Free Brighter, a supernatural thriller by V. J. Chambers Page A

trailed off. "I don't know how it started, or when it started. It's been going on for a very long time. Since whenever that picture of Dawn is from at least."
    "Please stop for a second and listen to yourself," said Heather. "If both Angelica and Cecelia and Dawn are possessed by demons, that explains the change in behavior you claim that both Angelica and Cecelia had. But it doesn't explain how you saw Angelica after she was already dead. And it doesn't explain how you could find a picture of Dawn from the forties or whenever it was."
    "It does," said Ramona, "because..." She stopped.
    "It doesn't," said Heather.
    "Maybe it doesn't." Her voice was small. Soft.
    "Exactly." Ramona was coming apart at the seams. She was going crazy. What was Heather going to do about this? "You know, Ramona, maybe you should see somebody."
    "Huh?"
    "You know, like a counselor or something."
    "You think I'm nuts."
    "Kind of."
    "You still don't even believe me about Angelica."
    "Sure I do. I told you I did. I just don't see why you're so obsessed with the whole thing."
    "I'm not. It's just the picture of Dawn that I found, and then the way that she stole it from me—"
    "First of all, the picture of Dawn is not a picture of Dawn. It's just someone who looks a lot like her."
    "If you saw it, you wouldn't say that."
    "I will look at it. Come show it to me."
    "I can't. It's gone. Which I think is awfully convenient."
    "Jesus Christ! Do you have any idea how crazy you sound? Okay, say it is a picture of Dawn. How is that related to seeing Angelica's ghost?"
    "I didn't say it was," said Ramona. "I mean, there's this clone theory, but that's just stupid."
    "Clones?" repeated Heather.
    "Yeah," said Ramona. She explained. Rambled anyway. "It kind of makes sense, doesn't it?"
    "Ramona."
    "No, think about it. I saw a clone of Angelica. And the Dawn in town now isn't really Dawn. She's a clone of that chick in the fifties. And Cecelia started acting different, because now she's a clone."
    "You know, I don't think cloning really works the way you think it does. I think they have to grow the organism from infancy. So, they would have had to clone Cecelia when she was a baby and then replaced her with a clone version now—"
    "Maybe the government has better technology that they just haven't shared with the population yet."
    "No. Maybe you're just clumping together three totally unrelated events and trying to make something out of nothing!"
    "Okay," said Ramona. "Back to demon possession."
    "I think you need to come see me," said Heather. Maybe if she could just get face to face with Ramona, she could shake some sense into her. She had to do something, because she didn't know how to react to Ramona this way. It was ridiculous. It was insane. How could she possibly call Heather and talk to her this way and expect her to take it seriously? A thought occurred to her. "Is this a joke?"
    "What?"
    "Are you joking with me? Are you putting me on? Because I'm really worried about you, and if you're serious—"
    "I'm serious. Sort of. I don't know. After I lost the picture, I was so sure, but now that I'm talking to you about it, it just seems kind of silly."
    Heather breathed a sigh of relief. That sounded more like the Ramona she knew and loved. "Yeah. It does."
    "Why did Dawn and Cecelia steal my picture, though? That's what I can't get past. It seems like they'd only take it if they had something to hide. You know, if there was something they didn't want me to know about."
    "They didn't steal it. It blew away or it got thrown away with the paper towels."
    "Yeah, but they got all defensive about it," said Ramona. "It's suspicious is all."
    "You need to come see me. Maybe if you didn't tell me this stuff over the phone, maybe if we were face to face, we could make better sense of it."
    "I will. I will come to see you."
    "When?"
    "I don't know."
    "This weekend?"
    "Maybe. I'll call you."
    "That's what you said last time I talked to you, and you never called," said