by Ike Hamill
“Do you see her, Joe?” Alan called. He didn’t take his eyes off the stairs. “Joe?”
“She’s gone,” Joe said from right behind him. Alan jumped.
“You don’t see her anymore?” Alan asked. Joe took his hand.
“No, Dad. She disappeared when you went up the stairs.”
“Disappeared how? Did she go upstairs or something?”
“No,” Joe said. “She just disappeared. Like evaporated or something. It was weird.”
X • X • X • X • X
Alan and Joe stayed in the kitchen. Joe worked on homework and Alan started some leftovers heating for dinner. All the doors were closed and locked, and Alan had searched the house. He was sure they were alone, but every time they heard a noise, they froze. Alan, with Joe at his back, returned to the stairway several times. He was armed with a long piece of wood he’d found in the shed. They found nothing.
Liz came up the drive and left her car outside the shed.
They heard her banging on the door.
Alan and Joe went down the hall and let her in.
Liz hugged Joe. “Are you okay?”
“We’re fine, Mom,” Joe said.
“Tell me what happened. There was a woman here?”
“Come inside,” Alan said. He closed and locked the door behind her.
Alan herded his small family to the kitchen table. He and Joe told their story. She held her hands to her chest as they spoke. Alan couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering to the dining room doorway as he spoke.
After they finished the story, Liz didn’t speak for a full minute.
“Did she say anything?” Liz asked. She sounded choked up. Her eyes were still dry.
“No,” Alan said. “Like I said, I thought I heard her make a noise, but she didn’t say anything.”
Liz pushed back from the table and turned. She was through the dining room before Alan could object.
“Liz!” Alan called. He grabbed Joe’s hand and led him after her. They saw her pounding up the steps. Alan paused at the bottom, looked at Joe, and then led his son up the steps after Liz. All the lights were on up there—they’d turned them all on when they’d searched the house earlier. They both sidestepped the middle of the stairs, sticking close to the bannister. The door to the master bedroom was open. Alan and Joe went through. They looked in the big closet, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Liz was gone.
“Liz!” Alan called.
They heard feet clomping down steps and she appeared from the closet.
She had a shoebox in her hands.
“Where were you?” Alan asked.
“I’ll show you later,” Liz said. She sat on the edge of the bed and put the shoebox down on the bedspread. Liz tucked her stray hair behind her ears and then lifted the lid.
Alan sat on the edge of the bed on the other side of the shoebox. Joe sprang to the middle of the bed. Alan noticed that his son was careful to not step too close to the edge of the bed where something might reach out from under the bed skirt.
“What is that?” Alan asked.
“I’m looking for something,” Liz said. She was setting aside little metal boxes. She handed a small cardboard box to Alan. He opened it and recognized the thing immediately. It was a little plastic slide viewer.
Liz opened one of the metal boxes of slides and flipped through them. She stopped at one with pencil writing on the white margin. She handed the slide to Alan.
The pencil marks read “Emily.”
Alan slid it into the viewer and held it up to the light.
The scene was of their own front porch—the three granite slabs that made their front steps. The white house with the year 1852 above the door was unmistakable. There was a woman sitting on the porch. She had short hair and was looking away from the camera with a sly grin on her lips. She wore a red patterned dress with lace at the neck and wrists.
“Can I see?” Joe asked.
Alan’s numb hand passed the viewer to his son.
“That’s her,” Joe said with a surprised gasp.
“Now wait, Joe,” Alan said. “We didn’t get a great look. That slide just looks somewhat like her. You can’t say definitively.”
“Alan,” Liz said. “Come on.”
“Come on what? That photo is of your mom, right?”
“Yeah,” Liz said. “She’s modeling my great grandmother’s old hoop dress. The Colonel took that photo out front here.”
“I understand that. I’m not sure exactly what that has to do with the intruder we saw today,” Alan said.
“Dad, that’s her,” Joe said. “I recognize her. That’s my grandma?”
