by Ayse Hafiza
‘At least mom was free,’ he thought to himself.
Frank held onto that mistaken belief until after the funeral. If both his parent’s funerals had been a popularity contest, it was true that his father was infinitely more popular than his mom.
He’d stood by the coffin as it was lowered, the old neighbors were there as were the nurses. Frank had placed the death announcement in the newspaper, it was a last-ditch attempt to do things in a way they would approve. When he noticed a young woman standing a little distance away, he took note of her aura and knew she was important. He stood at the wake and met those people who had come to pay their respects. He shook their hands and knew that most of them he would never see again. He worked his way around the room shaking hands and thanking them for coming, but he really wanted to find out who she was.
“So sorry for your loss,” said the woman taking his hand in her black-gloved one. He felt the chemistry between them.
“Thank you, I’m not sure. . .have we met before?” asked Frank. “How did you know Mom?”
“I’m your second cousin, I’m Audrey,” the young woman had a Scottish accent. “We haven’t met before, but I read the notice in the paper and wanted to come see her off.”
“Family?”
“Yes.”
“I honestly didn’t realize that I had any family left,” said Frank, his expression relaxed. “You must give me your number?”
He felt the rise of anticipation as he looked at the woman, he couldn’t shake the fact that she reminded him of Jane. He kept watching her, wondering who she really was and if she knew anything of the curse, anything at all. Her figure looked svelte in her black dress as he studied her at the graveside.
A phone number was scribbled down and given to him. He pushed the piece of paper deep into his pocket and played with it between his fingers. There wasn’t much to ask his cousin while they were surrounded by company. Intrigued by his Scottish family roots, he intended to call on his cousin another time.
“Frank son? You must come and see me before you disappear,” said Elsie, the old next-door neighbor.
Frank had fond memories of Elsie, she had looked after him when his mom wasn’t well, or when she needed a break to sit and cry about his father’s words. Frank had done Elsie’s chores taking out the bins and taking her dogs for a walk. She had seen him grow up and was the closest thing to an aunt he ever had. He would feel safe in Elsie’s house she was another widow living alone.
At first Frank didn’t want to go to her house, but he knew that in her house she wouldn’t mind if he got drunk and smoked a few joints. The old dears house would be a safe place to let himself unwind. And Frank needed a break, he had just put his mom in the ground.
As he sat in her taxi headed back to the road from his childhood, his heart felt heavier as the car turned onto their road. He saw the children playing on the street with their tennis rackets and balls. Some of them cycling next to the taxi. But Frank couldn’t take his eyes off the house. The cracked front wall had been repaired and the garden had a wooden fence, but not much else had changed. Other than the net curtains which were whiter and the windows cleaner. The wood had been painted and the old place was being maintained.
“What are the new neighbors like Elsie?”
“Oi, its Aunty Elsie to you,” joked the older woman. “They’re lovely, Rashid, Kawser, and their three kids, it’s nice to see them grow up every day. And you know what? They’ve got a telephone, they let me use it sometimes,” said Elsie with a nod and a nudge.
Frank was glad to hear that the couple who he’d sold the house to were looking after it and the old neighbors.
11
Reunion
Elsie motioned for him to sit down on the sofa after pouring them both a glass of sherry. Her kind eyes looking at him with pity. Frank should have known it was all she would have in her drinks cabinet. He took the glass and chugged down the liquid, smiling as it warmed his body. He wasn’t the sort to refuse a drink. After a couple more he excused himself and made his way to the garden. Rolling his joint as he closed the back door. The sound of children playing made its way over the fence and for a moment he had a glimpse into Elsie’s world. The normal sounds that she listened to when she hung out her washing.
He tugged away breathing the smoke deep into his lungs until he felt the hit he craved when something just beyond the bush caught his eye. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised to see him, he had been there for a lifetime. Frank should have listened to his mom, he should have tried to help his dad move on, but he had left him because of the terror in his own life.
Unable to see past his own crisis, he realized now that it had been a selfish thing to do.
Dad stood next to the glass of the garage window like a cardboard cutout. Staring and smiling. Frank walked through the branches of the bush next to the dividing fence, he wanted to understand what it was that Dad had to smile about after all these years. He peered past the leaves into the garden of his old home.
Three children played outside. The eldest was a girl, she was dressed in a long cotton yellow dress with a skipping rope in her hand. Barefoot she jumped on the grass, her long thick black hair moving with the motion. Frank was glad to see the children enjoying themselves. Then the boy came running outside with a ball in his hand, he purposely ruined his elder sister’s count.
Frank was instantly jealous of his older sister, had she been born maybe they would have been like these two. He had never known what it was like to have a sibling. He watched the children play and he knew that he would have been just as annoying as the little brother.
Then another younger girl came outside plaits in her hair with pink ribbons laced through. She pulled a little wooden dog which had a spring for a tail. She walked pulling the dog behind her, walking and turning to look at it and the motion of its tail which made her giggle, she had an infectious charm. Frank could feel himself laughing along with her. She walked toward the garage, but his father paid the little girl no attention at all. It was as if the children’s antics weren’t interesting to him. The little girl walked her dog until she was under the sill of the garage window. She looked up too, looked up at the house, and Frank realized that whatever his father was looking at had also caught the little girl’s attention.
