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"Ellie! Danny! Be careful—if you knock over the bowls, you'll be the ones cleaning the kitchen today!"
The sound of the twin's giggles filled the entire house, Maddie smiled as she waved the whisk, playfully shooing the twins away.
"Got it, Mom!" the children chorused, chasing each other out of the kitchen. Before Maddie could breathe a sigh of relief, her youngest daughter poked her head back in, fixing her with those big puppy-dog eyes.
"What is it?" Maddie put on her best "serious mom face", even though she knew deep down she could never refuse any request from her daughter.
"Mommy, we've been super good today, right? Danny and I ate all our veggies at lunch, and Danny even washed his own socks! So…" She batted those big eyes and stuck out her bottom lip. "Please! Can we go play with Tucker and Sam? We'll be good! No pranks, we promise!"
Maddie sighed, her expression softening into a doting smile. "Of course, sweetheart. If you take Cujo out for some exercise and come home before dinner, why not? We're having your favorite food tonight——spaghetti and meatballs!"
Ellie trotted over, gave Maddie a quick hug around the waist, and ran off with a cry of "Love you, Mom!"
While stirring the cookie dough, Maddie listened closely to the children's movements.
Danny's voice was muffled, but she caught something like "Did it work?" followed by a burst of cheers from both kids, then a clatter of hurried footsteps. Soon the noise faded—they must have run out to the backyard to find Cujo, the little dog who always loved lying in the sun.
Humming softly, Maddie paused her work, bent down to a small dedicated fridge, and pulled out two small aluminum foil jelly pouches.
"Kids!" she called out as the twins were putting on their shoes. "Don't forget your ectoplasm snack! Liminal kids need to drink their ecto if they want to grow tall!"
"Ugh..." The twins' faces scrunched up in disgust, and Maddie couldn't help but laugh. By the time the children had run out of sight, her smile slowly faded.
Daniel and Eleanor were her youngest. Though they had vary different personalities, she loved them both equally (or so she hoped).
After her eldest child, Flynn, died from severe ecto-acne caused by improper ectoplasm storage, Maddie and Jack never dared to do any experiment at home again. They bought a warehouse a few blocks away and converted the basement into a new lab, while the old lab was turned into a private playroom for future children.
Jasmine was their second child. Nothing strange happened while raising her, which gave them the courage to have another child—or children,in their case.
But perhaps Maddie and Jack had been lax with lab safety, or exposed to too many experimental substances. Soon after the twins were born, they noticed something odd. Danny would constantly turn intangible, slipping out of his crib and reappearing in random places (where he absolutely WASN’T suppose to be). Ellie, during bath time, loved to float in the air, making the task ten times harder. There was no other explanation—Maddie consulted countless sources, Jack ran the blood test for more than a hundred times, and the final conclusion was that the youngest Fenton children were natural-born liminals, with abilities that should only belong to ghosts.
If that were all, Maddie could have relaxed. As a mother, no matter her children's condition, she would only love them and wish for them to grow up safe.
But when Ellie was four, she fainted at an amusement park, and Maddie discovered that her body was exceptionally unstable. Danny also needed ectoplasm to supplement his energy, but Ellie's body seemed unable to function without it. Many human medicines were ineffective on her and had to be modified for safe use. Maddie couldn't bear the thought of losing another child. Nowadays, the entire focus of her research was on curing Ellie.
She kept a scrapbook full of memories of time spent with Ellie. She would never forget the look of sheer delight on Ellie's face when she first tasted mint chocolate chip ice cream, or the way Ellie cheered the first time she managed to ride a bike on her own.
Sometimes Maddie even felt guilty for not spending more time with Danny and Jazz. But both children were understanding and never jealous of her closeness with Ellie. Ellie was her little angel, her hope of redemption. Not a single day passed without Maddie blaming herself for Flynn's death. Perhaps only when she saw Ellie grow up safe and sound would she finally be able to lay that crushing guilt to rest.
Shaking off her thoughts, Maddie focused on shaping the cookie dough into animal forms. Danny preferred puppies, but Ellie always liked cats better. Jazz was past the age of animal-shaped cookies, so Maddie only needed to make two kinds. Speaking of cats... Ellie and Danny's ninth birthday was approaching, and Ellie had been begging for an adorable white kitten. True, they'd gotten Cujo last year—that little beagle who'd refused to leave Danny's side—but the children had proved they were responsible enough with pets. Maybe a new family member wouldn't be so bad...
After arranging the dough on baking sheets, Maddie glanced at the clock. Jack's shift at the lab should be ending soon—ever since they'd discovered Ellie's condition, they'd decided that one of them must always stay home with the children, alternating lab duty each day. She needed to call him to pick up Jazz and the twins for dinner. For now, though, she had to go to the pantry and find some canned tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce.