“The slide is,” Alan said. He was trying like hell to not raise his voice, but it wasn’t working. “That’s a slide of your mother’s mother—Emily. I’m trying to establish what that has to do with the intruder we saw today.”
“Honey,” Liz said. She put her hand on Alan’s arm. “The image you saw disappeared when you didn’t see her through the screen door. What you saw today wasn’t a real person. It was like a memory of my mother when she wore that dress. The Colonel took some photos of her on the interior stairs as well, but they didn’t turn out. The light was wrong. I don’t think he kept those shots.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts, Liz. It’s just silly.”
“You experienced it, Alan, and you and Joe saw the same thing. Who’s being silly?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. Suddenly you know it was your mom? You weren’t even there,” Alan said.
“Joe thinks it was Emily. His eyes are better than yours,” Liz said.
“He was farther away,” Alan said. He looked at Joe, who tucked his legs under himself, but didn’t add anything to the conversation. “Until we know more, I want to assume that we had an intruder in our house. We lock the doors, stay together, and sweep the house. Speaking of which, show me where you went before. Did you search that area?”
“Come on,” Liz said. “There’s not much to search.”
Alan closed the bedroom door and then ushered his son along. They followed Liz into the big closet. She pushed aside a set of garment bags that hung from the rod. Behind the bags near the floor, a small panel sat to the side of an opening.
“I assumed that was access to the pipes for the bathroom,” Alan said.
“It is,” Liz said. “It also leads upstairs. It’s a tight squeeze.” She sat down facing away from the opening and pulled herself through. When she stood up on the other side, just her feet were showing. Alan pointed Joe towards the door.
Joe shook his head.
A light came on from inside the hole and they saw Liz’s feet climb away.
“Go on, I’m right behind you,” Alan said to Joe.
“What if there’s someone in there?” Joe asked.
“There is—it’s your mom. Now go.”
Alan went through last. It was tight to get his shoulders through the opening, but after that he was fine. He found himself on the small landing of a very narrow set of steps. He climbed up the steep risers to an unfinished attic. Bare bulbs hanging from collar ties lit the space. The attic had windows at either end and two chimneys intruding through the space. Liz was squatting near a couple of dusty boxes that sat near the barn-end of the attic. Joe stood beside her with his hands in his pockets. Aside from the boxes, the only other thing in the attic was a caned rocking chair with a busted seat. It sat near the window that overlooked the road.
The floor was unfinished planks. One was loose—Alan tugged at it to try to see what was between the attic floor and the living space below.
Liz looked up at Alan. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to see how good the insulation is. Maybe we could save some money this winter if we insulated the living space a little better.”
“Come on, Alan, would you focus? I thought you were interested in this stuff,” Liz said.
Joe sat down on the planks next to his mother. She was picking through a big box.
“Why isn’t this stuff in the barn with everything else?”
“The Colonel curated the barn. These boxes are Nana’s,” Liz said. She handed a soap box derby helmet to Joe who took it with reverent care. “This was my uncle’s.”
“Well there’s nobody hiding up here. Let’s move down through the house and make sure she’s not hiding somewhere. Perhaps you can fill me in on any other secret passages while we’re at it,” Alan said.
“There’s nobody in the house, Alan. You’re being paranoid. And you must have known there was an attic up here, you can see the window from the road,” Liz said.
“Let’s all grab a box and head back down,” Alan said. “I can add all this stuff to the trunks in the barn tomorrow.”
Liz looked up at him again.
“Okay,” Liz said. “Grab a box, Joe.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Boat Trip
OCTOBER 11
“WHAT ARE you laughing at?” Bob asked.
The two men were carrying the boat down the little dirt path that ran next to the dam. They’d argued over whether to take the motor off before moving it, but it was a short distance.
Alan took a moment and flattened out his grin. “Nothing,” he said. He couldn’t hold it. He began laughing again.
