In Case of Emergency by Courtney Moreno Page B

murmuring, “You’re beautiful, Piper.”
    Propping up on my elbow, my weight sinking into the pillow, I study Ayla’s profile, motionless except for the slight tremble of eyelashes. Her oversize trap muscles don’t fully relax even when she’s resting.
    “Worried I’m going to kill you in my sleep?” Ayla asks without opening her eyes.
    I snort and dig my finger into her ear. Laughing, she bats my hand away and pulls me into her. Collapsing my head onto the pillow next tohers, I throw an arm over her, and we lie like that for a moment, still and breathing, listening to the silence of my dark apartment.
    “What’s your last name?”
    “Gallagher.”
    “Piper Gallagher. You Irish?”
    “Half.”
    “Any family banshees?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “My mom used to tell me a spook story, about the banshee who’d come for me if I was bad.”
    I trace her arm until I get to the crook of her elbow and pause there. Her skin is soft and hot, like she’s still sitting in the sun. “Are you Irish, too?”
    “Mostly Russian and German. My mom loves to tell stories is all—the one about the banshee was her favorite.”
    She tells me about her mom, a schoolteacher, who she describes as the kind of person a whole family revolves around, and then she says, “After I got discharged—well, let’s just say I’d be in a loony bin or dead if it weren’t for her.”
    I open my mouth to ask what happened , but I’m acutely aware that within my arms, Ayla’s whole body has gone rigid. Her right hand twitches from its position underneath my back. Listening to the silence between us, I realize we are both holding our breath.
    Picture an orange on a table. Picture a shoreline drawing back, revealing miles of ocean floor.
    “I’ll tell you all about it sometime. But not tonight, if that’s okay.”
    “Okay.” I trace her arm again, trying to soften her brooding body, but she seems held in place, almost lifted off the mattress.
    “What about your mom, Piper?”
    I find myself hesitating. Here it is, the moment when I have to decide which version of the story to tell. I start with Mom’s river rafting trip, howshe went to Colorado with some college friends and ended up falling in love with the guide. How she decided to leave us, barely taking anything with her when she did. How the phone calls tapered off, things slowly filled in around her absence, and how Ryan and I eventually got used to it, probably because kids can get used to anything. I rush through the whole sordid story with a hint of apology in my voice, and then wait for Ayla to tell me how sorry she is, how horrible. For a while she doesn’t say anything.
    “What do you remember about her?”
    “Not a lot.”
    “Hard to trust people.”
    “Yes.”
    “Did your dad ever remarry?”
    “He tried dating here and there. He never got over her.” I burrow in closer. “Do I get to hear about the banshee?”
    “What, you a fan of ghost stories?”
    “Maybe. Will you hold me if I get scared?”
    “Maybe.” Her weight relaxes and she squeezes my arm. “Let me think. You know, I’ve never tried to tell this story.”
    “There’s no backing out now.”
    Her cheek moves against my scalp: she’s smiling. “She haunted an Irish family by the name of MacNeal for hundreds of years. The MacNeals had stories and songs about her, passed down generation after generation; the children were warned to watch out for her and grown men would wake from their sleep thinking they had heard her.” If you hear the banshee’s wail of mourning, she tells me, it means that exactly three days later, you or a member of your family will die.
    Her voice becomes uncharacteristically wistful. “A hundred years go by. All that’s left of the MacNeals is a ruined castle.”
    One night, she continues, a young American tourist traveling the countryside in search of his heritage sees a speck of white floating in the hills.As he gets closer, he sees a woman, pale, with long black