A Babe in Ghostland

by Lisa Cach

  “Quite a story.”

  “Not all that much of one. It could have been coincidence. If old people sometimes become like children, it’s no wonder we both would have wanted to brush cats with a silver brush.

  “But it was a strange enough occurrence that my mom started paying attention to things I said about items at estate sales. It was a hobby for her then, going to the sales. She’d do some ‘picking’ for antique shops, but other than that, she stayed at home with me.

  “Well, the rest is history, as they say. She found out that most of the time when I talked about an object or piece of furniture, the ‘stories’ I told were true. Even better, the items I was most drawn to because of the happy stories tied to them were items that fetched the highest prices or sold the quickest. They weren’t always valuable in an objective sense, but they felt good, even to people who didn’t know why they liked the things.”

  “It wasn’t just good lines? Artistic balance?”

  She shook her head. “There has been some pretty ugly stuff over the years. But people laugh instead of grimacing when they see the ugly items I’ve chosen. They think they’re unique and have character.”

  “And thus Antique Fancies was born?”

  Megan nodded and sipped her wine. “Mom was setting up the shop when Dad left us. I think he resented the time she spent on it, and when he threatened to leave, she gladly let him go.”

  “So you grew up without a father.”

  “I had an uncle who filled in.”

  “Not the same, though, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said with false lightness, and poked her fork at a mushy carrot smothered in brown sauce. The curry had been bearable for a couple of bites but was an inedible, gloppy mess after that.

  “Where did this ability of yours come from?” he asked, apparently unaware of her change in mood. “Does it run in your family?”

  “I really couldn’t say.” She chewed the mushy carrot and tried to swallow. “I was adopted. I have no idea who my birth mother is.”

  “Really? You ever get curious to find out?”

  “Not really. I wonder sometimes what she looks like and whether she has an ability like mine. But other than that, no, I’ve never been curious enough to do anything about it. And frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt my mother’s feelings by doing that. I have too much loyalty. I figure my biological mother was an unwed teen who made the wisest choice she could, and I’ve always been grateful that she did. My adoptive father might not have turned out so great, but I loved my mother deeply. We were closer than a lot of mothers and daughters ever are and surprisingly similar for two people who weren’t related. We understood each other.”

  “But you’ve never seen her since she died, not even on the night she passed?”

  Megan remembered the scene. It had been past midnight, and she’d been sitting at her mother’s bedside in the hospital, her mother unconscious, her limbs beginning to bloat because her heart was no longer beating strongly enough to move the fluids. She’d held her mother’s limp, chilled hand and watched the slow rise and fall of her chest.

  And then her chest fell and did not rise again.

  Megan’s uncle Charlie had been reading a magazine in a chair on the other side of the bed. Megan made a sound, and he looked up, then at his sister. He had understood as quickly as Megan had and put down his magazine. He looked into his sister’s still face, her mouth hanging open, and touched her cheek. “’Bye, Sis,” he whispered.

  Megan let go of her mother’s hand.

  Uncle Charlie had come home with her and spent the night, but despite his presence, the house had felt empty and silent. Her mother had been in the hospital for more than a week, but somehow the house had not felt as empty of her presence then as it did now.

  Now, Megan knew for certain that her mother would never come home.

  She’d lain awake the rest of the night, waiting for her mother to come to her and say good-bye.

  When dawn peeped through the windows, Megan had wept and finally fallen asleep, even then hoping that her mother would come to her with some message, some hint that she was okay, all was well, life would go on, Megan would never be alone.

  She’d woken at noon, and the house had been just as empty.

  “No, I never saw her after she died,” Megan now said softly, swallowing against the tightness in her throat.

  He looked at her, and she dropped her gaze, not wanting him to see the sheen of tears in her eyes.

  He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why did she appear to you?” Megan asked, the injustice of it still hurting. “How did she look? Angry? Happy? Worried? Was she trying to tell you something?”

  He shook his head, releasing her hand. “It was only for a moment. She was looking at me, that’s all. Maybe you’ll see my mother, then we’ll be even, huh?” He tried a smile on her.

  “Yeah, maybe.” She sniffled, trying to regain control of herself. “Would she tell me what a wild boy you used to be, or would she sing your praises?”

  “She’d say I had a good heart under all my wildness, but she’d be disappointed I hadn’t married yet. She thought that no one could be truly happy unless they found their soul mate.”

  “And do you believe that?”

  He met her eyes. “Yes.”

  Something upstairs fell over with a crash. They both jumped.

  Her heart pounded. “What was that?”

  Case slowly pushed back in his chair and stood, head cocked to listen.

  There was a slow scrape of something being dragged across the floor above their heads.

  A moment of silence.

  Then crash, something else fell.

  Megan’s heart jumped to her throat.

  Case simply topped off his wine.

  “Case?”

  “They do this all the time.”

  “Every night?”

  “Off and on.”

  “But…don’t you want to go see what’s happening?”

  “I’ve looked before.”

  “And?” she asked.

  “The rooms always look pretty much the same as when I last saw them. There’s never anything broken. No chairs lying on their sides or stacked in an improbable manner.”

