“This is that game I was telling you about.” Adam pulled out his phone. I would always be Gen’s big brother, with all the weight and responsibility it entailed. I used to be just me, but for the last seven years, I’d been Gen’s big brother. What mattered was I didn’t have a choice anymore. This is what I couldn’t explain to Luke: It didn’t matter that I loved Gen or not, because I did it didn’t matter that he was actually pretty cool for a little brother. He couldn’t understand why I could be annoyed, and yet protective of Gen at the same time, the first to rush to him if he got hurt, or stand up for him if someone else gave him trouble. Luke didn’t mind, but he was the younger brother in his relationship, the one used to tagging along. That didn’t change immediately when Gen was born, but it changed when he got old enough to walk and my parents insisted I take him with me any place I wanted to go. By the time Gen was born, Luke and I had already spent years passing through the hedge between our houses.

The first official day of summer, the day after school ended for the year, we gathered in Luke and Adam’s clubhouse-me, my little brother Gen, and Holly and Heather from across the road. That was the summer my little brother Gen disappeared. The summer I was twelve, I saw my first ghost for real. Growing up in Dieu-le-Sauveur, my friends and I told stories about ghosts-the Starving Man, the Sleeping Girl, and the House at the End of the Street.

The Dark House by A.C. Wise