The Dead House

by Billy O'Callaghan

  After this, we lapsed again into a sleepy silence, and by five o’clock had arrived back at the cottage. While Liz and Alison lingered outside to enjoy the warm air and the view over the ocean, I helped Maggie to haul out some chairs.

  In the kitchen I caught her watching me, a smirk causing her eyes to shine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Just, you and Alison. I’m not imagining the spark, am I?’

  ‘You imagine everything,’ I said, wanting to be annoyed.

  She lifted one of the kitchen chairs and struggled towards the back door. ‘Did you kiss her yet?’ she asked, without turning, just as she was about to step outside.

  ‘Let’s make a deal. I tell you to mind your own business and you agree.’

  ‘But this is my business. Since I’m the one stirring the pot. And where’s the harm in a bit of friendly advice?’

  I sighed. ‘Give it a rest, Maggie. It’s too hot for your games.’

  ‘Well, just don’t wait too long. That’s all I’m saying.’

  We sat around until it was almost too dark to see, drinking, though not to excess, having already burnt ourselves out the night before, sticking with beer and enjoying the ease of one another’s company. Dinner was two large pizzas, cooked from frozen and eaten from our laps, a plain cheese shared between Maggie and Liz, and a hot pepperoni and mushroom that I split with Alison, and at some point in the evening, at Liz’s suggestion, we took ourselves down for a stroll on the beach. In what little of the day remained, the sand was hot and the water, when we kicked off our shoes and waded in shin-deep, felt warm and inviting. Maggie wanted us to swim, even though we had no bathing suits, but Alison’s shyness won out. I caught her glance, and made her blush by smiling in a way that she couldn’t have been expected to know yet was an expression of helplessness, and I suppose I would have gone along with the fun but was equally glad, and relieved, to be spared the ordeal.

  Dusk suited the ocean. The sun slipped away, having burnt the sky with the colours of heat and turning the water to blood and blackness. The only sounds were the horseplay of Liz and Maggie splashing one another and the accompaniment of their high, raucous laughter, and away to the east the first constellation fell into view, a silvery dusting, nameless to us, that kept its own order and had been climbing the night forever. I came out of the water and moved a few paces up along the beach. Alison stood a little apart from the others, and when she turned and waved to me I raised a hand, smiled and waved back. My jeans were rolled up to my knees and I’d unbuttoned my shirt, and the air felt good against my body.

  And then, once more, away to my left in the direction of the rocks, a flicker of whiteness snagged my peripheral vision. My heart quickened. The reefs lay empty before me, but secretive. I started towards them, then stopped. Alison must have been watching me, because she came up out of the water, calling my name.

  ‘Mike? What is it? Did you see something again?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A movement, I think. It’s probably nothing. Too much beer. I suppose I’m just not used to all this stillness.’

  Her face was very close to mine, her eyes black and glassy. I could feel her breath on my skin. I didn’t plan it, I just leaned in and kissed her. Not thinking, but unable to help myself. And far from trying to resist, she closed her eyes and her hand slipped into mine and she came against me, slight and delicate but with an unexpected assurance, and I felt myself drawn deep into her darkness. There was a sense of free fall, with no expectation of the interrupting ground. I let go and the seconds lost their way, and when we finally stepped apart I was surprised that so little had changed on the surface of the world. I could feel the banging of my heart all the way up into my throat, and I drew a deep breath and let it go, feeling it quiver through me and explode away, but twenty, thirty paces down the strand, Maggie and Liz, oblivious to our seismic movements, kept on with their splashing game amid the squeals for mercy and revenge, and the night itself had not advanced an inch against the plummy dusk. I wanted to speak but Ali’s hand was still in mine, our fingers entwined, and when I glanced again in the direction of the reefs, there was nothing to see.

  ‘A gull,’ she murmured, for the second time in mere hours. Returning to its nest, no doubt, after a day spent scavenging the shoreline, a lone white flash settling for the night among the rocks. I nodded agreement, but turned us both away so that I wouldn’t have to glimpse it again.

  *

  ‘So, tell us, Michael. Would you say you’re in the habit of seeing ghosts?’

  Maggie was on her knees in the centre of the room, lighting candles. Every time she struck a fresh match her face bloomed momentarily yellow into view, but when the match went out, usually to a puff of breath, she seemed engulfed by the night, sucked back down into its abyss. The candles remained lit, but in few enough numbers yet to properly penetrate the dark, and only a suggestion of her features lingered until the next match flared, the lines of her face holding largely as a memory.

  Her tone was old ground, a stilted, good-natured mocking that played to her audience yet knew better than to fully abandon its own doubt. I sat back in the armchair and pretended to consider the question. We were all tired and happy after a long day, and she’d already cracked the seal on the first of two bottles of Jameson bought earlier from the off-licence in Castletownbere, half-filling four water glasses despite our dutiful protestations.

  I didn’t really mind being teased.

  ‘I wouldn’t say in the habit, no. But being around artists so much, I’m certainly no stranger to the unusual. Or, let’s face it, the downright weird. So, I’ve seen some things. I don’t think I’d call them ghostly, though. And I’m not sure I’d call this ghostly, either.’

