are you going to tell me how you met or what?”
Ricki moved her eyes back and forth between us for a few seconds. Jena chimed in.
“I’m up for a good ghost story myself.”
“Me too!”
Ricki looked at Jena and Cathy with a mock scowl, sensing that they were gently pushing her buttons on purpose. Meg and I giggled and smiled at each other.
“Do you want to tell the story, Meg, or should I?”
“You tell it, Letti! You tell it way better than I do!”
“Okay.”
I smiled at the girl I loved and gave her a gentle kiss.
“Well, I hope everyone is settled in, because this will take a little while.”
Meg snuggled up against me.
“I’m good!”
In mid-2003, my father was transferred across the country. In August of that year, my family and I moved to follow him to his new job. After we settled in to our new home, odd things began to happen.
The first unexplained thing that I experienced was the sound of a door closing somewhere in the house — when I knew I was home alone. It was amazing how that ordinary sound could be so creepy in the equally mundane context of my empty house. Yet, it instantly set me on edge.
For a few seconds I stood rooted to the spot, wondering if I should investigate or hide. The sound of the door closing was followed by unadulterated silence, and I chose to check the house. I checked each of the bedrooms and bathrooms on the top floor of our home, fearing that I would find myself face to face with an intruder. I found nothing amiss — and every door I checked was open. I paused as I considered checking downstairs. After taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I eased myself down the stairs. When I got halfway down the flight, I poked my head over the banister and looked around. Everything looked just as it should. I descended to the front hall and began tiptoeing to each room. As was the case upstairs, all of the doors on the main floor were open. However, the front door, back door and windows were closed and locked. The security of the house had not been breached, but I did not feel any better. I wondered whether I should be relieved or frightened.
That was how it always went when I investigated the sound of the door closing. Every time I was home alone, from somewhere in the house would come the sound of a door closing. I would check the house only to find that I was still alone. The house was always safe and sound.
After four months of that, I was no longer worried about burglars, and I decided to change my tack. Instead of walking around the house to investigate, I would just stick my head into the hall for a moment just to see if my family had come home. When I heard nothing, I would go right back to whatever I was doing.
At this point, I paused.
“Um, Ricki, before I continue, there’s something I want to tell you about me.”
“Oh, okay. Go ahead.”
Meg interjected.
“Are you sure, sweetie?”
I gently touched her chin and gave her a kiss.
“Yes, I’m sure. I really can’t tell the story without talking about it.”
“Hmm, I guess you’re right.”
Ricki looked at me with interest.
“Okay. So…?”
I took a deep breath and Meg took my hand. Ricki noticed that.
“What’s going on, you two? I already know you’re lesbians!”
We chuckled at Ricki.
“Yes, but that’s not the only color in my rainbow.”
Ricki looked confused.
“Okay… what in the fuck are you talking about? Make sense, woman!”
I chuckled nervously.
“Ricki, I’m a trans-girl.”
Ricki looked at me blankly.
“A what?”
I opened my mouth, but it took a few seconds for anything to come out.
“A girl in a boy’s body — although I intend to change the body as soon as possible. My name was Kory, but I don’t use that name anymore. I’m going to have it legally changed soon.”
Meg and I smiled at each other. Ricki stared at me for several seconds. She looked briefly at Meg and stared at me for several more seconds.
“So you’re… you’re transsexual and you want a sex change?”
“Pretty much.”
I chuckled again.
“Wow… I had no idea. So are you… like… taking hormones?”
I smiled at Ricki.
“Yes, I am. I started taking them just a few days after my sixteenth birthday.”
Ricki stared at me for several more seconds.
“Ricki, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. It’s just, um…”
She looked down at her hands and watched her fingers toy with each other.
“Well, I’m feeling… kind of violated. I mean… we’ve had several girls’ nights now and there are things I said and did that I would only do around other girls. I-I don’t mean any offense at all… um, I don’t mean to say that you’re not a girl necessarily. Um… shit, this isn’t coming out right. I guess…”
I looked at her soberly and waited for her to finish.
“I guess I feel, well, deceived. I mean, Jena and Cathy, did you know?”
Both girls nodded.
“Yes. We met Letti just after Letti and Meg met. I guess you could say that Lexy introduced us, too.”
I could understand Ricki’s feeling that I had deceived her — even though I had done no such thing.
“Ricki, I know that this might be hard to swallow, but what you’re looking at is real. This is the real me. When I was living as a guy that was the deception. Whatever you said or did in front of me you said or did in front of one more girl, that’s all.”
Jena backed me up.
“I’ve also said and done things in front of Letti that I would only do in front of other girls, Ricki, because I know that Letti is a girl.”
Cathy stepped in as well.
“Same here, Ricki.”
Ricki appeared to think it over for a moment.
“Okay. I can accept that. I think that this is just new to me and so I’m not entirely comfortable… yet. Anyway, I honestly don’t have any problem with… with… transgenderism, if that’s the right word. It’s not your fault and I doubt you would have asked for that.”
I smiled at Ricki.
“You doubt correctly.”
Ricki nodded.
“So where, um… where does this come in to the story?”
I smiled at Ricki.
“Right about now.”
When I was home alone, I was usually dressed as a girl. I had not yet begun to live as a girl and my family didn’t know about me, so I was dressing myself as a girl in secret to keep myself sane. When I heard a door close, I would look down the hall and make sure my family wasn’t home.
The sound of a door closing wasn’t the only odd thing I noticed in the house. At times, I had the feeling that someone was in the room watching me. It didn’t seem to matter which room. I just knew that there was a spirit present who was watching me. I didn’t know why I could sense that. Some people were said to be “sensitive” to spirits and I supposed that I must be one of them. I always had been a very intuitive person.
My confusion over my gender identity was coming to a head around the time we moved. Naturally, I was overwhelmed with emotion because of it and I needed to vent it periodically. Sometimes, while home alone, I sat on my bed and had a good cry. Whenever I sat alone in my room and cried, I felt the spirit watching me. It was a very calming, loving presence and it made me feel that everything would work out all right.
At the end of our fifth month in the house, things changed. I reacted differently to the noises in the hall — and in the process, I provoked the spirit into taking things a step further.
It was a freezing cold Saturday night at the very end of January, and I was absolutely sure that everyone had left the house. My mother, Annabelle, and my father, Jaxon, were away that weekend, as they were on many weekends. Teri, my only sibling, was out with friends and wasn’t due home until midnight.
I had made a point of watching my family leave the house because I wanted to dress myself as a girl. That night, I had a perfect opportunity to dress myself as a girl again — and I took full advantage of it.
I loved being dressed as a girl. Every moment I spent dressed as a girl felt more real than the entire life I’d lived as a boy. The boy that I had tried to be was as fictional as Tom Sawyer.
Just after ten o’clock, I was standing in Teri’s room, dressed as a girl. I was admiring myself in Teri’s mirror as I fixed my shoulder length hair into a single braid behind my head. I was just getting started when I felt the spirit looking at me again. It didn’t bother me; my intuition told me that the spirit was more curious than hostile. Since I was dressed as a girl, I wondered if the spirit thought I was a girl.
As I wrapped a rubber band around the end of my braid, I heard a door close in the hallway again. This time, for the first time, I decided not to bother investigating. I knew I would find nothing there and I would just have to get used to sharing the house with the spirit.
Evidently, the spirit did not want to be ignored. I heard a door bang shut with enough force to rattle the walls. It scared the shit out of me! However, it was just another noise in the house.
For a moment, I looked out of Teri’s open door and down the hall with one hand on my racing heart. I thought about what was going on, and I knew that there was nobody there. The spirit was acting up again.
I turned back towards Teri’s mirror and tried to forget about the noise in the hallway. I had relaxed and was smiling into the mirror when the door banged shut again. I nearly jumped out of my own skin. I tried to ignore it, but it happened again… and again.
Finally, I walked out of Teri’s room and looked down the hall just in time to watch my own bedroom door slam with deafening loudness. My house was definitely haunted — I couldn’t explain things any other way!
Still, it was just another noise in the house. I could not keep being afraid of it. Sooner or later I would have to learn to live with it. I turned slowly around to face the mirror again.
“Kory!”
I gasped as I whipped around to face Teri’s open bedroom door. The unfamiliar girl’s voice appeared to be emanating from my room. I trembled as I stood there wondering what the hell was going on.
“Who is that?!”
I called out to the empty hallway, feeling silly, yet very afraid. The voice called my name again, spooking me.
“Kory!”
“Who the fuck is that??”
The voice called my name a third time, effectively rattling my nerves.
“Kory!”
“What?? I hear you, okay?? Stop fucking scaring me!! Jesus!!”
My hand went back to my heart. At that moment, my bedroom door swung quietly open. I knew that I would find my room empty, but I felt drawn to my room, compelled to investigate why my door had just opened itself — and who was calling my name.
Slowly and gingerly, I made my way down the hall to my room. As I approached my room, I felt that the spirit was in there, and that it was trying to apologize for scaring me. Suddenly, my fear evaporated. I stopped in the doorway of my bedroom as I turned on the overhead light and looked around the room. Everything looked normal… except for the doll leaning against the pillows on my bed.
“What the hell…?”
I had never seen it before and I had no idea how it got there.
“Wait, wait, wait! Time out, time out! Are you telling me that this doll materialized out of thin air?”
“I’m telling you that the spirit put it there. I didn’t see how the doll got there. I just found it on the bed.”
“So someone else could have put it there — maybe someone living?”
I chuckled.
“No, Ricki. As I explained, I was positive the house was empty — except for me, of course. I watched my family members leave and I knew they hadn’t returned because I never heard the sound of an engine approaching and I didn’t hear the front door open either. The way our house is set up, the stairs are straight down the hallway and the front door is straight from the stairs. The sound of the front door carries all the way down that hall. Besides, I always made sure the house was locked up when I dressed as a girl just to be double sure that someone wouldn’t walk into the house and see me en femme. That part was a bit paranoid, I know, but still, I did lock up that way, and I was absolutely sure that nobody else living was in the house with me.”
Ricki looked less than convinced.
“How do you know that Teri didn’t put it there before she left that night?”
“Because she had no idea how it got there either — I’m getting to that part.”
Ricki rolled her eyes.
“Whatever.”
Meg shook her head.
“Oh, Ricki!”
“What? I’m just saying!”
“Saying what, dear?”
Jena challenged Ricki.
“Yeah, we know what you’re saying,” Cathy gibed.
Ricki sighed in resignation.
“Oh, forget it! Go on.”
I smirked at Ricki.
“Very well.”
