by Amy Cross
“I don't think you really know what's going on here,” she says cautiously. “I don't think you know what you are.”
Four
The camera's flash goes off again, briefly filling the barge's interior with light as I continue to flick through the book of ghost stories.
“Sorry,” Angela mutters, moving over to the other side of the sofa and immediately setting up another shot. “I guess that's annoying, huh?”
“Not particularly,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “I just don't get what you expect to see. I'm right here!”
“There's evidence to suggest that ghosts don't register properly on photographic equipment,” she explains. “I took some pictures with my main camera, and you showed up just fine, but now I'm using old-fashioned film. If my theory is correct, when I develop these...”
Her voice trails off.
“I won't be there?” I ask.
The flash goes off again, and this time I wince slightly. Blinking away the spots of light in my eyes, I turn to another page in the book.
“Don't you have somewhere you ought to be?” I ask. “Maybe a home? Parents who'll be wondering where you are?”
“They don't care.”
“They should.”
She shrugs.
“Angela, listen -”
“This might be my only chance,” she replies, interrupting me. She's already setting up yet another shot, and a moment later the flash goes off again, briefly blinding me. “I've been walking the towpaths in this area for so long now, searching for some sign of ghostly activity. Now that I've found... Well, now that I've maybe found something, I have to get all the evidence I can before you...”
She pauses.
“Well, in case you disappear.”
Sighing, I hold out my left hand for her to feel.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asks cautiously.
“Touch me!”
She stares at the hand, before shaking her head.
“I'm real!” I hiss, starting to feel that the joke is wearing a little thin. When she doesn't reply, I lean over to her and touch her hand. “There! Do you feel that?”
“It doesn't prove anything.”
“But do you feel it?”
“Yes,” she replies, “but you might just have an unusually pronounced corporeal presence and -”
“An unusually pronounced what?” I ask, raising both eyebrows. “Kid, you don't have talk some nonsense sometimes. Just promise me that when you figure all this out, and you realize that I'm just a boring old fart on a boat, you'll come and own up to your mistake. Seriously, I'll get a kick out of that.”
The flash goes off again, and I instinctively turn away.
“I need to get some shots from outside the boat too,” she says, with a hint of excitement in her voice. She's already clambering across the seat, heading toward the door. “I'm not clear whether the boat is real, or whether it's part of the manifestation experience.”
“You're standing on the damn thing, aren't you?” I mutter under my breath. “If the boat wasn't real, you'd be awful wet by now.”
“Back in a moment!”
With that, she hurries outside, and a moment later I hear her jumping onto the riverbank. I guess she's out there on the pitch black towpath somewhere, trying to line up a better shot of me. Looking back down at the book, I turn to the next page, where there's an account of some supposed ghost that haunts this canal. I've got to admit, having read these pages a couple of times now, the story certainly features some spooky touches. Still, it's clearly just a story, and I have to wonder whether Angela is quite right in the head. After all, she seems to be taking this whole thing very seriously.
The flash goes off outside the boat, as I turn to the next page, and then the next.
Checking my watch, I see that it's 11.31pm. I should be asleep by now, and Angela should be getting home. This silliness has been mildly amusing for a while, but I'm too old to mess around all night. When Angela comes back inside, I'm going to politely usher her on her way. I've got to admit, I'm quite looking forward to setting off again tomorrow and getting to some other part of the canal. I'd honestly forgotten how tiring it can be to deal with other people for an extended period of time.
And then, as I flick to another page in the book, I spot a line that catches my attention. I read the paragraph, and slowly I feel a faint shudder pass through my chest.
“It can't be,” I whisper, reading the rest of the section before going over it again.
Outside, the flash is still going off every thirty seconds, and Angela is clearly moving to different spots so she can get various shots of the boat.
“Hey!” she says breathlessly a couple of minutes later, when she finally comes back inside with the camera swinging around her neck. “I'm gonna develop these as soon as I get home. This might be huge! Imagine if I've caught real, irrefutable evidence of ghosts! It'll be mega, it'll be the biggest news story in the history of the world! I'll be, like, totally famous!”
I read the book's next paragraph one more time, before turning and looking at her.
“This has to be pretty weird for you,” she mutters.
I frown. “Come again?”
“Realizing what you are.” She steps closer, and now she doesn't seem quite so scared. “Are you starting to remember things? I mean, it seems like you don't remember much from your old life and -”
“I remember plenty from my old life!”
“But not -”
“I remember my own goddamn life!” I hiss, momentarily angered by the suggestion. “Don't come onto my boat and lecture me about my memory! I remember what I need to remember!”
“Sure, but -”
“Maybe we should be more concerned about what you remember,” I add.
“Me?” She frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“Have you read this whole thing?” I ask, holding the tattered book up for her to see.
“Sure. Well, most of it. I've been studying certain sections in particular.”