Bob frowned. He was wearing a red and black checked flannel shirt, brown insulated chinos, rolled up at the ankle to reveal the same red and black pattern, and thick-framed glasses.
“You look like a 1950’s hunter from an L.L. Bean catalog,” Alan said, laughing. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Bob said. He dropped his side of the boat. It splashed in the shallows and banged against Alan’s shins.
Alan grunted with pain but then started laughing again.
Bob rooted around in his pocket and the pulled out a pipe. He tapped it against the lip of the boat. Alan looked up, saw the old pipe in Bob’s hand, and then laughed twice as hard.
“Oh my god, if you just had one of those hats with the little flaps,” Alan said. He held his belly. He could hardly catch his breath. “Since when do you smoke a pipe?”
“I don’t,” Bob said with a smile. “I found it in the pants. I found the whole outfit in my brother-in-law’s closet. It smells like mothballs, actually. I think it belonged to an uncle or something.”
“Oh, Jesus, don’t put that pipe in your mouth. You just said you found it in the closet,” Alan said. He pushed the stern of the boat into the water and spun the boat around. “Get in.”
Bob climbed into the bow of the boat and Alan waded out a couple of paces before he stepped over the edge. Alan wore the Colonel’s waterproof boots that came up almost to his knees. He tilted the motor down and started it up.
“Follow the stream until you can see the road,” Bob said. “Then we’re looking for a big culvert.”
“Okay,” Alan said.
The trip was Bob’s idea. He’d been on the lower lake once and remembered an interesting pond that his brother-in-law had shown him. A larger boat couldn’t reach it, but Bob thought that the Colonel’s little skiff might have no trouble with the shallow water.
“So did anything else happen?” Bob asked, continuing their conversation from earlier.
“Nope,” Alan said. “I didn’t see any more ghosts on the stairs and I haven’t since. Liz keeps telling me that I’m making too big a deal out of it, but it’s like a violation. Someone was in my house.”
“Maybe she’s right,” Bob said.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of these paranormal apologists too,” Alan said. “You’re a logical guy. You can’t possibly believe in that nonsense.”
It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves on either side of the stream were bright yellow, red, and orange, and they reflected off the edges of the serene stream. The sky overhead was brilliant blue and dotted with cotton ball clouds. Bob put two fingers in the breast pocket of his absurd shirt and pulled out a tiny plastic bag. Alan smiled at the crumbled bud that Bob packed into his antique pipe.
“Don’t worry, this is prescription,” Bob said.
Bob wiped the end of the pipe and then put it in his mouth. He applied a lighter to the bowl and took a timid puff. As he held it in his lungs, he offered the pipe to Alan.
“Twist my arm,” Alan said. He took the pipe. The smoke was potent—he inhaled even less than Bob had. Bob took one more little hit and then tapped the pipe on the side of the boat again. Alan exhaled. He didn’t feel anything.
“There’s still so much we don’t know,” Bob said. “You have to consider that there’s still a lot about the universe that we don’t understand.”
“What do you mean?” Alan asked. His throat felt hoarse. He opened the cooler and pulled out a can of soda.
“People only developed the theory of the atom like three-hundred years ago. The word atom means indivisible. Then, about a hundred years ago, we discovered protons, neutrons, and electrons. For a time, those were considered the smallest building blocks of matter. In the seventies, everyone agreed that the proton was actually made up of quarks. What are quarks made of? Right now they’re considered fundamental, but who knows what they’ll decide in another thirty years,” Bob said.
“And all that was discovered by rigorous scientific methods and experiments,” Alan said. “None of which has ever been able to prove anything paranormal.”
Bob shrugged. “But in a hundred years, maybe the experiments will exist. Maybe there’s another type of energy that we don’t currently have knowledge of. Before electricity was discovered, they had lots of theories of lightning. Now the whole thing seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”
“Right, but lots of people experienced and documented lightning. Everyone sees it. Even if you don’t see the flash, you hear the thunder. There aren’t a lot of credible witnesses of paranormal stuff. Where’s the evidence?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re having this conversation right now because you and your son saw a woman sitting on the steps inside your own house,” Bob said.
