Rules for Ghosting

by A. J. Paquette

  The boiler room it was, then. Dahlia made herself a little air-cushion, crossed her legs under her, and started talking. Laura didn’t react when Dahlia explained to her that she had died. She didn’t react to much of anything, actually, and Dahlia started to get a little worried. “What do you remember?” she asked gently. “About before?”

  Laura looked up at her, blinking. “I died, truly? It is only … that it seems like but a few minutes ago that I was telling Mama …” She trailed off, and though Dahlia waited patiently, she seemed to have lost her train of thought, drifting from one wall to the other, looking carefully at every chink and crack in the plaster.

  “Laura?” Dahlia said.

  “My new room was so lovely.” Laura’s voice was as wispy as her form. She was trailing her finger across the surface of the boiler now. “All the way in the tippy-toppy reaches of the attic. I was so pleased with it and Mama went to an awful lot of trouble having the carpenters prepare it for me. But as soon as I moved in there I knew that it wasn’t right.”

  Something in her tone chilled Dahlia as much as her actual words. She was talking about the room where they had both lived—and died, apparently. What was going on?

  “The room was evil, you see. I could tell that right away. But Mama wouldn’t listen. She had gone to such expense, she said, and how silly of me not to enjoy it after all of that! I thought perhaps she was right, but oh, the headaches! I cannot begin to describe the pain and weakness I began to feel from the very first night. I even felt …” She paused, and suddenly her gaze was sharp, and so incredibly sad. “I even felt at times that I might be losing my mind. But I see now, at last, that this was not the case.”

  “What … what do you mean?”

  “There was a presence in the room with me all the time. A lurking evil. I could not see it then but I could sense it, could feel it eroding my mind and working away at my nerves.”

  Dahlia wanted to cry, not only for what Laura had suffered in her life, but even more for the sad bits of her that were left. She was talking plain crazy.

  As Laura idly traced her hand across the boiler, she abruptly stilled. She turned to face Dahlia again, her index finger pointing at an opening in the ancient machinery. “Here it is,” she whispered. “Here is the source of that evil. I felt it when I was … alive … and I felt it somehow through that long sleep that seemed to go so quickly and yet last forever. Once I was free I chased it all through the small passageways of this house.”

  “The vents?” Dahlia was confused. What was Laura talking about? “You were moving through the heating vents.”

  “Look!” Laura leaned in until her ear was up against the narrow opening where she had been pointing. “Listen! Can you hear it? Can you see it?”

  Dahlia decided to stop thinking the other ghost was crazy and pay attention to what she was actually saying. She leaned closer, and …

  “What is that?” With her ghost-sight she could clearly see the waves of heat rippling a pale orangey-red. But there was something else, too, underlying the heat. There was a dark purple thread, twining alongside and in between the heat molecules. Something that pulsed with a familiar beat. “No,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” said Laura, reaching her ghost-hands out and separating the thin strand, holding it up like a very sheer scarf, then letting it drop back down with the rest of the heat as it traveled out through the vents and up, up, up into the house.

  “Poison?” Dahlia echoed. “But how … what …” Her eyes traveled to a small, newer inscription tacked onto the side of the ancient boiler: Machinery should be inspected regularly to ensure that carbon monoxide levels are regular. A leak can raise carbon monoxide to perilous levels, which can lead to health hazards including severe head pain, mood swings, personality disorders, amnesia, and death.

  Carbon monoxide? Could it really be? The thin purple thread seemed to mock her. She thought back to all the news articles they had read. They were cursed, the Silverton family, cursed with … what? Strange personality disorders, mysterious debilitating illnesses, memory loss … and death. Could it be this horribly simple?

  She knew her mother had never cared much for mechanical things. She would never have had someone inspect the heating system, but could so many others before her have been ignorant of such things, all those many years ago? She sighed. Actually, she could very much believe it. And more than that: the house was huge, and she knew for a fact that her mother had kept the heat on very low. The house had terrible insulation, and it was always freezing as the heat escaped through little cracks here and there that would have cost too much to fix and so never were taken care of. In the deepest winter, just about every room had its own space heater, to supplement the weak heating system.

