Paul didn’t understand. It had been there a moment ago. But now his room did feel empty, as if something had left it. But he knew no one could be there, his mind had to be playing tricks on him. He checked on Melinda and still her eyes held steady into the dark bedroom, with only the light illuminating the floor and the far wall, the far wall that should’ve had the shadow of a person sitting, waiting.
“So these souls, like say you died today or yesterday, you only get a day to settle your things and move on? Kinda seems cheap.”
“I think time for a soul isn’t the same as our time,” she said, her eyes never budging. Was she trying to creep him out?
Change the subject he thought, maybe she had spooked herself talking about souls walking the Earth and getting ready to leave tonight. Girls are easily spooked, Paul reminded himself.
“So this will sound bad, but it was kind of loud when we met and I can’t remember what you said you did for a living.”
She didn’t answer right away, but when she did she broke her stare into the bedroom and downed the cider as if she was about to leave.
“I work for my Grandmother.”
“You enjoy it?”
Her smile creased her face, but no rosy cheeks balled. She still appeared distracted, almost as if she was trying her best not to look back into the bedroom. In fact she was looking everywhere but the room.
“Hey want to go for a walk? I can whip us up some hot chocolate, and you know the lights and stuff people decorate Grove Avenue with this time of year are really pretty.”
“Is that what you want to do?” she asked with a far warmer smile.
“Sure it’s not that cold out is it?”
“No, it sounds nice,” she said.
Paul microwaved two mugs of water and then added the cocoa mix. Even over his stirring her heard the floor creak again and he had to check to see if Melinda had returned to staring into his bedroom again. She had, and even he had to check and see if that creepy shadow was still missing. He was grateful this it was. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Perhaps, it was a nice thought, romantic even, that souls can remain on Earth for a little bit, but Paul was pretty certain you were dead when you died. That made sense to him. The microwave dinged, as Melinda buttoned her coat back up.
“You need a hat,” he said and dashed into his bedroom. He heard her gasp and it made him freeze for just a moment before he quickly snatched up the Santa hat. Two steps backward got him out of the bedroom.
“Festive,” she said as she donned the cap.
“After you.”
Melinda stepped out and Paul took a moment to lock the door, and then they were out on the sidewalk, warm mugs in their gloved hands, and the hot air rising up. The orange glow of the street lights cut through branches. Down the street, homes were all lit up for Christmas.
“Not quite like downtown or Lewis Ginter,” he said, letting the warm air off the hot chocolate rise to his lips.
“It’s still real pretty. Would make it harder to leave, wouldn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, he was enjoying this moment, and that raised his suspicion. Maybe Melinda was a ghost and she just wanted company on her last night. She was definitely a hot ghost. He paused and they both stopped and looked at the white lights immaculately wrapping bushes and railings, around the windowsills and along the gutters of a beautiful brick house.
“That’s nice. Classy,” Paul said.
“You’re not a fan of the bright colors and inflatables?” She nuzzled against him. A ghost couldn’t do that!
“No I like that, but it’s not me, I think I’d do something like this,” Paul said.
“Me, too. It’s just pretty. Everyone celebrates Christmas in their own little way, and it all sounds so nice I think. Just being together with loved ones…”
“What does your family do?”
“Well it’s just my grandmother these days, but it’s nice. I come over Christmas morning and we unwrap some presents and she makes a big breakfast with cream cheese braids, oh it’s so good, and then we sit around in new slippers and sweat pants all day, taking turns passing out on the couch and talking about things. It’s nice.”
“That sounds nice,” Paul said and they started walking again. “My family decided it was too expensive to get presents for everybody and so they decided to explore that awful idea known as Yankee Swap?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s this horrible game where people keep trading gifts, stealing gifts until everyone has a gift they either don’t deserve or don’t want. I may have missed the joy in the concept, but it’s not Christmas. It’s an offensive April Fool’s Day joke.”
“Chinese Christmas!” she said.
Paul put on a thick drawl and said, “Don’t be racist. You’re in the south, it’s called Yankee Swap, because its unwanted and unwarranted.”
They laughed and shook their heads, then went silent.
“I like your jacket,” she said just before the silence became too much.
“You told me that the night we met.”
She nodded. “I suppose I did.”
There was still plenty of traffic going up and down the street. It surprised him at first, but then he remembered Midnight mass and thought a little more. “What you were saying earlier, that’s why they hold Midnight Mass?”
“I guess so.” Melinda shrugged.
“It’s definitely interesting finding out why we do things, all these traditions that evolve from something that we don’t talk about anymore.”
Melinda shook. It caught Paul off guard, was she that cold. He wrapped his arm around her and the awkward move was made more awkward by the fact that Melinda tensed. She didn’t say anything so he kept it there, and hoped she’d get used to it and relax. When they reached another end of another block he asked her. “Are you cold?”
She didn’t answer correctly. She said, “I have never been so close before.” And then gasped, “To so many.”
What the hell did that mean? Paul almost blurted out, he restrained himself and as they crossed to the next block he adjusted his arm so he could drink his hot chocolate.
