Ghostly: Stories

by Audrey Niffenegger

  It isn’t as dark in the attic as they had imagined. The oaks that block the light and make the first three stories so dim and green and mysterious during the day, don’t reach all the way up. Extravagant moonlight, dusty and pale, streams in the angled dormer windows. It lights the length of the attic, which is wide enough to hold a softball game in, and lined with trunks where Samantha imagines people could sit, could be hiding and watching. The ceiling slopes down, impaled upon the eight thick-waisted chimney stacks. The chimneys seem too alive, somehow, to be contained in this empty, neglected place; they thrust almost angrily through the roof and attic floor. In the moonlight, they look like they are breathing. ‘They’re so beautiful,’ she says.

  ‘Which chimney is the nursery chimney?’ Claire says.

  The babysitter points to the nearest righthand stack. ‘That one,’ she says. ‘It runs up through the ballroom on the first floor, the library, the nursery.’

  Hanging from a nail on the nursery chimney is a long, black object. It looks lumpy and heavy, as if it were full of things. The babysitter takes it down, twirls it on her finger. There are holes in the black thing, and it whistles mournfully as she spins it. ‘The Specialist’s hat,’ she says.

  ‘That doesn’t look like a hat,’ says Claire. ‘It doesn’t look like anything at all.’ She goes to look through the boxes and trunks that are stacked against the far wall.

  ‘It’s a special hat,’ the babysitter says. ‘It’s not supposed to look like anything. But it can sound like anything you can imagine. My father made it.’

  ‘Our father writes books,’ Samantha says.

  ‘My father did too.’ The babysitter hangs the hat back on the nail. It curls blackly against the chimney. Samantha stares at it. It nickers at her. ‘He was a bad poet, but he was worse at magic.’

  Last summer, Samantha wished more than anything that she could have a horse. She thought she would have given up anything for one – even being a twin was not as good as having a horse. She still doesn’t have a horse, but she doesn’t have a mother either, and she can’t help wondering if it’s her fault. The hat nickers again, or maybe it is the wind in the chimney.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Claire asks.

  ‘After he made the hat, the Specialist came and took him away. I hid in the nursery chimney while it was looking for him, and it didn’t find me.’

  ‘Weren’t you scared?’

  There is a clattering, shivering, clicking noise. Claire has found the babysitter’s bike and is dragging it towards them by the handlebars. The babysitter shrugs. ‘Rule number three,’ she says.

  Claire snatches the hat off the nail. ‘I’m the Specialist!’ she says, putting the hat on her head. It falls over her eyes, the floppy shapeless brim sewn with little asymmetrical buttons that flash and catch at the moonlight like teeth. Samantha looks again, and sees that they are teeth. Without counting, she suddenly knows that there are exactly fifty-two teeth on the hat, and that they are the teeth of agoutis, of curassows, of white-lipped peccaries, and of the wife of Charles Cheatham Rash. The chimneys are moaning, and Claire’s voice booms hollowly beneath the hat. ‘Run away, or I’ll catch you and eat you!’

  Samantha and the babysitter run away, laughing, as Claire mounts the rusty, noisy bicycle and pedals madly after them. She rings the bicycle bell as she rides, and the Specialist’s hat bobs up and down on her head. It spits like a cat. The bell is shrill and thin, and the bike wails and shrieks. It leans first towards the right, and then to the left. Claire’s knobby knees stick out on either side like makeshift counterweights.

  Claire weaves in and out between the chimneys, chasing Samantha and the babysitter. Samantha is slow, turning to look behind. As Claire approaches, she keeps one hand on the handlebars, and stretches the other hand out towards Samantha. Just as she is about to grab Samantha, the babysitter turns back and plucks the hat off Claire’s head.

  ‘Shit!’ the babysitter says, and drops it. There is a drop of blood forming on the fleshy part of the babysitter’s hand, black in the moonlight, where the Specialist’s hat has bitten her.

  Claire dismounts, giggling. Samantha watches as the Specialist’s hat rolls away. It gathers speed, veering across the attic floor, and disappears, thumping down the stairs. ‘Go get it,’ Claire says. ‘You can be the Specialist this time.’

  ‘No,’ the babysitter says, sucking at her palm. ‘It’s time for bed.’

