There’s a universe where the girl detective is haunted by ghosts. They are candle-flame smoke, they are soft bells. Their mouths are always opening and closing. Inside of their mouths is blackness and distant stars. They have hands like spider whispers, reaching for things they can no longer hold.

It is worst at night, ghost steps in the hallway hardwood creak. The girl detective’s mother plays Billie Holiday on her bedroom turntable, the girl detective’s mother applies lipstick trembling-hand.

The girl detective’s father leaves in the morning for another business trip, kisses them both goodbye on the side of their faces, wife first, then daughter. The girl detective’s mother stares after him from her place at the kitchen table, leaves her spoon askew.

The girl detective posts photos of the ghosts on Instagram. They always come out like shadow-blur accidents. The girl detective’s 20,000 Instagram followers don’t mind. They like and like and like each of the pictures.

They say: We see them.

They say: We see them too.

The ghosts are murder victims. The ghosts are reaching and sad.

They open and close their star-filled mouths. The girl detective remembers when she was little and her father took her to the community garden with a jar, showed her how to capture a firefly there. How it winked, winked, winked.

The girl detective walks to school with Thomas from chemistry class. He is always looking at her when he thinks she doesn’t notice, always inhaling the apple-scent of her long hair.

He says: I saw you on TV last night, with the police chief.

He says: You looked pretty.

My mother did my makeup, the girl detective says.

After the cameras were off her, after they stopped shaking her hand, congratulations on solving another one, the girl detective went to the bathroom and washed it all away.

The girl detective and her mother are alone in the house at night, except for the ghosts. The housekeeper is the last one to leave, dark blanketing them behind her, plates on table, dinner warming in the oven.

The girl detective and her mother eat quietly. They sit at opposite sides from each other; even when he is gone, the girl detective’s father haunts the head of the long dining table. The girl detective and her mother look at his empty place. Their forks go up and up and up to their mouths.

When they are done eating, they leave their plates and silverware and napkins on the table where they are. In the morning, there are always fresh plates, fresh silverware, fresh napkins. It is like magic, the girl detective thinks.

The girl detective wakes in the night surrounded by ghosts. They fill her room like fog. Inside them, she sees the glowing of a thousand universes. Inside them, she sees girl detective and girl detective and girl detective, looking back at her. Inside them, she sees the dreams of long black cars.

The girl detective turns on the light beside her bed, and the ghosts pale and wither like the leaves on the grapevines in the community garden. In all that light, the girl detective can pretend she doesn’t see them at all.

She calls to her mother in the room across the hall, mother, are you there, mother, and hears in return the bump of needle on vinyl, record-whir, the soft thrum of vocals, catch of her mother’s breath.

The girl detective sits in her bed, waits. After a while, she turns off the light.