She froze. “Can we go back?”
“Yeah sure.”
They turned around and her eyes were back over her shoulder, looking back down where they had been heading. She started to speed up and the increase in speed almost tripped Paul as he dodged roots that had fought their way through the sidewalk.
“Melinda, what’s wrong?”
“There’s just too many of them. There shouldn’t be that many here, not in Richmond.” She shook her head as if she wasn’t responding to Paul at all, but verbalizing the conversation she was having in her head.
“Who? What?” Paul had a hard time adjusting to Melinda’s pace.
“It’s getting close to midnight.” She spoke with such a strong tone that Paul knew she was talking about the souls’ last day on Earth.
He almost said her name, called her back, but he didn’t feel like he knew her well enough to grab her and stop her. They were already up the steps and into his apartment before she stopped. She gnawed through her gloves at her finger and stood, looking more like she was pacing back and forth, deep in thought. Paul fought his keys out of his pockets and eventually had to remove a glove to unlock the door. He swung the door open and was greeted by the roaring heater.
Paul was irritated, how had the night gone so wrong, he was going to get a nice bit of sleep before his early morning hike and he could only top that by seeing Melinda again, now he wished he’d settled for the Z’s.
“You think I’m crazy,” she said.
What could he say? He chose silence, which is never the right thing to say to a woman.
“It creeps me out what I believe.” She continued in his silence, “I’d love to be like the rest of you, never knowing the better. But I can’t. I cannot let them go on to the next life in confusion, lost, angry, scared. I learned how to speak to them.” Paul took the couch this time. Almost as a ch
allenge, come sit beside me, I’ll get what I want out of this night if you’re going to act nuts. Then I’ll have to move out and change my phone number, he thought. Right? He turned to his friendly shadow, which had returned sitting, waiting. Must’ve been the angle he was at before that had made it look as if it were gone.
“She wants to cry,” Melinda said. “The old me wants to cry.”
“Are you okay?” He knew that was opening a can of worms. “You said someone you knew died recently…” Still playing the caring, sensitive guy, give it up! No matter how pristine and elegant a beauty she may be, Paul was not willing to deal with crazy, yet against his better judgment, he continued to play that role.
“Robert was the guy I wanted to marry,” she said. Her shoulders drooped and she collapsed into the recliner. “I know that must be awkward for you. But you’ll know what I mean when you meet that person. It sounds stupid to say soul mate, and that’s not what he was, he was just the kind of guy I wanted around me. I’d do anything to have him back.”
“You said it is a soul’s last night on Earth, is there any way to, I don’t know, reach him, say goodbye?”
“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Melinda’s face jerked away, she faced the wall like a pouting child.
Paul looked at the clock, dreading the moment it struck midnight. Would she burst into tears and make him drive her home? Would she keep him up the rest of the night telling him about how her dead dream guy used to make her waffles and cupcakes? It was 11:51 p.m.
Outside it sounded as if the wind was howling, but Melinda told Paul otherwise.
“You hear them, they all want in. None of them want to leave.” There was the rattling of doors and glass, from the wind, Paul suspected, just the wind. The howling increased. Even the room seemed to swell, or was it just Paul’s head that began to throb in pain?
The walls vibrated, the rattling of picture frames and plates and glasses in the cabinets filled the apartment.
“Don’t go with them.” Paul heard Melinda say, but he knew it wasn’t directed at him. Her eyes looked beyond him. He turned to see if someone else was there, only the shadow of the vacuum, still waiting.
The racket began to affect Paul’s heart rate. It sped up with his breathing. He fought to release his voice and finally gasped.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry,” she said still looking through him. He twisted around and saw the shadow on the wall stand up. The shadow stepped forward out of the light and Paul could not see it any longer. His heart pounded, he twisted back to Melinda.
“You are wearing his jacket,” she said. “You can’t blame me for wanting this, blame me because I knew how to do it. But realize how happy you are going to make me.” This time she was speaking to Paul. Their eyes connected fiercely.
“When we met you said you weren’t afraid of death. Do you remember our conversation that night?” Paul didn’t verbatim, but it certainly sounded like something he would say when he was drunk, but he knew in that moment it was not something he really believed.
“What are you doing?” He asked the right question.
“I’m swapping you out.” She bit her lips back into her mouth and cried. She whimpered something about how she thought it would be so much easier. “It’s what I want.”
Was Paul paralyzed? His heart still pounded, his head was ready to burst, but his body could not move. He couldn’t even look back into the bedroom. Behind him he knew the shadow had joined them. The shadow loomed over him and suddenly it felt like a weight pressed against his shoulders. He hadn’t realized he had dropped to his knees until his view of Melinda changed and he was staring up at her.
She began to move her lips, but the sounds coming out were caused from the smacking of her lips, not words at first, but soon a low hum formed and from it a tone, a primal tone, held sharp like the wailing of a teapot.
At last the force of the shadow was no longer on his shoulders and he felt himself start to float back up to his feet.