  ‘Describe it.’

  I studied the glow of the candles. The elongated yellow stillness of the flames added atmosphere and encouraged an almost prayerful calm but at the same time seemed to lend the dark a greater density, emphasising the blind corners. Beside me, barely an arm’s reach away, Alison sat curled up on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, most of the weight of her body leaning leftwards onto one elbow, and the armrest, watching me. I didn’t have to turn to feel her gaze or to sense the hint of a smile that had gained such a new and comfortable permanence on her mouth.

  ‘I’m not sure I can,’ I said. ‘This morning I really did think it was a person, a girl or a young woman. Because it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to find someone on the rocks. But looking back, I don’t know, it doesn’t feel quite real. It’s as if I have all the pieces but they won’t fit together. And then, tonight, all I got was a glimpse, a white movement gone before I could properly even focus. I’m sure the dusk didn’t help, or maybe that was the reason I saw anything at all.’ I shrugged. ‘Like Alison said, it was probably just a gull. Or my mind playing tricks.’

  From outside, the approaching sound of footsteps interrupted our chat. We knew it was only Liz, but a certain disquiet layered our silence, which most likely had to do with how heavy the night felt. After a few seconds, she came through the door, carrying a white plastic bag shaped to the large flat squareness of a board game or an old LP record.

  Maggie was still on her knees on the floor, the flesh of her upturned face shining now like honey in the glow of the small surrounding flames.

  ‘Where’d you go? I poured you a drink.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. I just needed something out of the car.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone up alone, Liz. Jesus, it’s so dark. And that path still needs surfacing. You could easily have fallen or turned an ankle.’

  Liz raised the plastic bag. ‘I remembered that I’d brought this from home, to help us while away the hours. And of course I knew there’d be alcohol involved. But I must say, the candles are the perfect touch.’

  ‘What is it?’ Maggie asked, reaching for the bag. ‘Snakes and Ladders?’

  I leaned forward in my chair and watched her uncover a stiff white sheet of cardboard. The neat bl
ack block-capital letters of the alphabet had been laid out by hand across the centre of the sheet in two slightly arcing lines, giving the effect of a stretched and colourless rainbow, and directly beneath, following the same sweep, a row of numbers running from one to nine and finishing with a zero. In the top left corner, Liz had drawn a circle of sun with spider-leg rays alongside the word ‘Yes’, and in the top right a crescent moon and the word ‘No’.

  ‘It’s a Ouija board,’ I said. ‘I’ve only seen these in films. You made this?’

  ‘A few nights ago. I thought we could have some fun with it. Old houses are stuffed to splitting with memories, and it’d be a shame to waste the opportunity.’

  I drained my whiskey. I can’t say why I felt so uneasy. I’m not sure, even at that point, that I’d have described myself as a complete non-believer, but neither would I have come anywhere near fitting even the most relaxed definition of religious. Life, from what I’d seen of it, was complicated enough without adding superstition to the stew. But every time I closed my eyes I was back on the beach, alone this time, in the first of the morning light, a grim and colourless dawn caught between seasons. And I was walking towards the rocks.

  ‘I’ve heard of them,’ Alison said, ‘but I’ve always been wary of using one.’

  She rose from the couch and began to clear the table. I watched her, trying to read her thoughts, but couldn’t decide whether what I was seeing was anxiety or excitement. It was one of those airless nights and the room felt warm. I undid a button on my shirt, and when that did not suffice I got up and went to stand for a moment in the doorway. Outside, apart from the spray of light from an unseen moon ribbing what had to be the ocean, blackness dominated. I stood there, breathing deeply of the dark, tasting its salt and chlorophyll sweetness, and didn’t turn until Maggie called out to me. The others were already seated on three sides of the table, the board laid out flat between them. I went after the open bottle before joining them, facing Liz, with Alison on my left and Maggie to my right.

  ‘So, what do we do?’

  Liz had the board facing her. A small spiral notepad, a pen and one of the shimmering candles lay beside her right hand. She placed a shot glass upturned on the centre of the board.

  ‘There’s nothing to it. We each just put a finger on the glass, like this, and I’ll ask the questions. Hopefully we’ll get a response.’

  ‘Hopefully?’ Alison gave up a cough of laughter, a jarring sound that hit, then fell just as suddenly away.

  ‘Well, there are no guarantees, of course. But if this sort of thing works at all then it’ll surely work here. The west coast is full of places like this, homes left to ruin after the Famine hit and the population either fled or just died out. A lot of the bodies weren’t even properly buried. They simply lay where they fell until time and the ground swallowed them up. The past must be thick as tar in these parts.’

  My heartbeat had quickened. I sucked down whiskey from my glass and held the final dregs on my tongue. The flavours of the land filtered up through the heat, a mineral sting of dirt and turf and clean water. A weight settled in my throat and the high part of my chest. I smiled to myself, but only for the benefit of the others, in case any of them happened to be watching. Then I poured myself another shot.

