Good girl that I am (despite imperiling greater humanity in the not-too-distant future), I cleared my breakfast tray and headed out the exit I’d been spiritually advised to take. Outside in the brightening day, under a high canopy of evergreens that stretched down to the placid little lake where camp counselors were busy arranging canoes and paddle boards, imps and ghost arms seemed to be seriously out of place. I pinched myself. And then again for good measure. How else do you get a solid reality check?

  “Mosquitoes?”

  TimTim was standing off to my side looking down at the lake, too.

  “Ghost arms,” I stuttered, startled by his sudden appearance. “I mean, gosh darn. Gosh darn mosquitoes.” I swatted belligerently at my arms to sell it.

  TimTim is tall and he looked down at me, rather sympathetically, his ghost limbs folded over his flesh and bone arms. “I don’t think the mosquitoes here dig ectoplasm as much as regular old plasm.”

  There wasn’t much need to pretend after that. We started walking and talking. TimTim, whose actual name is Timothy Bayla, straight out told me that he’d no real clue about what had just happened. He’d reckoned the oatmeal tossing dudes were getting out of control, and as he was getting ready to leave the table, the ghost arms shot out from his sides and skullslapped the jerks.

  “I could feel and see the ghost arms, but not as if I had control of them. I just felt a prickle of energy. You know, like when before lightning strikes.”

  “You’ve been struck by lightning?”

  “Nearly,” TimTim continued as if that was an everyday thing. “I figured I was the source of what was happening, but then I saw you down the table looking at me, and I knew you were part of it, too.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Because you think I look like that creepy kid in The Sixth Sense?” (Note: I am working on building a more positive self image.)

  TimTim regarded me like I was that creepy kid in The Sixth Sense, but shook his head. “No. Because you got the same weird glow as these ghost arms around your head.” He rubbed one hand over a ghost forearm which, to the two of us, shimmered more brightly. “Seems pretty clear no one else can see this stuff, or I think by now we’d have been marched off to freak out the camp nurse.”

  “Maybe we should be freaking out the camp nurse, or some of these too-happy camp counselors. This definitely falls into super freaky territory. Maybe one of these college-looking counselors is majoring in Scooby Doo-ism and could help us figure out what to do.”

  I mean, TimTim said I had an aura which sounded pretty badass, but it also meant Syl had done more to me than send imps with pointy sticks my way. Had she made me her witch bitch? Or something worse?

  I looked up at TimTim. I told you he’s tall. In fact that’s how Syl later told us she settled on his name because he was twice a normal Tim. His deep brown eyes questioned me from that stately height, giving him a seriousness, a gravitas, that pudgy old me could only wish for. Then his gaze suddenly softened as the corners of his mouth crinkled and broke into a wide grin. “No fucking way we are letting anyone else on this magical shit! We are going to rule this place, sister.”

  Here’s the thing. TimTim is definitely a nice guy, though apparently even really nice guys can harbor Dr. Evil ambitions. If the Marvel Universe has taught us anything, it is that with great power comes immodestly tight costumes--plus, a certain level of smug dickishness.

  But, TimTim did call me ”sister” and though it’s unlikely he meant anything by it at that first meeting, I felt a siblingish twang. I’m an only child. Can you tell? All on my adolescent own (except my extended NPR family.)

  Now duty bound, I explained to TimTim about how Syl had hexed me and was probably responsible for his ghost arms and that we were more than likely to become her minions and flushed down some crappy camp drain if we vexed her.

  “More than likely,” TimTim acknowledged after considering the fantastical facts, and quickly ditching his vision of becoming God Emperor of Happy Camp for all eternity. And so grandiose dreams die.