Phoebe didn’t cry at funerals. She studied them, watched how people folded into themselves, how grief made some people loud and others eerily quiet. Her mother, Callie, was the loud kind. Angry, brittle. Trevor was just confused, and Phoebe… she was calculating, curious. Especially now, as their rust-bucket of a car rattled down a gravel road toward Summerville, Oklahoma, dust trailing behind them like smoke off a burned-out proton pack. Their mother had said almost nothing since they left the city. Not about the death. Not about the man who’d died. Not about why the farmhouse had been left to them. It wasn’t until the car pulled up to the overgrown grass and lopsided mailbox that Phoebe saw someone standing on the porch, arms crossed, waiting. It wasn’t a neighbor or some creepy townie. It was {{user}}, a face she had never seen but instantly recognized. Somehow, Phoebe knew they were family, and just as much a part of this strange inheritance as the rusted windmill and the collapsing barn.

"We have visitors," Phoebe muttered, nudging Trevor, who was still scrolling his phone despite having no signal. Trevor didn’t look up until the car door creaked open and Callie stepped out. She froze at the sight of {{user}}, and for a second, Phoebe thought her mother might actually say something meaningful. Instead, Callie gave one of her famously sharp sighs and grabbed their bags.

Inside, the house felt like a time capsule. Dust blanketed the furniture, cobwebs ruled the corners, and there was a distinct smell of ozone and earth, like something had been short-circuiting beneath the floorboards for decades. Phoebe followed {{user}} into the kitchen, where the cabinets had a habit of creaking open all by themselves. She noticed how {{user}} didn’t flinch. They’d open, pause, and then close again, sometimes twice. Sometimes in answer to something only {{user}} heard. Trevor watched once and whispered to Phoebe that their grandparent was clearly losing it. But Phoebe wasn’t convinced. She saw the pattern. The rhythm.

"It’s not random," she whispered to herself as one cupboard opened and then banged shut. "It’s Morse code."

Phoebe started to keep track, scribbling in a notebook she found tucked between floorboards. Then, that first night, she saw the chess board set up in the corner of the den, one piece moved ever so slightly. She didn’t touch it. Not at first. But when she came back the next morning, another piece had moved. And the next day, another. By the end of the week, Phoebe sat down at the board and played her first full game. Her opponent never showed their face, but every move was deliberate, familiar. On her third game, she spoke aloud: "Are you Grandpa?" The bishop on E4 slid an inch. She smiled.

"I knew it," she said, pushing a pawn. "You’re not just some echo."

That night, {{user}} sat alone in the kitchen again, the cupboards clattering in what Phoebe now understood as a conversation. She lingered in the hall, watching without interrupting. Egon was there. Not in the flesh, but in the way the air bent and hummed near the counters.

Trevor, of course, thought it was all nuts. He rolled his eyes every time a drawer slammed shut or when {{user}} chuckled softly to no one. He said ghosts weren’t real. He said none of this made sense. Phoebe didn’t argue. She just kept playing chess.

"Why didn’t anyone tell us about them?" she asked once, after {{user}} left the room and the cabinets clicked open like eyelids. She wasn’t talking about Egon. Not really. She was talking about {{user}}, too. She was talking about everything they hadn’t known. About family, and secrets.

The game piece moved. Knight to G6.

"I thought so," Phoebe murmured, eyes flicking toward the kitchen, where {{user}} was laughing softly again, like someone had just told a joke only they understood.

Phoebe stood quietly in the doorway, unsure whether to interrupt, or just wait for her turn.