by M Dressler
The rest of the room is a jumble of papers and photos and clothing mixed with medicine bottles on a nightstand and on the mantelpiece, and shoes thrown every which way, and bits of food left uneaten.
“We haven’t gotten to this room yet,” Harold apologizes. “We didn’t know if we should.”
Su stares. “But she’s so organized at the museum.”
“Private chaos,” Pratt notes, “can be masked, can’t it, by public control.” He studies the photographs on the wall, the well-dressed families, the children beside their ponies or posing next to touring cars, or playing in meadows checkered with picnic blankets.
“I have to let some light in here,” Su says. Opening the curtains, she sees the bedroom’s outside balcony, its railing in pieces. “Well that looks sad. And unsafe.”
Pratt winces.
Are you remembering your fall, and how you were wounded?
“What’s this?” he says, looking away at a picture beside the window.
The photo. The one of the town all gathered on the wintry square.
“That’s the original of one that’s copied in the museum and all over town,” Harold says. “It’s famous here. A town celebration. Dated 1852.”
“If it’s a celebration, why is no one smiling?” Pratt asks.
My own wonder. It irks me when I share a hunter’s thoughts, even for an instant.
“Never really thought about it,” Harold says.
“Look at the angle,” Pratt says and then looks out the window. “I do believe that photo was taken from this very balcony.”
Su looks, too. “Was it?”
Yes. The hunter is right. The vantage, it’s exactly here. Who was it, then, that took the photograph? Would it have been the doctors themselves?
“I sense something here.” Pratt taps his chest. “Close by.”
I’ve come too near to them. Felt too much. Foolish. I scurry behind the fireplace irons, go cold as gray ash, and wait.
“Close by,” he repeats, excited.
Harold frowns. “Really? I guess that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would any ghost do that? Come so close to someone like you?”
Pratt’s eyes slowly trace the room. “In my experience, the answer is either overconfidence or lack of awareness. Everyone, step away from these walls, please.”
“Okay”—Harold steps backward—“but if you’re right, why are you letting it hear you say that? Isn’t that warning it away?”
“The dead aren’t intelligent, Mr. Dubois. When they die they leave all living intelligence behind.”
Keep calm, Emma Rose, I tell myself and draw deeper into the marble hearth. He’s baiting, fishing. He doesn’t know who might be here, or why. A man can feel his heart beat and still not see or know a thing outside it. Pratt doesn’t know what he’s scented. He only hopes an unwary spirit will grow angry at his words and show herself.
Instead, all he’s done is betray himself. Why, Mr. Pratt, it seems you’ve forgotten a thing or two since last we met. When you raised your weapon at me all those months ago, I saw something flicker, if only for a moment, in your eyes. It was a brief wonder, a moment of doubt, hesitation, mistrusting yourself and what you were doing. But you’ve driven away the memory, I see. You haven’t learned the memory of our errors is all we ever have to learn by. All we ever have to guide us, in the end.
He turns abruptly. “Is there a restroom I can use?”
“Uh, excuse me?” Harold blinks.
“A bathroom. Please?”
“Sure, follow me,” Seth says. “There’s only one that works on this floor.”
“A moment, my friends.” The hunter smiles.
He leaves Harold and Su by the door, puzzled. Harold watches Seth go with him.
“So what do you think?” Su whispers.
“I think we’ll have to go with John and Mary’s plan,” Harold mutters back. “We’re not going to be able to convince Pratt there’s nothing here. He knows there’s something loose. We’ll have to give him one of them.”
“We should give him Rose. He was already starting to ask about her. We need to—”
“Rose? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Get out your phone. Google Pratt and ‘fugitive.’ Look. See? Rose looks like one he’s been trying to catch.”
He stares and whistles. “Is this for real?”
“Does it matter? Rose is gone. It looks like her. Let’s use that fact.”
