A Tale of Two Ghosts

by Sarah Riad

  We entered Ms Bennett’s Bakery with only a pie and some bread left on the list. As she poked her head around the wall from the back, I was instantly reminded of her connection to my family. I wondered if I could find out anything more today.

  ‘Cait’s son, and who are you?’ she said talking to Maia.

  ‘It’s still Finn,’ I muttered, and she looked up at me.

  ‘Oh, I know, but I like how it annoys you so much.’ She flashed me a wicked smile. ‘So, what’s your name?’ She looked back down at Maia.

  ‘Maia,’ she said with her best grin, knowing what she could get with it.

  ‘Well, Maia, I love your little costume. My granddaughter used to love dressing up when she was your age too.’ Ms Bennett said smiling at Maia before taking Mum’s list out of my hand.

  ‘Did she dress up like Spider-Man too?’ Maia asked, following Ms Bennett behind the counter.

  ‘Maia, you’re not allowed back there,’ I called to her, but Ms Bennett raised her hand at me to tell me to shush.

  ‘No, not like Spider-Man, but she’d always take the clothes out of my wardrobe and put them on. She loved playing around in my shoes and jewellery,’ Ms Bennett said fondly as she packed up a loaf of bread.

  ‘Is she my age?’ Maia said hopefully, excited at the prospect of having a new friend.

  ‘No, sadly Aubree passed away some time ago now,’ she said causing Maia’s jaw to drop. I frowned, confused at why she was so shocked as she glanced over to me with her eyes so wide that I feared they might fall out.

  ‘Aubree?’ Maia said, and quickly I ran over to her and swept her up onto my hip, suddenly realising who Aubree was.

  ‘Well, we had better get going before Mum starts worrying,’ I said talking over Maia.

  ‘But, she said A—’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Bennett. I’ll get Mum to sort out her tab soon. Ok, bye now,’ I said, grabbing the bag and leaving the shop.

  ‘Put me down!’ Maia said, fidgeting to get out of my arms once we had got far enough away.

  ‘She said, Aubree! That’s AB’s name. That’s AB’s grandma,’ Maia shouted.

  ‘Be quiet. I know what she said, but Maia, what do you think she would have said if we turned around and said, ‘Oh Aubree, yes, she’s a ghost at our house’,’ I said sternly, pulling her hand behind me.

  ‘She might have wanted to see her and then AB could be happy again.’

  I sighed as I came to a stop, staring down at her.

  ‘Maia, it doesn’t work like that. Just because we believe AB is there doesn’t mean her gran will. Remember no one else can see her—I can’t even see her. We could end up upsetting Ms Bennett.’ I watched Maia’s face register what I said.

  ‘Then we have to tell AB,’ she said, folding her arms, reminding me of our mum.

  ‘Yes, Maia. We will tell AB.’

  23

  Ab

  I don’t know, Maia, but hopefully not much longer. At this rate, we’ll both be grounded until we are ghosts too,’ Finn said before I walked away from Maia’s room feeling guilty. I knew I had dragged out this bad mood for long enough, but I just couldn’t shrug it off. I didn’t really want them to leave, in fact, I had come to enjoy their company, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from pushing at their buttons.

  Every evening, Finn would come to the library and without a word, he would collect the things I had taken, returning them back to where they belonged. I just didn’t understand why he and Maia continued to take the blame for the things I was doing. This was Finn we were talking about, the very same person that was desperate to leave this house and move back to his previous house, and yet he was doing everything in his power to stop his family from noticing me. It didn’t matter, though, I would have to stop soon enough. A week of causing havoc and not talking to either Maia or Finn had left me tired and with very little energy left.

  ‘Cait. What is this?’ Jack said from downstairs, but it was the way he said it that piqued my interest. He sounded almost frightened.

  I left the library, placing the book Finn had gotten me on the floor and headed downstairs to find Jack standing in Cait’s art studio with no colour left in his face.

  ‘I’m just leaving the house, Jack. I need to get Theo to his game in the next twenty minutes,’ Cait called before I heard the door shut behind her.

  Jack remained frozen on the spot, staring at the picture Cait had unknowingly drawn of me.

  I stood in front of him, staring into his wide eyes as his jaw tightened. He was scared, but why and what did I have to do with it?

  Suddenly, he reached out through me and grabbed onto the painting. He stared at it for a few seconds, his grip causing his knuckles to turn white before he threw it across the room. He spun on his heel and stormed out of the art studio heading straight for my library. I hurried through him, waiting on the other side of the room for him to come in.

  As he pulled on the door handle, my forced breaths became shaky.

  He walked in cautiously before closing the door behind him. He moved his eyes onto the book in the middle of the floor before picking it up. I watched as he slowly walked around the room, scanning my books, almost like an ordinary person in a book shop wondering what he should read next. Except this wasn’t a book shop, and I knew he wasn’t here to read.

  His gaze returned to the centre of the room before he opened his mouth.

  ‘I know you’re here,’ he said robbing me of any movement. ‘Leave me and my family alone.’ His voice was shaking but it still boomed throughout the room.

  New energy rushed its way through me satisfying my body’s desperate plea for more but I was far too distracted to enjoy it because this energy had come from Jack.

  How did he know I was here?

  I sat in the corner of the room for several hours after Jack had left the room, paralysed and trying to digest what had happened before Maia ran up the stairs and shouted my name with Finn behind her.

  ‘AB!’

  ‘Finn,’ I said, then stood to walk towards him.

  ‘We have something to tell you,’ he said stood closely by the door fidgeting with his hands.

  ‘I have something to tell you too.’ I wondered if we were about to say the same thing.

  ‘Ok, us first. You may want to sit down,’ he said.

  I wondered why people always said that when they had news. ‘What is it?’

  His face was a mixture of excitement and fear. ‘So, in town, there’s a bakery and—’

  ‘AB, we found your grandma.’ Maia’s smile quickly drained as my forehead creased.

  ‘Finn, I told you, I didn’t want you to look it up on the internet. I told you that,’ I yelled.

  ‘I didn’t. Your grandma is still alive. She owns a bakery in town, she’s old as heck and seriously miserable, but she’s alive.’

  I felt winded as I took a few steps backwards to lean against the wall. Was it even possible? She did have a bakery, but surely, she couldn’t still be there.

  ‘It could be anyone. How do you know it’s my gran?’

  ‘Because she started talking to Maia about her granddaughter that used to dress up in her clothes when she was younger, and then she said your name.’

  I felt like I had died all over again.

  ‘Are you ok?’ Maia said as I closed my eyes and bit hard on to my bottom lip. My gran was alive. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘We didn’t tell her about you, but we can if you want us to.’ Finn smiled as Cait yelled up the stairs for Maia.

  Maia moaned before stomping down the stairs, leaving Finn and me alone.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell my gran about me?’ I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms. ‘For starters, I’m convinced she hates me—she calls me Jack’s son’ or Cait’s son because she knows it annoys me. Her actual words.’

  I laughed, my forced breaths were erratic. My mind felt like it was on fire from the rush of memories forcing their way to the surface.


  ‘Plus, how do you tell someone that their dead granddaughter is a ghost wandering around a house without ending up in a mental institution afterwards?’ He smiled weakly before pausing. ‘So, what did you want to tell me?’

  I paused to try and straighten my mind. In amongst the news of my gran, I had completely forgotten about Jack and his earlier appearance. Finn and his dad already didn’t get along very well and telling Finn that his dad may know who I was would only set him off. He would push his dad which might help me figure out what he knew but, in the long run, it wouldn’t help Finn.

  ‘It’s not important,’ I said.

  Jack knew me. He was scared, but not of me being a ghost. Jack was scared that I existed at all, and I was going to find out why.

  24

  Finn

  Hey, Finn.’ I flinched as Theo’s girlfriend, India, placed her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Are you ok?’ she asked, smiling with caution as she pulled away her hand.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry, was deep in thought,’ I replied, subtly looking around her to see if she was alone.

  ‘You’re in here a lot.’ She continued to smile, and I noticed how green her eyes really were.

  They reminded me of one of my mum’s paintings where she mixed a variety of different shades together. I wondered if that was what AB’s eyes had looked like.

  ‘Oh, yeah, sometimes. How do you know?’

  She shrugged. ‘I guess I’m here a lot too.’ She grinned. It was infectious. ‘Mind if I sit?’ She pulled out the chair opposite me.

  I looked around the library, noticing how many tables were empty. Why the hell did she want to sit at the same table as me? It had to be a prank.

  ‘I don’t have to,’ she said, with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

  I looked up at her waiting for my answer, and I shook my head. ‘No, it’s just…’ I paused and was reminded by a question I had once asked AB about whether people chose to be alone. As I sat, rooted to my chair and moments away from taking myself out of this awkward situation with India, I wondered if AB had been right. Did I choose to be alone? I looked up at India once more before I pushed my workbooks out of the way as I did the same with my panicked thoughts. ‘Sure, you can sit.’

  India smiled. ‘Great.’

  Except for the occasional smile, we didn’t say another word to each other. She was reading a book on psychology which made me wonder if this was some kind of study. Was I a test? I wondered if I got up and left, would I have failed? Did that mean if I stayed, I would pass?

  ‘What are you working on?’ She peeked over her book and looked at the workbooks in front of me.

  ‘H-h-history assignment.’ I said avoiding her eyes which felt as though they had drilled a hole into my skull. I caught a glimpse of her grin before she lowered her head behind her book. I knew the polite thing to do would be to ask her what she was reading but the thought of opening my mouth and saying more than two words made my stomach threaten to force my lunch to come up. I felt like such an idiot. ‘You can do it, Finn, just say something. What are you reading?’ I rehearsed the question at least a dozen times in my head and it was about five minutes too late to ask but I finally spoke.

  ‘You’re reading a book.’ I immediately wished the library floor would become a sinkhole, swallowing me up whole.

  India lowered the book to her lap and began to laugh gently. ‘Nothing gets past you does it, Finn?’

  I didn’t say anything—I couldn’t. I had already demonstrated the fact that I was unable to construct a sentence together.

  ‘It’s cute how red your cheeks go when you’re embarrassed.’ She inched forward on her seat resting her elbows and book on the table. Meanwhile, I was rubbing my cheeks as though by some miracle I could wash the heat from my face.

  ‘I better go. An hour of maths. Fun,’ she said standing up after what felt like two hours of awkward silence. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

  I nodded without looking away from my books.

  ‘Hey, Finn?’ I glanced over my shoulder to India looking at me holding her bag over her shoulder, ‘embrace your weirdness, it’s what keeps things interesting.’ She winked before walking out of the library.

  I turned back to my books, shutting each of them with an unnecessary amount of force. Why was I such an idiot and did she really think I was weird?

  ‘You did not tell me it’s your birthday this weekend,’ AB said as I watched a pillow fall from my bed and the bed slightly bounce. She must have thrown herself onto my bed.

  I shrugged as I kicked my trainers off. ‘No big deal.’

  ‘No big deal? You’re turning eighteen! That’s, like, the biggest deal,’ she said in a pitch so high that it could bring on a headache almost immediately.

  ‘AB, it’s just another day, except on that day I will be eighteen instead of seventeen.’ I sighed, turning on my TV and PlayStation.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said turning the screen back off. ‘You don’t get to be all ‘Finn’ like with this. We are celebrating.’

  ‘Ok, we’ll celebrate. You can read me a book. Talking of which, are you done with Harry Potter? I need to return it before Sheila shows up the house ready to chew my ear off.’ I turned the TV back on.

  ‘Don’t try and change the subject, but yes, I finished it ages ago and very much want the rest.’

  I nodded, listening vaguely as she went on about how important it was turning eighteen.

  ‘Finn,’ she shouted, turning both the TV and game off this time.

  ‘AB, I am in the middle of—’

  ‘A conversation with me. So, what do you think? Yes?’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, fine. Now can I please play?’

  She squealed excitedly. ‘Of course you can. I’m going to check to see what Theo has planned. I can’t wait for this party,’ she said leaving the room.

  ‘Wait, what? What party?’ I shouted throwing my controller onto the bed as I followed after her.

  ‘AB,’ I said, before finding India in the hallway leaving Theo’s room.

  ‘Hey.’ She smiled as she tucked a stray hair away from her face.

  ‘Hi.’ I replied, distracted by the way the sunlight from the hallway window caught India’s green eyes causing my mind to forget how to speak.

  ‘Who’s AB?’ Her eyebrows bunched together as her eyes looked at me curiously before she bit onto her bottom lip.

  ‘Oh, I…I was just playing a game with my sister…you know, the alphabet.’ I felt more and more stupid as each word fell out of my mouth.

  ‘Right,’ she said dragging out the length of the word, looking around for Maia. ‘So, it’s cool of your parents to let Theo throw a party here on Saturday, right?’

  I nodded, pretending I knew what she was talking about. ‘That’s my parents, cool people.’

  She gently laughed. ‘Well, it’s your birthday, too, so you’ll be there, right?’ I watched her carefully while she rolled her bottom lip between her teeth.

  I began to shake my head as the word ‘no’ formed in my mouth before I felt a tingling vibration strike through me before suddenly feeling nauseous. It was the same feeling I had gotten from when AB tried to touch me before. For a moment, I had forgotten she was with us.

  ‘Urgh!’ I said, rubbing my forehead, waiting for the sick feeling to pass.

  ‘Don’t you try it, Finn, you said yes,’ AB said as India asked if I was ok.

  ‘Yeah, sorry…stomach ache.’

  ‘So, the party? You’ll be there?’ She said before playfully dancing on the spot, shaking her hands in the air.

  ‘Well, I do live here so would be hard to miss it.’ I casually leant against the doorframe, instantly regretting it as I landed on the sharp hinge.

  ‘Cool. It’ll be interesting to see what you’re like with a drink inside of you.’ She winked with the side of her mouth quirking upwards and began to walk off.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t—’

  The tingling feeling was back just as the sick
feeling had begun to fade as I pictured AB hitting me with force again.

  ‘What?’ India looked back at me as I rubbed my forehead once again.

  ‘Stomach still hurting, see you Saturday.’ I attempted to twist my grimace into a believable smile before hurrying back into my room.

  ‘AB! Why did you do that?’ I said, noticing the hairs on my arm standing on end as the vibrations finally begun to settle.

  ‘Because you needed it.’ She said as I watched a notebook begin to float in the air before being rolled up and struck against my head.

  ‘You know, it’s not exactly the nicest feeling when you hit me.’ I tried to sound annoyed, but in truth, the sickness wasn’t so bad when I knew it was caused by her trying to touch me.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll survive. You need to stop being so boring.’ She said as I watched my chair spin, imagining her in it.

  I rolled my eyes, ‘Because I don’t want to go to a stupid party with stupid people all getting drunk? I didn’t know that was the only way to not be boring.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ she said as I ducked from the pillow flying in my direction. It’s ok to not want to go to parties but it’s also ok to try something new once in a while, starting this Saturday.’

  ‘What makes you think Theo will even let me come to his party?’ I threw the pillow back in the direction of the spinning chair, watching as it landed on the floor. Truth was, Theo wouldn’t so much as let me even breathe the same air as the people he invited.

  ‘You live here, what does he expect you to do? Stay locked in your room all night?’

  ‘Do you even know Theo?’ I threw her a look.

  She sighed. ‘Just leave Theo to me. You’re going to this party, Finn.’ The chair came to a stop, facing me.

  I shook my head before I threw myself onto my bed, ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  She laughed with a hint of sarcasm before picking up the pillow from the floor and shoving into my stomach. ‘You don’t think anything is a good idea.’