Haunted

by Alexandra Inger

  “But here we are talking about me again. Now, tell me this,” his face grew into a mischievous expression, “What about romance?”

  I suppose I had wishful thinking to blame for my misinterpretation of his question: I had thought he was propositioning me! I blushed and was quite speechless.

  “Ah! The Lady Catherine smiles and her cheek is coloring! So there is someone?” he teased me.

  “No!” I exclaimed. “No! There isn’t anybody!” I was so horrified at my mistake, and so relieved that I had said nothing to give myself away, but so disappointed that he had not intended what I had hoped he intended that I was in quite a flustered state. I squirmed where I sat and clutched at my pillows and looked anywhere in the room but at him.

  He laughed at me good-naturedly.

  “Are you quite certain of that?” he teased.

  “Completely. Absolutely.” I paused before I added, “I don’t have a boyfriend now. I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

  “Well, my dear Catherine, I think that that is a very wonderful thing.”

  He had a peculiar little secret smile on his face that I couldn’t quite interpret and I was in knots inside with hope and confusion and embarrassment and frustration all running rampant in me at once.

  “I should bid you adieu,” he smiled at me. “I don’t like to wear out my welcome.”

  “You’re not. At all,” I told him.

  “Not yet,” he corrected. “So I shall depart now. May I come and visit you again sometime?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. Of course. Anytime. Anytime at all.” I meant it sincerely. If nothing else, he was my only friend in the world right now.

  “Then farewell for the time being,” he bowed to me and was gone.

  That night, as I was falling asleep in my little bed, I turned the pillow vertically and lay my cheek on it and thought about Stefano.

  But I was in for a rude awakening the next morning. It couldn’t have been later than 8:00am, when suddenly my door burst open. I was disoriented and didn’t know where I was for a moment or what could possibly be happening.

  “Oh hey! Oh my god! I’m so sorry! You’re sleeping!”

  There was a girl bursting into my room. A short, chubby girl with a close cropped mop of black and white hair and an earring in her eyebrow.

  “I’m Margie – I guess we’re roomies!” she laughed.

  A woman I presumed to be Margie’s mother was struggling through the doorway behind her with a suitcase and shoulder bag.

  “Oh,“ I said sleepily. ”Hi. I’m Catherine.”

  I rubbed at the grit in my eyes.

  “Oh, Margie, we’ve woken up this poor girl,” her mother said upon seeing me in the bed.

  “Pleased to meet you, Catherine,” Margie stuck out her hand to shake mine. “I see you’ve already chosen which bed you want and made yourself at home!” she exclaimed as she surveyed the room.

  “Oh. What? I’m sorry, I was here, I needed somewhere to sleep, if you don’t want that bed…..”

  “Ha! I’m just messin’ with ya! I don’t care – I don’t plan on being here very often anyway!” she winked conspiratorially at me.

  “Margie!” her mother scolded, but Margie seemed too pleased with herself to bother about her mother’s admonitions.

  “I’m so sorry, Catherine. We’ll go downstairs and find something for breakfast before we bring the rest of Margie’s things up. We’ll take as long as possible so you can get up and get dressed in peace,” her mother offered kindly.

  “Oh, thank you,” I replied.

  I was still rather bewildered by the sudden intrusion and loss of my solitude and privacy.

  “Later, Skater!” Margie flashed me an impish grin as her mother hustled her out of the room.

  “Oh,” I said disappointedly out loud to myself. This changed things. I hadn’t expected anyone to arrive until the weekend, but I suppose it made sense that people would start to trickle in before then. I had been eagerly anticipating that Stefano would make another appearance as he said he would like to: would he come to see me now that there was someone else here? Would I have to share him? Or as more and more students arrived would he find someone else more interesting than me to spend his time with? And what did time mean to him anyway and where did he go and how could I let him know that I wanted to see him?

  “Stefano?” I half-whispered into the empty room. “Stefano? Are you there? I hope I haven’t just been dreaming you. I was looking forward to seeing you again, but now there’s this girl here with me, Margie.”

  I sighed.

  “I don’t know if that’s a problem?”

  I stopped.

  It was ridiculous, talking to the air. A lump rose in my throat and I chastised myself for wanting to cry. Don’t be absurd! Why are you so upset? He was probably just a daydream anyway and now you have a real person to hang out with and to talk to.

  I quickly got up and got ready. I dispensed with having a shower in favor of giving myself a little bird bath at the sink in the lavatory. I pulled my clothes on and brushed my hair and went downstairs with a heavy heart for something to eat.

  Margie and her mother were still having breakfast down in the dining hall. They spotted me as soon as I walked in and insisted that I come over and join them so we could all get better acquainted. I didn’t want to see Margie right now, or anyone for that matter. The weight had returned to my rib cage and I had no energy to give. But there was no choice, so I took my toast and tea and orange juice over to their table and sat down.

  “Well the food’s still the same old crap they were serving last year. Good to know nothing’s changed,” Margie cracked.

  “Oh, you were here last year?” I asked.

  “Yep. Tried to get myself kicked out, but it didn’t work!”

  “Oh, Margie, stop it,” her mother clucked.