“Well, of course it matters! If she isn’t it, it won’t work. Rose could come back any minute. Martha says she never really checked out. Sweetie, you’re so new to all this,” he says, patting her shoulder as though she were a child. “We’re lucky to have you with us, of course, but let the pros and old-timers handle things, okay? John and Mary have already figured out which one to give up. Then we can keep the rest. Safe and sound. Everybody’s happy.”
He’s in my sights. I could do as I like to him, with this fireplace iron.
Su says, trying to stay natural, “Which one are they planning to give up? And what about Seth?”
“Shh! They’re coming back. Let me handle this. Seth’s a nonissue now. I’m taking him over to the Berringers after this. Watch and learn.”
Pratt returns with the boy behind him.
He taps his chest, and again I see the etched weapon flashing at his wrist. “The creature didn’t follow me. That’s why I went. I believe it stayed here with you.”
Harold starts. “I thought you said they weren’t clever, Mr. Pratt.”
“I said they weren’t intelligent. A thing can be clever without being self-aware. Think of a puzzle. A puzzle doesn’t understand itself, but it can still be tricky to solve, yes?”
He’s still goading, baiting what he hopes to rouse. He’s trying to be the most cunning soul in this room. But is he?
Harold asks, “Any idea who this ghoul might be?”
“At this point I’m keeping an open mind.”
“Something else they can’t do, right?” Seth laughs.
“So what now?” Su asks.
“Now we go back downstairs.”
“But you just said there’s a—”
“Come, everyone. Cleaning is a process completed by degrees. And trust me, it takes time and patience to do the job right. I do have a few more questions.” Pratt begins leading them out of the bedroom. “Meanwhile, we’re learning something about this haunting with every step we take. Notice that we, the living, must always lead the way—not the dead. Now, friends,” he says when they’re out the door, “why do you think the dead would come to Ruth Huellet?”
“I left my cell phone back in the bedroom,” Harold says, feeling his pocket where I emptied it as he passed me. “Be right back.”
Su says, “Are you asking, Mr. Pratt, if we think she did anything to deserve this?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“I haven’t lived here as long as some others, but I never saw her do anything that would anger a ghost. And I don’t think anyone like Ruth, no matter what they did, deserves to be knocked down and paralyzed.”
“It might not have been her actions, Ms. Kwon, that brought the attack on. It might have been her blood.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
Pratt checks the other rooms, cold and empty, on the landing. “I don’t know yet either, to be honest. I’m simply wondering why your mother”—he turns back to Ruth’s son—“who could have lived, as you say, more comfortably if she chose to, punished herself by living in quasi-poverty instead and spent her days with oils and lye, making what scrubs and cleans stains away?”
“That sounds awful pop-psych,” Su says sharply. Some of her calm is slipping. “Especially from someone who calls himself a cleaner. Do you do your work to wash some stain away?”
Pratt flinches.
She’s cut him. Good.
“No, Ms. Kwon, I don’t.”
It’s the last I see of them before I close the door an
d lock Harold in with me.
A pity they won’t be able to see what happens next.
22
I never terrify the living on a whim. Fear should serve some purpose, I say. Fear: surely it was first meant to teach us something—how to survive—before it was twisted and used to punish, instead.
It will serve a good purpose now.
Harold is pounding on the bedroom door, calling out, confused.
How can it be shut and locked so tightly, so fast?
Now he turns. Remembering.
Pratt said something was here.
A bead of sweat stands out on his tanned brow.
The room begins filling with a sweet, soft scent.
The old marine presses his back against the door, as if he hopes it might turn into a raft.
“What’s happening?” he whispers. “What’s that?”
It’s a mist. A fog, unfurling from the opened curtains, slinking down to the floor, filling the room up, from below. The faces in the photographs stare glassy-eyed, unmoving, as the vapor thickens and the ceiling drops down, lowering on him, lower, lower, squeezing the scent of fear out of him, mixing it with the pale pink fog as it snakes around, finding its way into your mouth, Harold Dubois, your throat, the odor filling your lungs, like smoke, but not really, it’s not that, what is it, what is it?
