Tara exhaled a held breath as she moved forward. “Kyle? What are you…”
The dark shape turned towards her, and Tara’s words trailed off. It wasn’t Kyle. The figure stood nearly a head taller than she was, despite its bowed shoulders. Long fingers twitched at its side as it tilted its head to regard her. Pit-black eyes, the only clear feature, shone in its sunken face.
A breeze moved the mist, making it swirl. A thick clump blocked out the figure, and when the mist cleared, the garden was empty.
Tara tried to make a noise, but fear squeezed her throat closed and made it painful to breathe. She staggered away from the empty lawn, frantically scanning the space for motion as her heart knocked against her ribs and her fingers turned numb. Her back hit something solid. She looked over her shoulder and saw she’d walked into one of the pine trees that grew around the house.
The wood was damp and held little patches of spiderwebs, but Tara dug her fingers into it, grateful for something solid and real in the realm of swirling mist.
That wasn’t Peter. It wasn’t May. It wasn’t Kyle. Whatever it was, it can’t be natural.
Memories of the smudged photograph resurfaced, and the shape behind Peter became much, much harder to explain.
Tara looked to her right. The house’s corner wasn’t far away, and beyond that, she would find the front door and the relative safety of indoors. She gave the garden a final, fearful scan then dashed for the porch.
Running through the mist felt worse than walking. The tendrils seemed to grab at her like invisible icy fingers. She skidded around the building’s corner, her sneakers digging clumps of grass out of the wet ground, and nearly collided with a body.
Kyle, his arms full of branches, gaped at her as he staggered back. “What’re you doing?”
“Kyle!” Relief drained Tara, and she bent forward, one hand pressed to her racing heart as she tried to re-oxygenate her body. She couldn’t speak for a moment, and when she did, the words came out harsher than she’d meant. “I was looking for you. Where were you?”
“Looking for you,” he shot back. “I can’t see anything in this mist.”
Tara, still bent, shook her head. “I saw something. I don’t know what. It was like a person. It turned to look at me, but then it just vanished.”
“What? You mean it disappeared into the fog?”
“Yeah! It was there one second, then it disappeared.”
Kyle dropped his armful of branches and shifted uncomfortably, his face screwing up as he scanned their surroundings. Tara had meant to warn him, not frighten him, but the end result was the same.
“It wasn’t really clear.” She forced herself to stand straight, despite the stitch digging at her side. “Maybe it was just a thick patch of fog. Or… or my eyes playing tricks on me.”
His eyebrows were pulled low over his eyes. “I want to go back inside.”
“Me, too. I hate this fog. Let’s go.”
As she turned, she felt a slight tug on her jacket. Kyle had taken hold of it. Tara mentally slapped herself; she hadn’t meant to upset him. He’d seemed uneasy that morning, and talking about shapes appearing and vanishing in the mist wasn’t going to help.
But maybe it’s good for him to be wary of the mist. Her mind reconstructed the image: a man, tall but with bowed shoulders, standing amongst the freshly turned ground. The fog had blocked out everything except its silhouette. And then it had just… vanished. Tara tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.
They found the porch’s steps and moved into the relative safety of the house. Tara inhaled deeply once she was inside, glad to be out of the suffocating white.
“Tara? Kyle? Is that you?”
“Yes,” Tara answered as May appeared in the kitchen’s doorway.
She beamed at them. “I’m glad you came back inside. It’s too hard to see out there—you could trip and break your necks. Instead, you can help me with my cake.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “It’s apple and walnut.”
11
Walnut
Kyle looked as though he wanted to say something, but he clamped his mouth shut. He followed Tara into the kitchen, where May was bent over the oven. “Wash your hands, children, then start mixing the dry ingredients in the bowl. The recipe’s on the bench.”
Tara obediently scrubbed her hands in the sink, but her thoughts were worlds away from the mixing bowl and implements on the table. She looked through the window at Peter’s faint outline as he dragged branches across the lawn. He bled in and out of the mist, and the sight made her shiver.