  Every room except the attic. Laura’s attic room. And her own.

  That room was sealed as tight as a drum. Oh! If she closed her eyes, she could see herself now on that fateful last night, slamming the window shut against the winter’s cold, her mother turning up the heat just this once because it was so unexpectedly cold, and all those fumes, unseen but deadly, creeping in to fill the empty space.

  Dahlia’s eyes were shining with tears when she looked up and met Laura’s own. “Carbon monoxide poisoning,” she said. “That was the problem all along, since the very beginning. Some were cursed to live and grow old with it poisoning their brains little by little. You and I got a huge death dose of it all at once.” She reached out a hand toward Laura, who was still pointing at the faulty opening. “This is the curse, right here.” A curse that wasn’t a curse at all—just human neglect and terrible, terrible ignorance. So much damage had been caused by this one machine, so much harm done.

  Closing her hand over Laura’s, Dahlia took a deep breath and lifted their palms toward the boiler. The second she made Contact, the air around her started to crackle and shimmer.

  Shifting into Clearsight, she gazed through the walls to the outdoors, through the garden, up to the gate and … Yes! As she watched, a huge swirly dome leapt into sight, encasing the house. The dome crackled as though with millions of volts of electricity. Then there was a POOF.

  And the dome disappeared.

  The Boundary was gone.

  Chapter 26

  The Jolly Marzipans were a huge success. Oliver could tell by the way the applause echoed loudly through the house, and by the clink of toppling-over punch glasses as the guests eagerly rushed forward to congratulate Mr. Day on his fine accomplishment. Whether the enthusiasm would have been quite so extreme if the punch had been less … punchy was another story. But still, from his hiding spot at the back of the portrait room Oliver had to admit that Dad’s show had been pretty impressive. In his mind he could already see the view-counter on his dad’s website skyrocketing after this performance. Maybe even enough to bring that success he’d been chasing for as long as Oliver could remember.

  Too bad it was going to come too late for the thing Oliver wanted most in the world.

  Meanwhile, with the puppet show over, the guests were starting to move back downstairs. While the show was on, Rutabartle had been busy too. The partygoers ambled through the hallway and back downstairs, toward the snack table, which Mom had filled with a new round of salmon-cheese puffs, ham will-o-the-wisps, and her specialty, deep-fried stuffed olives. But Oliver lingered back to watch the town official.

  Rutabartle had set up a folding table right in the center of the balcony overlooking the gathering hall. Not so far, in fact, from the spot Oliver had recently used for spying. Grinding his teeth a little, Oliver found a new spot, a dark alcove on the other end adjoining the staircase. From there he could watch both the party guests and Rutabartle, who was gathering papers and various other objects into place and clearing his throat noisily. The auction was about to begin, apparently.

  But it didn’t—not yet. Instead, Rutabartle whipped out a red plastic megaphone and started hollering into it: “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much for coming tonight to attend t
he grand Silverton Manor Open House!”

  Down in the dining room, Oliver could see Mom roll her eyes and huff off toward the kitchen. She must not have liked Rutabartle taking credit for her party any more than Oliver did.

  “As you well know, this amazingly fine piece of property, which was not to go on the market until next April, has now astoundingly been made available nearly six months early!”

  This was not news to any of the party guests, but still their faces looked doubtful. Despite everything they had seen on their tour tonight, despite Mom and Dad and their normal kids, and despite Rutabartle’s many attempts to drum up enthusiasm, people still seemed nervous about putting down money on the manor. And why not? Hadn’t they known about the curse for decades—gossiped about it, feared and dreaded it? Oliver’s heart lifted a bit. Maybe there was still hope. Maybe no one would bid in Rutabartle’s auction, and he would call it off, and their family could stay. Long enough to save up more money, or at least to figure out what to do next.