“Right—and I’m saying there was nothing paranormal about it. It was either some weird trespasser, or maybe a trick of the light. Joe was standing farther away and he thought he saw something. Maybe he said something about a woman, who knows. My eyes are terrible. Once he suggested what I should see, it’s perfectly rational that I thought I saw the same thing.”
“And when you opened the door?”
“She was gone. That’s even stronger evidence to support my theory. It must have been an optical illusion created by the screen door,” Alan said.
The outboard engine putted serenely as they chugged down the little stream. The wind blew the exhaust back towards Alan—he liked the smell from the little engine.
“So here’s a good question then—when you opened the door, did the image stay still or did it come with the door?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Alan said. His head was starting to feel pleasantly foggy. He wondered if Bob had asked his question once or twice.
“As you pulled the door open, if the image of the woman was because of the screen, she wouldn’t have stayed put on the stairs as the door moved. Did she stay put?”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes—she was on the stairs the whole time,” Alan said.
“Then it wasn’t the screen,” Bob said.
“So it was a real woman. While I opened the door, she must have vaulted over the railing and run down the hall. She escaped through the shed while I looked for her.”
“Except Joe saw her sitting there until you climbed the stairs. Why would he lie? And don’t you think you’d have seen her vaulting over the railing? Come on,” Bob said.
“I don’t know,” Alan said. He looked off into the woods. Just below the dam, on either side of the stream, they’d passed by scrubby marsh. Here, the woods came almost all the way down to the water.
Bob sucked air through his pipe.
“Sounds like you don’t have an explanation
for what you saw,” Bob said.
“I don’t,” Alan said. “It makes me angry.”
“Because you can’t control it?”
“I think mostly because it doesn’t seem to bother Liz one bit. Joe had to sleep in our room Wednesday night. Thursday night, he slept with a light on. I think we felt safer in the city,” Alan said.
“Keep looking to your left,” Bob said. He pointed towards the shore. “That culvert is not far from here I think.”
“Is it easy to miss?” Alan asked.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know if it looks different now,” Bob said. He tried the pipe in the corner of his mouth and then stuffed it back in his pocket. “When I lived in Boston we use to rent a really old house. It had been turned into a nursing home and then back into a residence. The front part was normal, but then it had a wing off the back with a few rooms for residents. We used the big one as a gym.”
“Did you see a lot of ghosts and ghouls?” Alan asked.
“Nope. Never did. I had some weird experiences though. Only when I worked out at night. I’d be back in the room lifting weights or jumping around doing cardio and then I’d see a shadow of someone coming down the hall. Whatever was casting the shadow would never make it to the door. It would stop and then turn around.”
“You never went to look to see what it was?”
“All the time,” Bob said. “I’d poke my head out into the hall and there would be nobody there. One time I turned just as the shadow was passing my door. I got to the threshold in time to see the door across the hallway close. That was a guest room that we hardly used. When I looked in there, the light next to the bed was on but there was nobody in there.”
“Did it have a window? Maybe someone snuck out,” Alan said.
“The window had an air conditioner in it, so I don’t think so. Sometimes unexplained things happen. The only thing worse than being certain that it was your dead mother is being certain that it wasn’t,” Bob said. “You know what I’m saying?”
“That I should keep an open mind?” Alan asked.
“No,” Bob said, laughing. “Who cares if your mind is open? I’m suggesting that you stop arguing with your wife about it. If she wants to think it’s her mom, then who cares? If you’re concerned about trespassers, then start locking the doors, or put in cameras or something. I can help you do that—they’re so small we can hide them where even Liz won’t find them. But don’t argue about it. That doesn’t get you anywhere.”