I have to ask. “May?”
“Hmm?” The woman’s attention was on her task of greasing the cake pan, but Tara knew she was listening.
“Have you ever encountered something strange? Something you can’t explain?”
May placed the pan down. It made a solid clunk on the wooden table, and for a moment, that was the only sound in the kitchen. Then she said, “What did you see?”
Tara licked her dry lips. She realised she was still scrubbing the tea-towel over her hands, even though they were thoroughly dry, and forced herself to hold still. “I don’t know. A man in the mist. I think. I don’t know.”
“Ah, I see.” May smiled as she measured the flour. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Tara didn’t have an answer, so instead sent the question back. “Do you?”
May resealed the flour container. She set it aside and rested her palms on the bench top as she answered carefully. “There was a time when I didn’t. But then I saw some things… things not unlike what you glimpsed yourself… and now, I… well, I suppose I try to keep an open mind.”
“Oh,” was all Tara managed to say.
Kyle glanced between them, his face pale and eyes huge. “Is this house haunted?”
“Goodness, you have such an imagination.” May laughed and reached for the sugar. “I wouldn’t go that far. If the dead linger, they certainly don’t like to show themselves. I never saw anything conclusive—only hints and whispers.”
Tara pulled up a seat and leaned on the table. “What do you mean by that? What things did you see?”
“A glimpse of motion in the forest. A sound that might have been either a bird or a girl calling my name.” May measured out a teaspoon of nutmeg and dropped it into the mix. “Even if our ancestors do stay here, it’s nothing to be alarmed by. I like to imagine they’re watching over us and keeping us safe. Like guardian angels.”
Kyle still looked unsettled, but less horrified than he had before. Tara was grateful. Unlike Peter, May had a soft touch and seemed to know how to calm Kyle.
Are ghosts real? That man in the fog—there one second and gone the next—there’s no physical explanation for it. I can’t imagine my eyes were playing tricks. Is that it, then? Definitive proof? And if so, is May right? Are they gentle guardians watching over us?
“Tara, would you bring me the milk from the fridge?” May waved a spoon at her. “All of this talk of ghosts is turning my helpers into distracted spectators.”
“Oh, right.” Tara ran to fetch the carton then made herself focus on the task at hand while Peter’s silhouette continued to move past the window.
Once the cake was in the oven, May gave both Tara and Kyle a spoon each to lick then undid her apron. “I have a few little jobs to take care of. Will you two be able to amuse yourselves for an hour?”
“Definitely.”
Kyle tugged on Tara’s sleeve as he shot her a sideways glance. “I want to take a walk in the woods. Will you come with me?”
“You want to—in the woods?” Tara couldn’t keep the surprise off her face. She’d never known her brother to willingly neglect a book in favour of nature. He scowled at her.
“I want to see where the paths go.”
“Well, uh, sure. It’s okay, isn’t it, May?”
“Stay within calling distance,” she said. “And be back within the hour. The cake should be ready then.”
Kyle tugged his jacket on the
n led the way outside. Tara hadn’t seen him so enthusiastic about anything in a long time, and she had to jog to match his pace as they crossed the lawn. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Shh,” he hissed back. “I’ve been trying to talk to you alone all morning, you ditz. Didn’t you get any of my hints?”
“Oy, don’t be mean.” She pulled a face. “And what hints?”
“I was winking!”
“Well, you might want to work on your technique. I didn’t notice.”
He grumbled something under his breath then stopped at the edge of the forest. They both turned back towards the house. The mist was thinning, but it still hung in tendrils across the ground. Peter was barely visible by the side of the building.
“What’s the matter?” Tara asked.
“Just making sure we’re not being followed. Come on.” Kyle pulled his jacket up around his throat and hunched his shoulders as he stomped into the woods.