  But the man wasn’t finished yet. “I am fully aware of the noxious reputation that has been cast about concerning Silverton Manor. Old trenches deeply dug are not the easiest to clamber out of, so to speak. Therefore, to aid you in your mental transition from uncertainty to appreciation, please enjoy this modest show.”

  Rutabartle leaned down toward his table and started poking and prodding something. A few seconds later a slim white screen rose out of a machine on the table. Once it was all unfurled, Rutabartle pressed a button and gentle violin music curled around the hall. Words flashed on the screen:

  Silverton Manor: A Very Normal Family Home

  Oliver’s eyes widened. What? The first thing he saw was an image of the whole Day family, standing on the bluff overlooking Silverton Manor. The sun peeped from behind the distant turret spire and the whole house was bathed in liquid gold. For a second, Oliver wanted to smile and lean back in his alcove at the beauty of the scene, but then he snapped back to reality. Where had Rutabartle gotten this footage of their family?

  Next, the image shifted to a kitchen scene: the whole family sitting around the table laughing and talking … though there was an occasional sour look directed toward the camera.

  Oliver scanned the downstairs to see his parents’ reactions, but Mom still hadn’t come back from the kitchen, and now that he thought about it, Dad probably hadn’t yet left his puppet room. What were they going to say? Had Rutabartle been filming them secretly?

  The next scene was subtitled:

  A Wonderful Place for

  Normal Children to Grow Up.

  The image showed JJ chasing each other back and forth in front of the newly planted flowerbeds. This had to be very recent, as the gardeners had only just finished that landscaping. He had to hand it to Rutabartle—it sure did look normal … especially if you didn’t know JJ, and if you didn’t know the sack they were tossing back and forth was their infamous Bag of Pranks, and if you didn’t know that earlier that morning they had booby-trapped the side door with a bowl of bright-green Jell-O.

  JJ turned, exchanged a scheming glance, then let out a joint howl. They started running toward the camera, and Oliver could see mischief gleaming in their eyes. The scene quickly shifted to a slow pan of the upstairs hallway, but in that moment, Oliver understood.

  He remembered how Rutabartle’s sunglasses had always drawn his eye, how they seemed somehow too big, all mirrored and mechanized, and how Rutabartle was always fiddling with them at the oddest times. But … not fiddling after all. Filming.

  Then he thought of that Normalcy Questionnaire he and Poppy had filled out. And the small-print question on the last page: Do you agree to cooperate in various candid film and photographic shots, to be held at a time of the licensor’s choosing, and to be displayed without limitations, in gatherings of no more than seventy-five persons? He and Poppy had laughed so hard at this question, imagining Rutabartle posing them for family shots on the lawn. And they had checked the box. This was all their fault.

  The film ended, and Rutabartle drew in his screen. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I think this film speaks for itself. I will allow you some more time to ponder and discuss the matter among yourselves. I will also add that, in deference to the manor’s astonishing history and to show how serious I am about launching a successful auction tonight, I have decided to begin the auction with no floor—yes, ladies and gentlemen, I mean no lowest starting bid.” A rumble began among the guests. Rutabartle definitely had their attention now. “That is all, my friends. The auction will begin in precisely fifteen minutes. Until then—enjoy your evening!”

  Oliver felt sick. How were any of these wealthy buyers going to resist that kind of offer? He could already see several ladies turning rapt eyes toward the banisters, with a look he knew all too well: the gleam of ownership. Others had pulled out their phones and were poking furiously at the screens, bringing up numbers and leaning in close to tap out messages or muttering into their headsets. The food and drink was all but forgotten. Right in front of his eyes, Oliver’s dream of staying at Silverton Manor officially fizzled and died.

  And if he’d thought things couldn’t get any worse, they suddenly did. Across the floor downstairs, a door on the end of the hall opened. It closed again, just as quickly, but this time Oliver knew he hadn’t been mistaken: Rank Wiley the ghosterminator was loose in the house.

