by Fiona Law
“No, no, my dear cousin,” Oswin replied absently, his mind whirring away merrily. “Nothing’s wrong at all. In fact,” he stood up, grappling with his jacket, “I’ve just had a wicked idea. That project—I know what I’m going to do it on!”
“What project? What are you on about?” Beryl called after him. But he had walked away. She swiped more crumbs off the table, thinking, Boffins! They always have to put on this mad professor act!
Oswin, meanwhile, bumped into Gemma just as she came tripping down the stairs, her eyes wide and darting as she approached the dim hall.
“Alright, Gem! Haven’t you left for school yet?” Oswin said with a broad grin. He punched the air, making a little jump as he did.
Gemma grinned back at him. “What’s all that about?”
“I have just decided what I’m going to do that project on,” he declared, all teeth still.
Gemma’s hand fluttered about her mouth, as though she longed to bite her nails, but dared not. “Oh, good! What’s it going to be?”
Looking round to check that Beryl was not within earshot, Oswin leaned forwards to whisper in Gemma’s ear.
Her eyebrows arched and then she glanced about to ensure they were quite alone. “Really?” she gasped. Her hand settled for a moment over her mouth, and she giggled.
Oswin’s face scowled determinedly. “So help me God!” he growled between clenched teeth.
Chapter Two
Gemma crept into the kitchen-diner and began to clear the table. Her movements were careful. Quiet.
“Haven’t you left for school yet?” Beryl asked, coming up behind her.
She jumped and squeaked. “It’s my turn to do the breakfast dishes.”
Gemma hoped Beryl would rush upstairs now, brush her teeth or something, but she didn’t. She hovered, asking annoying questions.
“Did you have any nightmares?”
“No,” Gemma said, and thought to herself, Sorry to disappoint, but I had a wonderful dream, actually.
“Are you alright? No tummy aches?”
“No. I’m fine!”
“Are you sure? You can tell me,” Beryl prodded further.
Gemma didn’t reply to this; humming the theme song from Shrek, she put the milk back in the fridge. Beryl stared at her and sighed, waiting.
“Well, have you seen the ghost again?” she asked flatly.
Gemma regarded her with wide, brown eyes and began to stack the crockery into the dishwasher with more clatter than was necessary.
“No.” Thanks to Beryl’s fussing, this whole ghost thing had been blown out of proportion.
“I know Father said to not mention ghosts ever,” Beryl said, eyeing her tentatively, “but you can tell me about anything. I know how real this is for you. And it must be frightening each time you think you see it. I remember how upset I would get in the old house when I was reminded of Mother.” She waited for a reply, but got none. Gemma still had her back to her, sorting the cutlery. Busy.
After a while, she gave Gemma’s shoulders a little squeeze. “Call me if you see anything. Anything strange at all.”
Gemma stopped her task for a moment and turned to face her. “Okay, Beryl, I will. Next time I see a ghost I’ll come and call you.” Perhaps that was the only way she’d get Beryl to see what she was talking about.
“Honest, just call me,” repeated Beryl. “But remember it’s just all in your head. I’m not saying you may believe what you see—or that I believe it. But I will be there to support you.”
“Yeah, alright!” Gemma’s voice jarred like a knotted wind chime.
“Now, are you quite sure you’re up to school?”
Gemma shut the dishwasher door with a pert click. “Yes. Quite sure.”
“I can write you a note. The teachers understand about your home life being difficult. What without a mother…”
“I want to go.”
Beryl smacked her lips, as though contemplating a tasty morsel. “Well, shall I write you a note to explain why you’re late? Because I’m sure you’re going to be late.”
“I’m not. I won’t be.”
But Beryl was already rummaging around in the dresser for pen and paper.
Gemma sighed, went to get her school things, leaving Beryl to amuse herself with writing a note and complaining about being delayed herself.
