Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  Scritch.

  Fine. My relaxation was fully spoiled now so I just gave it up. Stepping out of the tub, I quickly rubbed myself dry with a towel and pulled on my robe. Just as I reached the door and started to turn the handle, I heard the sound of a doorknob turning on the other side of the room. What on earth? I turned my head just in time to see the door to the under eaves closet open and snap shut quickly.

  I opened the bathroom door and stuck my head out into the hallway. “Connie, come here,” I yelled down the steps. “Quick!” I was more annoyed than scared, but nevertheless had goose bumps running down my arms.

  She sprinted up the steps taking two at a time. “What now?”

  “Come in the bathroom.” We both went into the bathroom and closed the door. “First it sounded like someone was rubbing against the door to the hallway, just like it did before. But then the door to the closet inside here just opened and closed on its own. Let’s see if it will do it if you’re in here.” I sat on the edge of the tub and Connie started to sit on the floor with her back to the wall. “I wouldn’t sit on the floor if I were you. The carpet is filthy.” She shrugged and sat on the floor anyway.

  I waited several minutes then started thinking that nothing was going to happen. My mind started to wander and I began making a mental to-do list for the next day. I was caught up in my plan when Connie hissed, “Laney.” She was staring wide-eyed at the door to the hallway.

  Looking up at the door I didn’t see anything different. It was still closed. Then I heard it. Fabric rubbing wood like someone was leaning against the door. Just like before. Before I could say anything Connie jumped up and pulled the door open quickly. Naturally, there was no one there.

  “Weird,” Connie said quietly.

  We started to walk out into the hall but hit an extremely cold spot right outside the doorway. Connie was ahead of me and stopped abruptly but I could feel it too. She turned and looked at me and said nervously, “It wasn’t that cold out here a minute ago.”

  We huddled in the bathroom for a few minutes, not sure what to do. The upstairs was deathly silent. “We can’t stay here all night,” I said finally. “If we don’t hear anything else, let’s go back downstairs.”

  “What if we do hear something else?” Connie asked. “What then?”

  I shook my head in wonder as we waited for a few moments more. When nothing more materialized we ran down the steps into the living room where we skidded to a halt.

  A beautiful young woman, her blonde hair pulled back in a chignon, stood by the front door. She was wearing a full gown with a sheer pink, voile overskirt that came to her knees then faded into nothingness. She looked at us with fear in her eyes. Slowly raising a finger to her lips, she vanished completely.

  Connie started moving before me and she raced for the back door. I followed a few steps behind her. She struggled with the latch that had a tendency to stick anyway, and she cried out as she tore a nail in the process. I reached over and helped open it as we both scrambled to get outside at the same time. We made it to the other side of the garden just off the back steps before stopping and turning around to look at the house we just evacuated. With our hearts pounding and both of us breathing hard, we both shrieked in fear as a voice behind us spoke.

  “I see you’ve met the ghost.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  We only settled down slightly when we realized the voice was of the living and not the dead. I could tell Connie was thinking the same thing as me when she asked our new companion, “You know about our ghost?”

  The sun had already set and the shadows were lengthening as evening was settling in. Sitting on the patio next door was a plump older woman. Her gray hair stood up at all angles on her head as she rocked on a wooden swing. The deep lines on her face indicated a storied life, with each wrinkle a hard won battle scar to be worn with pride. The smoke from her cigarette enveloped her in a haze as she studied us with deep blue eyes.

  “Know about it? We relish it. Most of the excitement around here comes from watching the house next door.” She laughed, a hoarse, gravelly cackle that was evidence of her lifelong habit. “You all are the second group running out of that house today.”

  Connie and I just stared at the woman. We were still processing what made us run out of the house just moments ago. Then I realized what she had said. “Second today? I don’t think anyone but us has been in the house. You must mean when we ended up in the front lawn a couple of days ago.”

  “Then you think wrong. That piece of painted fluff the old man used to saunter around with came running out earlier today. Left the back door wide open.”

  “You mean Saundra? Are you sure it was today?”

  “Quite sure, dear. It was Mother’s day to help at the old folks home. She’s eighty years old but she likes to help out the old ones once a week.” The woman laughed again. “If I’m half as spry at her age I’ll be lucky. Anyway, we’d just arrived at home when out that hussy flew, short skirt and all. It was a hoot. Best laugh Mother’s had in a few weeks.”

  I started to feel my anger building. Saundra? In our house alone? At the same time, I had the feeling my neighbor was one woman I really wanted to get to know better. Not only did she seem like one fun gal, but I could tell she probably knew everything that happened not only on our street, but probably in the whole town and in the next town over. She might even know more about our house and the people who used to live in it. I walked over to her.

  “Hi, we’re Soren Thoresson’s granddaughters. I’m Laney and this is Connie. Nice to meet you,” I said, walking up with my hand out to shake hers.

  “Nice to meet you also, I’m Louise Gilbert, my mother’s Ruth. So, what sent you packing?” Her hand was warm and strong, and I tried not to wince as she squeezed. Connie reached around me and shook her hand as well.

  I was brought back to our scare in an instant. I looked over at Connie. How honest was it wise to be?

