by Sarah Riad
I ploughed through the bags and boxes that my mum had placed in the corner of my room, looking only for the things I actually needed. I left my clothes in the sacks they came in and pulled out my PlayStation, laptop, and phone charger. Once my TV had found its new home on my empty cabinets, and the cables for my PlayStation had been plugged in, I positioned my chair in front of it and began my night routine.
I could spend hours playing games, disconnected from this world and in another. Somehow, I was someone else in these games. I was Corporal Henry Davidson, a soldier in WW2 trying to save the world or Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring goals for a winning side, collecting medals with ease. Some days, I would sit back in my chair and play until the dark sky outside became light, only then realising just how late it was and how tired I had become. Tonight was different though. No matter how many different games I tried to play, I couldn’t settle. I was agitated by the overwhelming feeling that this was not my home.
We didn’t belong here.
I turned off my game and looked around the room, noticing the boxes I had left to one side. The glistening of gold caught my eye as I walked over to a box holding a bunch of medals and trophies. Without a second thought, I closed it back up and dumped it in the wardrobe before pulling a duvet and pillows out of a black sack. I tried to sleep but as much as my body felt tired, my brain wasn’t. It seemed to jump from thought to worry and back around again. I had just gotten used to being the weird kid at school, knowing I only had a year left before I could leave, though admittedly, it would be to another school. It didn’t matter though because I knew it would be a university that Theo wouldn’t be at and my family wouldn’t be nearby. A new school at this point in the school year would already make me stand out like a sore thumb. Pair that up with looking the way I did and having Theo as my brother would only make things worse. As much as I hated it, I did like my classes. I was currently taking English, sociology, and history, preparing to apply to do a law degree at university in January. I had no idea why I had been interested in becoming a lawyer since no one in my family had ever done it but it was probably for that reason that I wanted to do it. A job that was so different from that of my dad’s. It didn’t matter what I picked to do though, my dad was only interested in what Theo would do. Knowing my luck, he would be discovered as the next talented footballer and be earning millions before I had even finished school.
I sighed, tossed over to my side, and stared at the cracks in the wall.
The house really was a state.
5
Ab
It was strange to be in the house at night and not be smothered in darkness. I wandered the hallways restlessly as everyone began to settle in their bedrooms for the night with a nervous feeling in my stomach. I hadn’t ever had to scare people individually before, usually it was all at once.
As I walked past Maia’s room, I could hear her softly mumble to herself. Curious, I peeked my head into the room.
She was facing the wall, pretending to draw on it with her finger as a pen. Continuing, she whispered, ‘Hello.’
‘Are you talking to me?’ I whispered back before she turned her head and nodded.
‘Can you really see me?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded again.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. How was it possible? No one had ever seen me before.
‘Why do people keep saying you’re not here?’ she said going back to her unseen drawing on the wall.
I found myself fidgeting as I forced myself into the corner of her room. Except for some dirty windows and a fresh coat of paint needed, the room wasn’t in too bad of condition and already looked cosy with her soft furnishings scattered everywhere.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t think they can see me, kid.’
‘But why?’ she said facing me once again. It was a feeling I couldn’t help but enjoy—being seen.
‘Do you know what ghosts are?’ I said trying to tread carefully around the topic. Even I knew that kids didn’t exactly respond well to stories of ghosts and ghouls.
‘Yes, dead people who are see-through,’ she replied as I chuckled.
‘That’s almost right except, I’m not see-through to you...’
She didn’t say anything at first, instead, she frowned as though she were thinking about it before her face relaxed. ‘So you’re dead?’
I nodded.
I liked this kid. I couldn’t help it. I loved her fearlessness. There I was, a ghost, and she was completely unfazed.
‘My name is Maia-Rose but everyone calls me Maia,’ she said, pulling up her pyjama sleeve and holding her hand out to shake.
‘Nice to meet you, Maia.’ I grinned as I tried to shake her tiny hand but went straight through it. ‘I’m Aubree but everyone calls me AB. Well, they used to.’ It had been so long since I had said my own name that I almost felt choked up hearing it out loud.
‘I like AB.’
‘Me too.’
‘AB, do you live here by yourself?’ she asked, pretending to draw on the walls once more.
‘Well, I did until you moved in.’
‘Do you like living here?’
I thought about my answer for a moment. It wasn’t a question I had ever really asked myself. What was the point when I had no choice?
‘Not really, but I’m stuck. I can’t leave, no matter how much I want to.’
‘You’re not alone anymore now though.’ She smiled infectiously before lying back into her bed and tucking the blankets under her arms, silently signalling to me it was time for her to sleep. ‘Why can only I see you?’