“I’ll have to write a note for me too at this rate!” Beryl laughed nervously, before giving in to mild hysteria. “This is making me late. How do you spell Mister Smith—is it ‘i-t-h’ or ‘y-t-h-e’? Oh, me gawd! I haven’t had time to brush my teeth yet! Gemma, come back here a minute!”
Gemma stood wordlessly in the doorway, putting her blazer on.
“Ah, there you are!” said Beryl, breathlessly. “The Van Gough fell down again earlier on. Hang it back up, there’s a good girl! I haven’t the time. I’ve been busy sorting your school note.” She handed it to Gemma.
“Me? The Van Gough?” stammered Gemma, taking the note and shoving it absently in her pockets. “I can’t. I’m too frightened.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s only a print,” insisted Beryl, adjusting Gemma’s collar. “Quickly now, I’m late.”
Gemma sighed, squared her shoulders and ran through to the dining room chanting a tuneless stream of, “la la la la la la…”
She thought the dining room was a truly horrid room. It was dark and cold, as it never got direct sunlight streaming in. But what really troubled Gemma about the dining room was that she always felt as though someone was in there. Staring at her. Her heart pounded, the feeling of being watched intensified. “La la la la…where is it?…la la la la…” Spotting the picture, she snatched it up. It had a crack in the glass, but she ignored that. She struggled, standing on tip-toes, to fix it onto its hook, fancied she heard a whispering behind her and tried to ignore that too. Her movements became more frantic as she cringed, waiting for that touch, that tap on the shoulder. Gemma let out a sob—the darn loop wouldn’t grip onto the hook—one last try, then giving up, she dumped the Van Gough on the table and fled the room. The door slammed behind her with a bang! Gemma jumped clean into the air as she ran. Her ballet teacher would have been proud.
“La la la la...” She bolted passed Beryl and up the stairs.
“Honest, Gemma; don’t slam the doors!”
But she didn’t hear. Her fingers were still in her ears. “…la la la la…”
After doing a series of ballet positions, she managed to calm herself enough to gather her school bag up and leave the house for the sanctuary of the school halls.
* * * *
By that evening, Oswin’s research was well under way. He staggered in, pushing the door open with his shoulder, his keys in his mouth, and a mound of library books in his arms. He disappeared to his room, emerging only when Beryl rang her dinner bell. Yes, she actually had a dinner bell and used it to summon the two younger ones to the table.
After they had eaten their meal, he hurried back to his room and had already filled in at least a quarter of a standard refill pad with his own notes when Gemma joined him. She brought them a mug of coffee each, setting Oswin’s down beside him where he sat at his desk, pouring over his books, and perched herself on the foot of his bed. She’d left his door open, as was the rule. Her father, Griswold, insisted if any of the girls were alone in a room with Oswin, for whatever purpose and for no matter how long, the door was to remain wide open. Gemma felt embarrassed—indignant—at Griswold’s Victorian distrust. But she complied with the rule. Oswin shrugged off his uncle’s paranoia and concentrated on the important things. Like his homework and projects.
“Did you know,” he asked now, “that ghosts actually caught on camera have been few and far between; undisputed recordings, that is?” He removed his specs and rubbed them clean with a tissu
e.
“Well, that doesn’t seem very helpful,” Gemma sighed and curled her fingers round her mug, hunching over it. “How are you going to prove that ghosts existence, then?”
“I’ve changed the study to general paranormal activity. And I’ll have a far greater chance of recording fluctuations in the temperature and magnetic fields in the house.” Oswin replaced his glasses, rubbed his left ear and continued. “Ghost hunters seem to explain away most hauntings as central heating pipes playing up and old floorboards contracting as the temperature drops.” Those were also Griswold’s and Beryl’s answers.
“Who’s side are they on?”
“No, they’ve got a point,” Oswin said. “All these theories have to be disproved before one can announce a real, actual haunting. Ghosts are obviously some sort of energy field,” he continued, eyes sparkling. “Just part of a whole spectrum of paranormal activity. In fact, there are different types of ghosts too. But often there’s a logical explanation for many hauntings.”
