A Tale of Two Ghosts

by Sarah Riad

  21

  Ab

  Later that evening, once Maia was asleep and Theo had sneaked in an hour after he should have, I slid into Finn’s room. He sat in his chair facing the TV as he played a shooting game.

  ‘Hello? Is that Finn?’ I said sitting back on his bed, flinching at the screen every time he shot someone.

  ‘What?’ he said while flickering his eyes back and forth to me and the TV. He was getting a lot better at following my voice.

  ‘Oh, you know, just that I can barely recognise you anymore without that big mop of hair on your head. I can actually see your face now.’ I laughed. It seemed crazy, but the haircut had made it easier to see Theo was his twin.

  ‘You sound like my mum.’ He groaned before quickly jumping up and turning off his game. ‘Oh, I forgot.’ He grabbed his laptop and a bag beside it and sat back down. ‘I have something for you, well, actually two things.’

  ‘Ooo gimme,’ I squealed with glee as he pulled out a book from the bag.

  ‘It’s Harry Potter. I figured you wouldn’t have heard of it but it’s, like, huge. There are films and everything. I think there are seven books in the series.’

  I flicked through the pages unleashing that book smell. ‘And you only brought me the first one?’ I frowned.

  Finn gently laughed as he tapped away on his laptop. ‘No, it’s a library book so once you finish that one, I’ll swap it for the next one in the series. Just read it first, you might not like it.’

  ‘You went to a library?’ I chuckled at the thought. ‘I wouldn’t have even expected you to know what one looks like.’

  Finn faked a laugh as he kept his eyes on the laptop. ‘You should be a little more grateful since I barely escaped the motormouth that belonged to the librarian, Sheila.’

  I was thankful for a moment that Finn was not able to see my face as my mouth dropped open. Could it be the same Sheila I knew? My gran’s friendly arch-nemesis? I could remember the many occasions I’d get home from school to find my gran groaning about something that Sheila had said. Sheila was the type that made it her business to know your business and my gran hated it, but in person, you’d have thought they were best friends. They’d only ever greet each other with big smiles and discuss the few happy memories they shared of the past. But could it be possible that Sheila was still alive? She had been a similar age to my gran when I had been alive which would have meant she would be in her late seventies, early eighties by now. If that had been the same Sheila and she was still alive, could that mean my gran could be too?

  ‘You ok?’ Finn asked having not taken his eyes off the laptop since opening it.

  I placed the book on my lap and brushed my fingers on the edge of the pages. ‘Yes, fine. Thanks for thinking of me.’

  I wondered if I should ask him more about the Sheila he had met. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know but whether I could handle knowing that there was a possibility my gran was still alive.

  ‘It’s no bother,’ he said brushing off my thanks.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said getting irritated by his attention being elsewhere. ‘I can come back later if you’re busy.’

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘Sorry, I actually wanted to show you something.’ He turned the screen around to face me as I tried to work out what it was. ‘When I was helping Maia yesterday with our family tree, I got thinking.’ He paused.

  ‘Ok…’ I replied unsure where he was going with this.

  ‘They have all these websites online now that do all the work for you. So, basically I just type in a name and a date of birth and it should bring up results on that person.’

  ‘Ok…’ I said again slowly catching onto to what he was saying.

  ‘Well, I thought we could look up your family and maybe see if I can find more information on them. I mean, your gran might have passed away by now but if I can see if your mum got married then we could search for her on social—’

  ‘Stop,’ I said loudly, catching him off guard as I jumped to my feet.

  ‘Stop what?’ He looked confused as he followed the sound of my voice.

  ‘I don’t want you to look for them so please stop it.’ I was already by the door, ready to bolt.

  ‘Ok.’ Finn raised his hands, surrendering the laptop to his bed. ‘I’ll stop. I’m sorry, I thought it was a good idea…’ He stood awkwardly facing the door as he chewed on his bottom lip.

