A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

“Jess, would you mind—” Jessica’s co-worker, Stacey, stopped her words in their tracks.

  She tried to look past the bluish shine on Jessica’s eye that was poorly covered by foundation that didn’t match her crème-colored skin. Stacey sighed, knowing that there was little else she could do since her hundreds of words of advice had already been ignored.

  “Jess,” Stacey repeated, placing the folder on the desk before Jessica, her head cocked to the side, her eyes sorrowful.

  “I know, Stacey,” Jessica replied, already knowing what she would say.

  Stacey sighed to herself, feeling helpless. “Could you run these through? I’ve got a patient to see,” Stacey said dryly.

  “Of course,” Jessica replied.

  Stacey walked away a moment later.

  Jessica’s phone vibrated as a reminder came across:

  PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES TODAY.

  She cursed, forgetting that this was the day. Ronnie wouldn’t be there, so she knew she had to do this herself. She would be off shortly.

  “Mrs. Easton, I’m aware of the situation with you and your husband,” Miss Greckski said to Jessica. “Has Charlie shown any negative behaviors at home at all?”

  “No,” she said. She felt guilty thinking of the nights her son would lie awake while she fought with her husband over his lack of employment and increasing drinking habits. It was only the night before that she’d ever seen him at his closet. What was it that he said he was doing? Something about a boy? “Has he been acting out in class?”

  “No, quite the opposite actually. He’s become very withdrawn from the other students. He’s very quiet and well mannered, even when the other kids are mean to him. Don’t worry, I assure you, bullying does not occur in my classroom,” Miss Greckski explained confidently. “But with that withdrawal, do you think he’s found some other way of coping with his loneliness?”

  Jessica’s mind instantly flashed to the night before.

  “No,” Jessica lied. “He’s just trying to come to terms with the loss of his father at home. Charlie rarely sees his father, and as of last night, my husband and I are separated. I’ve been seeking lawyers for quite some time now.”

  “I see,” Miss Greckski said. “Well, Mrs. Easton, I would just recommend trying to find him playdates. Any relatives his age?”

  “Well, yes, but they’re out of state. I can definitely try my best to pay more attention to him.”

  Miss Greckski pursed her lips together, biting back her words. Maybe being with his mother was what he needed most, but she knew there was more that he needed. She nodded in response, and the two shook hands and said their goodbyes.

  The boy in the closet didn’t come the night after. Charlie wondered if he’d been scared away by the adults. He lay wide awake late each night since the habit of waking to his parents’ arguments had been formed, awaiting the two knocks at his closet door. Some nights, Charlie would climb out of his bed and knock on the door himself just to see if he would get a reply. Nothing.

  He would try it in school during playtime as he built his perfect domino structures. Still nothing.

  A week had passed as Charlie sat before his closet again as his mother ran his bath water. He still wore his school clothes, ready to don his bathrobe. Before he changed, he closed his bedroom door. Charlie stood before the closet again and gave the door two knocks.

  Charlie jumped when he heard the sound of three knocks in response. He immediately responded with three of his own.

  “Who’s there?” the familiar voice asked him.

  “It’s you!” Charlie said, overcome with joy. His knocking friend had returned. “I want to come play with you now. I don’t like it here anymore.”

  “Really?” the voice said excitedly.

  “Yeah, let’s go over to your house, and we can play there, if you’re too scared to come here.”

  “Okay, but you have to open the door first, Charlie.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said, grinning from ear to ear as his mother snatched open the bedroom door, viewing the back of Charlie’s dark curly head of hair.

  She crossed her arms and frowned a bit as her son opened his closet door earnestly, then stepped slowly inside while closing the door behind him. Hiding from bath time. Although he hadn’t done it in a while, he had done it many times before.

  Jessica pushed the door open. “Now where is that boy?” she said with exaggerated earnestness. “Is he under the bed? Is he behind the dresser?” She feigned looking under the bed and behind the dresser respectively. She inched to the closet door carefully. “I know where he is,” Jessica said with a grin.