  “Come now, no need to fear telling me anything. We watch but we don’t spread it about.” I highly doubted her, but didn’t say anything to contradict the woman. Finishing her cigarette, she tossed it in a coffee can that was sitting next to the swing.

  “We saw a dark shape,” Connie started.

  I looked over at her, surprised. Was that what she thought she’d seen?

  “By the front door,” she added.

  “Hmm ... yup. Some see shapes, others have things move about them, and then some actually hear talking. Mostly it happens at night but it’s not unusual to see a plumber or handyman of some sort race out in the middle of the day. Not that it couldn’t have been the mean old goat just being difficult.” We all turned to look at the house. Some lights shone through the window and you could see right into the kitchen. Another reason to get some shades for the windows. I didn’t want to be on display for the entire town. We were entertainment enough when we were outside the house.

  “We’ve lived here next door all our lives. My parents built this house in the nineteen thirties. Soren moved next door before he married Teoline, but he never talked about anything. The ghost stories started sometime after they were married when Teoline would mention strange occurrences. The owners before them pretty much kept to themselves so I’m not sure if they ever experienced anything. They didn’t seem like serial killers, but after watching TV you never know what your neighbors are up to.” Louise began hacking like she was going to cough up a lung, then leaned forward and stretched. “Well, I’d better go inside to Mother, she’ll be worried about me. She doesn’t like it when I’m out here alone at night. I’ll have to tell her about you all when I get in. It’ll be a nice little bit of excitement to go with her bedtime milk. Come on over some time and meet Mother. She loves visitors.” With that she pushed off the seat and made for the back door.

  Connie and I stood and watched her, a little dismayed that now we had nothing left to do but go back to our house.

  “Maybe we should call Emmett,” Connie began.


  “We are not calling Emmett. What can he do anyway? I’ve seen those shows on TV. They act like they can help but they never actually do anything.”

  “There are things people can do, even if they don’t necessarily show it on TV. There’s exorcism, smudging, some people use crystals to clear negative energy.”

  “Are you saying Emmett does these things?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly, but we could find someone else if we need to. We can’t just act like nothing happened and we didn’t see anything. We should at least call him and see. What have you got against Emmett all of a sudden? I thought you guys were hitting it off?”

  “Well, you thought wrong. I don’t need that kind of complication in my life right now anyway. I just got my divorce. I shouldn’t jump into something else. Besides, if we call him now, he’ll come right over, and he was already up all night last night with us. I’m sure he has to work in the morning. We can at least wait until tomorrow.”

  “So do you think we should stay here tonight or go stay with our mothers?”

  “I do not want to stay with my mother. That’s a slippery slope I’d like to avoid.”

  “I think we should stay here. Think about it,” Connie said finally. “We know who that was.”

  “We do?”

  “Of course we do. She resembled you, Laney. It had to be Grandmother.”

  I thought of the young woman, with blonde hair and features similar to mine and I had to agree. I had seen pictures of her when I was growing up. “You’re right. It had to be her.”

  “And that’s actually a good thing,” Connie continued excitedly. “She’s not evil. She won’t try to hurt us. Maybe we can communicate with her!”

  “I could have just tripped on the steps that time I fell. I think we were so convinced something was after me that we started making assumptions.”

  “Let’s do this, Laney. We’ll take our cell phones and both sleep in my room again. We’ll stick together and if anything scary happens we’ll have each other.”

  “Deal,” I said and we shook hands on it. Marching up to the back door, I pushed it open with confidence. Stepping into the kitchen I stopped to listen. All was quiet.

  We left a light on in both the living room and the kitchen this time then headed for the stairs. Walking past the living room, I was getting tired of seeing boxes and was starting to feel claustrophobic. “I cannot wait to start clearing some of this stuff out of these rooms.”

  “Me too. We should call the cable company tomorrow and get internet service hooked up. I’m just about going into withdrawal without my computer, and I’ll need it to put items on eBay. The sooner we start that, the sooner we can start clearing some of this stuff out of here. Once we decide what to sell I’ll photograph the items then pack them in boxes so that once they sell I can ship them out right away,” Connie said, following me up the stairs.

  “That sounds efficient,” I answered as we entered Connie’s room, but I was only half-listening. My thoughts had returned back to what we had seen that prompted us to go fleeing outside in fear. I was just so tired. “It’s been such a long day. I just want to go to bed. I don’t want to think about eBay, ghosts, divorces, my mother, or anything else. Let’s just let it all go for now. I’ll even let you call Emmett tomorrow.” I took off my shoes and collapsed onto my bed.

  “There’s one thing you forgot that we also don’t want to talk about,” Connie said.

  “I don’t want to think about Melanie either.”

  “No, the fact that Saundra was in the house today.”

  Suddenly wide awake, I sat up on the edge of my bed.

  “That’s right. Not only do we know she has a key to the house but she was in here for some reason when we were gone. Do you think she was trying to steal something?”