  When they go down the stairs, there is no sign of the Specialist’s hat. They brush their teeth, climb into the ship-bed, and pull the covers up to their necks. The babysitter sits between their feet. ‘When you’re Dead,’ Samantha says, ‘do you still get tired and have to go to sleep? Do you have dreams?’

  ‘When you’re Dead,’ the babysitter says, ‘everything’s a lot easier. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to. You don’t have to have a name, you don’t have to remember. You don’t even have to breathe.’

  She shows them exactly what she means.

  * * *

  When she has time to think about it (and now she has all the time in the world to think), Samantha realizes, with a small pang, that she is now stuck, indefinitely between ten and eleven years old, stuck with Claire and the babysitter. She considers this. The number 10 is pleasing and round, like a beach ball, but all in all, it hasn’t been an easy year. She wonders what 11 would have been like. Sharper, like needles, maybe. She has chosen to be Dead instead. She hopes that she’s made the right decision. She wonders if her mother would have decided to be Dead, instead of dead, if she could have.

  Last year, they were learning fractions in school when her mother died. Fractions remind Samantha of herds of wild horses, piebalds and pintos and palominos. There are so many of them, and they are, well, fractious and unruly. Just when you think you have one under control, it throws up its head and tosses you off. Claire’s favorite number is 4, which she says is a tall, skinny boy. Samantha doesn’t care for boys that much. She likes numbers. Take the number 8, for instance, which can be more than one thing at once. Looked at one way, 8 looks like a bent woman with curvy hair. But if you lay it down on its side, it looks like a snake curled with its tail in its mouth. This is sort of like the difference between being Dead and being dead. Maybe when Samantha is tired of one, she will try the other.

  On the lawn, under the oak trees, she hears someone calling her name. Samantha climbs out of bed and goes to the nursery window. She looks out through the wavy glass. It’s Mr Coeslak. ‘Samantha, Claire!’ he calls up to her. ‘Are you all right? Is your father there?’ Samantha can almost see the moonlight shining through him. ‘They’re always locking me in the tool room,’ he says. ‘Are you there, Samantha? Claire? Girls?’

  The babysitter comes and stands beside Samantha. The babysitter puts her finger to her lip. Claire’s eyes glitter at them from the dark bed. Samantha doesn’t say anything, but she waves at Mr Coeslak. The babysitter waves too. Maybe he can see them waving, because after a little while, he stops shouting and goes away. ‘Be careful,’ the babysitter says. ‘He’ll be coming soon. It will be coming soon.’

  She takes Samantha’s hand, and leads her back to the bed, where Claire is waiting. They sit and wait. Time passes, but they don’t get tired, they don’t get any older.

  Who’s there?

  Just air.

  The front door opens on the first floor, and Samantha, Claire, and the babysitter can hear someone creeping, creeping up the stairs. ‘Be quiet,’ the babysitter says. ‘It’s the Specialist.’

  Samantha and Claire are quiet. The nursery is dark and the wind crackles like a fire in the fireplace.

  ‘Claire, Samantha, Samantha, Claire?’ The Specialist’s voice is blurry and wet. It sounds like their father’s voice, but that’s because the hat can imitate any noise, any voice. ‘Are you still awake?’

  ‘Quick,’ the babysitter says. ‘It’s time to go up to the attic and hide.’

  Claire and Samantha slip out from under
the covers and dress quickly and silently. They follow her. Without speech, without breathing, she pulls them into the safety of the chimney. It is too dark to see, but they understand the babysitter perfectly when she mouths the word, Up. She goes first, so they can see where the fingerholds are, the bricks that jut out for their feet. Then Claire. Samantha watches her sister’s foot ascend like smoke, the shoelace still untied.

  ‘Claire? Samantha? Goddammit, you’re scaring me. Where are you?’ The Specialist is standing just outside the half-open door. ‘Samantha? I think I’ve been bitten by something. I think I’ve been bitten by a goddamn snake.’ Samantha hesitates for only a second. Then she is climbing up, up, up the nursery chimney.

  ‘TINY GHOSTS’

  AMY GIACALONE (AMERICAN, 1983–)

  Previously unpublished.