At first, I felt frightened by the doll that had come from… God knew where. However, I thought about it for a moment and I decided that the doll didn’t look scary to me. On the contrary, it looked beautiful — and I had the feeling that it was some kind of peace offering.
I began talking to the spirit.
“Okaaaaay, I’m getting the feeling that you’re trying to apologize for scaring me, so... I forgive you.”
For a few seconds, my overhead light got brighter than I had ever seen it. I giggled at the playful nature of the spirit as something occurred to me.
“Hey, maybe you’re trying to get my attention for a reason! Are you asking for help with something?”
I felt the presence disappear. For a few moments, I stood in my bedroom doorway, wondering what would happen next. While I waited to find out, I walked over to my bed and sat down next to the doll. I couldn’t resist taking a closer look at her and when I did, I noticed that her hair was done in a single braid behind her head — just like mine! I felt a shiver creep up and down my back.
“Stop right there! Are you telling me that this, this, this spirit dropped the doll on your bed, fixed its hair like yours, and juiced up your lights on its way out of the room?”
I flash an amused grin at Ricki.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Anyway, as I was saying…”
I examined the doll very closely and admired all of the realistic details. It was twelve inches tall and exquisite. It had pretty blue eyes that appeared to be made of glass and long, silky, blonde hair. It wore a purple dress with a beautiful Asian print. On her little feet were purple Mary Janes that appeared to be made from the same fabric and pattern as the dress. I wished that I had an outfit like that!
I had a habit of talking to myself but in this case it was the doll I began speaking to.
“Wow, you are so beautiful! I love your pretty clothes! I bet someone loves you an awful lot! I wonder what your name is -- and how in the hell you got here!”
For a second or two, I half expected the doll to open her mouth and introduce herself — but nothing happened. I giggled at the thought — and noticed that I was feeling relaxed. I slipped my sister’s shoes off and lay down on my bed, carefully smoothing my dress behind me and crossing my ankles.
“I don’t suppose you have a nametag or anything?”
I carefully examined the doll, but I couldn’t find a nametag anywhere. I rested the doll on my stomach for a few seconds.
“Well, it looks like we’ll have to pick a name for you. What should we call you?”
I smiled at the pretty doll as I noticed that she somehow made me feel warm and protected.
“I know! We’ll call you Joy. Welcome to my room, Joy! My room is your room.”
I giggled at the beautiful doll as I brought her into my arms.
“What’s that, Joy? You’re right; my room is way too boyish… eeww. No wonder I usually hang out in Teri’s room!”
I giggled.
“Can you keep a secret, Joy?”
I paused.
“I bet you’re good about keeping secrets. That’s a very good thing because I want to tell you mine.”
I took a deep breath. For Christ sake, I felt nervous just saying it to a freaking doll.
“I really am a girl, Joy. I’ve been confused about that for a few years, but I think I know now. I think I know it because… well… because I love you, Joy, and I want to keep you. I know I’m a girl! I don’t care what anybody else says and I don’t care what my body looks like — er, well, yes I do.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I want it to be a girl’s body. My body may look like a boy’s body — eeww — but that doesn’t mean shit. I am a girl. If you didn’t know me and you were talking to me on the phone, just asking me questions about myself, you would swear that you were talking to a girl. Anyway, that’s my big secret. Nobody knows except you, so don’t tell anyone!”
I paused.
“What’s that?”
Another pause.
“That’s a good question, Joy. No, I haven’t picked out a girl name for myself yet — but I really should! Hmm… what should we call me? Let’s see.”
I walked over to my computer, sat down in my chair, and sat Joy on my desk next to my monitor. I went onto the Internet and looked for names that mean joy or happiness. After half an hour of searching, I chose the name Letitia. I decided to go by Letti for short.
I felt a bit drowsy and, satisfied with my new name, I lay down on my bed to rest my eyelids -- but I fell asleep. An hour later, according to the clock on my nightstand, I was awakened by the sound of my sister giggling at me. She had found me asleep on my bed, cuddling a beautiful doll, and wearing girls’ clothes complete with tights and a braid in my hair. I was wearing her sleeveless, knee-length denim dress over her emerald green, long-sleeved cotton shirt, black nylon tights, and black, leather Mary Janes.
I let out a ragged gasp, suddenly aware that my sister had just found me dressed as a girl with a doll in my arms. I glanced sheepishly at my appearance.
“Uh… hi, Teri.”
“Hi, Kory. Sorry if I startled you.”
“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Teri paused for a moment.
“Kory, why are you dressed like a girl?”
I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment. For a couple of moments, I looked at Joy, wanting to feel protected again. Alas, she could only help me dispel my fear of bumps in the house. She could not protect me from having to explain to Teri why I was dressed as a girl.
“Well… I don’t know how to say this, but… I like to dress as a girl. I really like it. I wish I could dress as a girl forever. I feel better this way. A lot better.”
Teri looked at me for a moment.
“Do you feel that you’re a girl in the body of a boy?”
I nodded.
“Yes, I do. I really do. I am a girl, Teri.”
Teri looked very uncomfortable. She folded her arms tightly across her chest.
“Wow! Okay… um…”
She scratched her head for a moment.
“You do, um… you do understand that there’s more to being a girl than dressing like one, right?”
I looked up at Teri.
“Of course! It’s not just the clothes. Not at all.”
I looked back at Joy.
“I mean, look at this doll. She makes me feel safe and I love her. She’s beautiful and I want to keep her. I named her Joy and I even spent a few minutes talking to her earlier.”
Teri smirked at me.
“I know. I got home an hour ago.”
I stared at her.
“You did?”
She nodded.
“Yup.”
“You heard what I said?”
I looked at my sister nervously.
“Actually no. I heard the sound of your voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was downstairs and I waited until you stopped chatting before I came up the stairs.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed.
“Shit! I have got to be more careful! God, next time it could be Mom or Dad and then what?”
“Well, let’s worry about that bridge when it’s time to cross it.”
“Yeah, let’s!”
I chuckled and Teri sat beside me, her arms still folded but relaxed.
“You know, Kory–“
“Please call me Letti while I’m dressed as a girl. I just, um… I just like it better.”
Teri paused for a moment.
“Oh, okay. Letti it is, then.”
I smiled at Teri.
“Anyway, Letti, I got a pretty strong feeling that you really loved it when you let me dress you up as a ballerina for Halloween a couple of months back in that lavender leotard, pink tights, and lavender ballet skirt. Almost everyone thought you were a girl, too, and you seemed to really like being treated as a girl. You never once corrected anyone about that. In fact, the only time you were annoyed was when that kid asked you if you were a boy. You looked like you wanted to slap him!”
Teri and I giggled at the memory.
“You also loved having your hair in a bun — not to mention that your hair is long enough for a bun to begin with. Anyway, at first, I thought you were just having fun at Halloween, doing something completely different and fooling people in the process. But then you started talking about dressing up in girl’s street clothes for next Halloween and I started to wonder about you.”
I nodded.
“Well, you were right to wonder, but…”
I looked down at my dress, my tights, and my doll. Who the hell was I kidding?
“But?”
“Well, I was going to say that I’m not a hundred percent positive, and I guess I’m not, but… I mean, look at me, Teri. Do I look like a boy to you?”
“Not by a long shot!”
We giggled.
“Exactly!”
“Well, okay, Kory — I mean, Letti. Sorry! Um… you can stay dressed as a girl for a while longer, if you want to. Just, um, put my clothes away when you’re done, okay?”
“Okay! Thanks, Teri! So you’re really not going to tell Mom and Dad?”
Teri thought for a moment.
“No. I see no reason to do that.”
I relaxed.
“Thanks, Teri. You’re the best.”
“Oh, well, you know… you should be the one to tell them… when you’re ready to tell them, that is.”
“Yeah, probably.”
That seemed to be settled — at least for the time being. Teri’s eyebrows rose as she noticed Joy’s hair.
“Letti, did you fix Joy’s hair like that?”
“No. Her hair was braided like that when I found her — and I found her after I had already fixed my hair.”
“Wow. Where did you find her? She really is beautiful.”
I looked down at Joy for a moment.
“Well, I know how this is going to sound, but…”
I told her about the door slamming, the spirit, the girl’s voice calling my name, and the doll’s mysterious appearance on my bed.
“A lot of weird things have happened to me in this house, Teri. Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve heard doors closing while home alone. Actually that happens every single time I’m home alone. It just escalated tonight because I stopped checking the house and she didn’t want me to ignore her. I think that the spirit is a girl — or was -- and I think she wants me to help her with something. Don’t ask me what.”
“Wow. How do you know she was a girl?”
“Well, her voice sounded like a girl’s voice to me, and she gave me this doll, so I’m guessing she’s female — or at least, she was in life. I think she’s trying to be friends because she thinks I’m a girl. I’m always dressed as a girl when I’m home alone. Anyway, she just feels like a girl to me. I don’t know why, really; call it intuition, I guess.”
“Well, you’ll be glad to hear that I believe you. I’ve had some weird things happen, too.”
I looked up at her.
“You have?”
“Yeah. I’ve been noticing things disappearing and reappearing. Just the other night I took off my rings while I was washing my face and after I finished, I noticed that my favorite ring was missing. I thought it had fallen down the drain and I got really upset about it. I checked the floor just in case I was wrong but it was nowhere. When I stood up again, my ring was sitting right where I’d left it. That was scary because I had locked my bedroom door, so nobody could have gotten in and moved it.”
“Wow. That is creepy.”
“Yeah, and a couple of weeks ago, I got out my black denim skirt that has the fancy embroidery on the back pockets. I was planning to wear it. I went back to my closet to pick out a top and when I turned around, my skirt was gone. I closed my eyes for a moment to try to wrap my head around what was going on, and when I opened my eyes, I saw my skirt lying on the bed, again, right where I had left it. My door was locked that time, too, since I was about to change.”
I looked at her wide-eyed.
“Okay, that’s pretty unnerving.”
“Yeah. My door was locked both times, so I guess…”
Teri looked around my room.
“I guess it was you… whoever you are… and since you seem interested in my jewelry and my clothes I think you probably are a girl… or you were. I wonder what happened to you?”
Ricki stared at me astounded. She said nothing. Her mouth opened a couple of times, but nothing came out.
“Having trouble explaining this stuff away, Ricki?”
“If you’re sure you’re not wasted on something, yes.”
We giggled at her and she rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. Keep going!”
On the following weekend, I was home alone dressed as a girl. My parents were again out on business for the weekend and Teri was sleeping over at a friend’s house this time. My parents were a bit reluctant to leave me at home alone overnight since I was twelve, but I managed to talk them into it. Fortunately, I never had been what you might call a problem child. I never got into any trouble. That was probably why they let me stay in the house alone.
