The piece of pizza was keeping the ghost around.

All things considered, the situation could have been much worse than it was. The ghost was rather laissez-faire in its haunting, rarely upsetting the status quo of Katherine's world. Every so often the hall light would flicker erratically. A door or two would shut unassisted. Faucets would turn on and off. One day, perhaps out of boredom, the ghost found it amusing to repeatedly flush the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Still, none of these events'including the toilet scenario, which simply compelled her to spend the day reading in the back yard'bothered Katherine any great deal. The only disturbing occurrence, the one that'd been keeping her up at nights, was the gradual disappearance of a piece of leftover pizza she had kept in the fridge. She watched the pepperoni dwindle one by one and didn't have the heart to throw it away.

Katherine was an elementary school teacher by profession, and a superstition-creator by habit. Oh, she followed the occasional 'mainstream'� talisman'she threw salt over her shoulder (whenever she had some) and avoided ladders and black cats like the plague'but for the most part she created her own. And believed them. The funny thing was, with maybe a few exceptions, they seemed to work.
If she forgot to take the paper snowflakes from her window, winter wouldn't end.
If she stepped on a spill in the grocery store, the next person would slip and fall.
If she picked up her paper from her porch before seven every morning, her breakfast boiled eggs would peel perfectly. (If she didn't, she ate cereal.)
She locked doors twice, once for the burglars, once for the ban sihde.
And the pizza was keeping the ghost around.

It didn't feel vindictive or maniacal. Just, well, observant. A presence. A presence with an appetite. Katherine wasn't convinced that it was entirely proper for a ghost to eat. She still had her worn and tattered Paranormal Primer, a gift from her late great aunt that she read religiously since she was eight, and she knew a thing or two about ghosts. She knew that they were (usually) unable to manipulate matter. They, being dead of course, were not supposed to fell hungry, or thirsty, or, if they did, were not supposed to act on it because they knew they could never feel satisfaction. They were not known to haunt people without a reason. And they certainly weren't disposed to liking pizza. (She couldn't find that expressly in the Primer, but it was obviously common sense.)

She also knew that, if it was at all like other ghosts, it wanted something, something that must be her job to ascertain. She tried to speak to it several times. She called a psychic hotline and did a tarot card reading, to see, at least, if its presence would have any long-term effect on her well-being. Supposedly it wouldn't, but she was quite appreciative to learn that she was going to have a passionate affair with a mysterious stranger and was harboring a deep, dark secret.

Tuesday morning of haunting week three, Katherine stepped gingerly down the hall stairs. She had lived in her cozy cape-cod for nine years and still had to count'why they had to put thirteen steps in any house she didn't know. Once, some time ago, she was late to work, forgot her gloves and ran up all thirteen to her room without thinking. She left work early that day with an enormous headache, a broken ruler, a snapped high heel, and a parking ticket. Eleven. Twel'�

'Um. Hi.'� said the ghost'for who else would it be really? Katherine stopped mid-step. 'I know you've been wanting to talk to me. Frankly, I don't want to bother you, but I need a place to stay. The rent was just too high at my last place. So if you don't mind, we seem to get along well, and I promise I won't be a burden. Sorry about the toilet. And I've got a green thumb like you wouldn't believe, so if you ever want help with the gardening'�Oh, and can you please order mushroom next time. I think I'm going vegetarian.'�

Several thoughts passed through Katherine's mind, the first of which was "Funny, I was thinking about going vegetarian myself" and the last of which was "Well, I wonder what sort of rent the last place charged" and a few in between having anything to do with the ghost at all. When that was through, Katherine sighed thoughtfully, jumped over the thirteenth stair, and squinted at the Paranormal Primer in her hand. Well, she thought, we can't all be right all of the time. Then, Well, she thought (she often began her thoughts this way), What's a girl to do? She set down the Primer on the way out, and called over her shoulder'�

'Of course! I prefer mushrooms myself!'�

And locked the door twice.

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