  Amy Giacalone is a young fiction writer who lives in Chicago with her husband and two cats, and no ghosts. I first discovered this story when Amy read it at The Book Cellar, a Chicago bookshop. I had spent the day ploughing through large piles of musty ghost stories in search of obscure delights, and when Amy read ‘Tiny Ghosts’ it seemed to jump into my lap and lick my face. It is fresh and odd and very energetic, much like its narrator.

  TINY GHOSTS

  Amy Giacalone

  So I was sitting in the bath when the tiny ghosts started showing up, and I’m not going to tell you anything too specific about my bath because I don’t believe in pornography. Because right away you’re thinking it’s bubbly and sexy and ooh-la-la, but that’s not the kind of bath I take. I take oatmeal baths. You can buy the oatmeal bath packets from Walmart for $4.99 on sale, they come in a box of eight, and Walmart’s all that’s around for shopping. So I take an oatmeal bath with Epsom salts for my arthritis, and the water’s the color of street slush in the winter. Little blobs of oatmeal float around sometimes and I smush them in my fingers. It’s weirdly satisfying and I don’t mind mentioning it.

  I take my baths in the upstairs bathroom, which is not attached to the bedroom, since it’s an older house. I light a candle that smells like peach pie. I pour myself a cup of wine. I don’t like wine-glasses, too delicate, so it’s just in a cup, which is good enough for me. We buy Sutterhome White Zinfandel, which is $3.50 a bottle. In town we can get it from CVS for $4.99, that’s why we really do have to drive out to the Walmart, it’s like that with everything. I like my bathwater really hot, as hot as I can get it to go. I have my bath copy of Jane Eyre. The good copy is hardcover, and this one’s a fat paperback. It’s got warbly pages from the bathwater. I never start at the beginning of it anymore, not particularly. Usually I just flip to any spot I feel like reading.

  It’s a very complicated book, and I’m proud to say I’ve read it many times, because I’m a good reader. My bath is comfortable, and the room looks nice because I have a very nice house, and I can’t help but notice for a second that things are perfect. You know, you have to work hard all the time just to get things perfect for even a second. It’s very satisfying to be me.

  Well, I’m only about halfway through my Bath Night when my husband, Gary, gets home, this is still before the tiny ghosts, now, and I hear him come up the stairs. And he just comes on in, like he does. He opens the door, and I pop up straight in the bath, and he comes over and kisses me on top of my head. He has to bend all the way over to do it, and then we start to talk:

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘How was your night?’

  ‘Good. Yours?’

  ‘Well, it’s still going on.’ I have wrinkled hands always, but especially now from the bath water, and I reach over my shoulder for some wine.

  And he says, ‘Mind if I pee?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and I pull back the shower curtain while I take a sip, so he has his privacy.

  ‘You’re reading Jane Eyre again?’ Gary asks.

  ‘It’s my favorite,’ I tell him.

  ‘Huh,’ he says, ‘I was just talking to Pete. Now, he’s a guy who really knows how to read. Reads a book a week. Big ones, too. Very impressive.’

  Now, it’s pretty nice with the curtain pulled. Dark. It’s like a tiny room that’s all bath, which is an idea I don’t mind saying I like. I picture myself in the tiny room and I wonder how I’d get into it, probably a tiny door. Tiny door? Sure, a tiny door. And then I see myself very tiny, and I get in through a tiny door and dive right into the bath. Gary flushes. He washes his hands. He pulls back the shower curtain and then I’m my real size again. He picks up my book.

  ‘Pete should read Jane Eyre,’ I say, because it’s a great book. Anyone would like it. But guess what my husband says?

  ‘Nah, he only likes new books. Hip ones.’

  ‘Jane Eyre is a hip book!’

  ‘Oh, I know that.’ Gary blushes and now of course he’s backtracking. ‘That’s not what I meant. I meant like whatever the newest book is on the new book list.’

  So I say, ‘Humph,’ which is what I think of that, and I say, ‘You know, I’m trying to enjoy my bath.’

  Gary comes over and kisses me on the head again. ‘Okay. You know I didn’t mean that, about your book. I’m sure Pete would like it a lot.’ And then he leaves, and he didn’t mean it, but he made me feel like an old fuddy-duddy, sitting in the fuddy-duddy bath with my fuddy-duddy bath book. And that’s when the tiny ghosts start showing up.