  ‘Are you still here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I snapped looking out into the hallway. I hadn’t noticed but Cait had hung family photos on the freshly painted walls. They were mostly of Maia but there were a few old pictures of them altogether too. If you didn’t know any better you would have thought they were the perfect family.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Finn said softly with his eyes on the floor.

  The guilt took hold of me, sinking deeper into me, keeping me rooted to the spot. He sat down in his chair facing away from me. I could still see his face from his reflection in the TV as the moonlight bounced onto it. I sighed, trying to remember the times when drama didn’t exist in my world which didn’t make sense since just a few minutes before I was toying with the idea of asking him about Sheila.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said, sitting on the bed but pushing the laptop away from both of us. ‘I guess I am not used to people wanting to help me or even the possibility of having that kind of information.’

  Finn shrugged his shoulders but kept his gaze on the black screen in front of him, ‘no, I shouldn’t have pushed.’

  ‘I appreciate it, I just...to get by all these years, I had to imagine what their lives were like without me so if you go into that computer of yours and tell me something completely different, I…’ I paused. ‘I just don’t want to know.’

  ‘Ok,’ he said, facing me with a weak smile. ‘Well, I guess I had better get to bed.’

  ‘Wait, we haven’t asked our questions yet.’ I frowned.

  ‘Oh,’ Finn said sitting back down in the chair. ‘I thought you might not want to do it tonight.’

  ‘No, we agreed. Can I go first?’

  He nodded. ‘Ok.’

  I composed myself, wondering if he might pass the question, but I went for it anyway. ‘What happened with Bradley?’ As the name left my lips, Finn stopped breathing for a moment.

  ‘How do you know about Bradley?’ he asked, looking confused and pulling at the sleeves of his top.

  ‘Well I snooped a little when I tidied your room, and Maia vaguely explained you weren’t friends anymore.’

  Finn nodded and looked down at his hands. ‘There’s not much to know except that he was my friend and now we’re not.’

  ‘Did you swim together?’ I asked, remembering the medals.

  He nodded and began picking at his hands. ‘It’s how we became friends.’

  ‘Ok, so what happened?’

  He sighed and stayed quiet for a moment before opening his mouth. ‘Swimming, was only supposed to be fun at first. We went every weekend when we were about seven years old until one of the teachers told our parents that we had potential to start competing. So we started training and attending competitions. When I started winning, I found a real love for it. I’d come home and share Theo’s limelight with my dad. Even the kids at school started to be nice to me when I won our school competitions.’

  ‘Let me guess, Bradley wasn’t as good?’ I asked.

  ‘At first, it was never an issue because we never raced against each other, and he really was a good swimmer. But there were these competitions outside of school where only one person could represent the school. Our swim coach picked me, and then when I kept winning, he didn’t want to pick anyone else. I could already tell that our friendship was starting to change when we stopped hanging out, but things got a little better when we were both invited to the Regional Swimming Championships to compete for ourselves. If we won our race, we would qualify for Nationals which was a big deal. The day of the championship arrived and mos
t of our school had come to cheer us on. We were both really excited until we realised we were racing against each other. I tried my best to remind him that we were up against other people too, and we could only do our best, but his attitude had changed again. He started to try and make me nervous while we were getting ready—trying to fill me with his own self-doubt but when it came to our race, I blocked it all out. I tried to wish him good luck, but he just ignored me.’ His icy blue eyes grow sadder as the skin around his fingers grew raw from his picking.

  ‘I didn’t expect to win, not because of what Bradley had said but because of the people I was up against. Some were older than me with far leaner bodies and a lot more confidence, but somehow I did it. I reached the wall and came out of the water to find I had come in first with everyone cheering me on. I looked around for Bradley and realised he had come last. I knew straight away from the look he gave me that we were no longer friends.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wanting to also point out that he was probably better off without Bradley given how much of a dick he was but stayed silent.