As I stood in front of Teri’s mirror, wearing a red skirt, black tights, the same Mary Janes, and a black turtleneck, I felt the spirit arrive in the room. I had to admit to myself that I was starting to like our spirit — as long as she continued to refrain from scaring me silly. I smiled as I began to talk to the spirit.
“Hi there, whoever you are. I really wish I knew your name. You know mine! Besides, I don’t want to just call you ‘you’ or ‘the spirit’, you know?”
I giggled at myself.
“That would be kind of impersonal. Well, anyway, thank you for the doll you left on my bed. She’s really beautiful! I named her Joy. I hope that’s okay.”
Right then the spirit made a new sound. It was the sound of a music box on Teri’s dresser that featured a figurine of a girl dancing with joy — which was now dancing with joy. I giggled.
“I take it you approve! I’m glad to know that.”
The music box played for a few more seconds and went quiet. I was enjoying talking with the ghost and I decided that as long as we were going to live in our house together, we might as well try to be friends. I believed that friendship began with honesty. So, I sat down on Teri’s bed, smoothing my skirt behind me, and crossed my knees. I took a deep breath and…
“Hey, um… if we’re going to be friends, then… there’s something I want to tell you about me…”
I stopped. What if this spirit-girl was bigoted and hateful in life? Maybe she would start haranguing me. I thought about Joy and I realized that she couldn’t be more than a few years old. She was in pristine shape; and did not look antique by any stretch of the imagination. If Joy had belonged to the spirit-girl, then the spirit-girl couldn’t have been much older than I was, if at all. Perhaps she wouldn’t be prejudiced. Besides, she might already know about me. Who knew how long she had been lurking in the house — or what she had seen? I decided to risk it. I took another deep breath and glanced up at the ceiling.
“Here’s the thing. I am a girl — but I got stuck with the body of a boy. My name is Letitia when I’m dressed as a girl. Letti for short.”
I looked down at my hands and watched my fingers toy with each other.
“I hope that doesn’t bother you.”
All at once, the music box came to life again. I felt relieved as I giggled and covered my mouth with one hand.
“It’s so cute when you do that!”
The music box went quiet again.
“Hey, Spirit, um… are you a girl? I’m getting the feeling you are… or were. I’m also getting the feeling that you need my help with something. Do you?”
The answer would have to wait. The smoke alarm in my room suddenly blared.
“Oh shit!”
I ran to my room to see what was going on -- and found nothing wrong. I grabbed a notebook from my desk and waved it back and forth under the smoke alarm — though I smelled no smoke -- until the noise stopped. For a moment, I stood there looking at the stupid thing wondering what the hell had set it off.
“Did you make my smoke alarm go off, whoever you are?”
I looked around the room, but the spirit had left. I wondered if the damned smoke alarm was malfunctioning.
For a short while, the spirit seemed to lay low, but on the next Saturday morning, she was back. My family and I had a nice breakfast of omelets and orange juice that morning. I was really struggling to be a boy in front of my parents, and of course, I hated every second of it. After we finished eating and cleaned up after ourselves, I went upstairs to my room to talk to Joy for a while. That had become a habit and it always made me feel better.
I was extremely eager to dress myself as a girl again. I couldn’t wait for my family to leave the house so I could remove the ridiculous boy clothes I was wearing. I stood at my dresser and looked into my mirror as I removed the rubber band from my hair and brushed it a bit.
I looked down at my dresser to put down my brush and pick up a couple of rubber bands so that I could put my hair in twin ponytails. When I looked back at the mirror, I saw something in the mirror that almost made my heart stop. In the reflection, there was a strange man facing a girl who looked slightly younger than me — and she was backing away from him in fear! He was large and menacing. I gasped and whirled around only to find my room empty. Slowly, I turned back to the mirror to check the reflection. They were gone.
Later that day, my family members were out and were not due home until late that night. The first thing I did, after making sure they had all left, was to dress myself as a girl again. I picked out a purple knee-length jumper dress and lavender short-sleeve, cotton top underneath. I decided to complete the outfit with the white tights and black Mary Janes I had worn the night I found Joy lying on my bed. I wasn’t sure if a natal girl would wear that particular outfit in the middle of winter, but I wasn’t going anywhere, so I didn’t care.
I decided to turn my twin ponytails into twin braids, and as I finished the first one, I felt the spirit in the room. I smiled when I felt her return. As I finished braiding my hair, I found myself wondering — again -- if the spirit really had been a girl in life.
“Hi, Spirit. Last time I talked to you my smoke alarm went off so you didn’t get to answer my questions. But I still want to know. Were you a girl in life? Do you need my help with something?”
I paused for a moment.
“I guess you don’t talk.”
As soon as I said that, I felt the spirit leave. Shrugging indifferently, I went downstairs and I had dinner by myself. I made myself some simple but zesty spaghetti sauce, boiled up some noodles and enjoyed my creation.
Afterwards, I decided to practice using makeup. I was happily enjoying myself as I worked. Before long, I felt the spirit enter the room.
“Hi Spirit! Hey, I’ve been trying to ask you. Were you a girl?”
Nothing.
“Do you need my help with something?”
I felt the spirit leave the room.
“Damn! Oh well. So much for that!”
I looked around the room, but I didn’t feel the spirit in it.
After I finished my makeover, I went back to my room to talk to Joy.
“Hi, Joy. I wonder what the hell that spirit needs help with — if anything!”
My chat with Joy was interrupted by the sound of my smoke alarm going off — again. I sat bolt upright on my bed, instinctively holding Joy close to me, and sniffed the air. I didn’t smell any damned smoke.
“Fucking smoke alarm!”
I put Joy carefully back on the bed as I got up. With exasperation, I grabbed my notebook and waved it at the smoke alarm again until it shut up. Was the spirit-girl making it go off? I stared at the smoke alarm, wondering if I should throw it out.
“What the hell is wrong with that thing? Ugh!”
I looked at Joy and giggled.
During the following week, I didn’t get a chance to dress as a girl and I could hardly wait for Saturday to come. On that Saturday, my family was out again. My parents were away on business and Teri had a great social life — which I envied tremendously.
I dressed myself in the denim skirt that the spirit-girl had “borrowed” from Teri, along with a purple top, off-white tights, and my favorite Mary Janes. I looked in the mirror and thought about how I wanted to do my hair. I decided to use a couple of small “hair claws” to hold back my hair on both sides.
The day was rather uneventful, at least until dinnertime. I was making myself my favorite simple spaghetti recipe and I was watching the tail end of the evening news while I waited for something else to come on. At the end of the newscast was a brief story about a girl named Lexy Larkin who had gone missing two years earlier — two years ago on that same night!
The story described where Lexy was last seen and informed the viewer that she was last wearing a pink t-shirt with a darker shade of pink around the edges and a knee-length skirt that matched the darker pink. It also listed her height and weight, and said she had blue eyes and blond hair. A photo of Lexy Larkin was displayed on the screen — a photo of the girl whose reflection I had mysteriously seen in my mirror. She was last seen on February 21st, 2002 leaving her school alone to walk home. She had mentioned to her friends that she was thinking about running away.
I was thoroughly disheartened that such a pretty girl had gone missing. I turned the channel to watch something else while I ate my dinner, something I only did when home alone, but my mind seemed not to want to let go of thoughts of Lexy. I wondered if the spirit-girl in my house had been friends with Lexy — or sisters -- and wanted me to help find her.
When I finished eating I cleaned up after myself. I was washing out the skillet I had used when I felt the spirit enter the room. Her presence felt stronger than it had before. I got the feeling that she was watching me.
Carefully, I put down the skillet. Slowly, I turned around… stopped… and stared. I saw a pretty girl about two years younger than me standing in the kitchen door and smiling at me. I felt immediately nervous that this girl had seen me dressed as a girl. I hoped that she couldn’t tell I was biologically male — and I hoped that the spirit-girl wouldn’t freak her out. I had just felt the spirit-girl enter the room and this poor girl had walked in on it! I glanced around the room and looked back at the girl.
“Oh, hi there! I didn’t hear you come in! My name is Letitia, but you can call me Letti. My family and I moved here six months ago. What’s your name?”
The girl was silent, but she was still smiling at me.
“Not much of a talker, huh?”
I smiled at her. The spirit-girl seemed to be keeping a low profile. That was good!
“Hey, you look familiar. Where have I seen you?”
She didn’t answer. Suddenly, I realized that she was wearing the same outfit as the girl I had just seen on the news and had blue eyes as well as blond hair. I took a couple of steps toward her to get a closer look at her face -- and I recognized her from the story on the news! My mouth opened in shock.
“Lexy? Are you Lexy?”
Lexy nodded at me and I gasped. The girl who had just been on the news was standing in my kitchen door!
“Oh my God, you’re back! Lexy, what happened to you?”
She was still smiling as she slowly disappeared before my eyes, giving me another good shock. As I stood there dumbly, processing what I had just experienced, my brain began to connect dots. I had felt the spirit in the room, stronger than usual, and I had just seen the ghost of Lexy Larkin. The spirit in my house was Lexy Larkin!
A horrible realization entered my mind. Lexy was a ghost! If Lexy was a ghost, then Lexy was dead! I gasped and momentarily covered my mouth with both hands.
“Oh, my God. You didn’t run away, did you?”
I needed to sit down and I dropped into a kitchen chair.
“So you saw Lexy’s ghost?”
“Yes, I did. It was really strange seeing a girl who appeared real and solid fade into thin air like that.”
Ricki had an expression on her face that betrayed inner conflict.
“You’re sure you weren’t hallucinating?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure.”
“You’re sure your doors were locked?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re sure you’re not wasted on something?”
I chuckled.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, wait a minute. If you could feel this ghost in the room with you, why didn’t you know right away that the girl you were looking at was your ghost?”
“She looked so real. I just didn’t connect feeling the presence of the spirit with the girl standing in my kitchen door. I mean, she looked so real that I thought she was a neighbor who walked in on the spirit. Does that make sense?”
Meg, Jena and Cathy quietly nodded at me, but Ricki had to think for a moment.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Ricki slowly rubbed her arms.
“So what happened next?”
I went upstairs to my room to talk to Joy about it. I suspected that I was too old to be talking to a doll, but life had robbed me of the girlhood I should have had. If life wasn’t going to hold back, then neither was I! I walked into my bed, scooped up Joy into my arms and hopped onto my bed.
“Guess what, Joy! I just saw a ghost downstairs! She’s the spirit that’s been in this house since we moved here! Her name is Lexy. Anyway, it felt kind of weird to meet someone who’s dead. I have to tell you, Joy, that was scary!”