  Across the table, Liz closed her eyes and asked, in a whisper, that we do the same. We each reached out, placed an index finger on the base of the upturned glass, and shut our eyes. Something about that deep and sudden closed-off darkness, perhaps in combination with the alcohol I’d consumed, did something unpleasant to me, brought on a vertigo state that set me in some inner way off-kilter. I held my breath, which seemed to help, but not quite enough, and after a minute or so I gave up.

  The candlelight seemed stronger now. The others kept the stillness of standing stones, dutiful, at least on a surface level, in their compliance, ready and open to some trance state. But their clenched mouths were braced, their nerves wired against the least touch or sound. I came within half a second of slapping the table. But I held back. Their anxiety was real. Instead, I focused on the glass in the dead centre of the table, and waited. I think, looking back, that I knew something would happen.

  ‘Are there any spirits present?’ Liz asked at last, pitching the words a clear tone at least above what was usual for her. Beside me, the hint of a smile, most likely shaped by fear, creased the corners of Alison’s lips. ‘If there is anyone here, please give us a sign. Make a tapping sound, speak through one of us, help us to move this glass. Please give us a sign that you can hear us.’

  ‘Do you feel that?’ Maggie whispered. She opened her eyes and stared at the glass, then raised her gaze, with pleading, to Liz.

  ‘That’s Mike.’

  ‘It’s not.’ To prove my innocence I raised my hand.

  ‘I still feel it. Like a vibration.’

  I touched the glass again. She was right. A tremor, barely perceptible, as if it were catching the hum of an almost-tuned radio signal.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘There’s something here,’ Liz said, her voice thick with the pure thrilled air of dread. ‘I think it’s drawing energy from us. Just wait.’

  The vibration deepened. We all felt it. The glass was cold to the touch but its resonance crept slowly up my arm, a little bit like the pins and needles sensation of blood rushing back to a limb after a period of prolonged numbness. Then, by degrees, the glass set to quivering, and I watched, transfixed, we all did, until that alone became the measure of time and everything else ceased to matter. Beside me, very softly, Alison began to cry. She made no sound apart from a slight disruption to her breathing. The tracks of her tears gleamed in the candlelight. I reached for her and took her free hand, not caring what the others thought, and she wove her fingers between mine in a way that linked our arms inside the elbow. The skin of her palm was cool and dry, familiar still from our morning on the beach, and for just an instant, for me, the glass lessened in importance. Gradually, though, its trembling intensified. Within a minute it had started, quite visibly, to rock.

  ‘Christ. It’s actually moving.’

  ‘Just take it easy, everyone.’

  ‘Is this real?’ asked Maggie. ‘We should be filming this.’

  Liz raised her free hand, demanding silence, and again lifted her voice to its peculiar new pitch.

  ‘Who is here with us? Please try to identify yourself.’ She looked around, as if expecting to see something. ‘Use our energy to spell out your name.’

  Everything stopped. We held our breath and glanced at one another. Maggie began to laugh.

  ‘Funny, Mike. You’re a real hoot.’

  ‘I told you,’ I said, with more force than I’d intended. I felt angry, for no good reason. And I knew it, but couldn’t seem to help myself. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Fine. Liz then.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s moving again,’ Alison whispered. ‘Oh Christ, I think I’m going to be sick.’

  Steadily then, the glass began to slide across the cardboard, slipping in apparently random fashion among the letters. My view of the board was inverted, which made it difficult to follow the pattern with any real accuracy, but Alison, beside me, who had a slightly better view, tight-ened her grip on my hand. I could hear the wet tear of her breath and then a constricting gasp when the glass again came to rest. Across the table, Liz, mumbling to herself, scribbled down the letters on her notepad. Then she raised the pad, tilted it so that it caught the sheen of candlelight, and considered for a moment what she’d written.

  ‘It must be in Irish,’ she said, and let out a long, unsteady sigh. ‘I think it says, An Máistir. The Master.’

  Alison’s crying intensified. ‘Oh, Jesus. I told you. This is dangerous. We need to stop before something goes wrong.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Liz said, trying for the sort of reassurance that I could see, even in the darkness, she did not quite feel. ‘I’ve done this be
fore. We’re fine. Really. Nothing can go wrong. We’re free to stop at any time.’

  ‘Then I’d like to stop now.’

  ‘Ali, please,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s just give it a few more minutes. Then we’ll stop if you still want to. But it’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘It’s not my idea of fun,’ Alison said, but she reached out and returned the tip of her left index finger to the glass. After a moment of hesitation, the rest of us did the same. Immediately, the glass began to vibrate, rocking slightly from side to side, then again set to drifting across the board, the movement slow, casual, hitting letters in flurries and stopping for seconds at a time. Twice or three times I was certain that it had finished, but then it would stir once more and continue on its crawl.

  ‘Well? What did he say?’

  Liz studied her notepad. ‘It’s difficult to tell where one word begins and another ends. I thought it’d make more sense than this. When I’ve done it before it’s always been much easier to follow. But this is in Irish, and even at school mine was never much better than terrible. As far as I can make out, it says, ‘An bhfuil cead agam teacht isteach?’ which I think means, ‘Can I come in?’ Or words to that effect. Well, that’s what it does mean, but something like that would be a literal translation. I think he’s asking for permission to join us.’