Frank felt curious, slowly he turned his head and glanced up at what would have been his mom’s bedroom window. Her black eyes shocked him, the coldness of the disease that had claimed her soul sent a shiver along Frank’s back. She stood at the window as clear as day with the net curtain behind her, staring down at her husband.
Mom was home.
Frank watched her as she vanished, and when she was gone the little girl carried on walking and pulling her little wooden dog. How was she here and how had the youngest girl seen her?
Frank stumbled out of the bush. His heart racing with his eyes wide open in shock. Needing a moment to steady himself, he kept looking up at the window. Could he trust his own eyes? He wasn’t sure.
He wasn’t talkative when he returned inside, and Elsie didn’t push him assuming he’d been through a lot. Together they spoke for a while reminiscing about the old days until it got late into the night, then she offered him her couch. Frank laid on Elsie’s sofa at night wondering if he could trust his eyes and believe what he had seen.
Both his parents were perilously close to the living world, but most of all Frank feared for the little girl. His mind flitted back to the mirror, was it still in the house? He didn’t want to find out. Frank turned over, his mind restless as he debated with himself. He shouldn’t care, the house didn’t belong to his parents any longer. It wasn’t his problem, and nothing could be gained by being too curious.
It was the mirror’s job to find him, not the other way around. He now wished he hadn’t come back to the God forsaken road, he wished he believed that at least his mom had passed on. He made the decision, he needed to try and communicate with them, get them both to move on. They both h
ad a journey ahead of them. Although that wasn’t the part that bothered Frank the most. He tried to skip over the image, but it was impossible, his mom’s eyes, her beautiful bright blue eyes which were windows to her soul were black and putrid.
Just from her eyes, he knew she was full of venom, full of spite, and a spirit like that around children could be dangerous.
Frank tossed and turned on the sofa, should he climb into the neighbor’s garden and see if he could mediate. He thought about it and it wasn’t appealing. The fact his sleep was robbed highlighted what he already knew, he had to do something.
The toughest part of it would be to hack through the thick branches of the bush. The fence separating the gardens were wooden slats, it was just like climbing a ladder.
Frank smoked another joint, he needed to open his senses further. He wanted this to be a short and sweet reunion. He settled himself in a cross-legged position in the middle of the cool grass in his suit trousers worn for Moms funeral, in his old back garden. Trying to get comfortable he closed his eyes.
‘Mom. . .Dad,’ he called out in his mind. It was just seconds before Frank saw himself again as a boy sitting at the kitchen table. His mom stood next to the cooker and where her beautiful eyes had been now only black sockets showed. Frank’s Mom was in pain, but his dad was standing next to the kitchen counter and was enjoying every moment of it.
“Please Mom and Dad, you need to carry on with your afterlives. What are you both still doing here?” asked a young Frank. Watching himself as a young boy with his adult mind, he was resolved to help them see just how toxic their relationship had become. He drove a yellow car on the surface of the kitchen table. His mom’s face became darker, she had been so mild-mannered during her life he hadn’t realized she had the capacity for such anger.
As she opened her mouth to reply a black wisp of mist escaped it and the room noticeably dropped in temperature.
“Do you think I don’t realize that!” she snapped at him, her wooden spoon dropped angrily onto the counter splattering food over the white tiles behind. “What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Is that why are you so angry?” asked Frank.
“Yes! Because of this idiot,” said his mom pointing her finger at his dad. Frank didn’t like the energy he felt being emitted from mom. Hostile and unforgiving she felt the very opposite of motherly.
Frank could feel the pull of the mirror, in his vision he looked up at the ceiling. It was still in the house, the new owners must have kept it. It was calling him, it seemed to know his song, and he could feel its pull. He resisted and turned his attention toward Dad.
“You’ve been here for so long; can’t you move on?”
“What and miss this. . .never,” said his dad.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Frank sighed.
“Stay out of this,” warned Dad.
Young Frank kicked his feet under his chair when he saw the little wooden dog roll into the kitchen followed by the little girl.
“What’s she doing here?” Frank was curious. The little girl shouldn’t have been part of his vision.
“You’ll see,” said his mom and that was it.
Frank was excluded from his dead parent’s domestic argument.
He opened his eyes looking from one window to the next, but both of his parents were gone. Then he noticed the top of the young girl’s head which was strange. It was the dead of night and she should have been sleeping. She was watching him through the net curtain and as Frank looked at her, he felt fear.
He stood up and jumped over the fence rushing back to the safety of Elsie’s sofa. His parents were far too angry to let him council them and that wasn’t good at all. They weren’t prepared to speak, so there wasn’t much Frank the Shaman could do. Anger and fury were eating his mom away, but his dad was reveling in her demise, he hadn’t looked too bad, and why was the little girl in his vision? She had the gift of sight, Frank had already realized that, but still she should have been veiled from hostile spirits like his parents. Frank was unsettled, and he didn’t know how to fix the situation. He wanted to walk away, but this was one of those situations where destiny was calling.