I sighed.
“But now that I know she’s the spirit who lives here with us, I know she’s not dangerous. Well, anyway, I’m glad she’s here so I won’t be so alone tonight. I mean, yeah, sure, I told my family that I wanted this, and I did, but only so I could dress like a girl all weekend. I didn’t want to be alone. Anyway--”
My smoke detector went off in my ear this time.
“Shit!”
I concluded the damned thing must be malfunctioning and it was time to take the battery out.
“Okay, at this point, I need to describe my room to you so I can tell you what happened next.”
Ricki was now sitting with her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms around them.
“Okay. Go for it.”
“All right. The roof slants downward toward the window and meets the outside wall halfway between the floor and the ceiling. Inside my closet, the bottom part is where I hang my clothes, and on top of that is a shelf. The bottom part of the closet extends closer to the outside wall than the shelf does because of the roof. There is also a crawl space that starts at the left wall of the closet, at the floor level, and goes all the way to the outside wall. The crawl space is only three feet high, though, so it looks like there’s just a wall there unless you bend down. Are you with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay. My smoke alarm is mounted on the same wall that has the closet door in it, and on the other side of where the smoke detector is mounted is the shelf. Does that make sense?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. So…”
I took off my shoes and stood on my bed. I could reach the smoke detector comfortably that way. It seemed odd to me that the smoke detector was mounted on a wall and not the ceiling, but at the time, I just wanted to make sure it would quit going off.
Carefully, I removed the cover of the smoke alarm so that I could take out the batteries -- but there were no batteries! The smoke alarm was a fake one that had a hidden camera in it. It looked like something that one might buy from a spy shop.
I wondered whether the hidden camera was wireless — until I saw the black wire that went through a small hole behind the smoke alarm. I carefully put the smoke alarm back on the screws that it had hung from and thought for a moment about what to do next. I knew that the hidden camera had to be connected to something — otherwise there would be no point in mounting it on the wall. But where the hell was that something? I felt Lexy enter the room, so I decided to ask.
“Hey, Lexy, I found your hidden camera. It’s got to be hooked up to something right? Where do I look for it?”
Thump!
It sounded like someone bumping an elbow against a wall. I whipped my head around toward my open closet door. For a moment, I stood there staring at the closet, amazed by the latest strangeness to strike my home.
"Is that you, Lexy?"
Thump!
I got down off the bed and walked to the open closet door.
“Do that again!”
Thump!
I could tell that the sound was coming from the shelf, on the left side.
“Is it up there, on the shelf, Lexy?”
Thump!
“Okay! Let me grab my desk chair.”
My heart rate was speeding up and my skin was getting goose pimples. I put my chair in front of the closet door and stood on it to reach the left of the shelf — but there was nothing there.
“What the hell? Where is it?”
Thump!
I gasped.
“Jesus Christ!”
I was startled and almost fell off of the chair I was standing on. I giggled at myself.
“Sorry, Lexy! I know it’s you!”
Suddenly I thought of the black cable that went from the smoke alarm into the wall and paused as my brain made a connection.
“Wait, is it behind the walls?”
Thump!
“Well, how in the fuck did you get it in there? Hang on, I need more light.”
I grabbed my flashlight, went back to the closet, and shined the light against the wall where the thumps had come from.
The walls on both sides of the shelf were decorated with molding along all the edges of the walls on the sides — but there was no molding going from one side of the shelf to the other. There was a carved, wooden flower painted the same color as the molding and mounted in the center of the small walls at either end of the shelf. I found that very pretty — if a bit unusual -- and I made a mental note to keep it that way.
I knocked on the right hand wall just to hear what it sounded like. It sounded different from the thump I had heard. I knocked on the left wall to compare and I heard the same thump that Lexy had made. Since the two walls sounded different, I knew they couldn’t be built the same. I wondered if the left wall was a fake.
I decided to gently pull on the flower, but nothing happened. I pulled harder and the small wall slid toward me! I didn’t need to take it down off the shelf, since there wasn’t much up there, and I slid it against the back wall instead. I found myself looking at a small door about the size of a large chessboard.
Someone, probably Lexy, had built the fake wall to hide the little door. I opened the door to see what I would find on the other side. When I pulled the door open and shined my flashlight into the space, I saw a laptop computer!
The laptop was folded closed and a black cable was plugged into one side. The other end of the cable appeared to go through the wall right about where I had found the hidden camera. The laptop’s power cable was neatly coiled with a rubber band and left on top of the computer. Next to the power cable was a package of ten blank DVDs that were still in their shrink-wrap.
“Oh, my God, Lexy! This is what you wanted me to find, isn’t it? Lexy?”
Lexy was gone. I paused and sighed.
“Oh, well. I guess I’ll be looking around on this computer all by myself!”
I shined the flashlight into the hidden crawl space, carefully unplugged the webcam cable and pulled out the laptop, power cable and DVDs. I began talking to Lexy even though she wasn’t there.
“Well, Lexy, it’s a damned good thing you left the power cable in there with the laptop. The battery has got to be dead by now!”
I cautiously stepped down from the chair with the laptop and cable in my arms. I placed them on my bed. I took a minute to move my chair back to my desk. Then I plugged the laptop into a wall socket not far from my bed. I reclined on my bed and rested the laptop on my lap. When I folded the machine open, I found a piece of paper that had a brief note on it.
To whoever finds this — and I really hope you have found this, whoever you are:
I’m writing this note in case something happens to me. My mother’s boyfriend, Blaine Wood, is really starting to scare me. I’ve seen him hit my mother a few times and he behaves inappropriately towards me. I am afraid that he’s going to kill me. If something happens to me, you’ll know who did it. Please watch the videos on the machine and give them to the police — but please make copies for my friends and deliver them. I want them to know that I didn’t run away from them. The laptop has a DVD burner in it and I’ve left you some DVDs so you don’t have to pay for them.
Cathy Bourdonnay’s phone is 999-555-4837 and address is 49 Blakely Terrace
Jena Riley’s phone is 999-555-2431 and address is 807 Watkins Circle
Meg Thompson’s phone is 999-555-5867 and address is 3664 Jefferson Street
Please tell my friends that I love them!
Thank you very much!
Lexy Anne Larkin
February 17, 2002
I stared at the note for a few moments, my unease about what I might find in Lexy’s videos steadily mounting. I got up and put the note on my desk. Then I went back to my bed and fired up the laptop.
I was pleased to see that it still worked. The next step was to look on the hard drive for the videos that Lexy might have made. I spent a few minutes searching for the videos that I was guessing she’d recorded with the hidden camera she had rigged. There were almost thirty videos on her hard drive.
I grabbed Joy and held her close as I opened the oldest one first and played it. Lexy appeared on the screen. She was sitting on her bed.
I recognized the room she was sitting in. It was my room! Suddenly, I knew that my room had once been Lexy’s room! That gave me pause and I let it sink in for a few moments.
Judging from the angle of the shot, the camera and laptop were sitting on the bed while Lexy made her video. She wore the same pink t-shirt I’d seen her wearing in the kitchen — and on the news -- and a pair of blue jeans. Her hair was in a loose ponytail and she wore small hoop earrings. I couldn’t tell if they were clip-on or not.
“Hi! It’s me, Lexy. Okay, so I decided to start making video entries for my diary instead of written ones. I wanted to try just talking instead of writing.”
Lexy paused and looked down for a moment.
“Sometimes I need to talk but I can’t talk to anyone about it because it’s too risky. So, I’ll talk about it here.”
Lexy shrugged and sighed. She glanced away for a moment and faced the camera.
“Today I need to talk about my mother’s boyfriend. I talk about him with my friends, too, but never over the phone — at least, not here. I have to wait until I get to school because he’s over here all the time and I don’t want him to overhear me talking about him. He’s not home right now; otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about him.”
Lexy paused and glanced away again.
“Anyway, he scares me. The guy is a complete, total asshole! He’s nice to my mother but he’s nasty to me! Whenever my mother is out of earshot, he calls me names, like bitch, little cunt, and more that I’m not even going to repeat!”
Lexy took a breath.
“He thinks I’m a girl, by the way. But the truth is...”
Lexy glanced at her door for a few seconds before continuing.
“I’m transgendered. I’m a girl who was born with the body of a boy.”
I stopped the video and stared at Lexy agape. I smiled broadly.
“You’re like me, Lexy? I had no idea!”
Lexy’s hair was as long in the video as it was when I saw her standing in my kitchen door. She looked completely like a girl. I resumed the video.
Lexy paused and looked down for a moment, with her head tilted to one side.
“I should have been a girl. I really should have been a girl. That’s one of the things that’s too risky to talk about anywhere but here.”
Lexy chuckled ruefully and looked back at the camera.
“Nobody at school knows except for my close friends, of course. I have to be a boy at school. Yecch!”
Lexy crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. She followed her antics with a giggle and an exasperated breath.
“Luckily, my mother’s boyfriend leaves the house at like five in the morning and doesn’t get here from his job until around dinner time — at least, during the week -- so I always have plenty of time to go in and out of ‘Lexy mode’ before he comes around. Anyway, if he knew about me being transgendered — or if he knew about these videos -- oh my God, I don’t even want to know! He’s one of those guys who always has to prove what a big man he is. He’s all super-macho and all that bullshit. You know what I mean. Anyway, I would bet this house that he was a huge bully when he was in school! The guy’s a fucking low-life — though he manages to hide that from my mom somehow. Still, I will never understand what my mother sees in him.”
Lexy shook her head in disgust.
“Speaking of my mother, by the way, she has never been the same since Dad died in that car accident five years ago. She’s just not the same person anymore. Then, two months ago, she starts dating that asshole. Now she barely ever talks to me anymore.”
Lexy looked down and sighed again. A couple of voices sounded somewhere off the screen. Lexy gasped and looked over in panic.
“Oh, shit, they’re back! I gotta go! Oh shit!”
Lexy became a blur as she lunged toward the laptop to shut off the camera. The image wobbled a bit just before the video cut off.
“Oh God, Lexy. You poor girl.”
She was clearly very afraid of her mother’s boyfriend. I paused for a few moments as I wondered what would be in the remaining videos.
I started the next video. This time, Lexy seemed to be in better spirits. Again, she sat on her bed with the laptop ostensibly where it was in the last video.
“Hi again! It’s me!”
She gave the webcam a little wave.
“Well, my mother’s asshole is away on a business trip, thank God! I can relax for a few days at least. Mom’s been a little nicer to me since he left, too! I definitely like things better this way. I hope his plane crashes on the way back.”
