by Amy Cross
And now she was gone.
Really, truly, finally gone.
He knew it was probably sad, but he didn't feel sad. He hoped she hadn't suffered, that she hadn't known what was happening and that she hadn't been calling out to him while he slept, begging for help. Still, it was too late to worry too much. It was over.
“Goodbye,” he whispered, although he immediately felt a little silly for saying anything.
With the room filling up with the smell of bleach, he made his way to the window and opened it as far as he could, before heading out of the room and pulling the door shut. He took a step back and took a deep breath of cleaner air, and he told himself that there was really no reason to go into that room again. He could just leave the door shut and forget that there was a room in there at all, and he could spend his time planning what he was going to do next. His grandmother's death had been so sudden and unexpected, he hadn't had time so far to come up with anything more than a few vague notions.
More than anything, he wanted to be a writer, just like his mother had wanted to be, but he had no idea where to start.
Heading downstairs, he found the bottles of port his grandmother had left in the cabinet and he quickly poured them away. Then, filled with an urge to keep tidying even though it was well past midnight, he took the vacuum cleaner from the closet and began to clean the house. He'd always been good at his chores, but this time he couldn't hold back and he made sure to vacuum every inch of every carpet in all the downstairs rooms, preferring the loud roar of the machine to the calm, quiet stillness of the house. Once he'd finished, he put the vacuum cleaner away and decided to started bagging up some of his grandmother's possessions, so he grabbed some black sacks and started going through things in the front room. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, he switched the TV on and turned the volume up, not even bothering to change the channel as he got back to work. Some late-night sitcom babbled along in the background, followed by another and then another, and by the time he'd filled up six sacks with his grandmother's things, he saw to his surprise that it was already 4am.
Too late, he figured, to go to bed now.
Might as well just work through the night.
So that's what he did, finding job after job until the sun came up. He emptied his grandmother's food from the fridge, and then he cleaned out the pantry cupboards, and then he started going through the laundry, getting rid of all her clothes. Soon he had eight sacks filled, then twelve, then he got to sixteen and ran out of sacks entirely. Starting to use plastic bags from the supermarket instead, he continued to clean, with the TV still running all the while in the background so that he wouldn't have to worry about the silence all around. He stayed downstairs the whole time, until finally the sun began to rise higher in the morning sky and cast a warm orange glow through the kitchen window, and he realized he'd managed to make it through the night.
Exhausted, he headed to the front room and turned the TV off. Silence fell, and he stood for a moment, listening to the house, waiting for any hint of movement.
There was nothing.
He was truly alone.
Heading upstairs, he made his way to the bathroom and went to the toilet, before washing his face. He felt strangely free, as if the long night's work had helped him to mark a transition. Leaning closer to the mirror, he saw his own dry eyes staring back at him, and he realized that he couldn't manufacture a sense of loss where no such thing existed. Although he felt bad for his grandmother, he was also glad that he never had to feel her arm around him again while he tried to sleep, and he never had to listen to her complain that he wasn't doing enough to take his mother's place. It was his mother's death, more than anything, that had been held over his head and used to keep him under control.
Turning, he headed out of the bathroom, but after a moment he stopped suddenly. A flash of fear rippled through his chest as he saw that the door to his grandmother's bedroom, which he remembered closing several hours earlier, was now wide open.
Chapter Seven
Today
The door to her old bedroom was open, but he figured it had just been left that way by the family who'd moved out a few days earlier. After all, the other doors were open too, and he told himself that the days were long gone when he'd allow his fears to build.
Stepping into the room, he couldn't help but smile as he saw that bright, patterned wallpaper had been put up, featuring pictures of animals and flowers. Somewhere over the past twenty years, the room had been turned into a nursery, and when he looked down at the spot where he'd found his grandmother's body, he realized that there were four soft indentations in the new carpet, tell-tale signs that a crib had only recently been taken out. He headed over to the window and slid it open, letting some air in, before turning to look back around at the room.
He waited.
Silence.
“Gran?” he said out loud. He knew he was being foolish, but he couldn't help himself, not now he felt so certain that he was alone. For the past twenty years, he'd worried that she was still in the house, still waiting for him, but now the idea seemed preposterous. In fact, he was starting to think that he'd spent two decades building himself up to an event that was now not going to deliver a damn thing. He'd been plotting to buy the house, telling himself that he could finally work out whether his grandmother's spirit lingered, and it had never occurred to him that he'd one day get back and find that it really was just a house.
Just some walls and floors and ceilings, and empty space in-between.
No ghost.
“Gran?” he said again, allowing himself a faint smile. He made his way back to the door and then turned to look down at the spot where he'd found her. “Gran, are you here?”
No answer.
“Hello?” he called out. “Anyone? If you're around, give me a sign. Rattle a door, or bump against the wall.”
He waited.
Nothing.