  I smiled at her. She smirked and shrugged back.

  “Is this your first year here at Brandenhurst, Catherine?” her mother asked me.

  “Yes. I’m from Washington, near Tacoma, but my parents decided that they could afford to send me to private school this year, and so here I am. I’ve never been to boarding school before.”

  Margie’s eyes lit up. “Dude! You are in for the best time! It’s like camp! The shit you can get away with here if you’re smart-“

  “Marjorie!” her mother cut her off. “Do not let my daughter mislead you, Catherine. This is a very fine school and you should make the most of it. All kinds of doors will open for you when you graduate. You’ll have your pick of colleges…”

  Margie was rolling her eyes. “You are so lucky you got me as your roommate. I am going to show you a good time!”

  I didn’t quite know how to break it to Margie that I wasn’t necessarily a good time kind of girl. I was quiet and reserved and liked my books. So much so that I would not be offended in the slightest at being described as bookish. I liked school and I liked doing well in school and I was definitely not the type to go looking for trouble. Margie’s idea of a good time seemed like nothing but trouble. And besides which, I had only one thing on my mind this morning and it had nothing to do with Margie’s sudden intrusion upon my life or her idea of a good time.

  “Well, come on, Margie. Let’s get the rest of your things from the car and get you unpacked.”

  “Yes, motherrrrrrr,” Margie crossed her eyes.

  “We’ll see you later, Catherine,” her mother smiled at me and they made their exit leaving me finally alone.

  Thank goodness. Alone. I waited until I was sure they would be well away from the entrance to the dining hall and then I took my half eaten toast and my undrunk glass of orange juice and my unsipped cup of tea and ditched it all at the bussing station. I clocked the cafeteria woman’s frown at my waste and muttered something about not feeling well. I pushed through the crash bars on the door to the outside and felt the sun on my face. I didn’t know where I was going, but I hoped that if I could just keep one foot moving in front of
the other that eventually I’d be able to shake the weight that pressed down on me and made everything feel heavy.

  I found myself at the rose garden. It was still rather early morning and the sun hadn’t yet kissed the dew off the roses. I found the little stone bench and sat down with my eyes closed and tried to breathe deeply.

  It was all falling down on me again. I didn’t think I would ever get over my homesickness. I ached for my hometown and the house I grew up in and my street and my school. I missed my friends, I even missed my room in the Florida house - which I was just beginning to get accustomed to when I was uprooted again, and now just when I was beginning to find some peace in absolute solitude, this Margie person crashed into it and took that away from me too.

  Stefano would never come to my room again. It wasn’t my room anymore – this boisterous noisy girl with the two-tone hair was going to dominate it, I knew. I’d probably hardly spend anytime there myself now. I felt a tear slide down my cheek.

  And then a moment later I felt something like the warmth of a sunbeam on my face almost evaporating it.

  “You are a very sad girl,” a sympathetic voice said.

  “Stefano!” I looked up to see his figure on the bench next to me.

  “You have a haunted look to your eyes,” he observed. “Haunted by sadness. You miss home. You see, then, why I followed mine to America.”

  I smiled. “Yes! I see! I completely understand!”

  “But that’s not all. You do not like your new roommate, am I right?”

  I tilted my head at him. “You’ve seen her? When?”

  “I saw her when she and her mother pulled up at the front of the building. I lingered about, following them to see where they would go. They could not see me – your perception is quite rare. I watched them turn down the corridor to your room until they reached your door.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like her,” I sighed. “I’m sure she’s very nice, it’s just that she seems very different from me…” I fretted as I twiddled with a loose thread on my shorts.

  “I think she might be just what you need,” his emerald eyes peered into my brown ones.

  “You are at risk of falling into a very deep depression if you are left to your own devices for much longer. Much deeper than the one you already find yourself in. Let yourself be open to her friendship and her energy, do not isolate yourself. You deserve happiness, although,” his tone changed and there was mischief in his eye, “you are particularly beautiful when you are sad. Especially when there is one lonely tear falling down your cheek, lonely as you are, now,” he teased.

  I managed a smile. That was not the first time he had told me I was beautiful. Was he saying it only to cheer me up? Was it just the peculiar, formal way everybody of his ilk from his era spoke? Or, as I hoped but dare not say, did he mean something more by it?

  “Your cheeks flush. Are you ill?” he inquired which only caused me to glow even deeper crimson.

  “No, no, no. Not at all.” I bowed my head hoping the blood would drain away fast.

  “Tell me what the roses smell like,” he mercifully changed the subject.

  “You can’t smell them?” I was surprised.

  “No,” he explained, “The kind of energy I am now can’t mix with solid matter, so the finer senses elude me. I can see you because what I am seeing is actually only the light you reflect, and I can hear you because sound waves are a vibrational energy that I can pick up. But I cannot taste or smell or affect things physically.”

  “But the other day you took my hand?” I said.

  “I didn’t take your hand. I held mine out to you and you gave me yours in return. You may have felt a slight warmth or tingling from my energy field, but that is all. I am not matter, I have no bulk, I cannot leave a physical impression or touch things or move things.”