Lexy giggled but then paused.
“Well, no I don’t. I wouldn’t want those other people on the plane to be hurt. I just hope he never comes back — not that there’s probably much chance of that.”
Lexy sighed wistfully.
“Anyway, today I wanted to tell you why I picked the name Lexy. I guess I don’t know why I want to, but I don’t know, I feel like documenting it, I guess. So. My mother has known that I’m transgendered for about a year. I have been moving in the direction of transitioning, though I haven’t quite started to yet. But I’m only ten so I have time before my body turns into a big ugly hairy boy. Eeww! Anyway, I’ve been dressing as a girl everywhere except school and church and a few other places like… my mom’s friend’s wedding.”
Lexy smiled ruefully.
“God, don’t get me started on that wedding. The flower girl was my age and I was soooooooo jealous of her dress — and her hair. Oh my God, I soooooooo wanted to be her!”
Lexy put one hand over her mouth and giggled.
“Anyway, when I was born, my mother and father named me Alexander. I would rather have been called Alexis.”
Lexy playfully rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, I asked my parents to start calling me Lex when I was like seven because I just liked it better than Alex or Xander or Alexander — and no it was not because I like that character Lex Luthor from Superman.”
She giggled.
“I hate that asshole! Anyway, that’s a downside, but I wanted to use Lex because it sounded boyish enough for my parents not to notice anything, but I could also pretend that it was really short for Alexis. I guess it could also be short for Alexa and probably other names. Anyway, that’s why Lex felt like more of a girl’s name than Alex or whatever — at least, it felt that way to me. So now, let me tell you how Lex turned into Lexy.”
She adjusted her position on the bed.
“My friends started calling me Lexy as a joke because of my long hair -- but I really liked being called Lexy and I asked my friends to keep calling me Lexy. When I said that, I wasn’t really thinking about what I was saying and my friends looked at me funny and so I ended up telling them about me. There wasn’t any getting around it after asking them to call me Lexy!”
Lexy giggled again.
“Anyway, they started calling me Lexy about… six months before I told my mother about me. My mother has been calling me Lexy ever since I started dressing as a girl around the house. She kept right on calling me Lexy after she started dating that shit-sack she calls a boyfriend.”
Lexy put one hand over her mouth as she glanced behind her.
“Anyway, the first time he ever saw me was when they came home without letting me know they were coming and I was in the kitchen eating a sandwich -- and I was in full Lexy mode. I was even wearing a skirt and a pair of white tights! I had just put the milk back in the fridge after getting a refill when they walked into the kitchen. I was still standing up, so Mom’s asshole saw the whole outfit, skirt, tights and all. My mom’s face turned absolutely white. Her asshole boyfriend looked at me really weirdly. His eyes got all narrow and I’m pretty sure he was silently questioning me. I swallowed as fast as I could and I politely said, ‘Hi, I’m Lexy. You must be the new boyfriend. I’m the girlfriend’s daughter.’ Well, he believed it, and after that I realized I was going to have to be a girl around him at all times. Now, that was fine with me, but I felt a lot of pressure to be absolutely convincing. But what else could I have done? He would never have gone for me being transgendered! He would kill me if he knew! That’s the real reason my mother’s face turned white. She hasn’t ever said that but obviously she doesn’t have to. So anyway, mom kept right on calling me Lexy, to keep her boyfriend from finding out about me. But I love being called Lexy. Besides, this way she’s respecting me for who I am, too.”
“Anyway, now you know why I like to be called Lexy. Okay, that’s all for now. Bye!”
Lexy waved and the video was over.
I felt so bad for Lexy having to live through everything that she had lived through. I sighed as I started the next video, hugging Joy snugly.
Lexy waved at the camera.
“Hi! I’m back! This time, I have something I want to show you! It was a birthday present from my mother. It was kind of a secret from the boyfriend. She gave it to me in front of him but he–“
Lexy glanced behind her and continued in a quieter voice.
“He doesn’t know I’m transgendered so he just thinks I’m a girl who got a beautiful present for her birthday.”
Lexy shrugged.
“Anyway…”
Lexy reached off screen and brought a doll into view.
“This is Joy! She makes me feel protected and, well, happy, so I named her Joy.”
In the midst of a great bout of déjá -vu, I paused the video as I stared at the screen agape. It was the very same doll that I found on my bed — and I had picked the same name that Lexy had picked!
“No way! Joy was yours, Lexy? Wow! I’m really honored that you seem to want me to have her!”
I thought for a second.
“You must have hidden her in the crawl space with the laptop until you brought her out and put her on my bed against my pillows.”
I looked at Joy.
“So that’s where you came from! Wow!”
I sat there for a few seconds, letting everything sink in, and resumed the video.
“Isn’t she pretty? I love her very much.”
I nodded.
“Me, too!”
I hugged Joy.
Lexy gave Joy a little kiss.
“Say hi, Joy!”
Lexy manipulated Joy’s arm to make her wave to the webcam.
“Don’t you just love this outfit that she’s wearing? Oh! It’s so beautiful. I wish I had clothes like that, I really do!”
Lexy giggled.
“Anyway, I saw Joy on a shelf at a store while Mom took me shopping for Christmas presents last year. I told my mother that I had to have her and she said maybe for my birthday. I was so bummed and I thought someone would take her home and I’d never see her again. So imagine how I felt when I got her for my birthday! Oh my God, I totally freaked out!”
Lexy giggled.
“Good thing my birthday’s in January, huh?”
Lexy smiled prettily at the camera until she paused for a moment.
“Mom’s boyfriend was irritated with me for freaking out like that. He told me to knock it off and chill out. Hmph. Prick!”
“Anyway, that’s enough about him. Let’s talk about Joy’s dress and shoes! Aren’t they just so adorable? They didn’t come with Joy. They were a separate find. I got them later, at the same store, not long after my birthday. I had a little money and I decided to spend some of it. Then I found this wonderful dress and matching shoes for Joy. Oh! I was so excited!”
“Anyway, now you know all about Joy. I guess that’s all for now. Bye!”
Lexy made Joy wave goodbye and reached for the laptop to stop the recording.
“Well, Lexy, I’m glad that I’m getting to know you -- though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
The lights in my room got unusually bright again and I giggled at Lexy.
“You are so cute, Lexy! Let’s see what’s in your next video.”
I opened up the next video and watched as Lexy described her friends. Cathy was the guarded, skeptical one. She was the practical one in the group that kept the rest of them down to earth. Jena was really nice and easy going artistic type. Meg was a very, very bright girl and it always showed. She was a brainiac but she never rubbed it in anyone’s face. Meg was also an artistic type. Lexy confided that Meg was her best friend. Lexy really did love her friends. I could see it in her face as she talked about them. I envied Joy for having such good friends!
I watched Lexy’s videos one by one and watched her tell of more bad encounters with her mother’s boyfriend. Some of the time, Lexy appeared happy enough in her videos, usually when talking about her friends or about a boy she had a crush on at school. Later in the series, Lexy began to tell of her mother being beaten by her boyfriend.
Poor Lexy!
After the video ended, I looked at my watch. It was only about eleven o’clock — and my parents weren’t home anyway — so I continued watching the videos with morbid addiction. In the next video, Lexy looked awful. She looked like she’d been crying.
“Hi again. I’m back.”
She gave a long sigh and glanced behind her. She didn’t bother waving.
“My mother went out to the grocery store today. Since it’s a weekend, the boyfriend stayed here.”
Lexy glanced behind her again.
“I went down to the kitchen to get a bottle of water and a banana and he… he… give me a sec.”
Lexy was choked up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she opened them and continued, wiping a tear from one eye.
“He touched my face and my hair in ways he never should have.”
Lexy visibly shuddered, her voice breaking a bit.
“I think he…”
She swallowed.
“I think he might… want me… that way… you know, the way a boy wants a girl. I have been afraid of him since the second I met him. Now I am absolutely terrified of him. I think I’m going to have to lock myself in here whenever my mother isn’t here and he is.”
She glanced behind her.
“I don’t hear him coming, but I don’t even want to risk it, so this is all for today. Bye!”
She waved lethargically at the webcam and the video ended. Letti gulped.
“Oh, Lexy. You poor, poor girl. I couldn’t imagine living through that.”
I decided to watch all of Lexy’s videos. Fortunately, each one seemed shorter than the last.
Lexy seemed a bit happier in the next one, in which she described how she discovered the hidden crawl space next to the shelf. She went to pull the flower off so that she could fit a box onto the shelf and ended up pulling the fake wall away from the crawl space door. The fake smoke detector was not originally present. She had bought that at a spy shop and installed it herself. She told how she screwed the screws into the wall and then used the screwdriver to punch a small hole through the wall. She loved the hiding place and felt secure that Blaine would never find it. She heard someone coming again and ended the video.
“Wow. Nice find, Lexy! I guess you didn’t make that fake wall after all. I wonder who did! Well, let’s see the next one!”
I was down to the last three videos. Lexy looked scared in the next one.
“Hi! I’m back! Okay, this guy is really, really scaring me. I still think he wants me… you know… that way… and he’s starting to get touchy-feely. I really, really hate that and I’m really afraid he’s going to find out I’m transgendered because of it. What am I going to do? I told my mother about it but she didn’t break up with him! I don’t know why not. She won’t talk about it. He behaves around her, so maybe she just doesn’t believe me.”
Lexy sighed and glanced behind her.
“Well, it’s time to mount my hidden camera like I’ve been planning. I’ve already made a hole in the wall for the USB cable.”
The shot changed. Lexy was standing on her bed, her face close to the smoke detector. The hidden camera was now ready to use and Lexy was testing her rig.
The view was great. It was different from her earlier footage, though. The angle was different and so was the resolution of the shot. She obviously had a webcam that was separate from the hidden camera and not suitable to do the job of the hidden camera. A glance at her laptop revealed that it had a built-in camera just above the screen.
“So? How’s the view from in there? Let’s see!”
The shot changed again and Lexy was smiling at the laptop camera.
“It works great!”
Her face got serious.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this to protect myself from that… that… pervert that mom calls a boyfriend. Ugh! He’s so disgusting!”
Lexy sighed.
“Anyway, the minute he does anything in here I can keep the videos in my new hiding place and use them to blackmail him into staying away from me.”
Lexy sighed again.
“Well, that’s all for now since… well… this is all I can think about lately. I can’t even concentrate on my homework anymore and my grades are going down. Oh well. Bye!”
I sighed and shook my head as I started the penultimate video. In this one, Lexy was crying.
“Hi! I’m back.”
She sobbed.