Time always flew when she was cooking. Maddie had only learned to cook after Jazz was born. The nanny they'd hired back then had been a huge help, correcting many of their assumptions, one of which was the importance of homemade food. And as it turned out, if there were no resurrected sausages plotting to form an union in the fridge, cooking was pretty simple for two geniuses with PhDs.
The doorbell rang just as Maddie was tasting the meat sauce for seasoning.
"Coming!" She smiled with satisfaction, untied her apron, and went to answer the door.
Danny was holding Cujo's leash, his other hand held by his father,. Jazz had a book tucked under her arm. And Ellie had already rushed forward and thrown herself into Maddie's arms.
"It smells so good!" Letting go, her eyes sparkled as she practically floated toward the kitchen to inspect the sauce. Maddie caught her just before she could stick a finger in it, ruffling her hair, "Go wash your hands first!"
"Aww..." Ellie washed up and quickly joined her siblings in setting the table. Maddie watched her lively little figure with a smile, her resolve to cure her strengthening once again.
Dinner was just like any other day—the children chattered noisily about what they'd seen and done, occasionally making faces or tossing small bits of pickle at each other. Jazz, always self-disciplined, gladly shared something new she'd read about the "Bretz Effect" (whatever that was). Danny excitedly discussed the new game Tucker had bought, gesticulating wildly. And Ellie, her face smeared with meat sauce, spoke with longing about her new plan to learn skateboarding. Watching her children's smiles, Maddie's own face radiated happiness.
Then the sudden coughing shattered the harmony at the table. Maddie froze. She watched in horror as Ellie, who had been so vibrant just moments ago, seemed to be desperately suppressing her coughs, both hands clamped over her mouth. The fork she'd been holding clattered to the floor with a sharp metallic ring. Despite her efforts, wet, sticky coughs leaked through her fingers. Her body curled forward, her breathing grew more labored, as if her lungs were melting from the inside. Everyone at the table seemed frozen, watching Ellie's attack in terrified silence.
In that silence, Ellie's cough was the only sound—raw and heartbreaking. Soon she couldn't support herself anymore; her hands dropped from her mouth. Maddie rushed forward, before she even realized what she was doing, trying to catch her. But Ellie's body slumped faster. She slid out of her chair, knocking over her half-eaten plate. Noodles coated in scarlet sauce spilled over Ellie. Her head struck the corner of the chair, the sound making Maddie's heart ache in sympathy.
With shaking hands, Maddie cradled the back of Ellie's neck. The girl's face was unnaturally pale, cold sweat beading on her skin, yet her heart rate was impossibly slow.
She had stopped coughing, but her hurried breathing was also slowing. Maddie could feel the pulse beneath her hand growing weaker, the rise and fall of Ellie's chest becoming fainter. Ignoring the mess on her daughter's chest, Maddie pressed her face over Ellie's heart, unwilling to believe this sudden tragedy.
For a fleeting moment, the sauce on Ellie's chest looked as red as blood, still warm on Maddie's face. She nearly hallucinated that she was sitting in a pool of her daughter's blood.
How could this be? Ellie, her little angel, her sweetheart—how could she pass so suddenly? Hadn't she been so vital just ten minutes ago, describing a future that would now never arrive? Hadn't all those years of effort, so much investment, the research that had finally begun to improve Ellie's health—wasn't that enough to atone for her sins? Why would heaven take another of her children?
Tears streamed down Maddie's face. She wiped them away, along with the sauce, but through her blurred vision and scattered light patches, she couldn't even tell whether the color on her daughter's pale body was blood-red or the poisonous green of ectoplasm.
"Do you love her?" A voice asked, far too familiar. Maddie looked up in a daze. Danny's worried face blurred into monochrome blobs in her vision from time to time.
"What are you saying? Of course I love her! My little Eleanor...I would give anything...if only she could get better..." Maddie's voice trembled. She didn't understand why Danny was asking such an obvious question, "She's your sister, my youngest...my most beloved child..."
"Is that really so?" The voice paused for a moment, then continued,"Do you even remember her birth?"
Without thinking, Maddie opened her mouth to answer, but her memories seemed flooded with panic. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall the first time she held Ellie. She remembered teaching Jazz to read, catching butterflies with Danny, even the dying face of her long-lost Flynn—all vivid in her mind. But Ellie? She'd taken her daughter to try all kinds of ice cream flavors, but how old had Ellie been then? She'd taught her youngest to ride a bike, so why did she remember the bike being Danny's favorite blue instead of Ellie's favorite purple? How could she have no memories of Ellie at all?...And yet, if that were true, why did she remember that Ellie was her daughter? Where did this love for Ellie come from?
Maddie's blood seemed to run ice-cold. Without realizing it, she had set down Eleanor's body and sat frozen in place.