“No!” Paul screamed as he saw the top of his own head now beneath him. Soon he had risen to the ceiling and beneath him Melinda had not raised her view, she was concentrating on his body. The sounds she made reverberated around him, they sounded different, felt different. Like air rushing all around him he felt himself pulled away from his body.
Melinda sighed; exhausted she fell back onto the couch. Her chest rose and fell deeply. She could barely keep her eyes open. They shut tight, and the only sound above her own breath and heartbeat was a ticking clock she’d never noticed before. Before she could open her eyes, she felt Paul’s palm against her cheek. His warm hand cupped her cheek and his eyes greeted hers as she found the strength to open them again.
“You.” She smiled.
“Cutting it pretty close,” he said. “It’s two minutes to midnight.”
Melinda found the source of the ticking and watched as it ticked nearer to twelve o’clock.
“Had to.”
“I waited all night.”
“I’ve waited seven months.” She countered. The walls were still shaking around them. Paul’s head twisted around looking through the wall, knowing who was outside trying to get in, so many souls unwilling to leave. It was Melinda’s magic that had brought them to this place.
“It’s almost over. A few more seconds.”
Outside a bell chimed and the last tick that mattered went off. Melinda sat up and Paul’s lips kissed hers. Finally, she thought.
“Merry Christmas, Melinda,” he said.
“Merry Christmas, Robert.”
THE END.
THE PATH
Game trails run all through these woods. It is something you have to be careful when trekking back to camp late at night. You might think you are on a path, but deer don’t think like we do. They have their own reasoning for going the way that they do in the woods.
You see deer are very much aware that they still have predators, but perhaps technology and convenience has made it easy for mankind to forget his.
Spend a night out in the woods, look at how dark it is ten feet from the fire. Pitch black. Anything could be out there waiting. Oh it would be disconcerting if you could see what hid in the shadows, or maybe it would be a relief. But man’s enemy is not a bear or a boar.
It is a hunter with patience and poise.
It wasn’t all that long ago that my friend moved out into the mountains. He had found a cabin real cheap that he intended to fix up. He took a small camper up there and would park it on weekends and work all day long before spending the night enjoying the stars and a campfire, much like we are tonight. He would work himself until his arms couldn’t swing the hammer anymore, or his old knees felt as bad as his lower back. Then he would plop down and have a cold adult beverage until he was good and warm and ready to pass out.
He did this every weekend, obsessed with creating the perfect cabin to retire to within the next year or two. He would come back each weekend and share pictures of sunsets and sunrises and the improvements he had made.
At work we joked about how he was going to become a bearded hermit who spooked hikers by day, and his snoring would drive away all the wildlife in the area. He wasn’t too far from the Appalachian Trail, but he said there was no trail connecting his cabin to it, nor to the creek that ran just below him. But it was all part of his plan once fall came around and all the leaves were off the trees, much like they are right now.
Fall came and true to his word my friend was deep in the woods cutting paths. He returned one week with pictures of the scenic spot he had uncovered.
“It’s on my property,” he told me. “Realtor never had a picture of it, would’ve made the cabin worth double what they asked for.”
He was so excited. “Funny thing is, I can see the remnants of a trail. Like the original owners had one and never kept it up.”
I warned him about it being a game trail, but he was certain.
“It leads straight down from the cabin. Wh
en you look back up the hill you can see it clear as day. As the trees on the edge of the path were much older than the saplings which had sprung up.”
A week or two later he was obsessed with plant life and had bored me to tears listing all the trees he’d identified in his woods, but the note of interest was that the saplings he’d cut up on the trail were not native to that part of Virginia. He even found a tag on one of the trees from a nursery.
“The trees were planted. They’d actually covered up the trail. Makes no sense.”
The property had been fenced all around afterwards. There was no gate leading down to the creek until my friend had fashioned himself one. He had assumed it was because the previous owner had dogs, as they had also left behind a couple of pens and igloos.
“Why have a place in the mountains, with a scenic few at a creek and fence it off?”
I told my friend I had no idea, maybe it was just a hermit who wanted to be away from town and didn’t want to bother with the upkeep of the trail.
“No, they had a family.” He told me, “They move a few years ago and let it fall apart a little, but they didn’t move far, just closer into town, big lot, no trees at all. Plenty of mowing and upkeep.”
I agreed it was odd because that’s what you do in polite conversation, but I doubted my friend’s concerns. He seemed obsessed with how he had managed to find the cabin at such a cheap price now.
The next time I saw him he was a different man. He looked old enough to be retired. His body moved like a limp sail on a boat and his eyes seemed deeper set, like his eyelids had fallen back behind his face, unable to be closed ever again.
I only believe his story because he had never given me any reason to doubt him. What he thinks happened may not have happened, but I believe he believes it happened.
Now, like any other weekend he left straight from work, driving three and half hours into the mountains, just south of Lexington. He arrived at dark and unloaded tools and supplies as he always did. By this time he had renovated the cabin so that it had working plumbing and a wood stove. But the weather on this particular weekend was going against the preconceptions for December temperatures, as the low was only expected for be fifty degrees overnight. So he had every intention of getting one more night out by the campfire.
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