Do you believe in ghosts?

Just a teaser - here's the opening page for another story in progress...

“It’s unnatural, I tell you!” The woman spoke in a harsh whisper. Her eyes darted frequently to the child playing on the other side of the large room, as if she was afraid the six-year-old would hear her complaint though the girl was clearly too far away to overhear them.

“Come on now, be reasonable.” The second woman kept her voice low, too, but more in an effort to calm her friend’s frayed nerves rather than as an attempt to hide their conversation. “The girl has imaginary friends, that’s all. Most children do. She’ll grow out of it soon enough.”

“No! They’re not imaginary. They’re not!” The young mother shook her head frantically, strands of pale brown hair whipping around her thin, worried face with the force of her head movements. “She talks to them all the time and she knows things she shouldn’t know. Things she has no way of knowing. It’s unnatural!” she insisted again.

“Momma?” The girl called to them from across the room, her voice oddly loud after the hushed tones the adults had been using. “Mr. Z says you should stop calling him unnatural. It hurts his feelings.”