“Have you read the other parts about this stretch of the canal?”
She hesitates. “Probably.”
I watch her for a moment, before looking down at the book again.
“I am not the ghost described in this damn thing,” I mutter, “but you should've read on to the next section, where it describes another ghost that's often seen near this canal and its towpath.”
I glance at her, and once again I feel my chest tightening a little. No matter how much I try to tell myself that this situation is absurd, I can't shake a deep, visceral punch of fear. Angela looks so normal, so innocent, so... real. And yet, at the same time, there are clearly things she hasn't admitted yet.
“The story about the old man is just one of the ghost stories about this stretch of canal,” I tell her. “One of the other more prominent stories is about a girl.”
She stares at me for a moment. “So?”
“A girl about your age,” I continue, “who's sometimes seen walking alone along the towpath at night.” I pause, mostly for effect, just to get her a little rattled. “Several witnesses report that she's been seen carrying a backpack.”
I wait for her to reply, but now it's her turn to look a little shocked. She stares at the book in my hands, and I swear the color seems to have drained from her face.
“The popular story,” I tell her, “is that the ghostly girl is the spirit of Amanda Bates, a local teenager who drowned at the age of fifteen after she fell into the canal late one night, twenty years ago. According to legend, Amanda's body was recovered from the canal and buried in a nearby cemetery, but people swear they've seen her on the path between the canal and the church, and also down here on the towpath. Apparently she even acknowledges people when they greet her. Apparently she can be rather talkative.”
I pause, before setting the book down and sliding it toward her across the table.
“In fact, there are just as many supposed sightings of Amanda Bates as there
are of the mysterious old man on the boat.”
She stares at the book, and for a moment she looks positively nauseous.
“So?” she stammers finally. “That... That doesn't mean anything.”
“What if -”
“My name is Angela,” she adds. “Not Amanda.”
“Angela what?” I ask. “Tell me your surname.”
“Angela...”
She pauses, and it's clear that she can't remember.
“Angela sounds an awful lot like Amanda, doesn't it?” I continue. “Maybe if someone was trying to remember the name Amanda, and couldn't quite manage it, they'd get confused and end up with Angela. Like a mental typo. I mean, it's kind of a crazy idea, but no more crazy than the whole ghost thing in the first place.”
She shakes her head.
“Where do you live?” I ask.
“With my parents!”
“Where?”
“Not far from here.”
“What's the address?”
She pauses. A moment later her mouth opens, as if she's trying to remember, but no words come out.
“Where were you this evening,” I continue, “before you came to the towpath?”
“I walked here,” she says, a little defensively.
“From where?”
“I came down through the cemetery,” she explains. “It was dark, I walked through the cemetery and -”
“Where were you before the cemetery?”
I wait for her to answer, but evidently she can't.
“You don't remember, do you?” I ask, feeling a faint shudder in my chest. “At least I'm an old man, I've got a decent excuse for not remembering things too well, but what about you? You're young, what's your excuse?”
“I don't need an excuse,” she stammers, “I... I'm fine, I... I'm not the one who's out here all alone at night, on a boat, with no-one around! I'm not the one who keeps forgetting that he lost his dog!”
“You still can't tell me where you were before you were walking through the cemetery, can you?” I ask, leaning back and folding my arms. “You don't remember. Seems to me, we're both in the same boat. Literally and metaphorically.”
Again, I wait for her to say something, but she seems troubled. I probably shouldn't keep pushing, but to be honest I want to teach her a lesson. She came barging in here, spouting all that nonsense about ghosts, and now I've turned the tables and shown her what it's like to be on the receiving end of it all. She clearly doesn't like the taste of her own medicine, but I figure I've probably opened her eyes enough for one night.
“I'm not saying you're a ghost,” I continue finally. “Believe me, I'm not that crazy. What I am saying is that everything you've accused me of, is something that could just as easily be said about you.”
I watch as she picks up the book. She flicks through to the page I was reading a moment ago, as if she wants to double-check the story about Amanda Bates. As she reads, I see her eyes grow even wider, as if she genuinely can't believe what she's seeing.
“Don't take it so seriously!” I tell her. “I was only messing with you! I just wanted you to know what it's like, being accused of something like that!”
“I don't remember anything from before the cemetery,” she replies, her voice filled with a sense of wonder. “I don't remember much at all, except that I was here on the towpath this evening and... I was here last night, too. And the night before that.”
She pauses.
“I remember the nights,” she whispers finally, “but not the days. That's not normal, is it?”
Seeing the fear in her eyes, I'm starting to think that perhaps I went too far. I only meant to give the girl a bit of a scare, not to shake her to her very foundations.
