by Matt Shaw
“Where are we going?” Emily asked as Jason started to guide her up the stairs - one careful step after another.
“You’ll see. Okay, near the top now...One more step...”
They both stepped onto the landing. Jason turned her towards Josh’s room. Once they were outside the closed door, he pulled his hand away. “Here you go.”
“What have you done now?” Emily’s heart sank. Knowing the room they were standing outside of, she couldn’t help but think he had done something else for the sake of Josh. She stretched her hand out to open the door but Jason snatched it back again.
“You have to say the magic words?” he said.
“What?”
“The magic words. You have to say them to get access. Those are the rules.”
“You’ve finally lost the plot, haven’t you?”
Despite his best efforts, he could tell Emily wasn’t in the mood for any games.
“Okay, I’ll say them,” he said. He turned to the door and shouted, “Open sesame!”
The handle twisted around and the door pushed open.
“We’ve been practising that all afternoon,” said Jason - a beaming smile on his face. “It’s also really cool for when you want to pretend you’re a Jedi and you have The Force on your side,” he laughed.
“What the hell is that?” asked Emily. She hadn’t heard a word Jason had just said. As soon as the door opened her eyes transfixed on the cot, now built, which was situated in the middle of the room.
“That’s where our baby could sleep,” whispered Jason - his voice suddenly serious. “What do you think?”
“How did you get it here?”
“Travis helped me. Don’t worry, before you say anything, I told him not to tell anyone. So...Do you like it?” he asked.
Emily walked into the room and across to the cot, “I love it.”
“And look,” he pointed to the far corner of the room where there was once a stack of boxes. They had gone and been replaced by a stack of paint cans and decorating equipment. “Thought we could really make it nice in here, you know...A fresh coat of paint for a fresh start. That is...If you want to stay here. I’ve been thinking about that too...Let’s give it three months. Three months in this house and if you’re still not happy we’ll sell up and move out. A fair compromise, I believe.”
Emily started to weep.
“Are those tears of disappointment or anger?” Jason asked.
“I can’t believe you’ve done all this for me.”
“I haven’t. I’ve done it for us,” he corrected her. “I meant what I said - I’m here for you. I’m here for both of you.” He gently pressed his hand against her stomach. “I’m excited,” he told her.
She smiled as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, “Me too.”
“So what do you say? Is three months a fair compromise? That way we don’t have the stress of another move right now and it gives me a chance to finish my story - even get some money together.”
She nodded, “Okay three months.”
He smiled, “Thank you.” He put his arms around her and hugged her close. “I do love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you too.”
“Just so I know though,” he continued, “this crying thing...This going to last the whole nine months?”
17.
Emily opened her eyes and her heart skipped a beat when she noticed Jason was staring at her.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said - a large, cheesy grin on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Emily asked. She buried herself in the blankets to break his line of sight.
“Can’t I watch my beautiful wife sleep?”
“No - it’s creepy, you freak, stop it!”
Slowly Jason pulled the blanket away from Emily’s face. She squealed and hid behind her hands.
“I can’t help it,” said Jason.
“What’s the time anyway?” she asked. “I didn’t hear my alarm go off.”
“I don’t know...About five? Half five?”
“Jesus!” she buried her head under the pillow as her alarm wasn’t due to go off until half six. “You could have at least made me a cup of tea!” she moaned, with a muffled voice.
“I thought you might want to snuggle for a while!”
“Cup of tea!” her voice was less muffled this time round so there was no mistaking what she really wanted.
“And then a cuddle?”
Emily threw the blanket back and glared at Jason with suspicion, “Why are you so happy? I’m not having sex. Not at this time of the morning...”
“I don’t want sex. Well - unless you’re offering...I’m just happy. Can’t I be happy? I’m feeling good about us. Our future. I’m optimistic.” He paused and finished, “I thought you might be too.”
“Maybe I will be,” she said, “after a cup of tea.”
“One cup of tea coming right up,” said Jason with a smile on his face which kind of unnerved Emily - not that she voiced her concerns.
Jason jumped out of bed and ran from the room as Emily settled back down onto her pillow contemplating how many children would be in the house within a number of months; the dead one, the newborn one and her husband. She couldn’t help but hope that it wouldn’t be long before at least one of them grew up.
* * * * *
“Take a day off today!” Jason insisted as he walked into the room.
