Free Help for the Haunted by John Searles

word, “ Hookerscantchatell ?”
    I felt relieved that they had come for candy and nothing more. As I dropped peanut-butter cups and mini candy bars into their sparkly purses, I noticed something shiny down by their heels. Before I could get a closer look, one of the girls began cooing, “Ooh, ooh, ooh! I’ll do anything for an Almond Joy! I mean anything !”
    I gave her extra. After all, it wasn’t every day a junior high student showed up on our step pretending to be a candy-addicted prostitute. After I watched them totter back to the station wagon, I bent and picked up a bowl covered in foil.
    Once, sometimes twice a week, Rose and I returned home to find foil-wrapped offerings on our doorstep. Casseroles. Lasagnas. Chocolate cakes. Never once did they come accompanied with a note, so we had no idea who left them. As a result, no matter how hungry or tempted, we felt too suspicious to eat them. Instead, Rose shoved all the food on the counter to take out to the trash later.
    I carried the bowl into the house and lifted the foil to find a Jell-O mold with walnuts and tangerine slices beneath the surface, like insects embalmed in amber. As usual, no note. I considered sticking my finger in and tasting it anyway.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    I turned to see my sister coming down the stairs. Black cape. Pointy hat. Face slathered with green makeup. I’d been so preoccupied with those make-believe hookers and the bowl that I’d failed to notice her music go dead above me.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œDoesn’t look like nothing.” Rose reached the bottom of the stairs, took the bowl from my hands, peeked beneath the foil. “What the hell is it?”
    Beef bourguignon, I wanted to say. “Jell-O.”
    â€œDid you see anyone leave it?”
    I shook my head, which made me think of Louise Hock, the haggard-looking assistant district attorney who attended our meetings with Rummel at the police station. Lately, Louise had begun telling me I needed to get in the habit of speaking my answers, since there would be no nodding allowed when I was questioned in the courtroom come spring. “I didn’t see anyone,” I told Rose.
    â€œWell, I hope you weren’t about to eat it.”
    â€œSeems like a lot of effort just to do us in. By now, whoever it is must realize it’s not exactly working, seeing as we’re still alive.”
    â€œMaybe it’s a slow poison. Or maybe the freak is waiting until we get used to stuffing our faces with these innocent ‘donations’ before sprinkling in Drano. All those goodies down the hatch then— wham! —the unsuspecting Jell-O mold does us in.”
    I stared at her, blinking.
    â€œWhat?” she said.
    â€œOr maybe someone out there feels bad about our situation and is being nice.”
    My sister gave the bowl a wiggle, then sniffed the slick red surface before holding it out to me. “Okay, then. If you’re so brave and determined. Help yourself, Sylvie.”
    I hesitated, waiting for her to retract the bowl. When she didn’t, I reached two fingers in and scooped out a blob. The walnut inside made me think of those embalmed bugs once more. I opened wide, my breath causing the Jell-O to wiggle on my fingertips, and then, at the last second, said, “I can’t do it,” and tossed it back.
    Rose set the bowl aside. “Thought so.” She fussed with the knot on the collar of her cape while telling me about a warehouse party she was going to two hours away in Philly. Normally there was something impenetrable about my sister’s face, but in contrast to all that green, her eyes looked red and tired, her teeth smaller, more yellow. The effect was not scary so much as gloomy.
    â€œYou know, Sylvie, it wouldn’t hurt you to act fourteen instead of forty for a change. Throw a sheet over your head. Go out with your friends.”
    â€œI don’t have friends,” I told