“He beat my mom again! She had to go to the hospital and she’s going to be there for three days! I hate him! I hate him so much! I wish he was never born!”
Lexy wailed. She paused for a few moments as she regained her composure. She wiped a tear as she continued.
“I wanted to stay at the hospital tonight with my mom and not come home at all but the fucking nurse wouldn’t let me. Bitch! So, tomorrow, after school, I am only coming here long enough to pack a bag with a couple of changes of clothes. Then I am staying at Meg’s house until my mother comes home. Meg doesn’t exactly know that yet, but she’ll let me stay with her and so will her mom.”
Lexy sighed again.
“As for tonight, my door is locked and I even propped my desk chair under the knob. I hope I can sleep, but… I doubt it. Well, bye.”
Lexy sniffled and the video ended. I stared at the laptop for a few moments. I had the awful feeling that I knew what had happened to Lexy Larkin. I wondered if it would be hard to watch the last video, but I was going to make the copies of these videos and give them to Lexy’s friends just as she asked. I didn’t want to tell her friends, “I don’t know what happened to her because I couldn’t watch the last video, but here it is so that you can watch it for me.”
I took a couple of deep breaths and started the final video, nervous as hell about what I’d see. I hugged Joy tightly as the video came on. Lexy was recording through the hidden camera.
“Hi, it’s me! I just wanted to make a short entry since it’ll be my last one for three days. I heard Mom’s asshole trying my doorknob last night just like I thought he would. Fucking creep. Well, at least my hidden camera is working and I keep the fake wall in place so he doesn’t ever find my hiding place.”
Lexy shuddered.
“Anyway, I told Meg that I wanted to stay with her because I can’t stay alone in this house with that freak. She was ready and willing to have me stay with her, bless her heart. Anyway, my bag is packed and I’m ready to--”
The boyfriend knocked on Lexy’s door and she quickly glanced at the door before facing the hidden camera again.
“Oh shit!”
Lexy was very tense as she silently but quickly stepped down to the floor. The door opened before Lexy could say anything else. She turned to face the boyfriend and I could see the fear in her face.
I paused the video as I sat bolt upright.
“Holy shit, that’s the guy I saw in the mirror, Joy!”
I wondered why I saw his reflection in my mirror scaring Lexy’s reflection and causing her to back away from him. The thought nearly made my stomach turn.
“Well, now I’m scared.”
I paused for a few more moments and resumed the video.
“W-w-what do you want?”
He chuckled.
“You, of course.”
Lexy took an immediate step back and held her head away from his advancing hand.
“Don’t touch me!”
The boyfriend merely smirked.
“Now, now, let’s not get bitchy!”
Lexy took another step away from him.
“I am not being bitchy!”
“Then chill out so we can have some fun.”
“Fuck you!”
Lexy grabbed her bag and turned to run but the boyfriend grabbed at her. She dodged him and tried to flee, but she collided with her desk chair and an arm rest connected harshly with her crotch. Since she still had male equipment, she did what any male would. She doubled over and howled with pain.
“Ow, fuck! Aw, shit!”
“What the fuck is going on? You’re one of those faggot boys who dress like a girl? Oh, Jesus!”
He glared at her as he paced like an angry lion.
“Oh Christ!”
He looked sick -- until he erupted with anger just as Lexy pulled herself to her feet.
“You fucking little bitch! Come here!”
Lexy tried to run but was too late.
“Get back here, faggot!”
The boyfriend grabbed Lexy’s bag and pulled it toward him. Lexy fell backward and as she fell, her head slammed into her desk. Lexy was out cold and she lay still on the floor.
I gasped and held Joy tightly with both arms as I watched in horror.
The boyfriend panted as he briefly looked around.
“Oh fuck!”
He bent down to see if Lexy was still alive. He seemed to calm down when he spoke his next words.
“Sorry, kid.”
He held his meaty hand over Lexy’s mouth as he pinched her nostrils shut. Lexy was unconscious and couldn’t fight back.
That was when I stopped the video. I couldn’t watch the rest. I couldn’t watch Lexy die. The ending to that video wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. I sat there on my bed clutching Joy as I began to cry. All at once I felt extremely frightened to be home alone.
“Lexy? Lexy, please, please tell me you’re here! I saw what happened to you and I’m scared to be alone now! Please be here!”
Immediately, I felt her in the room.
“Thank God! I’m so glad you’re here.”
I couldn’t stop crying for a few minutes, but Lexy’s presence felt warm and protective again. It eventually helped me to regain my composure.
“Lexy, I’m going to call the police first thing in the morning. Before I do, I’m going to make copies of these videos and give them to your friends like you wanted. I promise! In fact, I’m going to do that right now! Let me clean up my face first.”
I got up and went to my dresser where I got myself a tissue, wiped my tears, and blew my nose. I tossed the tissue in the trash and looked back at the mirror — only to see that the reflection had changed. In the reflection, Lexy was sitting on the bed, holding Joy, smiling at her and humming a tune.
“Oh my--!”
I turned around to look at the bed and found Joy where I had left her. Lexy was nowhere to be seen.
“Wait, Lexy, these things I see in my mirror — they must be some of your memories. Is that right?”
The overhead light brightened again.
“You’re going to blow out all my light bulbs, you know!”
I giggled at Lexy and the lights went back to normal.
I grabbed the DVDs, went back to my bed, put down the DVDs and picked up Joy. I fed the first blank DVD into the machine. It took thirty minutes to finish. I fed in the next one and then the third. I decided to make a couple more copies. One had all the videos on it and I intended to keep that one in case one of Lexy’s friends lost her copy — or in case the police lost the laptop. I doubted that would happen, but I wanted to make sure that asshole went to jail where he belonged. On the last DVD that I used, I copied only the videos in which Lexy was cheerful and talked about her friends and the boy she had a crush on at school. I didn’t have any friends — since being transgendered really got in the way of that -- and I felt it would help me to not feel so lonely especially if Lexy stopped visiting me after I finished carrying out her last wishes. While the machine did its magic on the last DVD, I wondered how Lexy had managed to make three good friends.
Finally, the last DVD was finished. I stopped for a moment as something occurred to me. I checked the date on the last video. It was dated February 21st, 2002 — the day she’d gone missing. I glanced at my alarm clock, which displayed the date as well as the time and saw that the date was February 21st, 2004.
“Oh my God! It’s been exactly two years since--”
Crack!
I sat bolt upright on the bed as I heard the sound. I looked out my window, which overlooked the back of the house, to try to identify the source of the sound I had just heard. I thought I had heard the sound of a twig snapping under someone’s foot -- but I didn’t see anything out there.
I sat back on my bed, clutching Joy and chuckling at my high-strung nerves.
“God, Lexy, I’m getting really jumpy--”
Crash!
It was the sound of a window breaking somewhere downstairs! Now I was terrified!
“Letti!!”
“Lexy, is that you?”
I whispered as the lights in my room went out. Oddly, enough, the lights in Teri’s room were still on.
“Letti!!”
I knew that Lexy was trying to warn me and to protect me by keeping me in the dark and out of sight. My intuition screamed at me to hide.
Being as quick and as quiet as I possibly could, I grabbed the DVDs and put them in my desk drawer. I took the laptop and power cable and put them in the crawl space at the bottom of the closet. I ran silently into Teri’s bedroom across the hall and grabbed the cordless telephone handset from its cradle. I ran back into my room, grabbed Joy and crawled into the crawl space where I’d put the laptop. I was trembling and clutching Joy as I called 911. When they answered, I tried to speak as quietly as I possibly could.
“Nine one one. What is your emergency?”
“Someone’s in my house! I need the police!”
“Okay, little girl. Try to stay calm now. What’s your address?”
“1428 Elm Street! Please hurry!”
“Okay. I’m sending the police now. Are you still in the house?”
“Yes, but I’m hidden in a crawl space.”
“Okay. Stay hidden and wait for us. We’ll be there in just a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay, I wi--”
Click.
“Hello?”
Dead silence.
“Hello??”
The phone was dead!
At least I had been able to summon help! I was glad beyond words that the police were on the way. Then I realized that it made no sense for whoever was in my house to disable the phone unless that person knew someone was home! My heart began to pound crazily as I heard footsteps come up the stairs and stop between my room and Teri’s.
“Where aaaaaare you?”
I froze. I knew that voice! It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be, but it was! It was Blaine Wood, the man who murdered Lexy Larkin! I knew that if he found me he would kill me, just like he killed Lexy! No wonder Lexy was calling my name as he arrived! My heart began hammering in my chest. I was scared to make even the quietest sound and dared not breathe.
“I know you’re home… and I know you’re alone! I’ve been watching your house.”
That sent a shiver down my spine like none other. How long had he been watching my house? What had he seen? Had he seen me standing on my desk chair and removing the laptop from its hiding place? I was more terrified than I had ever dreamed possible and I held Joy close to me with one hand on her head as I sat there and waited for the police to come, with tears silently leaking from my eyes. Meanwhile, the footsteps went to Teri’s bedroom and, judging from what I could hear, Blaine got upset about something.
“Shit!”
I heard what sounded like Blaine smacking the phone cradle off of the nightstand. I heard him stomp back out into the hall.
“You better not have called the police you little bitch!”
I heard him stomp off somewhere else upstairs. The only place he could have gone — without going downstairs -- was the master bedroom. As I sat there wondering what the hell he was doing, my phone chirped loudly in my hands. I jumped and my mind raced.
“Oh fuck! Oh God! He’s going to find me and kill me if I don’t shut this thing up!”
The cordless phone had a handset locator feature that made the handset beep so it could be found if misplaced. Blaine was using that feature to find me! He must have unplugged the phone line, but left the base unit plugged in! I frantically turned the ringer off, hoping against hope it would silence the handset locator.
I thought I was safe but the phone chirped again. The damned phone must have been designed to respond to the handset locator unless the base unit was unplugged!
“I’m going to find you, you little bitch!”
I knew he was right. Even if I removed the battery pack from the phone he would search until he found me. I had to do something! I got out of the closet, silently went to the window, opened it, put the phone on the floor below it and darted silently back to the crawl space. I sat there shaking and praying for my life. The phone chirped again and I prayed that he would think I’d jumped out the window and run. I heard footsteps enter my room.
“Shit!”
I suspected that he was trying to turn the lights on -- but the lights did not come on. Maybe Lexy was keeping them off to protect me! He must have noticed the open window then because--
“Goddamned little bitch!”
I heard him stalk over to the window. Right after his footsteps stopped, I heard an extremely chilling, horrifying scream. I knew it was Lexy trying to scare Blaine out of the house. I didn’t hear him react to that scream in any way, and he definitely didn’t say anything. I figured that he didn’t hear it. I supposed he was not the slightest bit “sensitive”. Just my luck!