What is that smell? I hiss in his ear. Scream it out loud, so the others can hear. No? Too late, then. It’s inside you now. It has you. It’s in you. It can pull you down. I’m drowning you with my perfume, sailor. A mermaid with a name. What is it? Say it now. What is it? What is it?
“Rose!” he screams. “Rose! Rose! Rose! Rose! Rose! Rose! Rose!”
23
“Let me go! Please, please!”
So polite the wicked are, when they’re trapped. As if they imagine manners were their only failing.
I let him go. Harold Dubois has done what I need from him.
He flings open the door and stumbles out onto the landing, falling to the carpet, shaking and coughing and spewing.
“Harry!” Su bends over him.
“Dude is soaking wet!” Seth marvels.
“Harold? Quiet, both of you, please. Harold!” Pratt takes the weight of the heavy man in his arms, steadying him. “He’s been contacted. Harold! Good job. You got it to manifest. Wonderful. Excellent. What did you—”
“Rose,” the frightened man croaks.
“Rose?”
“Rose. She told me to say her name. I said it. Didn’t you all goddamn hear me shouting for help?”
The hunter grips him around the shoulders, happy, grateful.
Why, when I was the one who did all the work?
“Are you sure?” Pratt breathes out, excitedly. “That the name was Rose?”
“I’m sure. And the air. It stank like roses.”
Pratt stands him up and rushes back into the room.
Too late, hunter. It’s stale as a bone in here.
Yes, Pratt, it was Emma Rose. I can see by your flushed face how gleeful you are that we’re meeting again. You’ve longed for this moment, haven’t you? Yet now you can’t feel or find me, for I’m as cold as a burial stone.
Su hovers in the doorway, confused. Not understanding that I’ve helped her, put meat on the bones of her plan. I’ve given myself away to make certain none of the other ghosts are or will be discovered. But she still falters. She’s lost. She thought it was going to be a clever trick, saying her friend was dead, and now . . .
“Harry,” she says, turning to him, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Rose tried to choke me!”
He won’t come any closer to the door, preferring to clutch the broken landing rail. Well, it will take him a little while to get his sea legs back.
“Did you see her?” Pratt hurries out of the room. “Was there a form? A body?”
“No. Just mist. The smell of it. And I recognized her voice.”
“Did she say anything else besides her name?”
“You mean that wasn’t enough? Why did she have to go for me?”
“Because you weren’t me,” Pratt says quickly, “and you were handy.” He turns to Su. “Can you take him downstairs, please?”
“I can, but what are you going to do?”
Harold straightens and comes back to life, swearing. “Show it no goddamn mercy!”
“All of you, please, go down,” Pratt orders, his eyes flushed and alight. “I’ll join you when I can. Go on. Please. I have everything under control here.”
Do you really, though?
He’s like a man who believes because an engine stops he’s the one steering the train.
When they’ve gone, he comes back into Ruth’s bedroom. I stay cold above the broken canopy. Now that we’re alone, he runs his hand through his thick hair. He looks sharp, even if he doesn’t know where to look.
“Given up grave-robbing, Emma Rose? Or did what you cruelly stole rot on you?”
Keep still. Pratt isn’t the game, I must remember. He isn’t the prize.
He strokes his chest and sniffs the air for some fresh sign.
“Are you still here, Emma Rose?”
He sits on the bed below me, with nothing to shield or protect him, his weapon down. As if he suddenly needs to rest.
“Just tell me,” he asks in a more ordinary voice, “what have you done with the body? Let me find it at least. Let me bury it, or whatever’s left of it.” He sees Harold’s telephone, where I left it on the nightstand. “Let me call someone, for her. If you’ve left her body somewhere . . . She doesn’t deserve to be treated that way. We both caused her harm.”
No. Don’t you take that tack, I think. It’s you who’s to blame.
“There’s no reason for you to cling to her now.”
He looks up at the photographs on the wall. The dead are all long gone, yet their bodies still glow. The light in Pratt’s eyes deepens.