“What? I can’t.”
“You can,” he urged, “we could spend the day together...” He put her cup of tea down on her bedside cabinet and climbed over Emily to get back to his side of the bed. Jason continued, “We could go for a walk, or something. We haven’t really explored since moving in. What with one thing and another - there hasn’t really been a lot of time. I just thought it would be nice.”
She could see he was trying hard and didn’t want to dampen his spirits, “It would be nice,” she said, “but we need the money. You know I don’t get sick pay.”
“I just thought it would be nice,” he repeated.
“It’ll be the weekend soon enough and then you’ll have two days of my undivided attention,” Emily promised. “By Monday you’ll be itching for me to get back to work. Besides, you should be using this time to get your writing finished. How’s it going anyway?” she changed the subject before it turned into an unnecessary argument about how little time they are spending together. A silly argument considering she always used to go to work whilst he sat at home working on novels and short stories. The problem was - he had got too used to having her around during their wedding and house moving escapades. Now she was back at work - clearly he was having a hard time adjusting to the loneliness again.
“The writing? It’s not going. I started the story in one direction and I’m not happy with it. It doesn’t feel as though it’s my own story, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t read as though I’ve written it.”
“From what I read - it was fine.”
“Yeah - fine - that’s the problem. It’s not great. Fine doesn’t sell. Fine doesn’t even get you noticed anymore. I don’t know, I just need a break I think.”
“You think too m...” she stopped mid-sentence.
“What’s wrong?”
“The door just moved,” she said - her eyes fixed to the bedroom door, which Jason hadn’t closed behind him.
Jason turned his head to look at the door. For a couple of seconds they both laid there staring at it - waiting to see if it would move once more.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Probably just the wind.”
“The wind? What wind?” Emily asked. She pulled the blanket over herself to ensure no flesh was visible. “It’s him!” she whispered.
“He won’t come in here. He knows it’s our room. Our place to have undisturbed time together. Besides, it could have been Roald...”
“Do you know how fucked up that sounds? Oh don’t worry - it’s not the dead boy it’s the dead dog. Jesus Christ - this is what I’m talk
ing about,” she said.
“Come on - it’s fine. Seriously. Try not to think of it.”
“It’s a bit hard not to think of it,” she said. “At this rate I’ll be taking a shower, or bath, wearing a fucking bikini.”
“You’re being silly, come on...We started the day off happily. Let’s not ruin it.”
“We started the day being woken up an hour before our alarm was due to go off - actually.”
Jason climbed out of bed and walked over to the door. With no words, he pushed it shut, turned around and came back to bed.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked. “What if you shut him in here? And do you really think a closed door will stop a ghost?!”
Jason went to say something but stopped in his tracks as he heard a noise he recognised only too well - a small plastic car racing around a figure eight race track. “There!” said Jason. “He’s playing.”
Emily sat up, “I just don’t see how this is going to work.”
“It won’t if you don’t give it a chance,” Jason replied. “Come on - you can’t keep doing this...”
“Doing what?”
“Agreeing to give it a try and then getting freaked out. We said - three months. That’s not too hard is it? If you’re not happy by then - I said - I’ll pack everything myself. And I mean it.”
Emily didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say. After all - she had agreed to a longer trial period.
“The stress of moving isn’t good for the baby. It’s early days. I don’t want to jeopardize anything with the pregnancy.”
Emily pounced on his words, “But the stress of living with a ghost is just fine and dandy?”
She flung the blankets off and climbed from the warmth of the bed.
“Where are you going?” asked Jason. “I thought we were going to cuddle for a bit?”
“I’ve got to get ready for work,” she said.
“Your alarm hasn’t even gone off yet! Come on - come back to bed.”
As if on cue - the irritating tone of her mobile’s alarm sounded. Jason didn’t say anything as Emily simply smiled at him, turned the alarm off and walked towards the en-suite bathroom. He just laid back and looked at the ceiling - as though the answers to all his problems were hidden somewhere on it. Only visible if you stare long and hard enough.
“Fucking hormones,” he muttered under his breath.
18.
Emily was sitting in her office staring at Google’s homepage on her computer. A mountain of ignored paperwork was sitting next to her keyboard, along with a cold cup of tea she had neglected to drink.
A knock on her door broke her quiet thoughts.
“Come in,” she called out.