Lexy turned the lights on and off for several seconds. I heard a thump against a wall — but it wasn’t Lexy’s thump because it sounded different. The lights went off and stayed off.
“Fucking wiring!”
Lexy banged the door shut as loudly as she had when she was trying to get my attention. It scared me like it always had.
“God damn door!”
I heard a few more footsteps but then they stopped. I saw a weak light coming from somewhere in my room and I realized that Blaine must have found my flashlight on my desk — and the note! Oh, my God!! I left Lexy’s note on my desk!! I was scared out of my wits as I heard the sound of Blaine picking up the note and I realized with horror that he had just learned everything about those videos! He might even know that I had watched them! He was definitely going to kill me! As I fought off panic and racked my brain for ways to defend myself, I watched as the flashlight was pointed into the closet. I saw it light up some of my clothes that were slightly swinging on their hangers. I must have brushed up against them on my way back to the crawl space! Oh shit!
“There you are!”
Blaine chuckled and that sound was the creepiest sound I had ever heard.
“I foooooound you!”
He had found me, all right! Blaine saw the laptop.
“Well, well. What have we here? I bet you saw some very interesting videos on that laptop.”
He glared at me.
“Give me the laptop!”
“I-I c-c-called the p-police! Th-they’re c-coming!”
I stammered my feeble warning. Blaine scowled at me.
“I am going to kill you. Give me the laptop now and I’ll kill you quickly. If you don’t, I’ll make it slow and painful.”
I was too petrified to move or speak. Besides, there was nowhere to go — he had me trapped!
“Give me that fucking laptop, bitch!”
I shoved it further into the crawl space — and put Joy back there with it -- but Blaine reached toward me and grabbed my ankle. I screamed as loudly as I could.
“POLICE!!!!! HELP!!!!! POLICE!!!!!”
“You’re as good as dead, you little cunt! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
He lunged for me and I kicked at him as furiously as I could. He had a firm grip on one ankle but I kept kicking with my free one. I realized, too late, that he could see up my skirt. Unfortunately, I never could hide myself very well down there.
“What the fuck?? You’re another one of those faggots! God damn it! I’m going to kill you just like I killed Lexy!”
“POLICE!!!!! POLICE!!!!!”
I kicked even harder and at some point I kicked the flashlight and caused its light bulb to blow out. The lights in my room were still out and it was nearly pitch black in the crawl space. I kept right on kicking, but he still had a good hold on my ankle and he began dragging me toward him. I heard some kind of a rustling sound. I screamed again at the very top of my lungs.
“POLICE!!!!! POLICE!!!!! PO---”
Suddenly, I felt something plastic tightly covering my face. I couldn’t breathe -- and I couldn’t get it off! I tried to rip the plastic but I couldn’t! I began frantically punching and kicking at Blaine in any way I could, but that seemed to make me get dizzy faster.
“Police! Let go of the girl NOW or we will shoot! This is your last warning!”
Blaine was so caught up in his hatred that he did not let go. I was now too dizzy to fight back and my limbs dropped to my sides.
POW!
A cop shot Blaine and he fell backwards, into my closet and against my clothes. He pulled a lot of my clothes down with him and I found myself covered with my now bloodied boy clothes. I pulled the plastic bag off of my head and lay there, still very dizzy. A few moments later, my head cleared. When it did, I began crying. I scrambled to the crawl space and retrieved Joy. I sat there crying and holding her close to me.
“It’s all right, little girl; we got the bad guy. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
I began to regain my composure, and female police officer helped me out of the closet. I could see red and blue lights flashing through my room since my lights were still out.
“You’re safe now, sweetie. I’m Officer Roberta Perkins. You can call me Bobbi.”
“I’m Letti.”
I heard more commotion downstairs as I wiped tears from my eyes.
“This is our house! You can’t keep us out! Kory!”
“Kory, where are you?”
“Mom! Dad! I’m in my room!”
I was afraid to leave the police officer’s side until my parents appeared in my bedroom doorway. As soon as I saw them, I ran to them, threw my arms around them and cried some more. They probably noticed that I was dressed as a girl and clutching a doll and wondered what that was all about. They must have decided we could talk about it later because they didn’t ask any questions. They did look at me funny, though, until they saw my tears and Blaine’s blood all over me.
“Kory, you’ve got blood on you! Are you all right?”
My mother began to thoroughly check me for injuries.
“Yeah, mom. It’s not my blood. It’s his.”
“Oh, thank God!”
My mother embraced me. I looked at my closet and my mother followed my gaze.
“Ugh! Who the hell is that?”
Officer Perkins scratched her head and looked at me.
“Do you know who that man is, Kory?”
“Yes, I do. His name is Blaine Wood and he’s the man who murdered Lexy Larkin!”
“What’s this about murdering Lexy Larkin — and who is Lexy Larkin?”
My father demanded to know what was going on. The police officer answered him.
“Lexy Larkin went missing two years ago. She used to live in this house with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, the guy in your closet. After she went missing, we started getting reports from the neighbors about every six months that someone was attempting to break into this house or someone was already inside. Nothing was ever reported missing, so whoever it was — and it was almost certainly the dead guy — was obviously looking for something. There was a report about Lexy on the news earlier tonight.”
“I saw that!”
The officer smiled at me.
“I did, too. It was on a TV where I was taking my dinner break. Anyway, lunatics like him sometimes return to the scene of the crime — sometimes to finish what they started or find something they left behind. That’s probably why he was here tonight.”
My father seemed satisfied, but Officer Perkins was not.
“Kory, did you say that Lexy Larkin was murdered?”
I remembered the laptop and I had to tell the police about it.
“Yes, Officer. I found Lexy’s laptop in a hidden crawl space next to the shelf in the closet. She got her own murder on video two years ago tonight. It’s on her laptop and that’s what he was after. He tried to kill me for it!”
“What??”
My parents were shocked. Officer Perkins seemed to know about the laptop.
“The original missing person reports mentioned something about a missing laptop and doll. It was thought that she took them with her. Obviously not. Anyway, I’m sure that’s what he was looking for. Where is the laptop?”
“It’s in the closet. There’s another crawl space at the bottom on the left and it’s in there. The videos are on the hard drive.”
My parents were still trying to digest the fact that Blaine had attacked me.
“Kory, he tried to kill you??”
“Yeah, Mom.”
I began to choke up again.
“How did you know where to look for the laptop, little girl?”
The police officer wanted to know. I looked back and forth between her and my parents.
“Well, um… I know how this sounds, but… Lexy showed me where to look.”
I smiled nervously. At that moment, my lights turned themselves on and off a couple of times and stayed on. At the moment they stayed on we could faintly hear the sound of Lexy humming the same tune she’d been humming when I saw her reflected in my mirror. Officer Perkins’ eyebrows raised themselves. My mother took me into her arms.
“Wow. Okay. Well, sweetie, why don’t we get you changed and go down to the kitchen. We’ll have some hot cocoa. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good to me!”
“All right.”
I glanced at my bloodied closet.
“Uh, Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
I gestured toward my closet.
“I don’t think I want to wear anything from that closet. Ever.”
“Hmmm, I believe you have a point there. Well, we’ll just have to dress you up in something else of Teri’s. Come on!”
I was really glad I didn’t have to go back to being a boy. I hated trying to be a boy. We went to Teri’s room, where my mother wiped the spots of blood off of my face. I changed into a clean, black denim skirt, black tights, and a purple cotton top.
Once we were done, we went downstairs to the kitchen where my father made the cocoa. We were sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying our hot cocoa and starting to relax when we heard Teri arrive home.
“Mom?? Dad?? Kory??”
“Excuse me, miss! Do you live here?”
“Yes!! What happened?? Where’s my family??”
We got up and went out to greet her.
“We’re right here, sweetheart.”
“Oh, thank God!!”
Teri ran toward us and hugged Mom and Dad. Then she hugged me.
“What the hell happened?? Why are the police here??”
“Somebody tried to kill me!”
I told my sister the grim news. She was horrified.
“What?? Why??”
I gave her an abbreviated version of things.
“I found a laptop that belonged to a girl named Lexy Larkin who lived in this house until her mother’s boyfriend killed her. She made a lot of videos in there and she even got her own murder on video. Anyway, her mother’s boyfriend was looking for the laptop because he knew that there was something incriminating on it. That’s why he tried to kill me.”
“Oh my God, Kory! I’m so glad you’re safe!”
Teri hugged me again.
“Awww! Thanks Teri! Hey, you know what, Teri? Lexy was transgendered, like me!”
I smiled, but a split second later I clamped one hand over my mouth, my eyes wide, realizing my mistake. My parents gawked at me.
“Are you transgendered, sweetie?” My mother carefully inquired.
I hesitated for a moment and nodded.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
My mother smiled.
“Well, I guess that explains why you’ve been dressed as a girl all night — and it also explains the doll. It’s a very pretty doll — and you’re very pretty, too.”
“Thank you!”
I blushed and smiled at the compliment. I realized that it made me feel warm inside. I looked at Joy while I spoke to my parents.
“Are you freaked out?”
“Well, we’re a little bit shocked, to be honest, but we are not freaked out.”
My mother glanced at my father.
“I agree with your mother, Kory. Being transgendered is as natural as being left-handed instead of right-handed or being artistic instead of scientific.”
I smiled at my parents.
“Hey, that’s a great way to put it — and I always have been this way. I just didn’t know it clearly until I found this doll on my bed a little while ago.”
“You found it on your bed?”
“Yeah. Lexy put it out there for me. I guess you could say she had it in storage — along with her laptop. Anyway, I named her Joy and I love her -- and I’m going to keep her, too!”
We heard footsteps approaching the front door and turned around to find a girl about my age standing at our open front door and knocking on the jamb. She was about my height and had lightly curled brown hair down to her shoulders. She wore a dark purple winter coat, blue jeans, and silver colored, wire-rimmed glasses over her large blue eyes.
“Excuse me. I’m a neighbor and I saw the police cars and--”
She noticed Joy in my arms and seemed to be positively stunned at the sight. She spoke slowly, almost in a whisper.
“Where did you find that doll?”
“A friend gave it to me.”
The girl’s eyes remained riveted to Joy.
“Who?”
“Her name was Lexy Larkin.”
The girl began to look very troubled as she looked me in the eyes.
“Was? Did something happen to Lexy? Please tell me! She’s my best friend — or she was until she vanished!”
Suddenly I knew who the neighbor girl was.
“You must be Meg.”
She looked at me with great surprise — as did my family -- and slowly nodded.