“I have to admit I’m impressed. How can you have been sighted as a body and move invisibly, too? Unless . . .”
It dawns on him.
“You can take the body or leave it, as you like.”
Nearly enough to drive you mad, isn’t it? Just the thought of how free I am. What I can choose and do.
He jumps up and paces, limping, his body a prison he’s trapped inside. “This won’t last. I promise you that.”
He stops. Another dawn breaks over his face.
What is it now, hunter?
“You’re still nothing, you know, Emma Rose. Haven’t you figured that out yet, you poor girl?”
I’m invisible. Cold. Safe. He can’t hurt me. He’s the one who looks like a ghost, whitened, rippling with anger, now.
“Do you hear me? I say that you have nothing, Emma Rose. You reach, and have nothing. You cry, and have nothing. You steal, and have nothing. You terrify—and still, look, what have you gained? Nothing. You rage and have nothing. You move and have nothing. You hide and have nothing.” His rough voice grows louder. “You wait and have nothing. You speak and have nothing. Do you understand me? No matter what you put on. Or don’t. You’re still nothing forever accompanied by nothing. And no one.”
I long to shout, to lash out: And you, Mr. Pratt? You who, I notice, arrive always alone, and hunt alone, then leave alone, return alone, stand in rooms like this one and talk alone, to those you’re unsure are even there, tapping your chest to make sure that—what?—you’re still alive? You’re feeling something? You who have no one, either, to warm your chest?
Tell me again, which one of us it is who has nothing?
He waits, his head cocked, as if he’s still hoping for some crack, some bargain in the air around us.
“You won’t win,” he finishes simply.
Then he hitch-steps, hurrying from the room, toward the stairs.
I follow him. Though I don’t want to, yet I have to. For the others. For no other reason would I stoop to follow what I’ve already escaped.
“Ch
ange of plans,” Pratt says, bright-eyed, when he reaches the others at the foot of the staircase. “I need to go see your mother now, Seth.”
“Uh . . . why?”
“Harold, how are you feeling? Better?” The hunter is smiling, throwing out a caring look.
I know that look. All he cares about, now, is what he hopes to do to me.
“How am I feeling? Pissed as hell, Mr. Pratt.”
“Good. That’s exactly the right response.”
Rage, thought to be ugly on us, is allowed as handsome on others.
“Ms. Kwon.” Pratt turns to Su. “Can you update the Berringers on our progress?”
“I was just—” She pauses. “About to go there.”
“Excellent. Now, how do I get to the hospital?”
“I can snowmobile you up to the mountain road,” Harold says. “The county plows it, and the town council keeps a truck up there this time of year, with keys in it, just in case. I’ll take you and Seth to see Ruth.” He wants, I see, to keep an eye on Pratt around the injured museum keeper. “We should be able to get our own roads plowed by tomorrow. But you won’t be able to get your car out till then.”
“If you’re up to the trip, I’d appreciate the snowmobile lift.”
“Absolutely.”
“Sounds like you’re anxious for me to do my work.”
“You bet. That’s one sadistic bitch I just met.”
The three men leave by the front door. Su follows slowly behind, turning back once to look at the house, hesitating in the doorway.
She whispers, halting, at a loss, “Rose . . . ?”
I want so badly to show myself to her. All that I really, truly am. But she’s frowning. Angry. Is she bitter? Dismayed? Does she feel betrayed by me?
“Are you one of them? Did you lie to me?”
What is there to say?
Bending to put on her snowshoes, she whispers, “If you did, good for you. Now let’s go get the bastards.”
24
Yes. Let us go. I’ve given myself away now.
A strange feeling—to know you’ve chosen the end.
Su crosses the square, heading off to tell the Berringers why none of the schoolhouse ghosts need to be touched. The town’s so quiet, all at once. As if waiting. Not a breath of breeze. The square lies snouted in snow, the weather biting down, the white roofs seeming to bend to meet the white stoops. Only the statue of the Prospector looks merry, a small apple of snow balancing on the brim of his slouch hat.