  She knocked on the door three times before turning on the light. She swung the door open with a playful, GOTCHA! But her smile faded at what she saw. It was more of what she didn’t see that presented the problem. The clothes remained in their respective places with the shoes stacked neatly, but Charlie was not there.

  Jessica shook her head and began tearing the closet from bottom to top. Maybe there was a trapdoor or a secret passage of some sort. She knew the thought was ridiculous, but something had to explain this.

  She immediately called the police. The police doubted that the boy went missing in his closet but sent out the AMBER Alert anyhow.

  As the months dragged on, Jessica’s divorce was made final. Ronnie blamed her for their missing son but didn’t stay around long enough for him to be found. He moved to Wisconsin with his brother. Jessica wanted to keep the house and was allowed to do so. Stacey moved in with her to help pay for the house.

  Jessica would sit in Charlie’s room after she came home from work. She would sniff the empty sheets and blankets that remained tousled on his bed exactly the way he’d left them, just to absorb his scent.

  Images of him standing at the closet door would come to her mind as she stood before it. She would knock on the door, waiting for an answer, but she was only met with silence. Jessica opened his closet occasionally, remembering the days she would pick out and iron his clothes for the week.

  Even as the months turned to two long years, she would still go to his room every night, praying that he would come back to her. His room still remained in the exact condition he had left it. Jessica made sure that dust would not collect on his toys and dresser so that when he came home, they would be ready for him to use.

  Stacey was sure—everyone was—that Charlie was dead, but she didn’t have the heart to tell Jessica to accept it. She knew that had to come on her own terms.

  Jessica lay on the floor of his bedroom one evening, awaiting sleep to take her off into dreams of her baby boy, when she heard two knocks.

  “You don’t have to knock, Stacey,” she said.

  The door didn’t open, and Jessica ignored it until two more knocks came. Jessica shot upward, suddenly aware that the knocks hadn’t come from the bedroom door.

  She walked to the closet, listening for another sound. She raised her hand and knocked on the door three times and waited. A long moment passed before the three knocks came back. She slapped her hand over her mouth as tears came bursting from her eyes.

  The closet door swung open as she hopped out of the way, stumbling across the room onto Charlie’s bed, ruining the tousled blankets the way he had left them.

  “Mommy!” the screechy voice came as the boy rushed to wrap his arms around her.

  His sleeved shirt came to his elbows and part of his lower back was showing, it was clearly too small for him. His curly dark hair was unmistakably familiar. Jessica stood and wrapped her arms around her son. She had no words, only tears of joy. Charlie had returned home.

  He pulled away, standing before her as not the little boy she remembered, but now nearly a preteen who was clearly outgrowing his clothing.

  “How? Where have you been?” Jessica asked frantically.

  “I’m happy now, Mommy,” Charlie said. Not an ounce of his childish innocence had been scathed. “He found me.”

  “Who?”

  “Him,”
Charlie replied, rubbing his mother’s belly at the words. “Somebody hurt him and he says he’s lonely. But we’re both happy now, Mommy. He found me. And he wanted me to give you this.”

  Jessica barely processed the words her son spoke as he set the blackened rope-like object in her hand. She could feel something familiar about this item. Something so close it should’ve been comforting, but it only gave her chills.

  A noise came from the closet door; two knocks, like before.

  “I have to go back now,” Charlie said, his voice severe, his bright smile fading.

  “Go where?” she said, and Charlie pulled away.

  “Bye, Mommy.”

  The knocks came again, this time like a battering ram attempting to smash down the door. Jessica nearly leapt across the room, but her socks slipped on the hardwood floor. Charlie returned the furious bangs with three knocks of his own and opened the closet door.

  Rushing to her feet, Jessica chased her son to the closet door like a fading dream, begging for it to last longer. She reached the door only a second after Charlie had closed it behind him. Jessica opened the door to find nothing again. She turned on the light, taking in the mess she’d made of the closet on that night two years before.

