The Middle Fox Sister Confesses

It was Kate’s idea to begin with: the apple on a string, 
drummed against our floor, swung into walls and chairs. 
But I tied the knots so well we never had to stir from bed. 
We ate the bruised instrument at dawn, left no evidence,

let the sounds terrify our parents. Sharp raps: 
knocks from another world, beating out warnings 
until they decided the entire house was haunted.
We discovered the peddler, murdered and buried

between walls. Turn a hip just so and a tendon scrapes 
across bone, loud as any clapping hands. Ankles pop
and knees also. We practiced all winter in the parlor, hid 
the motion under our skirts, until we had control

of volume and resonance, an unwritten code of snaps. 
And the spirits began to answer us. It’s impossible,
at night in a candlelit room, to pinpoint the origin 
of any sound. So the peddler’s ghost grew capable

of darting around the house. And it knew answers 
to all our parents’ questions—how old we were, 
and how many of our siblings already deceased. 
We asked it to rap twice for yes, once for no,

and it began to predict the future; it said we should 
be sent away, so we were. But wherever we traveled, 
ghosts spoke: threats and requests. Our legs moved 
in small relentless circles. The game, once begun,

is difficult to explain. Our limbs voiced invisible 
powers; we reassured the bereft. You must believe




to be convincing—but we were already famous: 
three young girls who heard and repeated wishes

from the dead, our natural sympathies assumed, 
by some miracle, to be wired for this. We shivered 
and revealed proof of the afterlife, witnesses said. 
They felt something like breath cross their skin,

fill the curtained room. Our only error was trying 
to surpass our darkened parlor, allowing scientists
to seat us on couches, search our outstretched hands. 
They declared us fraudulent. It made little difference

to our followers, those who were sure of the spirits 
we’d called from beyond. But we grew rigid
and uncertain, troubled by the effort of listening 
always, heads bowed, for footfall and echo.

Read more from Issue 17.1.