The atmosphere was wholly different compared to when they’d followed the trails with Peter. The area felt calmer and quieter—almost lonely. Tara stuffed her hands into her pockets and shivered when drops of water hit her neck and trickled under her jacket. Kyle’s behaviour was starting to unnerve her. “Okay, we’re far enough away. They won’t hear us. What happened?”
Kyle sent a final glance down the path behind them then slowed his pace to a shuffle. “I had a dream last night. I guess it was really more of a nightmare. Do you remember how when we were younger, we stayed with one of Mum’s work friends?”
“Uhh… vaguely.” Tara pursed her lips. “Her name was Sue, wasn’t it? We spent like three weeks there.”
“Do you remember why we visited?”
“Be… cause… she was a friend?”
Kyle scowled at her, and Tara huffed out a breath. “Well, obviously you remember, so quit playing twenty questions and just tell me.”
“I’m just…” He dug his fingers into his hair. The frustration twisting his face made Tara feel guilty for being so flippant. “I’m trying to separate memories from imagination. I’ve got to know I’m not making this up.”
Tara squeezed his shoulder. “Okay. Take it slow. Tell me what you remember, and I’ll tell you if I can remember it, too.”
“It happened ages ago.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the canopy. “Sometimes at night, I’d hear a noise outside my window. I’d sit up and look outside and see a man standing there, staring up at me. I’d scream and wake Mum up, but when she looked, the man was gone. She’d tell me it was just a dream.”
“Yeah, I remember that. You’d cry when she tried to put you to bed because you were afraid the man would be there.”
“And…” He couldn’t make eye contact. “Was it a dream?”
Tara tried to think back. She remembered it happening not long after Kyle started school, which meant she would have been ten and Kyle six. They’d shared a room, and four nights in a row, Kyle’s screams had woken her. “Probably. Mum made you return a bunch of books to the library because she thought one of them was causing it.”
“You never saw anything?”
Tara shook her head. The window had been on Kyle’s side of the room, but when she’d looked through, she’d seen only the narrow alley running beside their second-floor apartment. “You said he stood under our window, in the streetlamp light. But it always happened around midnight. You must have been asleep.”
“I used to read under the covers.”
“You still do—and fall asleep with your torch left on. Where’s this going?”
“I’d forgotten about it until last night. I had a dream about it. More of a nightmare, I guess. It was so vivid, and I could see the man’s face clearly. It looked a lot like Peter’s.”
Tara stopped walking. “You’re saying the phantom man under your window was Peter?”
“I—I don’t—” He flapped his arms, frustrated. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m trying to find out what you recall. When we first met Peter, I thought his face looked familiar. But am I remembering something that actually happened? Or was the man outside my window just a dream?”
“It’s got to be a dream, surely.”
Kyle turned his wide, helpless eyes towards her, begging for some form of confirmation. “I saw the man four days in a row. And then, on the last day, Mum took us to visit her friend Sue. You remember that, don’t you?”
“Yes…” Memories rushed back to Tara, and they spread uneasiness through her insides like cold cement. She remembered being shaken awake by her mother. “Did I forget to tell you? I promised to visit Sue this weekend. Come on, grab some clean clothes. We need to go now.” Tara licked her lips. “We drove three hours in the middle of the night. I was so irritable; we barely even knew Sue. And she didn’t have a room ready for us or anything.”
Kyle was nodding, watching Tara intently. “And we stayed there for ages. For no reason. And Mum kept making phone calls late at night and would get angry if I tried to listen in on them.”
The path took a bend and began trending downhill. Tara followed it without paying attention to where she was stepping. “What are you thinking? That the man was real? That Mum saw him one night and… and we fled?”
“It didn’t seem strange at the time. But we missed three weeks of school. And we stayed with someone we barely knew, even though her place was smaller than ours.”