  Jessica still sits there in Charlie’s room, watching and waiting. Occasionally she raises her old bones from the rocking chair she’s placed in the room and goes to the closet. She knocks twice and waits for the knock to be returned. Nothing. She tries three times and waits. Still nothing.

  But she won’t give up hope. She still feels the warmth of her son’s arms around her. She still hears his juvenile voice developing into that of an adolescent. His toothless smile is replaced with adult teeth. Surely her son is grown now. And she knows that one day he will come back to her.

  She sits rubbing her stomach, holding the black rope-like item close to her belly.

  Never again, she thinks.

  No matter how long it takes, she will be waiting.

  Cool winds blew across the field of dying grass. The breeze withered and danced through the trees. An orange leaf drifted from the sycamore before crunching under worn soles. The men sweated beneath their wool uniforms. Bandanas trapped what moisture they could from the company of men.

  The campfires had burned to red embers, yet silhouettes of smoke rose to greet the dawn. The hot, bitter coffee was the only comfort on these endless days. Some of the men ate fried pieces of salted pork and grits.

  Corporal Hulett examined the first men standing ready near their tents. All seemed in order. Neat. Tidy. Accessible. He prepared for his squad’s inspection. He straightened his sack coat’s collar and checked the five brass buttons down the front. His slouch’s wide brim hid his short cropped hair and the scar above his ear.

  Some of the men fought with the instep tab—the fabric that hugged the arch of the foot. The small buttons were easy on the instep but hard to button on the outside of the foot. The choice was between ease and preventing some hard thing clinging to their socks and into their boot.

  Sergeant Kelly bustled through camp. He muttered under his breath and pulled on his gloves. As he walked near Hulett’s squad, the men snapped to attention. The sergeant paused, and with a glance, moved down the line of men, inspecting their uniforms. With a curt nod, his men returned to their duties, and he resumed his agitated walk.

  The short musical notes sounded, and the men, ready or not, began to muster. Squad by squad, the platoons formed. Corporal Hulett and the other squad leaders sounded off. “Present and accounted for.” Sergeant Kelly about-faced and saluted First Sergeant Traux.

  With a nod, Traux’s weary eyes peered over his men. He returned the salute, and Kelly marched to his place. Traux looked at the young boy, ten years old, proudly holding the flag. The bright colors now faded but that didn’t diminish the pride in these men. His men.

  “Reports have come in from Sergeant Major. The Yanks have breached the river north of here. We are to deploy at once.” First Sergeant Traux’s words stirred passion in some men and fear of the coming clash in others.

  A horn sounded across the way, and the men nodded a solemn glance at their brothers-in-arms. As quickly as calloused and water-blistered feet could handle, the men assembled into neat, tight ranks. Their weapons were heavy, and the bayonets were dented and discolored in spite of maintenance. As they moved out, the rifle barrels swayed to their march through the forest where nature once reigned. Their cadence kept time with the steady tap of the drum.

  The drummer, a small boy of eight who walked beside the color bearer, had a job more important than even he realized. They brought morale to the tired men. The steady thump, thump, thump reflected the hearts of men who were willing to die for their freedom from government dictation. The wind rippled through the flag, snatching the fabric taut before moving to other haunts.

  Halos of sunlight speckled the ground. The gray wool soaked the sun’s heat, like a rock in the desert. Men licked their chapped lips and wished for rain. Wet wool wasn’t any more enjoyable, but at least it would bring some relief.

  The men broke through the forest’s embrace. For a mile or more, the grassy knoll stretched under the sun’s light. The bugle echoed as the man in the commander’s hat raised his sword with the decorative hilt to the sky and hollered, “For the South, by the Grace of God.”

  The first line of men knelt. The rifle butts pressed against their shoulders. Some hands shook with nerves. Manly men sighted down the barrels, no different than if varmints were their target.

  Corporal Hulett leaned over Private Sherman, first man in the squad, before shouting into his ear. “Brace more, you son of a bitch. Control your hand, boy, before you shoot out your eye.”

