by Bryn Donovan
“You’re a freak,” she’d said. Aaron couldn’t even disagree.
The good part of his brain knew he’d never hurt anyone. His shrink had told him once, Look, if you were a serial killer, you wouldn’t be tormented by these thoughts. You’d enjoy them. Since then, Aaron had worked with killers. They weren’t anything like him.
Aaron hadn’t been bad for a long time now, but he knew better than to ever hope for anything serious. You couldn’t hide your damage from a girlfriend forever, and any girl deserved better than a man with monsters in his head.
Nicole’s fall from her bike had sparked that old irrational terror, thinking he’d set up the whole date to make her fall and fearing that she had broken her legs as a result. An overreaction, maybe, but nothing serious. She probably just thought he’d wanted an excuse to feel her up.
And running his hands along her shapely legs had sure as hell distracted him right quick. Oh, he was still thinking bad thoughts, but of a completely different kind.
Of course he hadn’t wanted Nicole to get hurt. He’d wanted to take a pretty girl to a pretty place. That was what normal people did.
While he waited for the water to boil, he ventured out onto the balcony to look at Francie’s house. What was Nicole doing, at night all by herself? Texting with friends? Watching something on Netflix? Taking a long bubble bath? Okay, probably not that last thing, though it was fun to envision.
Something glimmered in the corner of his vision. He looked down at the garden behind the house and took in a quick breath. Nicole was out there.
Wait, no. A different woman, in profile, with short, wavy blond hair. Her pale dress hung loosely on her body. Who was she, and what was she doing back there?
She flickered out and appeared again, turning in such a way that Aaron could see her whole face. He sucked in a breath. Blood and gore covered half of it, trickling in rivers down the side of her neck and soaking the dress’s neckline and sleeve on the left side.
Bending forward, she smelled one of the roses. She shimmered in a way that neither streetlight nor moonlight could explain.
What the hell am I seeing?
Real, and not real. She covered her face, her shoulders shuddering. Aaron saw women cry almost every night at work, and he still could hardly stand it. This woman, horribly injured and weeping, wrenched his heart.
But it wasn’t a woman.
She wasn’t even there. He stared at an empty back garden.
Aaron went inside, slammed the door, and rested his hands on the top of his head. I am losing my mind.
Even when Aaron had started taking psych classes in college, learning more about his own issues plus about a hundred others he felt lucky not to have, he’d never worried about hallucinations.
Of course, he’d worked with many patients who saw things. Some of them perceived ordinary events in a strange way. A sweet girl in the adolescent ward, for instance, had believed two of the boys she went to school with were angels. She’d seen their wings. According to her father, the boys were far from angelic—they were little shits who bullied the girl.
Aaron might have actually seen Nicole, but envisioned her as—what? A lady from an old-timey horror movie?
Other patients saw things that weren’t there at all. That was another possibility.
Or I saw a ghost.
That was the most likely scenario.
Aaron had always believed in ghosts. Savannah was crawling with them. He’d grown up hearing stories, not only from his classmates, but also from his own grandmother.
As a newlywed, she’d dealt with a ghost on the farm. Her stories had scared the bejesus out of Aaron when he was a kid. Although his dad had shaken his head about it and found an excuse to go into another room, Mama had always believed her, and Aaron had, too. Still, he’d never expected to see a ghost himself.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one. Was this what had frightened Nicole when he’d first encountered her?
Aaron wandered back into the kitchen, his mind racing. Should he go over and ask her? No. If he came over at this hour, she’d see him as a weirdo or worse, a potential threat. He’d have to figure this out on his own.
The brain was a touchy thing. Even healthy people had strange perceptions, now and again, and it could be just a sign of exhaustion.
His last shift had been challenging. A guy who believed he was dead and rotting had attacked an older nurse after she refused to have him cremated. Aaron had hauled the guy off her at once and gotten him over to the intensive treatment unit, but a case like that would make anyone start thinking about ghosts.
A hissing sound jarred him from his thoughts. The pot was boiling over. Aaron moved it to another burner, turned down the heat, and rummaged through the cabinet for the spaghetti.
CHAPTER FOUR
Polly sang as she stirred the paprika into the flour for the fried chicken. As she returned the ceramic spice jar to the rack, she considered that she was making way too much, but they could have some cold tomorrow. Frank loved it, and she was pretty proud of the way the lime Jell-O salad had turned out—a perfect ring, filled with maraschino cherries and canned pears.
She glanced up at the clock. Six. Hopefully he wouldn’t be late.
At seven-thirty, still alone, she ate some of the fried chicken herself, along with a slice of the Jell-O.
At eleven-thirty, she tried to go to bed.
A sensible woman would have slept through the night and left the fretting until tomorrow. She was still awake after three a.m. when she heard him banging in the front door.
It wasn’t right, him dragging himself home at this hour, smelling of homemade liquor and cigarettes and God only knew whose perfume. He ought to be home with her, eating their nice dinner and listening to the General Motors concert on the radio, not out carousing with the boys.