Tara rubbed at the back of her neck. “She only let us live with her for three weeks, but then we moved to a new apartment not much later. Do you remember? It was the one above the Chinese shop. We only stayed there for, like, six months before moving to where we live now.”
“He looked like Peter,” Kyle said, his tone decisive. “Same face shape. Same eyes.”
Fear and frustration were crowding Tara’s brain. She rubbed her hands over her face and took a slow breath as she tried to think. One part of her said, You’re the responsible one. Don’t get carried away with conspiracy theories. The other half said, If this is true, it’s really, really bad. She struggled to find a rational middle ground. “Are you sure you saw Peter’s face? Or was that just how the man looked in last night’s dream?”
Kyle shrugged. “Kinda sure. Not totally.”
They followed another bend in the path. Tara knew they were starting to drift too far from the house, but she wasn’t ready to turn around.
“There’s something else.” Kyle flicked his eyes towards her then averted them.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“How did May and Peter know we needed somewhere to stay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if they had no contact with Mum, how did they know about her accident? Did Mrs. Jennings call them, or did they call the hospital, or… what?”
Tara bit her lip. “There’s probably a database or something. Next-of-kin contact details. The hospital would have phoned them, and somehow, they got in touch with Mrs. Jennings.”
“Mum never spoke about them. She never called them. Never visited. They may as well have not existed. Would the hospital really have their contact details on her record?”
“I don’t know.” Tara tried not to let frustration into her voice. “What’s the alternative?”
“Dunno. It’s just weird.” He scowled at his sneakers. “All of this is weird. You’re the one who phones the hospital to ask how Mum’s doing. They haven’t checked on her even once. It’s like they don’t care about her. And they keep talking like we’re going to spend a lot of time here, when everyone at the hospital was only saying it would be a few days.”
Queasiness threaded through Tara’s stomach. She folded her arms over her chest and breathed through her nose. “This probably doesn’t mean anything. It’s… it’s a bunch of coincidences layered on top of each other. There’s no way May and Peter want Mum to be hurt. She’s their daughter.”
Kyle shrugged but kept his gaze on the ground. “Let’s go back. I don’t want to get in trouble for being out too l
ong.”
They’d wandered farther than Tara had intended. The trees grew thick and high above them, blotting out the natural light and making the day feel five degrees colder. Patches of oddly coloured mushrooms grew around the stumps, and lichen drooped off the boughs in heavy shawls. Tara shivered and turned. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They took two steps, then Kyle pulled up short. Tara turned back to him, hoping he didn’t have another revelation to cram into her already-full brain, but he wasn’t looking at her. His owlish eyes were fixed on the space behind her as colour bled out of his cheeks. “Graves.”
“What?” Tara followed his gaze to a shadowed hollow inside a cluster of pines. Two slate-grey tombstones poked out of the dark earth.
12
The Interred
“No way.” Tara stepped closer to the graves and tried to read their names in the dim light.
“Tara?” Panic bled into Kyle’s voice. He hung back, and Tara waved to him.
“Just stay there a moment. I want to know who they are.”
The stones were rough and worn. Unlike the markers she’d seen in cemeteries, they looked hand-chiselled. She knelt to get closer and squinted as she read the uneven words in the stone. “Petra… 1975. George, 1975. They don’t have surnames.”
“Tara, you’re on the graves.”
“Oh.” She scooted backwards. A slight slope was all that remained to show where the graves lay. Weedy grass and a lily-shaped vine covered the dirt. “I wonder who they were. May and Peter would have to know about them, right? This is part of their property, and they’ve lived here since before the seventies.”
“I want to go home.” Kyle’s voice was a tight whine. Tara turned and frowned.
“You’re not scared, are you? They’re just graves.”
“Graves belong in cemeteries, not in homes.”
He sounded close to crying. Tara rose, dusted dirt off her jeans, then put an arm around Kyle’s shoulders. “Sorry. Let’s go back to the house.”
The Folcroft Ghosts Page 6