“I guess not,” he muttered, feeling a little foolish. Still, he remembered what it had been like twenty years ago, when he'd been left alone in the house and he'd started to hear sounds. Scratches on the walls, whispers around the corners... He'd long known that there was a chance he'd simply been an impressionable kid, but he'd told himself he couldn't have imagined everything that had happened. Now, however, in the cold light of day he felt increasingly certain that the whole thing had been entirely in his head. His grandmother had died, and that had been the end of it. The only thing she'd left behind, besides her body, had been the stain on the carpet, and now even that was gone.
Still, the trip wouldn't be a total waste. There was one other thing he still had to do while he was in town.
***
“I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner,” he whispered, looking down at his mother's grave. “I mean, I always knew I'd come and see you again eventually, but...”
He paused, feeling slightly foolish for saying the words out loud, before crouching down and setting a bunch of yellow roses on the grass, just ahead of the gravestone. His mother had always loved yellow roses, or at least that was what he'd been told by his father. He didn't remember enough to be certain.
“Life just got in the way,” he continued. “Can you believe that? I never used to have much of a life at all. Just sitting around, watching TV and writing and reading, and occasionally going to the shops with Gran. It's not like school was exactly fun, either, but... Well, I guess I shouldn't complain.”
He began to rearrange the roses, before realizing that they were fine as they were.
“Do you remember how you used to write stories and then read then to me?” he asked. “I know you always wanted to be a writer, but... That's what I do now, can you believe it? You're the one who made me want to tell stories, and now I tell the kind of stories that other people like turning into big, blockbuster movies. You'd probably hate them.” He paused, remembering the days when, as a child, he used to sit on his mother's while she read the latest story she'd come up with. “I wish
I still had some of your stuff,” he told her. “Just one of your stories would be enough, but... Then again, I don't even have a photo of you. I remember what you looked like, that's not a problem, but a photo would be good. Still, it's my fault, isn't it? I should have taken care of the few photos I once had.”
Reaching down, he placed a hand against the grass.
“I don't know when I'll get another chance to come,” he told her. “I figure I'll head off tomorrow, back to London. That's where I live now, I'm married to a woman named Sarah. We have two children, Katie and Scott, and we live a pretty good life. Things were tough for a while back there, but I really turned it around. More by luck than judgment, but I sort of bounced off various possibilities until I reached a decent place.”
He paused, before checking over his shoulder to make sure that no-one was around to see him talking to himself. He knew he was being a little weird, but he didn't care.
“I don't blame you anymore,” he continued, looking back down at the grave. “For leaving me alone with her, I mean. I know there was nothing else you could have done, everything just became too much for you and it's not like Dad was any help. I just wish...”
His voice trailed off for a moment as he remembered that moment, years ago, when he'd heard his mother's agonized screams. His grandmother had been trying to help her, but even as a child he'd understood that it was too late. No-one could be in so much pain and survive, and sure enough the screams had stopped long before the ambulance showed up. Later, he'd overheard snatches of conversation about what had really happened, and his grandmother had been brutally honest.
“You know bleach?” she'd said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “The stuff we use to clean? Well, your mother drank some, and it burned her up from the inside out.”
He remembered seeing the body being carried out of the old house, and then he remembered his grandmother packing his things and hurrying him out the door, heading to her place on Everley Street.
“Gran was the only one who'd take me in after you were gone,” he continued, “so it was natural that I stayed with her. I guess I was angry for a while, but...” He paused again. “I know she was difficult when you were alive, but your death really made her worse. She got so bitter and angry, it was really hard living with her. I'd like to think that even if she hadn't died, I'd have left eventually, but the truth is, I was completely dependent. I'd probably still be there now, living under her thumb and...”
He paused, worrying that he was sounding a little pathetic. Reaching into his pocket, he took out his phone and brought up a photo of Sarah and the children. He knew it was crazy to get so sentimental, and a little mawkish too, but he couldn't help himself. Turning the phone toward the gravestone, he allowed himself a faint smile.
“Mum, meet Sarah, Scott and Katie. You guys, meet my mother.”
He took a deep breath.
“I should get back to them. It's crazy of me to hang around this place, reliving everything that happened twenty years ago. I should be focusing on my life as it is now, not the way it used to be.” He took a look at the photo of his family, before slipping the phone away. “I'm going to stop feeling so sorry for myself. I have a great life, really, and it's been mostly due to sheer fluke, but hell, I can't do anything about that. Bad things have happened, but they're outweighed by the good. I see that now. I can't let myself get dragged back into this place. I have to leave the house behind. She's not there, and even if she was...”
Getting to his feet, he began to button his coat as he felt a chill wind blowing across the cemetery.
“Alright,” he muttered, “one more afternoon and one more night in that house and then I'm out of here for good.”
Chapter Eight
Twenty years ago
“John!”
Opening his eyes suddenly, he stared up at the dark ceiling. It was his second night alone in the house and he'd finally managed to get some sleep, mainly due to exhaustion from his previous night's cleaning frenzy. He'd been dreaming, he knew that much, although he couldn't remember the details. A voice had woken him, however, and with a slow, creeping sense of dread he realized that he knew exactly whose voice it had been.
Turning, he looked toward the bedroom door, half expecting to see a figure out on the dark landing.
There was no-one.