Polly knew it was a bad idea, hollering at him when he got home. It just came out of her in a rush, like the flood a few years back that had filled the streets and lapped up to people’s doors. “If you love me, how can you leave me here alone? Don’t you care about me?”
Frank yelled back. Even sober, he couldn’t control his temper, and he was nowhere close to sober now.
Polly’s own anger flared in return. “I’ve given up my whole life for you!”
His face darkened. “Being with me is giving up? Is that what you’re saying, Polly?”
He wasn’t listening to her. She’d make him listen! “It damn sure is!”
Frank snatched the cast iron pan off the stovetop.
A crash. Blackness. Dying. She was dying.
She looked down at her own body splayed out on the floor, a pool of blood around her head.
Nicole gasped and sat up in bed, wide awake in the dark of a strange room. Her heart pounded like a fist trying to break a door down.
It was just a dream. She was in Francie’s house, in Savannah.
The realness of the dream stunned her, though. She’d been a different person, named Polly. The smell of fried chicken, which Nicole had never made in her life, had lingered in the kitchen.
That kitchen. It had looked different, with its checkerboard-patterned linoleum floor, small stove, and cabinets painted mint green. But it had that same spice rack near the stove, with the ceramic jars decorated with roosters. It was the kitchen in this house.
Polly. That was the name in the scary song Nicole had been singing before.
Nicole scrambled for her phone on the nightstand, turning it on just for the light. She took in one deep breath and let it out, and then another.
If she wanted to, she could call or text someone. But it was after three in the morning, so she doubted anyone would answer.
Aaron might, if he wasn’t at work. He kept odd hours. Dang it, why hadn’t she asked for his number? But she could go over there right now and tell him she had dreamed somet
hing awful.
No. If she did that, she’d look desperate for attention. Or even worse, he would think she was crazy.
I am going to get up and turn on the light. She sat up and set her bare feet on the floor. Taking another deep breath, she stood up, went over to the light switch, and flipped it on.
There was nothing wrong with this house. She was nervous about being in a new city and an unfamiliar home. That was all.
The foul-smelling camellias? All her imagination. Even when she’d clutched them in her hand, Aaron hadn’t noticed a thing.
She’d go get some more flowers. Roses, this time, just for a change. She’d prove to herself that everything was fine. In the morning, the sun would shine in, there would be fresh-cut roses on the table, and she’d know that her new life was off to a good start, after all.
She found the scissors on the dining room table. At the back door, she put her hand on the knob. What if she’s out there?
That didn’t make any sense. There was no reason to think that the woman from the dream was in the garden. Or anywhere.
At least the moon was shining. Nicole went to one rose bush and then another, clipping off the fullest blooms. When she came back into the brightly lit house, she felt almost normal again. She put the roses in a fresh glass full of water.
Maybe in a few hours, if Aaron was home, she could ask if he wanted to go to breakfast. She could tell him about the dream then, and he’d probably make some kind of joke to reassure her. Just having someone listen would be nice, and he was really good at listening.
In fact, he hardly talked about himself much at all. Maybe she could remedy that and find out more about him next time.
Or she could see what she could find out now.
Nicole went back to bed and opened her laptop, comforted by its electric glow. On Facebook, she found him, and everything in his profile was public.
He didn’t post often, but he’d been tagged in many photos. One showed him crossing plastic swords with a little boy, captioned, “Uncle Aaron teaching Jimmy to be a pirate!” In another, he stood in front of a river holding up a large fish of some kind.
Everything she saw online reinforced her impression of a fun-loving, expansive personality. Yes, he’d gotten too worried about her falling off her bike, but in his work, he’d probably seen his share of bad injuries.
In general, he didn’t seem to have many concerns, and even fewer doubts. If he really got to know Nicole, he might not have any patience for her insecurities. He probably got enough of that at work.
In the next picture, he stood with a few other guys in tuxedos, his arm slung around one of them. Cigar in hand, Aaron looked right into the camera, arrogant and amused.
Good Lord, he was hot. She couldn’t stop staring. The guy next to him must have been the groom, and she guessed Aaron was the best man.
Oh, he’s the best man, all right. On impulse, Nicole hit the “add friend” button.
Ugh. Was that a good idea? Pretty soon she’d find her own place, and then she might not ever see him again.
He accepted her friend request immediately. Her heart skipped.
Maybe he was looking at her photos now. Thank God she’d tossed or untagged herself in all the ones of her and Thomas. And her newest profile pic was pretty cute.
God. It’s like I’m in junior high. Disgusted with herself, she snapped the laptop closed.
At least the foolishness had distracted her from the nightmare. She crawled back into bed.
By the time Nicole got up the next morning, the sunshine was streaming in through the bedroom window. Francie had said she was welcome to anything in the kitchen. Nicole made some instant oatmeal in the microwave and puzzled out how to use the fancy espresso machine, resulting in what looked like a successful latte. Pleased with her efforts, she took her breakfast to the dining room table to eat.
The roses were black.