  “So no evidence that anything moved.”

  “Right.” He took a sip of wine. “It can make you crazy wondering if you imagined it all, if you don’t have someone else to say, ‘What the hell?’”

  Above them somewhere, a door creaked open.

  “I showed my old friend George around the place a few weeks after I bought it. He heard the floor show, ran to investigate, and ended up doing the same thing I did the very first time: dashing from door to door, jerking them open looking for the culprit. He didn’t find anything, of course, but I was perversely glad he’d been given such a fright.” He grinned. “Made me feel better. I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t any more a coward than he was.”

  Overhead, the door slammed. Case merely glanced at the ceiling.

  “What did he think of your plans to hire me?” Megan squeaked.

  The door slowly creaked open again.

  He smiled crookedly. “He thought I should sell the place. Get out before I sank any more money into it. Let someone else worry about the ghosts, and certainly not let myself get sucked into a world of séances and Ouija boards.”

  “A reasonable man.” Megan waited tensely for the door to slam. Waited, waited…

  “He’s a good guy. When this is all cleared up, we’ll have to have him over for dinner and show him how harmless the house is.”

  Megan was distracted from the door by the “we” and wondered what it meant. She’d once dated a man who peppered his talk with “we” and mentions of things they’d do in the future, even in the far future. Then he’d dumped her.

  Wham! The door slammed.

  Megan jumped. She took a gulp of wine. “Once the house is renovated, you
’ll probably get more visitors if you say the house is still haunted. People don’t really believe it, but they like the thrill of maybe seeing a ghost. Sort of like the thrill of a roller coaster: fun because you know there’s not really any danger.”

  “Only roller coasters sometimes go off their tracks,” Case said.

  “And sometimes the ghosts are real.”

  They sat in silence for several seconds, both listening to the house around them. She raised her brows in question.

  Case whispered, “They might be done for now.” He grinned. “Maybe this ‘Ignore them and they’ll go away’ approach has some merit.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you had enough to eat?” Case asked in a normal voice.

  She nodded and picked up her plate. “I’ll do cleanup.”

  “Nonsense.” He took the plate from her hand, then went to the sink, grabbed a sponge, and threw it to her. “We both will.”

  She laughed and tried not to think of what might happen tonight in this house as she lay alone in her antique bed.

  Eight

  Megan snuggled down in her freshly made bed and opened Carnacki the Ghost Finder. A small candelabra burned on her bedside table, throwing just enough light for reading a spooky book.

  She wished that the fireplace had a steady flame warming the room. The house had grown cold with the coming of darkness, there being no insulation to keep the heat from wafting out between the boards.

  She was two-thirds of the way through a ghastly tale of a room that dripped blood when three soft raps came on the door near the head of her bed.

  “Yes, ghost?” she said.

  “Are you decent?” Case asked from the other side, his voice muffled by the heavy door.

  “Relatively.” She tucked the sheets a little higher up over her nightgown to avoid giving a cold nipple show.

  The door inched open. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. How about you?”

  “Fine. I just wondered if you’d feel better if the door was left ajar.”

  She considered. She’d feel braver knowing he could easily hear anything in her room, but at the same time, she didn’t know what types of noises she made in her sleep. Worrying what unattractive sounds she might produce would keep her from getting to sleep at all.

  “I’m told my snoring isn’t too terrible,” he said.

  That clinched it. “I’ll be fine with the door shut.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “’Night.”

  Megan watched him close the door and heard it snick shut. She listened for any other sounds he might make, but either he was silent on his feet, or the door did an extraordinarily good job of blocking sound.

  Megan scooted a little lower under the covers, feeling very much the only living thing in the room.

  She finished the Carnacki story—it was smugglers making fake blood drip from the ceiling—and blew out the candles.

  The brightest spot in the room was the window, filled with the gray light of a moon behind clouds. Megan curled onto her side, staring at the window, listening to the house creak around her.

  A faint creak came to her from Case’s room, and she guessed he had rolled over in bed.

  The house seemed to sigh and settle down for sleep.

  No shadows moved, no hairs on her arms rose. Gradually, her vigilance weakened, and she felt her eyelids grow heavy. She shut her eyes against the light of the cloud-shrouded moon and slept.

  Megan.

  “Mom?”

  Megan, the voice of her mother said again, her name spoken without inflection.

  Megan’s heart rose. “Mom? Are you here?”

  Megan.

  Megan looked around her. She was in the center of the tangled garden, in a clearing that did not exist. “Mom?”

  Right here, Megan.

  Megan turned around. Her mother was scrubbing the white statue, a bucket of soap at her feet. “Why are you cleaning that?” she asked.

  “I’ll bet it would sell quickly in the shop. Garden art is getting very popular nowadays.”

  “I don’t think Case wants to sell it.”

  “Oh, he’ll give it to you if you ask nicely,” her mother said, and scrubbed at lichen on the statue’s neck. Only this wasn’t the statue Megan had seen; instead, it was of a young, handsome man.

  Part of Megan’s mind protested at the scene. Mom’s dead. I know she’s dead. I’m dreaming this.