"I see you're finally returning to reality." The voice continued, cold and stern, "Next question then. Do you still hate ghosts?"
"I…" Again, an obvious answer rose in Maddie's mind—yes, she hated ghosts, ghosts were evil, stagnant souls—no, how could she hate ghosts? Her two youngest were liminals, weren't they? She couldn't both love her children and hate half of their being—ghosts were malicious, because ectoplasm was malicious—ectoplasm was the cure, the only way to save her daughter—ghosts were—yes, no, no, yes—how could she have such muddled memories in her head? Surely some ghost had messed with her mind, just to pull a prank was it true?—she—
"It's you!" She gasped, her vision slowly clearing. The illusion of Danny's face vanished. Before her, head tilted, sitting primly amid the ruins of the lab, was that damned ghost boy—Phantom. The lab's cold white light shone above his head, casting shadows from his glowing white hair across his face, leaving only those poisonous green eyes faintly visible. Yes, it had to be Phantom tampering with her mind, making her...live through nine years of happy memories?
"It's me." Phantom looked down at her, his voice impossibly cold, raising goosebumps on her skin, "Looks like you're finally awake, Maddie. So, did you like the gift I gave you?"
"Gift? You call...you call watching your own daughter die a gift?! Though I suppose that girl wasn't really my daughter. I don't know what you're playing at, but…" Maddie furrowed her brow. Half her face and both her hands were smeared with thick, cold, green ectoplasm. She'd thought that sticky sensation was just a residue of the illusion, but now she realized it was real.
"Yes, a gift." Phantom tilted his head to the other side. "How is this not a gift? Didn't I give you so many years pure happiness? Wasn't your family perfectly joyful? Maybe Ellie was physically unwell, but wasn't she so lovely, so lively, always bringing you so much joy?"
His sharp claws tapped thoughtfully against his chin, "Or do you think all that wasn't enough to make you love her? That's fine. Maybe try another time…"
"What exactly do you want?!" Maddie glared at him, and at the wreckage beneath him. "Isn't destroying my lab enough? What do you want with that girl, you sick, deranged evil sp—"
Her roar was cut off by Phantom's sudden movement. The ghost boy loomed close to her face, his freezing aura making her tremble. His even colder, clawed fingers grabbed her chin and yanked it to the side. Maddie's gaze followed, and she saw, impossibly—
In the only cleaned-up corner of the lab, lay the girl from her dream...no, not exactly the same. But if you dyed the girl's silver-white hair black, and changed her torn Phantom uniform for something else...then...
"See, Maddie? Don't you recognize your angel? Your sweetheart, your most beloved little daughter? Do you remember how she died? Do you remember...how she screamed?" Phantom's claws dug deeper, and Maddie's tears flowed again.
Phantom let go. Her legs had gone numb from kneeling too long, but Maddie ignored that. She crawled to the girl's side and studied that familiar face. Realizing the girl was dead, a familiar tearing pain erupted in her chest again. She buried her face in the girl's roughly stitched chest, feeling the cold, hollow emptiness that belonged only death could cause. Her mind flashed with countless images—those blurry, fading memories of watching Ellie grow up, and then returning memories, the sickening scene of her own gloved hands digging around inside a dead girl's chest.
She felt Phantom's cold, suffocating presence draw near again. That too-familiar voice whispered in her ear this time: "Do you remember now? Poor little Ellie, dying on her mother's autopsy table. She screamed and screamed, begged you to let her prove she was still alive...but did you listen? No. You didn't listen to anything. You never listen, because you're always right. You never think about what could be wrong with your research...because..."
Maddie froze in terror. She finally remembered where she'd heard that voice before. But...but that was impossible, wasn't it? Because...
“...You never listen, Mom.”Phantom raised his head. At this close distance, Maddie couldn't deny it—the features, the voice—they unmistakably belonged to her little son Danny. But...
She had never seen that expression on Danny's face before.
Danny's eyes were filled with hatred, every inch of his face burning with rage. And yet, beneath that fury, there was a glimmer of sick satisfaction from a successful revenge.
This couldn't be her son. Just like...
Just like Eleanor couldn't be her daughter.
"Surprise, Mom?" Phantom—no, Danny—stood up. Maddie wanted to reach out and stop him, but she couldn't bear to leave Eleanor's her body. Her head swung wildly between her son and the girl's daughter'sher daughter's remains, her heart racing erratically.
"Danny...please..." Her own voice sounded pitiful and broken but wasn't she exactly that?
"You know what, Maddie?" Phantom Danny stood in front of the portal, casting one last glance back at her. His shadow, stretched by the portal's glow, looked grotesquely twisted.
"Maybe in another life, we could have been a happy family."
In the rubble of the basement, Maddie screamed.