  ‘I wish that was it, but things got a lot worse.’ He shook his head as if to cover his eyes with the hair he no longer had. ‘Bradley hated the praise I got from people at school and how much more popular I had become. Even Theo wanted to hang out of me. I guess he wanted to get his own back and began trying to spread rumours about me at school—stupid ones that no one was really bothered about and then one day he was caught smashing up the school trophies I had won. He was expelled straight away.’

  ‘That must have been a good thing though, at least he was away from you?’ I asked.

  ‘No, because it didn’t change anything. He had this chip on his shoulder and felt like he was a victim because of me, like I had stolen something from him. One night, I was leaving training late and decided to walk home when I was jumped by four boys. One of them was Bradley, the rest I didn’t recognise. They left me on the street unable to move.’

  I covered my mouth with my hands. ‘Oh my god.’

  He nodded and bit his lip.

  ‘Is that why you stopped swimming?’ I asked.

  ‘They left me in a bad way. I had broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but the doctors said with a little physio I could go back to competing. Truthfully, I didn’t want to do it anymore. Being attacked just changed me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said as I reached out to touch his shoulder, but my hand went right through him causing him to shudder as though a chill went down his spine.

  ‘AB?’ He looked towards me with heavy eyes. ‘Do you really think I am a loser?’

  I sat silent for a moment, lost for words until I remembered what he was talking about. My stomach dropped.

  ‘You wrote it on the window,’ he said reminding me.

  I looked at him, not sure what to say. His shoulders were bunched together like he was trying to make himself disappear into them. We had the most unconventional friendship, but it was a friendship that I didn’t want to lose.

  ‘You can be honest,’ he said chewing on his lip like he always did when he was nervous.

  I sighed. ‘Finn, I didn’t know you then. I was bored and just being stupid.’

  ‘But, you did think I was a loser?’ he said.

  I pursed my lips together tightly, watching as he waited for an answer. I sighed and nodded my head. ‘I guess I did, yeah.’

  He took his gaze away, looked down at his hands, and nodding.

  ‘Can I explain why?’ I stood up to stand in front of him.

  ‘Ok,’ he replied but didn’t look up at me.

  ‘As I said, I didn’t know you. To me, you just came across as this spoiled moody kid that just wanted to lock himself away all the time. As someone who was, and still is, desperate to see the world, I couldn’t understand why you were wasting your life locked in your bedroom.’

  ‘And now? Do you still think I’m wasting my life? That I’m a loser?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a loser, Finn, but I do think you’re wasting time you’ll never get back. I know that doesn’t make sense to someone who is young and has their whole life ahead of them. It wouldn’t have made sense to me either, but look at me, Finn…’ I sighed. ‘I learned the hard way. I’m the ghost of an eighteen-year-old girl that had so much planned for her future, but instead I’m here, stuck in a house that I’ll never be able to leave. I am proof that things change and not always in the way you want them to.’ I took a deep and unnecessary breath feeling the urge to cry even though I couldn’t. ‘I just don’t want to see you miss out on doing whatever it is you want to do because you’re scared of stepping out from someone else’s shadow.’

  Finn shook his head and laughed in disbelief. ‘You think I don’t want to leave Theo’s shadow?’

  I sighed, knowing I was going into dangerous territory. ‘I think that you’re so used to being in it that it’s become a safe haven. You know when you look at a word for too long and it suddenly loses all meaning? You question if it’s even a real word despite using it most days?’ He didn’t answer but I continued anyway. ‘Well, I think that’s what happened to you. I think you’ve looked at yourself for so long while comparing yourself to everyone else, that you’ve lost who you are.’

  He nodded his head slowly before standing up.

  ‘Finn…’ I said now wishing I could take it all back. ‘I can relate to you more than you think. I was you, just a few decades ago, but I changed things and you can too.’ I knew I sounded like one of those adverts that seemed to be nine hours long and only played on TV after midnight.