  “I don’t know, but it sounds about right. There are a lot of loose items that have value, but Louise didn’t say she was carrying anything when she saw her run out. I suppose she could have put something in her pockets like jewelry or cash. She might know better what valuables he had in the house. Regardless, the back door was still open when we got home. We need to call a locksmith first thing tomorrow and get all the locks changed. After all these years, who knows how many keys might be out there.”

  “At least that’s one thing that wasn’t a ghostly event. We’re going to have to corner her and get some information out of her. She must have been in here quite a bit while she was engaged to Grandfather. Can you imagine?” I shuddered. One, I wouldn’t want to marry someone who kept house like this and two, the thought of my old grandfather and trampy Saundra together was just plain icky. “What’s wrong with older men? Why do they have to run around with younger women? They can’t possibly have anything in common. They grew up in different eras, so their life experiences are totally different. I don’t see how a relationship like that can ever last.”

  “I don’t think they are looking for a true connection. But I’m so tired I’m not even thinking clearly, and thinking about them is not going to bring on sweet dreams. Let’s go to sleep. We can try to handle it in the morning,” Connie said.

  I still needed to settle down and took a few extra minutes in the bathroom to wash my face and brush my hair but Connie went to bed right away. Returning to the bedroom, I closed the door and climbed under my covers. “Why do you think our grandmother is still here?” I asked. But Connie was already on her way to dreamland and didn’t answer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was still dark when I awoke to hear the muffled clattering of dishes in the kitchen. Rolling over, I saw Connie still lying in bed. Instantly, I was wide awake and sitting up. Now what? My heart pounding, I quickly grabbed my robe and ran down the stairs, my bare feet slapping each step. I turned at the bottom of the steps, looking for intruders then exhaled in relief. My mother and Aunt Shelly were in the midst of cleaning the kitchen. “Good morning, sleepy head,” my mother affectionately called out.

  “Mom, do you know what time it is?” I grumbled then let out another sigh of relief.

  “Time for you to get out of bed.”

  “God, I hate morning people.” My mother had been this way since I was a child, waking at dawn, surprised everyone else didn’t do the same. Making my way to the coffee machine, I focused on the thought of my first cup. After the obligatory infusion of cream and sugar, I took my cup to the table and sat down. Perking up, I noticed someone had brought donuts and I reached in to grab my favorite chocolate-covered. I smiled and settled in, the dark chocolate melting in my mouth and filling my body with more sugar.

  “I told you the donuts would tame them,” my aunt said, smiling.

  “Yes, now I forgive you anything,” I answered back in buoyant spirits. I heard Connie plodding down the stairs. “Look, donuts,” I called as I held mine out for her to see.

  “God, I hate morning people,” she grumbled under her breath as she made her way to the coffee machine.

  “So what are you two doing here this morning anyway?” I asked.

  “That’s not the most welcoming attitude, Laney,” my aunt answered as she came to sit at the table. “We have a lot more work to do around here and we decided on the way home last night that as mothers we should be here when all of this ghost stuff is happening.”

  The sun started shining through the window as Connie and my mom pulled out chairs and joined us at the table with their coffee. “You’re not moving in are you?” Connie asked.

  “No. But we thought we could be here a lot during the day,” Aunt Shelly answered.

  “Well, you missed a good one last night,” Connie said, taking a donut covered in sprinkles.

  “I knew we shouldn’t leave you here alone. What happened?” my mother asked, her face drawn in concern.

  “We saw her last night, Mom.”

  “Who?”

  “Grandma. It had to be her. Young woman, blonde, fifties clothing. She looked just like the few pictures we have of her.”

  “You saw
her? In the house?” My mom and Shelly looked at each other incredulously.

  “It’s been so long,” my mom said, blinking away the tears. “I thought I saw her, just once, right after the accident. But it was so fleeting, I couldn’t be sure. I tried to tell Dad but he just got angry and said to stop making up stories. I never mentioned it again. Sometimes I thought I could feel her close when I was upset but then I wrote it off as wishful thinking.”

  “I was always envious,” Aunt Shelly said longingly. “I wanted to see her too, but never did.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “She was beautiful.”

  “She looked scared,” Connie said.

  “Scared?”

  “We just saw her for an instant, Mom. We were so shocked, it was hard to tell exactly what we saw.” I gave Connie a look, no need to alarm our mothers any more than they already were. “But it’s okay, we actually felt better after we realized it was her. She would never hurt us, so we don’t have anything to be afraid of anymore.”

  “Did she talk to you?” Aunt Shelly asked.

  “No. It was really quick. She was there at the front door, then she was gone. We came back in the house after meeting the neighbor and went to bed and everything was fine.”

  “Which neighbor?” my Mom asked.

  “Louise, next door.”

  “Oh, she used to babysit us. Her mother was always a real hoot, very spunky. What was her name?”

  “Ruth, and it sounds like she still is. Louise said we’d have to meet her someday.”

  “We’re thinking we’re just going to move forward, Mom, and see what happens. Maybe Grandma will actually communicate with us. But in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do on this house,” I said, trying to change the subject. “So what should we start working on next? How about the dining room? It would be nice to have a bigger table available to sit down and eat at. I don’t think I can stand much more of this clutter all over the place. Once we clear that area out then we can start moving stuff down from the master bedroom next.”