“Yes, I am. How did you know my name?”
“Let’s go in the living room, okay?”
Meg nodded. We walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. Teri sat down on a nearby ottoman. My parents moved to the wide living room doorway to get out of the way of the police.
“How did you know my name?”
“Lexy told me about you — and Cathy and Jena. She said you were her best friend.”
Meg’s face registered faint hope.
“You talked to Lexy?”
I looked down at Joy.
“Not exactly.”
Meg thought for a moment.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
I looked back up at Meg. I took a breath and moved a bit closer to her.
“Lexy left behind some videos that she recorded and she talked about her friends in some of them. She thought of it as her video diary.”
Meg’s face clouded up.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Letti,” I answered without thinking.
My parents noticed the name and looked at me with their eyebrows raised.
“Letti?”
Meg gave me a knowing look along with a weak smile. I briefly turned to my mother.
“Um, yeah, that’s… that’s another story–“
“Letti, where is Lexy? Do you know where she is? Please tell me!”
I looked at Meg sadly as I put one hand gently on her shoulder.
“Meg, I’m... I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but… Lexy is dead. Her mother’s boyfriend killed her two years ago today.”
“Oh God! Oh God, no!!”
Meg began to cry and she removed her glasses. I wrapped my arms around Meg and held her as she cried.
“I knew he killed her! I knew it! I knew it when she didn’t show up at my house that night! I just knew it!”
For a few minutes, nobody spoke. I just held Meg as she cried. Teri tiptoed to the guest bathroom to get some tissues for Meg. She came back and handed them to Meg. Meg began to wipe her eyes and Teri sat down again.
“I’m so sorry about Lexy, Meg. For what it’s worth, that filthy bastard is dead now. He came back for her laptop and he tried to kill me for it.”
Meg looked at me with horror in her eyes.
“Anyway, the police shot him because he… he had a plastic bag over my head and he wasn’t letting go even after the police ordered him to.”
My mother put one hand over her mouth in shock and my father put his arms around her, a haggard expression on his face. Meg shivered and rubbed her arms — as did Teri.
“It must have been horrible to endure that! I’m glad you’re still here.”
Meg gently rubbed my shoulder. I noticed that Meg had a question in her eyes and I sensed that she was afraid to voice it. I had a feeling I knew what was on her mind and I thought about how to answer her question without dredging up too many gory details.
“Lexy never felt a thing, Meg. She was knocked unconscious before he…”
I left it at that and I rubbed Meg’s shoulder. She slowly nodded. As she sniffled and dabbed at her eyes, Meg noticed that I was still holding Joy.
“I guess, um…” She sniffled. “I guess Lexy wants you to take care of Joy for her.”
“Yeah, I guess she does — and I will, too!”
Tears continued to leak from Meg’s eyes. I hugged her snuggly for a few seconds.
“Let me get the videos for you!”
“Okay.”
Meg nodded silently, and I gently rubbed her shoulder before I ran back to my room. I snuck out a DVD with all the videos on it, went back down to Meg, and handed her the DVD.
“Thank you, Letti. I want to help you tell Cathy and Jena about this. I know that you probably don’t want to do that by yourself. At least, I wouldn’t.”
“You’re right, I don’t either. I would love your help. That’s very considerate of you. Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. Um… why don’t we do that at my house? It’s just in the next block, and… well… it’s too disturbing here.”
I looked around my house.
“Yeah. Tell me about it. I don’t think I can ever sleep in my room again. It was Lexy’s room, you know.”
I looked down at Joy. Teri was wigged out.
“That was her bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
I looked at Teri, who visibly shuddered.
“Ooh. I couldn’t sleep in there either. I don’t blame you, Letti.”
“Me either.”
Meg gently rubbed my shoulder. My mother looked at my father.
“Erm, yes, why don’t we all spend the night at a hotel? I think it would be best.”
“Meg, let me give you my cellphone number.”
I got a post-it pad from the kitchen, jotted down my number, removed the top sheet from the pad and gave it to Meg.
“Meg, if you have trouble sleeping or just need to talk then please call me. I really don’t care what time it is — and besides, I probably won’t be sleeping very well anyway.”
Meg smiled at me warmly as I handed her the number.
“I don’t think I will either. Thank you, Letti. If I need to talk, I will call you.”
“Okay. Good.”
I smiled at her and she hugged me.
“Meg, would you like Teri and I to walk you home before we leave?”
She nodded.
“Yes, thanks.”
Nobody in the room spoke for a few moments.
Meg, Jena, Cathy and I were immersed in memories of Lexy and Ricki was just trying to digest what she had heard.
“So that’s how you met,” Ricki murmured.
“Yeah,” Meg confirmed. “The rest of the story is that I did call Letti that night because I needed to talk to someone and we hadn’t told Cathy and Jena yet. We talked about a lot of different things to get our minds off of Lexy for a while. We talked for hours. Letti was wonderful the whole time we were going through that. I don’t know how I would have gotten through that without her. I really don’t.”
Meg hugged me tightly and continued.
“Anyway, Letti and I talked about when to tell Cathy and Jena the news and we decided that it was best to do it sooner than later. Otherwise we would relive it all over again when we told Cathy and Jena. So, the next day I called Cathy and Jena over to my house.”
“They came over that afternoon and we told them the news and Letti gave them their DVDs. After that, we got together regularly, the four of us, to help each other cope. We got to be really good friends.”
I smiled at Meg.
“Then, about a year later, Meg asked me out on a date and I happily accepted, of course. We became an exclusive couple four months after our first date and, well, here we are.”
Meg still had her arms snugly wrapped around me.
"I love you."
She murmured into my ear.
"I love you, too."
I cooed in reply.
We kissed with great love.
For several moments we sat in silence, listening to the wind blowing outside and the crackling fire in the fireplace. It was Ricki who broke the silence.
“Well, our girls’ night is still young. Do you want to keep telling ghost stories?”
“Yeah!”
“Sure!”
Meg and I looked at each other.
“Why not?”
Comments
Lexy
I like this story and I really like the way you let on that Letti is transgendered. It's a clever way to do it. :)
I'm glad the creep got what was coming to him. That was satisfying. What a creep! *shiver*
The only thing I missed was finding out what happened to Lexy - both her body and her ghost. I would've liked a bit more closure. You hinted that Lexy's ghost might move on after the videos but it would've been nice to have a sign.
Thanks for the story. I look forward to reading more of your stories. :)
- Terry
Yes, more closure would be good.
I have a good idea how it can work quite well to show the reader what happened to Lexy's body and to give the reader that closure, but due to time constraints, I had to find a stopping point for the story and submit it. Perhaps after the contest is over I will write a part 2 and provide the closure.
Thanks so much for your input!
Lisa
Good One...
Nicely written -- the suspense comes through really well.
Terry's right in that we'll never know what the villain did with Lexy's body, but you didn't have much of an alternative there; putting the answer in his dialogue would have been lame at best. (As for the soul, I think we can assume it was moving on once the videos were copied. I'm a bit surprised Lexy didn't depart when Blaine died.) I do wonder a little whether Letti's family moved out afterward; I can't see either of the kids sleeping in Lexy's old room after that. (I suppose they could share the other room now that Letti's a girl, but that'd be a real imposition on Teri...)
Eric
Excellent Point
Hi Eric (and Terry)
I see what you mean about having a sign that Lexy moved on. The sign was when she turned the lights on and off, left them on, and was then heard humming while Letti and her parents were in her bedroom after Blaine was killed. I think, however, that I did not make that clear. I will adjust that after the contest is over. I don't feel right changing it until then. It feels like... well, cheating. :)
Thanks so much for your input!
Lisa
I haven't read
any other entries in this contest. I don't know how I came to start this one but it just gripped me. I had to find out how things developed and the story had so much going for it. It was more of a ghost story than a TG story IMHO and that's what kept my attention.
Very well written and totally addictive.
Susie
Yes, More Ghost Story Than TG
I have found that my stories are drifting away from the identity confusion theme towards other themes and having one of the characters be transgendered, but in a less central way. That confusion of mine was what compelled me so to write about gender confusion. It helped me to figure it out. Now that my confusion is cleared up, my stories aren't reflecting it quite as they used to.
I have some old stories I didn't finish that perhaps I will someday. :)
Thanks for your input!
Lisa
This is really very good...
and spooky too. I have seen on these ghost hunter series that spirits sometimes come back so that they can finish their business on earth, before going on to heaven.
This story of the kinship between Letti and Lexy was chilling, and I had goosebumps all over. But it shows that Lexy trusted Letti to catch her killer. They say that the spirit when the person is alive, leaves traces of themselves whereever they have been, which does account for sighting a ghost in different places at once. Lexy was killed in the bedroon that Letti was sleeping in, and that is why Lexy's spirit was predominantly there.
The images in this story are picture perfect, as tho they were taken by a professional photographer. That is how clear I saw them.
I am glad that Blaine was the epitome of the "criminal always returns to the scene of the crime". He got what he deserved, except the police could have shot him in the leg, or the shoulder, so he could spend the rest of his life behind bars...but the state was spared that expense tho, when the police shot him dead.
MonaLisa you have written a very well thought out, and picturesque story, and this one should be published as a book. I am serious! This is that good to be published. Thank you for sharing and if I had to rate this, I would give it a 10.
Be strong, because it is in our strength that we can heal.
Love & Hugs,
Barbara
"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."
Love & hugs,
Barbara
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
Lexy
This is really good. A couple of parts threw me. When Letti found the camera in the smoke detector I really thought it was from the evil stepfather. Again crawling behind in the wall I was expecting a body back there. Still Lexy was a smart girl and it still all made sense. What a suspenseful tale!
hugs!
grover
Very touching
This was a sad one, but it also had some nice excitement, and a satisfying ending.
I really liked this story
I remember reading it before but it I never commented on it though. It is a great little ghost story and way to go sisters ... and lesbian sisters, that can never go wrong :).
The end was suitably exciting, it's too bad she did not get a sharp object, maybe scissors to help herself but oh well.
Kim
Just wondering...
... have been cudos very expensive years ago? Only 12 cudos for such a wonderful story!
Forever Friends
July 9, 2016 - 8 years after this story was written. I probably would never have found and subsequently read it if it had not shown up as a random solo. I left a kudo, and not 'just because'. I would have left at least, well how many zeros do you want to the right of the one I left, and can that one be changed to a 9? And would you rather all the other numbers be a 9 also? This is a very good story from start to finish. I can find nothing to say except compliment you for writing it, and everyone who has commented on it. They said it much better than I.
And what contest was it a part of? Is it possible to read all the stories in the Contest?
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm