The Ash House

by Cross, Amy

  A moment later, somebody coughs right behind me.

  “What -”

  I step back and bump against the wall, and then suddenly I open my eyes and sit up, finding myself back at the desk in my room.

  I look around for a moment, startled, before getting to my feet and hurrying to the doorway. When I look out at the landing, however, I see to my immense relief that there's no-one at the top of the stairs.

  It was a dream.

  Or a nightmare.

  Whatever. It wasn't real.

  Feeling a rush of relief, I turn and head back over to the desk, still shaken by the hideous sight of that little girl.

  And then, as I look down at the sheets of paper, I'm shocked to see that they're all blank.

  “No,” I whisper, filled with panic, “please, that part can't have been a dream too.”

  I start looking through the various scribbled, abandoned versions of the letter, searching for the perfect version I remember writing. Only when I've checked twice do I realize the awful truth, which is that finishing the letter was part of the dream too. I thought I'd written the most perfect, beautiful letter to my son, but now I don't remember a word.

  Sighing, I sit back down and pick up the pen again. I have to get this done, even if it takes me all night. And this time, I can't afford to fall asleep.

  Besides, whenever I fall asleep these days, I can never be sure I'll wake up again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Daniel

  Morning sunlight streams through the living room window as I stand completely still, listening to the sound of footsteps heading across the hallway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Diane

  “No, he doesn't want to come into town with me,” I explain as I set my bag on the kitchen counter and double-check that I've got my purse. “I think he's...”

  My voice trails off for a moment as Mum puts more plates in the cupboard.

  “I think he's avoiding me,” I add finally.

  “Nonsense, dear,” she replies. “He's just being a stubborn young man.”

  “It's more than that. I think he knows it's time to get used to not relying on me. Maybe spending time with me makes him sad. He's detaching from me. I guess I don't blame him. He knows I'm going away, and he's preparing for that.”

  “He probably just wants to play outside the house today.”

  “You don't know him like I do,” I tell her. “He senses more than I've told him.”

  “And how much have you told him?”

  “He knows I'm not doing well,” I reply. “Maybe he doesn't know quite how bad I am, though. Or how soon I -”

  Hearing footsteps outside, I turn just in time to spot Daniel making his way across the yard. He ducks down and climbs into the ash house, and I can't help feeling a pang of regret as I realize that his life here might be awfully lonely. I'm basically dumping him in the middle of nowhere.

  But not today.

  I can't leave yet, not until I've written that letter.

  ***

  “Diane? Diane Mercer?”

  Stopping just as I'm about to cross the street in town, I turn and see that a middle-aged woman is hurrying this way. For a moment, I can't imagine what she might want with me, but then I realize that something about her feels very familiar. With all the craziness that's been going on, I completely forgot that there might still be people in town who I used to know.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieks, putting her arms around me and giving me a big hug. “It is you? How long has it been?”

  “Um...”

  As soon as she pulls away, I remember where I've seen her before.

  “Becky?” I say with a dash of disbelief. “Becky Clarke, is that you?”

  “Becky Tashenbacker now,” she replies with a grin, holding her hand up to reveal a hefty diamond ring. “Can you believe it? Little old me married the man with the largest bait and tackle shop in the entire county!”

  “That's wonderful,” I reply, still barely able to believe that this is the same girl who used to wear all black and listen to nothing but Nirvana and Depeche Mode.

  “I've changed a little,” she replies, stepping back and giving me a twirl. “Well, you know what it's like, at some point you have to step back from being a grumpy teenager and start living a normal life. God, I hope my three don't go through the same phases as me. How have you been, anyway? I never thought I'd see you back in Dully, not in a million years!”

  “Mum still lives here,” I point out.

  “Of course she does!” She laughs. “I see her about sometimes, although I never get a chance to say hello. You know what it's like, there's never a spare second, especially not with children to look after. How are you doing? I've got to say, Diane, you're looking wonderful!”

  “I'm dying of cancer,” I almost say, before realizing that this isn't the moment to get maudlin.

  She's lying, though. I know for a fact that I look like crap, and she must have noticed that I'm wearing a scarf to cover my bald head.

  “What time is it?” she asks, before checking her watch. “Lunch, I see? Well, I don't know about you, but I could certainly go for a glass of wine or two. How about we take a moment to catch up?”

  “Actually, I -”

  “I can't believe we haven't seen each other recently,” she continues, taking me by the arm and starting to steer me toward the little restaurant at the far end of the green. “We were such bosom buddies when we were children. Do you remember how I used to come out to your mother's house all the time, and we'd play in the forest? And then you moved away and one thing led to another, and it must be almost a decade since we last spoke! How does that happen, eh? How does life change so much?”

  “It's a mystery,” I mutter, as I realize I'm not going to be able to get out of this. “I guess time flies, but -”

  I almost pull away and tell her that I have errands to run, but somehow I let her lead me to the restaurant. And as she continues to go on and on about the old days, I start to realize that maybe I could ask her a few questions. After all, she was one of the people who claimed to have seen and heard strange things in my mother's house.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Daniel

  “Daniel!” Nana calls out from the steps at the front of the house. “Daniel, where are you?”

  I freeze, not really wanting to go to her. Whatever she wants, I imagine it's nothing too interesting, and I'd rather just stay right here all by myself in the ash house. She's been nagging me a lot lately, to the point where even the sound of her voice makes me get all tense and annoyed. Still, I know that she won't just give up and go inside, so I crawl over to the entrance and peer out, and sure enough I immediately see Nana waving at me from the steps.

  “Do you want lunch, darling?” she shouts.

  I pause for a moment, before shaking my head.

  “I'm making sandwiches!”

  I open my mouth to tell her that I'm fine, but then I spot something moving in one of the upstairs windows. I look up, just as a figure steps back out of view.

  It can't have been anyone.

  There's no-one else at home.

  “Come on inside when you're hungry,” Nana continues. “There are plenty of sandwiches. I even made some of those shrimp ones you like so much.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, doing my best to sound polite. “I'll be in soon.”

  She hesitates, as if she's a little uncertain, but then she disappears back into the kitchen. I wait in the ash house's entrance for a moment, watching the windows of the main house, and I still can't shake the feeling that somebody is watching me. I look at each window in turn, waiting in case I spot a figure, but to be honest I can only really see the gray midday sky reflected in the glass. Somebody could be up there watching, and I probably wouldn't be able to see them at all.

  Suddenly, hearing footsteps nearby, I turn and look toward the forest.

  Shocked, I spot a figure in the distance, although she's already racing away be
tween the trees, as if she realized at the last moment that I was about to spot her.

  “Wait!” I yell, scrambling to my feet and setting off after her, bumping against several trees in the process. “Stop!”

  I've already lost sight of her, so I come to a halt after a few seconds and listen. A moment later, hearing her steps off to the left, I start running again.

  I quickly spot her, and it's clear that I'm gaining on her pretty quickly. She's blatantly a girl and she blatantly can't run faster than me, although I don't even know why she's running at all, not if she wasn't doing anything wrong. She must be some kind of country yokel.

  “Stop!” I shout again. “I want to talk to you!”

  Suddenly I find myself running down a steep incline, and I very nearly trip and fall. I hear a brief cry up ahead, and I come to a halt just in time to avoid tripping over the girl and crashing to the floor. I jump over her and then turn just as she stumbles to her feet, and then I grab her arm before she can run away again. I hold her so tight, I can feel the bone beneath her skin.

  “Hey,” I say breathlessly, “I only -”

  She snaps away from me and puts her hands over her face before I can see her.

  “Why did you run like that?” I ask, still struggling to get my breath back. “What were you doing near my grandmother's house?”

  She takes a faltering step away, before stopping again with her hands still clamped over her features. After a moment, however, she turns and looks at me, and I can just about make out her eyes in two gaps between her fingers.

  “I wasn't chasing you,” I explain. “Or maybe I was, but only because I wanted to catch you.”

  I pause for a moment, as I realize that nothing I just said makes a whole lot of sense. Scratching the back of my neck, I can't help feeling a little awkward.

  “My name's Daniel,” I continue, holding a hand out to her. “Daniel Mercer. People call me Danny. You can too, if you want.”

  I wait, but she's still just staring at me from between her fingers.

  I think she's scared.

  “What's your name?” I ask.

  She doesn't reply. She's still just staring at me from behind her hands, almost as if she's scared I'll do something to hurt her.

  “You didn't have to run away,” I tell her, and only now am I starting to get my breath back. “You could have come to play in the ash house. All you had to do was ask. I didn't think there were any other houses nearby. Do you live around here?”

  This time, when she still doesn't say anything, I look down at her dress and see that her clothes are pretty old and tattered. She's wearing a kind of lacy white thing that goes almost all the way down to her feet, although the bottom isn't muddy at all, despite the fact that there's a lot of dirty and puddles on the ground. When I look back at her face, I find that she's still watching me from between her fingers, and I can't help smiling.

  “You're pretty funny, you know,” I tell her. “You're kind of weird, but that's okay. I like weird people. I can show you something weird, if you want.”

  I hold my hand up and twist my thumb back, showing her how I can dislocate it any time I want. She doesn't really react, so I do it a few more times, but she still doesn't seem very impressed. I tilt my hand slightly, to show her from a different angle, but even that doesn't get me anywhere.

  “Can you do anything weird?” I ask.

  No reply.

  She adjusts her hands slightly, however, and now I can see a little more of her left eye. Something seems slightly off about the eye, and although I don't want to be rude, I can't help leaning closer and taking a better look. I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong, but something -

  “Daniel!”

  Startled, I turn and look back toward the house.

  “Daniel, where are you?” Nana calls out, her voice ringing out through the forest. “Daniel!”

  “I've got to go,” I say, turning back to the girl, just as she runs away. “Hey, wait! Don't be scared!”

  “Daniel!” Nana shouts again. “You need to come and have lunch!”

  I watch as the girl races off into the distance. I can hear the sound of her feet crashing through the dead leaves, and after a moment she disappears behind a ridge. I could go chasing after her again, of course, but I guess there's no point. After all, if she's not even going to talk to me or say anything when I show her a trick, she probably isn't much fun to be around.

  Turning, I start making my way back toward the house. I guess I'll just have to find friends somewhere else instead.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Diane

  “I think I'm the only one of the old gang who stuck around,” Becky explains, before taking a big bite of her salmon baguette. “I just like the quiet life,” she adds with her mouth full. “It suits me.”

  She chews noisily for a moment, and I've got to admit that the smell of salmon and cream cheese is enough to make me a little queasy. I haven't touched my own egg and ham baguette at all, and I think I might have to make some excuse to leave it untried.

  Then again, even though I haven't explicitly told Becky about my condition yet, she'd have to be blind not to know something's up.

  “I know Dully isn't the most exciting town in the world,” she continues once she's swallowed, “but I always say that a place is only as exciting as you make it. And frankly, I've managed to never be bored here once. The chance'd be a fine thing. Every day, I'm rushing about like a blue-arsed fly, rushing from meeting to meeting and then to something for the kids and then something for the house.” She lets out an exhausted, theatrical sigh and rolls her eyes. “And as for the kids, I think this is a much better environment than a city. I mean, we always found things to do when we were children, didn't we?”

  “We sure did,” I mutter.

  “God, do you remember when we used to play in that little hut outside your mother's house?”

  “I think so.”

  “That was a weird little thing. Is it still there?”

  I pause for a moment, not really paying attention as I struggle to settle my stomach, but finally I turn to her.

  “You mean the ash house? Yeah, that's still there.”

  “I always felt so weird and creeped out in that thing,” she continues. “Then again, the main house wasn't much better, was it? Nothing against your darling mother, but that house had a vibe to it. Do you remember the time we heard some weird noises on the stairs?”

  I've been waiting to steer the conversation this way, but fortunately Becky's doing all the work for me. I shouldn't be surprised. Back in the day, she always loved talking about spooky things.

  “Noises?” I ask.

  “We were playing in the hallway one time,” she replies, with a faint grin, “and I swear we heard someone sitting at the top of the stairs. Obviously there was no-one there, but it was that kind of house, wasn't it? Something about the place just seemed to get our imaginations running wild when we were kids. All those little noises and bangs, and the feeling that there was always someone watching us, and even those times when...”

  I wait for her to continue.

  “Times when what?” I ask cautiously.

  She shakes her head.

  “Nothing. It's stupid. We're grown-ups now, we should be talking about grown-up things.”

  “Were you telling the truth all those years ago?” I ask.

  “About what?”

  “Do you remember the times you and that other girl, Katie, swore you'd seen things in my mother's house?” I continue. “One time you said you saw someone walk down the stairs and then vanish into thin air.”

  “Sure,” she replies, clearly a little embarrassed now, “but -”

  “And another time, Katie swore she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she heard someone whispering something into her ear. And there was the coughing, too. Several people said they heard someone coughing.”

  “I remember.”

  “So were you just being kids and lying? Or did you mean i
t?”

  I wait for her to reply, but now she seems a little concerned.

  “You never saw or heard anything, did you?” she asks finally. “Not a sausage.”

  I shake my head.

  “I remember that,” she continues. “Katie and I had these encounters every so often in that house, and in the forest nearby too. I swear, we saw weird things out in the forest, but nothing ever happened to you, and you never even wanted to talk about it. I remember you got so impatient with us, like you wanted to throttle the pair of us. You kept saying we were being stupid and childish, and that we ought to grow up. You were really, really against the whole idea.”

  “I don't think that anymore,” I reply, trying to keep from sounding too desperate. “I just want to know if you thought, at the time, that you really saw those things. It wasn't just a big joke, was it?”

  “Well, we...”

  She pauses, before allowing herself a nervous laugh.

  “I can't speak for Katie,” she says finally, “but I certainly believed it at the time. I think I did, anyway. It was so long ago, I barely remember, but I'm pretty sure I believed it all when I said it. Of course, that doesn't mean it really happened. I mean, do you remember when Katie said someone pulled her hair while she was on the toilet? What kind of ghost would do something like that? I'm sure it was all just a kind of childish hysteria. Just a bit of fun, you know? Fortunately, we're all grown up now, huh?”

  “I never noticed anything weird happening,” I reply.

  “Well, good for you. Maybe you were the only one of us who was sane back then.”

  She chuckles, and then she starts talking about how she once dated a guy who was into all sorts of crazy stuff. As she goes on and on about him, I can't help thinking back to the days when we were kids, when we used to play in the yard outside Mum's house. I swear, pretty much everyone I ever brought home claimed at some point to have seen or heard something weird in that place, but nothing ever happened to me. I was the only one who seemingly got left well alone by whatever haunts that house. Either there was nothing going on, or for some reason I was immune.