  But then a hope started in her heart. “Are you visiting me?”

  Her mother blinked at her. “Do you think we can get this into the van ourselves? Or is it too heavy?”

  “I don’t know. It looks heavy. Maybe Case will help.”

  Her mother looked at her watch. “Oh, dear. I hope he’s strong enough. I need to get going. The boat leaves in an hour.”

  “What boat? Where are you going?”

  Her mother handed her the wet sponge. “Be sure to get all the algae off. I’m sure he’s got a good heart under there somewhere.”

  Megan looked again at the statue. He looked like no one she knew. When she looked back at her mother, she was disappearing down the pathway.

  “Mom, wait! It’s not really you, is it? I mean, you’re not really you—you’re just in my head, right?”

  The dreamscape dissolved as Megan’s distress woke her. She opened her eyes to the empty room.

  “Mom?” she whispered.

  The house was silent.

  Megan closed her eyes, and a tear spilled onto her pillow. She snuffled quietly and dabbed at her nose with the edge of her sheet. After a few minutes, her breathing calmed. She lay still, eyes closed, waiting for sleep to claim her again.

  A hand gently brushed the hair from her temple.

  Mom.

  She smiled, not wanting to wake from her dozing state to find it wasn’t so.

  The hand gently brushed her hair again, then with a feather touch took hold of her hand and tugged, as if urging her to come along.

  Megan opened her eyes a slit, trying to keep herself in the half-dozing state. You want me to come with you? she thought, rather than saying it aloud. I’ll come with you.

  She closed her eyes again and slipped out of bed, trusting her mother to guide her. Where are we going?

  No answer came, but the gentle pressure on her hand continued, leading her toward the door. Megan felt for the knob and opened it slowly, flinching when the hinges creaked. She passed out into the hall, the floor dusty beneath her feet. A board groaned when she stepped on it, and by reflex she opened her eyes.

  There was nothing to see, the hallway dark. Eerily dark, unnerving her. She could “see” it better in her imagination, with her eyes closed. The only thing dimly visible was the pale glow of her own hand and white gown-clad arm, held out for her invisible guide. She could still feel the slight pressure grasping her hand, although it was so faint she could almost be imagining it.

  She closed her eyes again, focusing on that touch. What do you want to show me? Or is it that you want me to leave?

  The hand seemed to grip hers a little more tightly, pulling with more urgency. Megan hurried her steps.

  Soft footsteps started behind her, slow at first, then with increasing speed, growing louder as they descended upon her.

  Fear shot through Megan, and with imaginings of the black shadow foremost in her mind, she broke into a run. Her hand was suddenly jerked to the right, and she followed it.

  An arm wrapped around her from behind, grabbing tight and lifting her off the ground.

  Megan’s whole body flooded with terror, and she screamed, limbs flailing, eyes flying open.

  “Megan! Wake up! It’s me!”

  It took a moment for the familiar voice to penetrate her fear and for her to recognize that it was a solid, warm body that restrained her. Case.

  He’d chased her mother off. “Let me go!” she demanded angrily.

  “Not until I’m sure you won’t go running off again.”

/>   “I was being guided! Why did you interfere?” she wailed.

  He pivoted, turning her toward a tall wall of windows. “Are your eyes open?”

  Inches from where they stood was the top of the stairs. Horrified understanding washed through Megan.

  “One step more, and you would have fallen down the stairs.” He squeezed her a little more tightly, anger entering his voice. “What were you thinking?”

  Megan stared at the void into which she’d almost run headlong. “I was being guided,” she said softly. “I thought…”

  “Guided by something that wanted to kill you.”

  She shook her head. “It didn’t feel malevolent. It was gentle.”

  “It almost killed you.”

  Megan looked again at the staircase, remembering the jerk on her hand that had almost sent her down it, and sagged, heartbroken. It hadn’t been her mother guiding her. The dream had just been a dream, like so many others before it that had nothing of her mother in them except Megan’s own memories and imagination.

  Case released her. “You can’t trust anything in this house,” he said gently. “I don’t know what it is that’s messing with our minds, but something is. Don’t believe anything you see or hear.”

  Megan felt embarrassed. She was the one who should have been giving Case such simple advice. She shouldn’t have let wishful thinking take over. “This was careless of me.”

  “Well, no harm done, right? Maybe a couple more years taken off my life, but I’ve stopped counting.”

  She started to turn around to face him. “I’m—”

  “Er, you might not want to look at me.”

  “What?” she said, completing the turn and looking at him. He was faintly visible in the light from the staircase, but it was enough for her to see his naked chest and the dark shadow of his groin. “Oh!” She looked quickly away, embarrassed.

  “A scarier sight than a ghost, huh?” he said with a laugh in his voice. “I’m getting a little chilly. Let’s head back to our rooms, where I can put something on.”

  She preceded him back down the hall, aware with every nerve of his naked self immediately behind her. A flush went through her as she realized that when he’d caught her and scooped her off her feet, only a whisper-thin layer of white cotton had separated her squirming backside from his groin. “I’m surprised you heard me in the hall,” she squeaked. “You weren’t asleep?”