Laura has been Joy’s more responsible roommate, as far a paying the bills go, being supportive, and occasionally bailing Joy out of jail. Laura is a contrarian, however, and even though she can post vids and balance finances with the best of them, she still prefers to dress herself and live within the hardcore alt-girl and goth milieu.
Though sworn to secrecy, Laura finds Joy’s ability to see ghosts endlessly fascinating, and peppers Joy with questions about Ethel – the ghost in the theater across the street from their favorite bar. Laura was there when Joy threw the rock, she was there when Joy found the Key (a little girl’s buckle shoe), she witnessed a mysterious rain of coins from the sky as Joy sat passed out in the back of a cop car, and she was there to witness in horror as Joy opened a glowing portal in the ceiling at work, was grabbed, and pulled inside by a giant octopus tentacle. Is Joy dead? Is Laura going insane?
And why do the police and military insist upon keeping Laura locked in a medical facility, doing tests upon her for months, all the while interviewing her nonstop about Joy’s whereabouts?
Eventually her doctors and captors give up on getting any more info out of Laura, especially after she gave up all of Joy’s secrets. Freed, depressed, and pissed that her life was blown up, Laura grabs her handy Ouija Board, marches to the movie theater, and intends to talk to Ethel directly. After that, the Gothie and the Girl Ghost absolutely do have a meeting of the minds.
Joy’s signal, rather Ethel’s Shoe (still in Joy’s possession?), according to Ethel, is slowly travelling East, in the sky, approaching Detroit? W.T.F.
A road trip is in order. This “side quest” is covered prominently in Laura and Ethel’s focus novel: “Laura Laura Phantasmagoria.” Solving the mystery of our (?) World’s hauntings, occasional supernatural coin downpours, and interdimensional portals would exhaust any able-bodied Zoomer, let alone one sharing her brain and soul with a girl-ghost from the 1930s. But while Laura and Ethel attempt to triangulate Joy’s geosynchronous orbital coordinates with the help of a phone app, Laura decides this would be a good time to try and monetize this adventure by posting status updates on Tok Bang behind a $4.00 pay wall.
Stalwart in her friendship with Joy, and tenacious in her efforts to bring her home, Laura nonetheless can’t help feeling a bit jealous of her friend’s mermaid adventures; jealous, that is, until she meets the Demon Grizzlethorpe.