He waited, listening to the silence of the house, trying to convince himself that the voice had simply been a part of his dream, but he'd heard it just as he was on the cusp of waking up, which meant he couldn't be sure whether it had come from the dream or from the real world. He told himself that it was natural for him to be jumpy, and that there was no-one else in the house and that his grandmother's soul, if she'd even had one to begin with, was long gone along with her body. Still, he could tell that something felt wrong, even if he couldn't quite put his finger on the source of the problem, and with each passing second he expected to hear her voice again, calling out to him.
Somehow, deep in his bones, he felt that he wasn't alone.
“Please don't,” he whispered. “Please, please don't come back.”
Deep down, he felt certain that she'd called out to him two nights ago, on the night when she'd died. He was sure she must have begged for him to wake up, but he figured he must have just slept through it all. He tried to imagine himself sleeping soundly, not hearing the faint, plaintive cries from the other bedroom.
And now she was gone.
Letting his head settle back on the pillow, he stared at the window, waiting for tiredness to return. Ghosts didn't exist, he knew that. After all, his mother had died several years earlier and he felt certain that if people could come back and contact the living, she'd have appeared a long time ago. He told himself that he was simply struggling to deal with the silence of the house, and that it was natural for him to start having dark dreams, but he was also sure that he could withstand any hint of paranoia. His grandmother had told him he was weak, but he was starting to feel strong.
“There's no such thing as ghosts,” he heard his own voice saying at the back of his mind, like a mantra. “There's no such thing as ghosts. She's gone.”
He waited, but even though he hadn't heard her voice again, he was certain that something felt wrong. The silence of the house was starting to build again, to sound the way it had sounded on the morning when he found her body. He turned to look at the door again, and although he knew he was probably imagining it all, he was suddenly filled with the overwhelming sense that if he just went out and walked to her bedroom door, he'd see her again, down there on the floor. The idea was impossible to entertain, of course, but he could still feel it tugging at the edge of his mind, and finally he realized that he'd never be able to get to sleep if he didn't at least go and check.
Slowly, he got out of bed and made his way to the door.
“You only have to do this once,” he told himself. “Go and look, prove that she's not there, and then you'll know forever. That's how it works.”
He paused, trying to believe his own advice.
“John.”
He froze. He'd heard the voice again, except it took only a fraction of a second for him to have doubts. Had he heard it, or had it just been a brief surge in the silence? Reaching out, he switched on the landing light and saw that there was no sign of anyone near the top of the stairs. His mind was racing, thinking back to the voice and trying desperately to work out whether it had been real or not. He told himself that it couldn't be, that it was far more likely that he was on the verge of cracking up, but more than ever now he knew that he had to go and look in her bedroom.
“John,” the voice had whispered.
Slowly, with fear tightening in his chest, he began to make his way along the landing until he reached her door. It was shut, of course, just the way he'd left it when he went to bed.
He took a deep breath.
“Hello?” he called out, although he instantly regretted saying anything, in case somehow the mere words might summon h
is grandmother's spirit when otherwise she'd stay away.
He reached out for the handle, but still he hesitated. He tried to imagine what it would be like to open the door and see her dead face staring back at him from the darkness.
“If she's there,” he told himself, “you'll know you can never escape her. If she's not there, you'll know she's gone forever. Either way, at least you'll know for certain and -”
Stopping suddenly, he realized that he'd started talking to himself. Wasn't that one of the signs of madness? Then again, it was the only way to organize his thoughts. Taking another deep breath, he took hold of the handle and pushed the door open, letting it swing slowly until it bumped against the wall.
The room was dark, too dark to see anything.
“Hello?” he whispered.
Silence.
“John,” he imagined her saying, and after a moment he realized that the silence in the room was hissing slightly, as if her voice might emerge at any moment. At the same time, the darkness seemed to be shifting, and it wasn't hard to picture her dead face slowly getting closer, with her mouth still wide open and covered with the white gum of death. He stood his ground, imagining her looming toward him, imagining her wild, unblinking eyes fixed on him.
“Why didn't you wake up?” he imagined her asking. “I was calling out for you, begging for help. Why did you stay asleep?”
Now he imagined her face right against his, with her mouth still gummed. And then, slowly, he felt her thin, bony fingers starting to rest on his shoulders, and suddenly he couldn't tell whether they were really there or not.
Reaching out, he flicked the switch on the wall. As soon as the light was on, he looked around the bare room and saw to his relief that there was no sign of anyone. It had all been in his head. He made his way over to the bed and forced himself to stay in the room for a moment, determined not to run like a coward. In the back of his mind, he felt that this was the best way to get rid of any crazy ideas at the root, to prove to himself beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts didn't exist and that his grandmother wasn't haunting the place. He knew the if that seed was allowed to grow in his mind, it could overwhelm him, so he went back to the wall and flicked the light off again, before waiting in the dark with his back to both the bed and the spot where he'd found his grandmother's body. He was tempting her, waiting for her to take her chance. Finally, he got down onto his knees, still with his back to the darkened room, still daring her to make her presence known.