Gemma muttered a vague agreement, and stared absently into the landing.
“But don’t worry, Gem, even if I have to title my work, ‘Do Ghosts Exist?’ or ‘A Study of the Difficulties of Recording Paranormal Activity,’ I’ll prove to that big bummed, wind-bag Beryl that you’ve been right all along! And to Griswold! We’ll show them just exactly who is a bit funny, eh?”
Gemma forced her gaze back towards her cousin and smiled briefly. She sipped her coffee, gently blowing the steam into swirling billows, while Oswin pottered about.
After a pause he continued, “And I’ve already started building a device to take the readings with.”
He turned from his work and grinned at her, arched his eyebrows wickedly. Rubbed his hands together, “The first prototype!”
Gemma grinned back nervously. “X-Files step aside!”
Oswin’s laughter wasn’t exactly diabolical, but it darn near hit the spot; she quickly finished her coffee, and stood up.
“Well, I’ll let you get on.”
“Right-O!” Oswin shuffled comfortably and bent over his books again. “Oh, by the way,” he said, lifting his head momentarily, “once I’ve taken an initial reading of the house, call me straight away if you see the ghost, yeah?”
* * * *
In the next few days Oswin finished building his meters and Gemma flitted about the house, between school and dance lessons. She felt relaxed enough to enjoy watching telly, even if it meant sitting in the front room—another part of the house that unnerved her. Her Dad forbid them to have a telly in their rooms.
She stopped by in Oswin’s room one evening to confide in him. “Things actually seem calmer,” she said. “Like, I don’t feel so creepy. Perhaps it was my imagination. Perhaps it’s all gone away?” She gazed apologetically at Oswin’s desk. It was cluttered with tools, wires and little boards. Strange boards, decked with silver roads, tiny drums and flat roofed buildings. “It looks like a miniature city,” she said, picking one of them up and studying it, turning it this way and that.
Oswin guffawed and shook his head, smiling to himself. “But as for the lull in paranormal activities, don’t worry, Gem. That’s just the way it is with these things. Ghosts are notorious for not performing on demand!” He gave her a knowing look and cracked his knuckles, bent over his work again. “You just get on with your normal routine. Keep busy. They’ll soon come out of hiding.”
So, she watched her favorite DVDs, the Shrek films, over and over. And she began to develop a serious crush on the green ogre. In fact, when Rebecca Wilson from school told Gemma she would be invited to her fancy dress disco party at the end of term, she knew exactly who she’d be going as. If Griswold allowed her to go, of course.
On Saturday, having got back from Miss Jemima Maple’s Academy of Dance, and realizing she could have the front room to herself, Gemma decided to watch Shrek yet again. Griswold—who would normally watch the football there—was still at work and Beryl was shut away, studying and unlikely to bother her.
Gemma hummed the theme tune as she made coffee and fetched the biscuit tin down, happily practising a basic ballet position whilst balancing the DVD in its case on the tin on one hand and holding her coffee with the other. All without spilling or dropping anything. Satisfied, she smiled as she carried the lot through the shadowy hall into the living room, the tune still skipping in her mind.
“Ta-da-dee. Ta-da-da. Ta-da-de…” Her humming broke off abruptly, mutating into a short, stifled scream as she stopped dead, almost dropping the tin, and letting the DVD slide off and bump onto the carpet.
The ghost sat in Griswold’s chair, facing the telly, knitting with a dowdy brown yarn. Her movements were rhythmic, monotonous, like the ticking of a clock and she looked quite solid, not at all see through. Her hair was tied up with a scarf, knotted on the top, keeping her curlers in place. Over her dowdy cotton dress, she wore a faded housecoat. Her face was as drab and unemotional as her clothing. Even when she turned—without pausing in her knitting—to stare demurely at Gemma, she betrayed no emotion apart from a hint of sourness. The ghost emanated that desolate emotion—and it rippled out from her, filling the room, seeping into Gemma’s own emotions, and mingling negatively with the wave of fear and shock that drenched her.