“Let's not take this too seriously,” I tell her. “Obviously you're a normal, living girl, because anything else would just be absurd. I know I'm alive, and I also know that I'm not in the habit of seeing ghosts, so it's only logical that you're alive too! You've just let this whole thing get to you, that's all.” I pause, before reaching out and taking the book back from her. Heading across the kitchen, I drop the book into the bin before turning back to her. “If you want my advice, you'll head home and find yourself a new hobby. This one's no good, it's doing a number on your mind.”
Instead of replying, she looks down at her right hand, as if something's wrong.
“And I should get some sleep,” I continue. “Trust me, when you get on in years, these late nights aren't very appealing.”
She opens and closes her fist a few times, before looking at me again.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Does it hurt?”
“I touched you,” she replies.
“And?”
“I felt you.”
I can't help sighing. “And?”
“That really happened,” she stammers, as if she's feeling a fresh wave of fear. “We really shook hands.”
“And what does that mean?” I ask, convinced that she's about to launch into a fresh bout of over-imaginative hysteria.
“Well, we touched! I mean, you can't touch a ghost, can you?”
“I have no -”
Before I can finish, she hurries past me and makes her way out through the door. I wait for her to say something, but then I head over and look out. She's standing next to the steering arm now, at the very rear of the boat, staring out into the darkness. Again, I wait for her to speak, but finally her chatterbox engine seems to have run out and she seems overcome by some new realization. After a moment, I realize that she's checking her pulse on the side of her neck. I do the same, although my leathery old skin seems to be making it hard to find anything.
“Listen,” I say finally, “I'm tired and -”
“When did you lose your dog?” she asks, turning to me.
“A while back. He -”
“Be specific. When? And how?”
“I don't know, exactly,” I continue, feeling a little foolish. I rub the back of my neck, but to be honest I already know that I won't be able to give her a precise date. However, I should at least take a stab. “It was a few months ago. Six, maybe. Maybe more than that, but I think about six.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He just...”
My voice trails off. What did happen to Baxter?”
“He died,” I tell her. “He wasn't a particularly old boy, but one morning I woke up and he was just gone.”
“So there was a body?”
“He was gone!” I hiss. “I don't really want to talk about it!”
“The man on the boat had a dog,” she replies.
“What man on what boat?”
“The man in the book,” she continues, sounding a little exasperated. “One of the stories about him is that he's this guy who died on his canal barge a few decades ago. When he was finally found, he'd decomposed pretty badly, but his dog was still alive. The dog had sat with him the whole time, for at least a week. Faithful, loyal, never daring to go anywhere else. Just sitting next to his master until some passersby noticed the smell.”
“That's rubbish for a start,” I reply. “If the dog sat there for a week, how did it not starve to death? What did it eat?”
“I guess there was still some food in its bowl,” she says. “I don't know the details, but he was probably taken to an animal shelter or adopted by some new owners.”
“And you think the dead old man was me?” I ask, unable to hide a faint gasp of amusement. “You think I died, and now I'm some hopeless old ghost traveling the waterways? I know I might look a little haggard, and maybe my clothes are kind of old, but I'd still like to believe that I at least look like I'm alive!”
She stares at me for a moment, before looking down at my wrist.
“What time is it?” she asks.
I take a moment to check. “Ten to midnight.”
“I have to go home. I have to know!”
“That's what I've been trying to -”
Suddenly she turns and jumps on
to the riverbank. She shouts something, but I don't quite make out the garbled words, and by the time I get up on deck there's no sign of her. I can hear her running into the distance, but soon even that sound has faded, and I'm left standing all alone in the darkness.
“Weird girl,” I mutter, before glancing back into the kitchen and seeing that her backpack is still on the sofa.
Great.
“Hey!” I yell, turning and calling after her. “You forgot your stuff!”
I wait, but of course there's no reply.
“Crazy-ass lunatic,” I say with a sigh, heading back inside. I stuff her book of ghost stories into the top of the backpack and then I haul the damn thing outside, leaving it propped against the steering arm so she can retrieve it if she comes back.
Kids these days have way too much time on their hands. When I was her age, I was already out of school and working seven days a week in my father's shop.
“Come on, Baxter,” I mutter as I head back inside and lock the door for the night. “Time to -”
Stopping, I look down at the red rubber bone, and I realize that for a moment I forget that he was gone.
Once I'm alone in bed, with the light off, I close my eyes and try to get some sleep. I'm sure the crazy girl is safely back home by now, and I just hope she fetches her backpack without disturbing me. I mean, I know I'm not in the best health. I'm old, I'm tired, there are bags under my eyes and bags under those bags too, and I have liver spots on my hands, and I'm a little overweight, and my teeth are discolored and I stoop slightly. And my joints are agony, even if they haven't been too bad lately.
But at least I'm alive. At least I've still got that going for me.
Five
“Get help!” I gasp, sitting up suddenly and slamming my head into the bedroom's low roof. I let out a groan of pain and pull back, but I'm sweating like a pig and it takes a moment before I'm able to get my breath back.