The door opened and her best friend Annie leaned in, “Some of the girls are going to the pub for a spot of lunch - did you want to join us?” she asked. Annie was Emily’s closest friend in the office - maybe even in her little world. They had met in the workplace and instantly hit it off, despite Emily being Annie’s boss.
“No. No, thank you,” Emily whispered. She looked back at Google.
“Are you okay?” Annie had been friends with Emily long enough to realise when something wasn’t as it should have been.
“Can I tell you something?” Emily asked.
“Sure.”
“Shut the door,” said Emily.
Annie stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. She didn’t wait for an invitation to take a seat adjacent to Emily’s own chair, behind the large black desk.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m pregnant,” said Emily. Her voice cracked a little as though she were about to cry but, thankfully for her, she managed to hold it together.
“Pregnant?”
“And I’m living with a ghost of a dead boy and the ghost of my dead dog.”
Annie didn’t say anything. She just stared at Emily as though she had lost the plot completely. Seconds went by before she went to open her mouth to say something before stopping herself and remaining silent.
“Well?” said Emily. “Say something.”
“That’s a lot of information to process,” said Annie. “Are you sure?”
“Of which bit?”
“All of it?”
“The doctor confirmed the pregnancy but it’s still early days.”
“But you’re living with ghosts? You talk to the doctor about that too?” asked Annie.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just...”
“Go on.”
“Ghosts?”
Emily nodded. Annie sat back in her chair and pushed her red hair away from her eyes with a brush of her hand. She was completely dumbfounded by what she had been told.
“I don’t want to live in the house anymore,” said Emily, “but he wants me to try.”
“The ghost?”
“Jason.”
“Ah.”
“He wants to give it a few months and then move out if we’re still not happy. I don’t know what to do because I just want to get out now. I hate it there. Things move - like a door this morning...It moved and instantly I got paranoid about whether there was a spirit standing there or not...You know - watching me. It’s weird. Creepy even.”
“I can see that.”
“What do I do?” asked Emily.
Annie shrugged her shoulders.
“I was going to Google it but I don’t even know where to start,” Emily continued. “I mean - where do you start?”
“Erm - maybe start with how to rid your house of the spirits? Like an exorcist? Do they even exist? I don’t know but it’s worth a look...”
“Jason doesn’t want me to do that.”
“If it bothers you that much and he won’t move - sort something when he isn’t there. He need never know. You could always tell him the spirits must have managed to move over to the other side?”
“The other side?”
“Well I don’t know what I’m talking about!” said Annie. In truth Annie didn’t even believe what Emily was saying. Talks of ghosts sounded more like the ramblings of someone who was under too much pressure - what with the recent wedding, the moving and extra work in the office no one would be surprised if Emily did start to fall apart.
There was another knock on the door. A slight pause before Emily called for them to come in. It was another of the office girls - a younger lady called Victoria.
“Are you coming?” she asked Emily and Annie.
Annie turned to Emily, “You want to get out of here for a while?” she asked.
“No - you lot go. Have fun. I’ve got a mountain of work to do,” she lied. She had no intention of doing any of the paperwork cluttering her desk. Not today, at least. Today her mind was on everything but the work that needed completing.
“Okay,” said Annie as she stood up, “if you change your mind - you know where to find us. We’ll talk later, yeah?”
Emily nodded. Annie gave her a smile and left the room, closing the door behind her to give Emily her privacy once more. Emily had smiled back at her but it was more for show. No sooner had Annie disappeared from the room had Emily’s smile vanished from her face.
She turned back to the computer screen and put her hands on the keyboard. A split second as her brain decided on the best sentence to type.
How to rid your house of ghosts.
The fact Google predicted the sentence before she had completely finished writing it made her feel a little more at ease. For Google to be able to predict what she was typing - surely that meant other people had asked the same question.
She hit enter and the page changed, almost instantly, to reveal a list of recommended pages.
“Guess we start at the top,” she muttered as she followed the first hyperlink.
The page loaded up and instantly Emily knew it wasn’t to be the page she was looking for. Bright colours, unprofessional font, yellow writing on a black background - fo
r reasons only the person who made the page would know - this was a page designed by someone who clearly had no skills in web-design. It didn’t mean they didn’t know what they were talking about when it came to the spirit world but it was enough to put doubt into the mind.