  Well, this at least Oliver could do something about. While taking care to stay out of sight of his parents, of course. Dad was still in puppet-land, but Mom was now buzzing on the far side of the room, refilling glasses and circulating like her best idea of a good hostess. Keeping one eye on her back, Oliver darted out of his hiding spot, skulked halfway down the stairs, and dove into another alcove. This was where JJ had been earlier, when they had gooped the party guest, and if he wasn’t mistaken … Yes! Right there on the floor, stuffed under the small decorative armchair, was their Bag of Pranks.

  Ducking farther into the shadows, Oliver poked through the bag. There wasn’t much. Except … what was Dad’s lucky hat doing here? He realized now that Dad hadn’t been wearing it during the puppet show, yet everything had gone off without a hitch. Apparently Dad’s luck was doing just fine. Still, the hat seeded a plan in Oliver’s mind.

  Downstairs, Wiley was on the move, skulking through the party like a rhinoceros in a flock of flamingos. No one seemed to notice him, which was the weirdest thing ever since he had a big white dish towel draped over his shoulder. And peeping out of the towel was the telltale neon-orange glow of the Aspirator.

  Oliver remembered how the ghostly woman, Mrs. Tibbs, had spoken from inside the little container—just like a real person. And living or not, she was real. What would it be like to be trapped in a box, being carted off somewhere to be dissected and analyzed? Oliver sure wouldn’t want that to happen to him after he died.

  Wiley had to be stopped.

  A crazy idea shot into his mind. It was risky, but right now, it was all he had. Dad’s hat would come in handy sooner than he’d expected. Pushing it on his head and tugging the brim over his eyes, he barreled down the stairs and into the mass of guests. Wiley was just up ahead … not too much farther. Oliver sped up. He pushed past a twiggy-thin woman and heard a gurgle and splash followed by a refined shriek. He ducked low under two outstretched hands being shaken in welcome. He heard behind him, faintly, “Arthur? Is that you, darling? Did you get any—”

  And there was Wiley. Oliver leaped, landing on Wiley in a full-body tackle that sent them both sprawling across a mercifully empty stretch of floor. At the same time, Oliver raised his head and yelled as loud as he could: “Ghost! There’s a ghost in the house!” He turned toward Wiley, who was picking himself up off the floor and said, looking right into his eyes: “The house is still haunted.”

  Chapter 27

  Dahlia couldn’t believe it—the Boundary was gone. Gone! Years and years she’d been waiting for this moment, and now she hardly knew what to do first. Pumpin
g one fist high into the air, she corkscrewed into a plume of whirling ghost-matter and shot straight up. She rocketed through the roof and in a second skimmed through the cool misty clouds, startling a bird and, a few seconds later, sluicing through the far wing of a jetliner. She flew faster than she ever had before, bouncing down on one rooftop, swinging from a distant bell tower, dropping down into the ocean—the ocean! Deep, blue, rippling water with real live fish everywhere—before rising up like an invisible mermaid to collapse on some yellow-sand beach with a happy sigh.

  She was free! Right now she, Dahlia Silverton, was lying on a beach somewhere miles and miles away from Silverton Manor—so far she didn’t even have a clue where she was. She laughed out loud, and giggled at the way the sound was swallowed up in the wide open space. The sunlight was warm, so unlike anything she’d seen in the tree-lined clearing back home.

  Life was good.

  Wait! It was not just warmer here, but brighter too. Dahlia opened her eyes and squinted across the beach. About a hundred feet across the water, light was gathering into a glimmering pulse-point. It was stretching out into … a door? Yes. The door opened and a serious-looking man stepped through, obviously a ghost from the way his sharply defined edges stood out against the see-through swath of the living ocean.

  As the man approached, he pulled a long stick-like device from his shirt pocket, much like the one Mrs. Tibbs had used the first day Dahlia met her. He opened it up and prodded the virtual screen. He raised an eyebrow. “Dahlia Silverton?” he intoned.

  “Yes?” she squeaked, sitting up to attention.

  “Rupert Milton,” the man said. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. May I ask what brings you … here?” He looked around himself distastefully. “Is this your Passing Point?”