He wanted to break in and sage smudge the entire house, and he wanted to take the mirror away too. It was his heirloom. He began to wonder if the family had ever noticed anything strange in the house. With his parents arguing and the negative energy his mom was giving off, Frank was under no illusion that the house could easily become a magnet for unsavory spirits. He had a lot of thoughts running rampant in his mind when the crack of dawn slowly streamed through the lined curtains in the sitting room. He wasn’t sure what to think or what to do.
Now in his waking state he could feel the pull of the mirror, it was as if his vision last night had alerted it to the fact that he was close by. His mom, when she wasn’t a demon magnet, had said he would fall in love with it, and now it was calling to him, he could feel it. But that didn’t mean he was ready for it. Frank scratched his head as he thought about his situation, and in his mind he ran through all the options he could think of.
It wasn’t long before the smell of bacon diverted his attention, and a tired Frank went to see Elsie in the kitchen.
“Hello Love, did you sleep alright?” asked Elsie.
Frank took a cup of tea and stood by the back window looking across her garden.
“Yes, thanks,” he said as he turned to face her, he was so consumed by his thoughts. With a deep sigh he planted himself at the kitchen table and rolled his thumbs over each other as he thought.
“Anything I can help you with?” asked Elsie, she could see something was troubling him and she sensed it was more than the funeral of his mom.
Frank hesitated if he shared what he wanted to really say she would have said he was mad and called the police.
“There’s a couple in a relationship, and you know it’s a bad relationship. . .” Frank started, he wasn’t sure where he was going with this or how he would even finish his sentence. “So they are not good, and well I don’t know what to do.”
“What is it that you can do?” asked Elsie.
“Well, there’s a child involved, and I want to help. I’m worried the child might get hurt, but I’m worried about the couple too.” He sounded his words out again in his mind, and he knew he was safe.
“Well love there is only so much that you can do, so it’s best that if you don’t think you can help that you let them sort it out themselves,” advised Elsie.
Frank nodded, “Do nothing?”
“Sometimes it’s best,” said Elsie putting the plate of breakfast in front of him.
Frank dug into his eggs and bacon as he gave it more thought.
Maybe it would be best if he did nothing. Although deep down Frank recognized that was his inner coward. Yes, the spirits at war were his parents, but that didn’t mean that he knew them any longer. There was the added issue of the mirror which he sensed was amplifying their feelings causing them to intensify. Frank wasn’t sure what to think when he finished his last mouthful.
Helping her clean up after breakfast, Frank thanked Elsie for letting him stay over and at the front door as he was leaving he planted a kiss on her cheek. He was sad that their relationship would now just be Christmas cards and maybe the odd phone call. He hugged her tightly before walking out of the door. He had made his decision.
Frank stood outside Elsie’s garden wall and looked at his old childhood home. He heard his mom’s words again.
‘You’ll see,’ she had said about the little girl.
Again, it was one of those times that his mom expected him to be there to see. He didn’t want to see. If he was going to see what his mom meant about the little girl, that meant he was expected to hang around, his choice, not his moms.
‘Sorry, Mom and Dad. . .sorry, Jane,’ he thought to himself as he took the opportunity to listen to Elsie. This wasn’t his battle and he couldn’t take it on. Most of all he said sorry to the
little girl with pink ribbons in her hair because he knew he was letting her down.
As he caught the bus at the top of the street, Frank knew it was because he wasn’t strong enough as a man or shaman to deal with the combined energy of both his parents and the mirror, and for that reason, he decided to run away.
12
Family Life
As she walked along with her family, her mom, dad, elder sister and brother, Saima was careful not the step on the cracked paving stones staying only on the complete ones. It was a childish game that she played, but she was entertained by it. Talking loudly among themselves and laughing, she enjoyed being with them, and as they walked the house came into view, their home, the place she had come to after she was born.
She liked the house with its pointed roof and chimney stack, it was home, and that meant it was safe, warm and full of love. The little girl skipped along the pavement with her family until she stepped on that paving stone, the same one she always stepped on, and couldn’t avoid.
Her foot attached to it and instantly her happy dream faded and became her nightmare. She tried to step forward, but her foot wouldn’t budge as if it too had become concrete like the paving slab. She could feel herself freeze, and she called out in panic, it was happening again, the nightmare was back.
“Mom. . .Dad? Mom! Dad!” she cried out as her desperation grew.
She panicked and pulled at her leg trying to break the hold if she could just rejoin her family. But it didn’t matter how much she tried, the paving stone nor her leg would move. She glanced up in a panic looking for her family, but they didn’t hear her, they couldn’t hear, they walked together oblivious that she was missing. In that instant they forgot about her very existence. Her older sister closing the gap as they stepped ahead toward home. She watched their backs growing smaller as they walked away and forgot her. She felt her body become rigid and she realized that she was paralyzed, held in place by an unseen force.