I shrugged my shoulders, wondering the same thing. ‘I have no idea but, Maia’—I bent down in front of her—’I think it’s best you don’t tell your family about me as I think it will just get you into trouble.’
I wasn’t sure why I had told her. If she told her family, it would only help me scare them.
‘Ok,’ she replied.
‘Ok, goodnight.’ I smiled as I left the room.
‘AB?’ I looked back at her, holding on tight to her teddy. ‘I’m glad I can see you.’
I smiled and felt a rush of something warm take over my body. I was sure that if it were possible, I’d be glowing in gold.
‘Me too, kid. Me too.’
It was only as I left her room that I realised how strong I felt. I could feel it streaming through me. I had gained that much strength from one kid believing in me, how much could I gain from the entire family?
I slowly walked across the hall, hesitating for a moment outside Cait and Jack’s bedroom door. I could scare them all, there and then, possibly giving me enough strength to exist in the house for ages before I needed anyone to visit, but Maia’s face and words smothered me. I couldn’t do it to her. Not yet.
‘One day won’t hurt, and plus they’ll have another day to finish cleaning the house. I prefer seeing the house all nice and decorated anyway,’ I said to myself as I walked away from the door and up to the library. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’
Once I reached the library, I excitedly turned on the light and watched the room glow under a black sky before I picked a new book from the shelf. I relished every turned page.
6
Finn
It was long into Sunday afternoon when I finally woke up. My head ached as though it had been sat on all night. I couldn’t remember what time I had finally fallen asleep but I knew the sky hadn’t looked too different from the pale blue it currently was.
I heard a little tap on my door.
‘Finn?’
‘Come in, Maia,’ I kicked off the duvet, and sat up.
She walked into the room, dressed in the Captain America costume I had gotten her for Christmas. It was only when I saw her in it—with the arms not quite reaching her wrists and the legs sitting way above her ankles—that I realised how much she had grown in the past nine months. It seemed impossible that she was already five years old.
She took a look around the room, clearly
unimpressed by the mess it was in before looking back to me with a smile.
‘Mummy wanted to know if you were still asleep.’ She carefully climbed onto the bed to sit opposite me.
‘Nope. Not anymore.’ I smiled back at her, rubbing my hand through my hair to flatten my bed head.
‘Are you gonna tidy your room?’ Maia said looking around the room once more. Admittedly, it looked a lot worse in the light from the bare windows.
‘Are you saying it’s messy?’ I said with a fake look of shock.
She nodded with a grin beginning to grow on her face, knowing what was coming.
‘Well, I guess I better tidy it up,’ I said slowly crawling over to her carefully. ‘Right after I get the tickle monster out!’
I tickled her tummy, causing her to shriek in laughter.
‘Not the tickle monster!’ she said squirming to get away from me. Her laugh was infectious, and I found myself laughing with her, but it soon stopped once I caught my mum’s reflection in the shattered mirror.
‘Don’t let me interrupt,’ Mum said with a smile as I let go of Maia and straightened myself up. I felt a twinge of guilt as Maia’s smile fell too.
‘Are you ready for school tomorrow?’ Mum said, trying to fill the silence that had suffocated the room.
‘Yeah,’ I said, but it came out sounding like just noise.
She nodded, but before she could speak again, I stood up from the bed.
‘I’m gonna have a shower.’
I ruffled Maia’s messy hair and walked past Mum at the door heading for the bathroom.
I didn’t want a shower but I didn’t want to sit and talk to my mum about my new school. I was dreading it enough as it was.
I turned on the shower tap, half expecting it to pour out brown water. For a few minutes, I just watched it run as it steamed up the bathroom mirror. I sniffed my armpits, wondering if I could even be bothered to get in. It’s not like anyone was going to get close enough to smell me at school tomorrow.
They’d avoid me, just like the last school.
I sighed. I was sick of moaning but it seemed to be the only thing I was good at.
Slowly, I pulled off my clothes, noticing the slight chill in the air as it caused the hair on my body to stand. I climbed into the shower, which was not nearly as hot as the steam had made it seem.
I actually loved showers despite my groans, in fact, I loved anything that had water involved. A few years earlier you’d only ever find me in a pool. I shrugged off the thought as I washed away the last bit of soap off my legs.
Once I was dried off with a towel around me, I wiped the steam off the mirror to glance at my reflection.
My hair had grown way too long, even for my standards. The sides had almost covered my ears and the front was constantly touching my eyebrows. I wondered if I should get a haircut, but the thought of going into the new town made my stomach knot. I could have asked my mum to cut it, she had been a hairdresser before she had started having kids, but the thought of her being that close to me made a trip into town seem the better option.