  The first volley of ballistics shot across the field. Overhead, the whizzing lead balls made men flinch. On either side, dirt exploded as the mortars buried themselves into the dirt. The tiny flecks of sand and clay stung as they showered upon the men. The squad behind the kneelers took aim and fired with the commander’s orders.

  The men Hulett had been commanding hurried to grab their powder horns. The tiny black grains looked like sand as they poured into the barrel. Metal slid on metal as the ramrods encouraged the musket balls into place.

  The scent of gunpowder grew in the field as the men fired again and again. Colleagues fell, and nothing could be done until the final warble of the horn sounded tonight. The men closed the gaps and began to march forward. The drum’s pulse increased to match the beat of the battle.

  The thrill of battle rang through Hulett as he raised his short sword in rally fashion. “Give no quarter to these yellow-bellied fledglings.”

  Doty laughed at the corporal. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving encouragement. What are you doing to help turn these boys into men? Besides how to lay in a tree?” Hulett smirked. He found it hard to remember exactly how long they had been friends.

  Doty’s laughter rumbled from his belly and shook his whole body. “Not wasting my breath. You do remember you’re a ghost— they can’t hear you.”

  “But what’s the fun in that?” Hulett countered, with a face-splitting grin.

  Doty raised a bushy brow. “Shouldn’t you be haunting World War II? After all, you served in that one.”

  “The same could be said about you, swabbie,” he jested with the petty officer. “There’s a lot to be said about reenactments.”

  Doty faded from the tree and rematerialized beside Hulett. “Well then, don’t let me stop you.”

  Hulett smirked at Doty. “You wanna join in?”

  Doty laughed. “And risk becoming a bullet sponge, like you?”

  “What’s it matter? We’re ghosts.” Hulett found joy in echoing what Doty had pointed out minutes prior.

  By the time the ghosts exchanged their jolly greeting and decided to join the fray, the show was finished. The crowds clapped. Little girls marveled at the bonnet-covered women dressed in Victorianera garb whose skirts graced the ground like a w
altz. Little boys dressed in replica cotton coats and kepis used imaginary pistols and foam swords in recreation.

  As the weary reenactors departed for grilled food and healthy beverages, Hulett spoke. “There’s another show at two.” He nudged Petty Officer Doty’s shoulder and wagged his brows.

  Doty laughed and shook his head. “Count me in.”

  The rain fell so hard the day Luna died it bounced off the hot pavement before slowing to a gentle mist, perfect for running through on a muggy summer day. The sun peeked from behind a cloud, and steam wafted into the air.

  Luna sat in a shallow muddy puddle in her underwear, naming worms according to size. The long one with the fat middle was Papa. Mama was long and thin, pale, stretched out, and tired looking.

  Luna searched through a wriggling, slimy pile for another. The worm slipped away and slithered through the mud toward freedom. Gently, she picked it up and wound it through her fingers to hold it in place. It was small, but robust and fierce. Definitely a Luna worm. Smiling in triumph, she placed it carefully into the box full of dirt with the others.

  Now to find a Cira worm. Luna’s breath hitched at the thought of her twin sister. She stared up at the second floor of their white Colonial home—intimidating in size and austerity—and rubbed at the sudden knot of anxiety in her chest. The curtains on her sister’s bedroom window were closed tight to the daylight. “So Cira can rest,” Mama had answered when Luna once asked why the room was so dark.

  The anxiety turned to resentment. Cira should be outside with Luna, imagining away the day, not alone in bed with tubes running through her body. But Papa had told her to let him do the worrying, so she shook off the anger, and the knot slowly untwisted.

  There! A tiny worm caught her eye. She scooped it into her palm and cupped it, afraid to pinch the delicate creature between her fingers. The worm was perfect for Cira: tiny and flawlessly formed, yet nearly translucent in its paleness.

  She held it to her face, speaking softly as she ran a gentle fingertip along its body.