Not just dead, but black, petal and stem alike.
Nicole’s chest rose and fell in fast breaths. She reached out and touched one of the blooms. It shattered, the petals all falling to the table at once, partially disintegrating to ash.
She ran upstairs and got dressed quickly—jeans, a top, sneakers. Forget the latte here—she could go to that café down the street. She grabbed her purse and fished for her keys. Anything to get out of this house for a while.
But once outside, Nicole went next door, climbed up the back stairs, and knocked.
He wasn’t answering. Maybe he wasn’t even home.
The door opened. Aaron stood there in a white tee shirt, sweat pants, and bare feet, his hair mussed and his eyes half closed. When he saw her, he straightened and ran a quick hand over his disheveled hair. “Nicole. What’s up?”
She blurted out, “I think there’s a ghost in that house.”
Oh, great. Would he suggest that she seek out professional help? Or maybe he’d simply get rid of her as soon as possible.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so, too.”
Nicole’s mouth fell open. “Why would you say that?”
Aaron squinted over in the direction of Francie’s house. “’Cause I saw one.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Nicole looked even more frightened than when he’d crossed her path yesterday, and now Aaron knew why. He resisted the strong urge to take her into his arms. “Come on in.”
He’d cleaned up the condo a little the night before. She took a seat on the couch. “You go first,” he suggested. “Then I’ll tell you what I saw.”
“Okay.” Nicole took a deep breath. She told him about a song she’d sung in spite of never having heard it before, camellias that stank like a corpse, and a bad dream that had felt too real.
When she got to the dream, he asked, “You have a lot of nightmares?”
“No! Almost never.” She shrugged. “Except sometimes I have this one where I’m trying to put in my contact lenses, but they’re the size of cereal bowls.”
Surprised, Aaron laughed. “I have that exact dream.”
“Shut up! Are you serious?”
“Never heard of anyone else having it. Must be an anxiety dream. Except just for people with contacts.”
“This dream about Polly was so intense, though,” she said. “It was like I was her. I could see every little detail. I could even smell things.”
“Polly? That was her name in the dream?”
“Yeah. And the name in the scary song. It was about pretty Polly, or something like that.” Nicole paused. “This morning was even worse.”
Aaron shifted, drawing closer to her. “There’s more?”
“After I woke up from the nightmare, I brought in some roses from the garden—just to prove to myself that everything was fine.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“They turned black overnight. I mean black like charcoal.” Her voice caught, choked with fear.
“Okay, that’s freaky as hell. But it’s going to be okay.” Without thinking twice, Aaron took her hand.
Nicole stiffened at the contact. Immediately, he let go. She shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a ghost? I guess that’s why Francie went on a month-long vacation. It’s pretty crappy she didn’t warn me, though.”
“Francie’s really nice,” Aaron said. “Maybe she didn’t even know. She’s lived there for years, and I don’t think she’d be okay with a ghost. One time, she asked me to come over to kill a spider.”
Despite her obvious tension, Nicole grinned. “Really? Did you?”
“I would have, but when I came over we couldn’t find it. Which didn’t make her feel better.”
“Ha, I bet.” She glanced out the window in the direction of the house. “Why would a spirit start acting up once I moved in?”
Aaron shrugged. “You got me. But I never saw a ghost in that garden before last n
ight. It was this young woman, and she was dressed like it was a long time ago, maybe the Depression?” He decided not to mention the head wound. Nicole was scared enough already. “She was crying. And then she was gone.”
“That’s got to be the person in my dream.”
Aaron asked, “Can I come over and look at those flowers?” He was dying of curiosity.
“I don’t know if they’ll still be black. The other flowers stopped stinking.” She gave a shaky laugh. “If they look normal, you’re not allowed to cart me off to the psych ward. This isn’t Take Your Neighbor to Work Day.”
Inwardly, Aaron groaned. “You know we don’t actually cart people off, right?”
“I know. Dumb joke.” Nicole agreed to let him come over and look. The dog trotted with them to the door, emitting a little whine as they left. “Take it easy, Mack,” Aaron said, scratching him on the head. “We’ll be back—I’ll be back.”
The inside of Francie’s house was just as Aaron remembered it: formal, with dark shining hardwood floors and a grandfather clock ticking in the front entry. When they stepped into Francie’s dining room, Aaron saw the blackened bouquet on the table. “That’s bizarre.”
“Right? Oh God, I’m glad I’m not the only one seeing this.” She took a step backward, and then another. “Can we go out on the porch?”
He could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. “Sure thing.”
A white wooden railing surrounded the front porch, and orangey-red gingerbread adorned the top. The charm of the whole place made whatever evil imbued it even more unsettling. Nicole sat down on the swing. “I just didn’t want to be in there.”
“I don’t blame you.” He took a seat next to her on the porch swing, making it sway. “Between those things happening with the flowers, and singing a song you didn’t know—it’s no wonder it scared the daylights out of you.”
She frowned. “The ghost was singing while she was cooking. Before she realized her husband wasn’t coming home for dinner.”