I settled to push the hair out of my face before racing back to my bedroom.
For a second, I thought about tidying up the room. I looked at the bottles of cleaning products Mum had brought a few days before but instead, I shut the door and switched on my game.
I never really paid too much attention to time, but today it was flying past. Every time I reached for my phone, an hour or two had passed until the blue sky had completely disappeared. I was in darkness except for my TV screen.
I could feel the familiar ache in my stomach as the thought of Monday morning became my only thought. Not even my game could keep me distracted as I lost another battle against twelve different strangers from around the world. I switched off the TV and sat in the darkness for a few minutes, listening to Maia’s muffled voice through the walls.
‘Would you like some tea, AB?’ she said.
I wondered where her imaginary friend’s name had come from. I smiled at the thought of her talking to herself offering empty cups of tea.
I climbed into bed. Every muscle in my body begun to ache, protesting for me to just let them rest, but my mind still raced. Pulling out the laptop, I typed in the name of my new school into Google. One page revealed pictures of a brownstone building surrounded by acres of perfect green land. Kids posed in the ‘I’m a professional student’ kind of way with books in their hands and false grins on their faces. Other pictures showed busy classrooms with teachers smiling back at their perfect students with not a single hair out of place and clothes that screamed upper-middle class.
Theo would fit in perfectly here with his perfect hair, perfect athleticism, and perfect charm.
And of course, I wouldn’t.
I sighed loudly before changing the page to Facebook as I scrolled through, reading the status’ from people I barely knew. A handful had been old friends but the majority had just been people who had added me because of Theo. None I had ever spoken to except for the odd ‘where is Theo?’ question. As I continued to scroll through, I was interrupted by a noise. My eyes shot over to the floorboards by the door as they creaked. My mind immediately pictured a scary looking ghost staring back at me. ‘Don’t be stupid, it’s an old house.’ I reasoned with myself before closing my laptop and hiding underneath my covers.
Ugh. This was not helping my stomach or my sleep.
7
Ab
The weekend had passed, and it had been a few days since the family had moved in. I was completely aware of the fact that I had broken the daily promise to myself to get the family out of the house but every night, I would end up in the library telling myself I’d do it the next day.
‘There’s no rush. They’ll be here tomorrow,’ I said to myself as I would end each night no closer to them leaving.
I knew what was stopping me, of course. The unlimited supply of energy I was getting and the unlikely friendship I had made with Maia. We had spent the last two days sipping from empty plastic teacups and watching movies on the TV’s that I had originally thought were black pictures. I had been taught that Cinderella had been replaced with someone called Elsa, the internet was a thing everyone now had, and mobile phones were also flat and played videos. It was hard to remember that the world had continued without me. Over time, I had tried to keep in sync with the date by writing it down each day but soon enough I had run out of ink and paper and when the seasons began to change so quickly, I lost all count of the date, month, and year.
‘Hey kid, can that thing tell you the date?’ I asked as she played a game on something that was called a tablet, but not the medical kind.
‘Erm, I think it’s the 16th of August,’ She lifted the screen to show me the actual date which was the 17th of September 2018.
‘It’s 2018?’ I said, causing her to jump a little. Had it really been thirty-three years since I had died? I knew it had been a long time but had thirty-three years really passed? ‘I’m fifty-one years old.’
I laughed but I wasn’t sure if I had actually found it funny.
Maia sat back in silence for a moment before chuckling. ‘You’re not fifty-one.’
‘Well, I would have been if I was still alive.’ I stopped laughing, thinking about where I would have been right then if that day hadn’t ever happened. I was never going to be the traditional type and settle down with kids before turning thirty. None of that had ever appealed to me, but I did want to travel. I had a plan that once I turned nineteen, I’d leave my gran’s house and head for wherever my savings would take me. I didn’t have much, but it would be enough to get a train somewhere far enough away, and I’d figure out the rest once I got there. Maybe along the way, I’d fall in love a dozen times, never quite settling with someone but enjoying it all the same.
‘How did you die?’ Maia asked putting away her tea set. I found the way she spoke so calmly about everything both terrifying and incredible. It was sometimes like I was speaking to som
eone older than me but in a five-year-old’s body.
‘How about instead, I tell you a different story?’ I said eager to change the topic.
Maia paused, scrunching up her eyebrows before shrugging. ‘Ok.’
I smiled as I got to my feet and headed for the door.
‘Wait, I thought you were telling me a story?’
‘I am, I just need to get the book. Why don’t you get into your pyjamas while I get it?’ I smiled as I left the room, walking straight through someone.
‘Ugh.’ I found Finn in front of me looking white and moments away from vomiting.