  ‘So you think that I should be like Theo and all of a sudden I’ll be the real me?’ he said, annoyed.

  ‘No, that’s not what I am saying, but I also don’t think this version of you now is the real you either. You said how happy you were when you were swimming and people wanted to hang out with you.’

  He laughed again but it was spiteful this time. ‘And after a couple of weeks of chatting, you think you know the real me? You’re dead and have been for so long that you don’t know anything about the real world so how about next time you keep your opinions to yourself.’

  I slammed the Harry Potter book shut as I rose to my feet, ‘You know what? You’re right,’ I said, feeling anger swarm its way through me. Who the hell did he think he was. ‘I am a ghost, and I have been dead for a long time, but you know what? I am more alive than you’ll ever be, and that is why you are a loser.’ I left his room and slammed his door behind me. I stormed downstairs wishing I could leave the house and get away from this stupid family. I hated them. They had long outstayed their welcome, and it was time for them to go.

  22

  Finn

  It had been over a week since my argument with AB, and though we hadn’t spoken once, she had made sure we knew she was still here. It was like she was trying to wind us all up, especially Mum who had received the brunt of AB’s mood. Every day things would go missing in the house: Mum’s butterfly statues, Theo’s phone, Dad’s keys. It was usually me and Maia who got the blame for it and for the sake of AB, we played along with it.

  ‘Maia, did you go into Mummy’s painting room today?’ Mum asked Maia as I walked past her bedroom. I could see Maia trying to think about what to say before I stepped in.

  ‘It was me,’ I said hoping AB hadn’t ruined one of her pictures.

  ‘Finn! You left it open for Mitzi to get in and now my paint is everywhere. And we also have a multicoloured dog, so thank you very much for that.’ Mum moaned as she stormed downstairs muttering under her breath.

  I walked into Maia’s room and sat beside her on her bed.

  ‘When do you think AB will stop being mad?’ she asked sadly. I knew she was missing AB as much as I was. I had spent my entire life not knowing AB but now that she was here, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I missed her raspy cackle whenever she had bugged me enough to cause me to groan at her and the way she would always be there the minute I whispered her n
ame.

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Maia but hopefully not much longer. At this rate, we’ll both be grounded until we are ghosts too.’

  Maia laughed before Mum appeared at the door in a huff.

  ‘I need you to go into town and get me the stuff on this list, and before you even try and say anything that isn’t ‘yes Mum’, I’d think about how much you like having your PlayStation,’ she said, and I sighed.

  ‘Cait, my goddamn keys have gone again!’ Jack shouted from downstairs before Mum threw me the list and some money.

  ‘Take your sister too,’ she said before yelling back at my dad that she didn’t have his keys.

  Maia and I arrived in town just after midday when the town was at its busiest. It was like everyone came out for their weekly shop on the same day at the same time.

  I sighed as I scanned down Mum’s list, counting how many different shops I’d have to visit.

  ‘Well, we better make a start,’ I said to Maia though she was excitedly skipping beside me, smiling at the people that passed us.

  ‘Finn! And who do we have here?’ Sheila said appearing in front of us with a huge smile and bright peach coloured lips.

  ‘I’m Maia.’

  ‘Hello, Maia. I do love your Spider-Man outfit,’ Sheila said smiling at us both.

  ‘Thank you,’ Maia replied.

  ‘Finn, how are you getting on with that book? Do you need a little longer to finish it?’ she asked, and I wondered if AB had even read it.

  ‘Yes please.’ I nodded.

  ‘Right, well I’ll go do that now before I forget and you end up with a late fee. Goodbye Maia, see you soon Finn,’ she said waving us off as I exhaled in relief that she didn’t go off rambling again.

  We had almost finished Mum’s list, with Maia impressing just about anyone who passed us. So far, she had received two new toys, a jar of sweets, and the promise of a new Hulk costume once it arrived. I wondered how these businesses made any money when they seemed to give everything away.