  “But I heard the floorboards creak the night of the storm.”

  “Coincidence. Perhaps the storm had caused the building to shift. Buildings move and creak and make noise all the time. Especially hundreds year old ones that have been moved across an ocean,” he smiled wistfully.

  It was all so strange. I still couldn’t be quite certain if it was really happening or not.

  “You look troubled. As you so often do. Come, let us walk around the roses.”

  He stood up and held his hand out to me. I placed my own in his and felt the warmth without the flesh.

  “Which ones are your favorites? Let me guess.” He looked around the garden. “These ones.” He led me over to a bush of beautiful roses that were lemon yellow in the centre while the petals on the outside were champagne pink. “What do they smell like?”

  “Oh, the scent is incredible,” I said as I bent to cup one of the flowers close to my face. “Very strong. Intoxicating. Bewitching!” I laughed at my own melodramatic description. “But I think I prefer these,” I nodded towards a bush of the most exquisite roses I thought I’d ever seen. Deepest apricot pink in the centre, fading out to creamy white. Understated and elegant.

  “The fragrance is strange,” I noted. “Like a rose, but fruity and spicier at the same time. Yet it’s delicate – it doesn’t overpower. I think for the time being, this one is my favorite.”

  “Then,” he said with a sweep of his arm, “Imagine, if you will, that I pluck this rose for you and place it gently behind your ear, so that people may look from it to you and not be able to discern the which is more beautiful.”

  I turned crimson. The boys I went to school with did not talk this way to girls, if they even talked to them at all.

  “I would pick this flower for you if I could,” he said more seriously.

  “No,“ I said. “I like that you can’t. If you picked it, it would only last a few days before it died. Here it will last as long as it can and everyone can enjoy it.”

  “Quite right you are,” he tipped his head in deference.

  We walked together in comfortable silence through the garden. Occasionally, Stefano would point out a butterfly to me, or we would stop to listen to the birds calling to each other. I was so content and felt so at peace I never wanted the morning to end.

  But eventually Stefano broke the spell. “You know you should get back to your room and become acquainted with your new friend. It might be perceived as discourteous for you to have abandoned the premises as she’s just arrived.”

  I pursed my lips in displeasure. “I suppose you’re right. But I’m not sure she’s the kind of girl who stands on ceremony herself.”

  He looked at me sympathetically. “Go back and get to know her. You’re going to be living with her for the next ten months. You might as well start as you mean to go on.”

  I sighed heavily. The mundane world of school and roommates seemed like the most tedious of bores and I resented the mere thought of it for bringing that heavy feeling back to my chest.

  “I’ll walk with you,” he informed me and I realized I did not have much of a choice.

  “When will I see you again?” I was chewing my bottom lip with anxiety at the thought of him leaving me alone.

  “Soon enough,” he chuckled softly.

  “What does that mean?” I searched his eyes, green as the sea and twice as deep.

  “Trust that I’m always with you in spirit, and that whenever you need me I will make myself known to you,” he said as he regarded me seriously.

  “I called out for you this morning,” I began to protest.

  “You don’t have to call out – it doesn’t help me to hear you any better, but it might cause others to think you’ve gone a bit mad.”

  “But you didn’t answer,” I said meekly and felt incredibly vulnerable all of a sudden.

  His brow was knit with consternation and I thought he was annoyed by me.

  “It’s alright,” I said dejectedly. Depression was clouding even my judgment of this spirit who had been nothing but kind and compassionate towards me.

  I began to walk off without him towards the dorm, but he was r
ight there at my side and then ahead of me barring my way.

  “Catherine. You misunderstand. Don’t run away like this. As enchanting as I find you (and I do find you very enchanting) you cannot reject the material, physical world for me. You are still part of it and there is much for you to make of it. Don’t reject it – I would be doing you a disservice if I allowed or encouraged that.”

  He looked distressed but I said nothing.

  “The world is not for me as it is for you,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I wouldn’t dream of hurting your feelings. Come here now.”

  If he were human, I would say that at that moment he wrapped his arms about me and hugged me tight. But as he was not human, it only appeared to my eye as if he did. To all other senses, he enveloped me. He literally enveloped me in his energy and the warmth I felt all through me tingled every cell in my body and dissolved that heavy stone that kept coming back to reside in my chest.

  He pulled away then.

  “I’ve been with you every moment since the first moment. Because I want to be. But my want isn’t selfish – you are alive, and I am not. You are of flesh and I am not. You are human and part of the physical world and I am not. There are a million experiences waiting for you in that world and you’ll be deprived of them if you let me monopolize your attention. Do you trust me?”

  He was staring intently into my eyes.

  “Do you trust me?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” I replied breathlessly.

  “Then know that I am always with you and that we will see each other well enough and often enough and always when you need me. But let me be the judge of when and how that is appropriate.”

  I nodded silently, for I was too overcome with conflicting emotions to trust myself to speak.

  “Go and meet your friend. I promise I’ll see you later today.”

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER 4

  I made my way back to the dorm with a lighter heart. If Stefano was telling the truth about always being with me, was he watching me now? I couldn’t sense him anywhere near me, so I had only his word to go on.