Gemma uttered a stifled scream, backing out of the room hastily. “It…it…the… Aaah!” She floundered senselessly in the hall, running on the spot in tight little jogs, convinced the housewife ghost was coming up behind her. She dashed into the kitchen, dripping a trail of coffee all the way. She dumped the biscuits and DVD on the counter, circled the room a couple of times, then shoved the mug onto the table and made a frenzied dash for the stairs, flapping her hands, as though she’d burnt herself.
“Oswin! Oswin!” she squealed, taking the stairs in twos. Regaining her balance on the landing, she remembered he was out. He had gone on a hunt for maps of Ley-lines. At least he’d be back later that day. Gemma thanked heavens he had not been able to go home for the weekend.
She leaned against the wall, taking several deep breaths, and eyeing the staircase nervously. She pressed her hand against her chest, murmured re-assuring words to herself. “Right…Okay…It’s all gone…”
She did another series of ballet positions. Untidy, clumsy efforts, but the routine soothed her. She began to feel calmer. She stared at Beryl’s bedroom door hesitantly. After a moment she gave a slight shrug and edged across the landing and knocked on Beryl’s door timidly. Beryl had shut herself up in her room to do revision, declaring that she was under no circumstances to be disturbed, and Gemma kind of hoped it would not be answered. But it was.
“Come!” Beryl called from within, and Gemma opened the door.
A four poster bed, large and ornate, enveloped in a frothy quilt and voluptuous pillows, took up most of the spacious room. A heavy, wooden dressing table was engulfed in a clutter of lotions and potions. Silk scarves and bead necklaces cascaded down the wing mirrors. There was a desk, squashed into a corner between the built in cupboard and the window. But it was no use as a desk. It was piled up with books and stationary. Beryl sat on the fluffy carpeted floor, like an Eastern empress, encircled by a scattering of textbooks, files and loose paper. Staring at some scrawled notes as she absently chewed on a Paper Mate pen, she did not acknowledge Gemma’s entrance.
Gemma, white-faced, frailer than ever, reeled in the doorway, and squeaked brokenly, “B…Beryl, I saw it! The…it’s…”
Beryl looked up, indicating with her outstretched hand. “Mind the papers!”
Gemma tiptoed into the room, hovering uncertainly in an effort to find a path through Beryl’s studying.
“Downstairs! Nnngggh!” she spluttered, almost losing her balance.
“Don’t stand on that book! It’s irreplaceable!”
Gemma froze as she stood, one foot in mid-air, arms stretched
out in order to balance herself, making full use of years of ballet lessons. She swallowed hard, and muttered, “Sorry!” Then taking a deep breath, she continued more calmly, “Okay. I’ve just seen it.”
“What?” asked Beryl, a look of hopefulness washing over her face. “You’ve found my Coast sweater?”
Gemma frowned, finding enough space for both feet on the floor and repositioning herself slightly. “No. The ghost! It’s in the front room! Downstairs—I’ve just seen her.”
Beryl stared for a moment then blinking, replied, “I wonder where my sweater’s got to?”
“The ghost!” Gemma hissed urgently, arms flapping, fists clenched. “It’s sitting there now, come and see!”
“All right, all right, I know—your ghost! And don’t stand on that one either, it’s on loan from the library! I’m coming!” Beryl rolled her eyes, rose awkwardly to her feet and treading through the mess as she spoke, stepping heavily on the library book herself, without realizing it
“Now, show me this ghost of yours!” she said, grasping Gemma by the shoulders and steering her out onto the landing.
Chapter Three
Gemma wriggled free and skittered down the stairs, slowing nervously as they reached the last few steps. She allowed Beryl to cling, giggling, to her arm as they crept into the living room.
It was quite lifeless. As she stared into it, Gemma realized what a gloomy looking room it was, even without the ghost. It was furnished in a drab lounge suite of heavy fabrics, earthy colors. Although the window was fairly wide, it got no direct sunlight, was dim most of the time, and now was no exception.