  First, a tiny door opens up. The tiny door’s in the corner by my feet, where the tub meets the wall, and there’s a tiny ledge. It’s not like a fancy door. Just a regular, brown door with a knob. And a little person walks out! And he just stands there. He’s kind of clear, like a shadow, and he’s wearing cargo shorts, flipflops, and a t-shirt. Maybe the size of my hand. He has tiny black hair and a tiny beard. He’s carrying a tiny towel.

  Of course, I pull my feet back, fast, which splashes. I cover up my chest area with my knees. I think I’m probably imagining things, but I’m a pretty steady person, and it isn’t like me to imagine this hard. And he talks to me!

  ‘Oh, hey.’ He holds up one hand. He’s waving. He looks around.

  ‘Hey?’ I say. I’m holding my two knees tight.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks, like I’m interfering with his night and not the other way around.

  So I go, ‘Taking a bath?’

  He doesn’t say anything, just puts his hands in his pockets, and nods. ‘Okay,’ he says, and turns back to the door.

  ‘Wait! What are you doing here?’ I ask, pretty quick, since I want to know, and I think he’s leaving.

  ‘I thought I’d take a bath. Didn’t know you were still using the tub.’

  ‘I’m sorry. What?’

  ‘Bath.’ He says slowly, like I’m stupid, and he makes a circle with his hand, indicating the tub I’m sitting in. ‘But it’s no problem,’ he says, ‘I’ll come back later.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See ya.’

  I talk fast: ‘I’m sorry …’ I say, and I hesitate at what I should call him. Mister? Sir? Little guy? I go with: ‘I’m sorry … you there. You’re a …? Not to be rude, but what are you?’

  ‘Ghost.’

  ‘A tiny ghost?’

  ‘No, a big one. Asshole.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Kay, bye.’ He waves again, and goes out the tiny door, and I’m alone again.

  Wait. What? I lean over and open the tiny door, which is still there, but the ghost is gone. I’m all thumbs because the door knob is so tiny, and for a second I think that maybe my hand will go right through it if it’s a ghost door after all, but no. I open it just fine, and I have to lean all the way over to peek inside. All there is, is a long, black, tiny hallway. It’s cold in there. I can feel a little chill coming out.

  So of course I shut the little door and get my butt out of that bath. I wrap myself in two big towels, one is a dress, and the other I twist my hair up in, but kind of crazy since I’m shaking all over. I flip on the light switch. I blow out the peach pie candle and ‘Ga-ry!�
�� is what I start yelling.

  He’s yelling, too: ‘Hey! Hey-o! Look out, Angie! Where’re you at?’ I hear his footsteps coming towards the bathroom. I open the door and we almost smack right into each other, we’re going so fast.

  ‘Honey,’ he says, ‘I think I’m hallucinating something.’

  And then we both start babbling and waving our hands and we’re saying the same thing. Gary’s going on and on about a tiny door, and a tiny ghost, too.

  So we sit up all night together, right in the middle of the bed. We can’t fall asleep. We don’t even try to talk to each other, we just sit and stare out in different directions. Soon, we’re laying down, but it’s laying down like a couple of kittens. In the middle of the bed, all curled up around each other.

  At about two o’clock, I get hungry. I don’t put my feet on the floor, because I’m afraid a tiny ghost is going to scurry out. I bend down by my nightstand and open the bottom drawer on it. I keep a box of saltines there.

  ‘Don’t drop any crumbs,’ Gary says.

  ‘Huh?’

  He shakes my saltine box. ‘Crumbs will just attract them.’

  ‘Like with mice?’

  He shrugs, and I have to admit, in my mind it’s like we have mice instead of tiny ghosts, too.

  Then again, maybe the saltines do attract them, I don’t know. Because a tiny door opens in the bedroom, right above Gary’s dresser. A little brown door, and out come six—six—tiny ghosts! It’s a tiny ghost gang. They’re mostly woman-ghosts, but there’s a couple men in the group, too. They’re loud like teenagers, laughing, and slapping each other on the back. They say things like:

  ‘Is this the place?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh my god, this room is ugly as hell.’

  Now, our bedroom is not ugly as hell, to give you some idea of how wrong these tiny ghosts are. Our bedroom is actually very nice, with flower wallpaper and a matching flower bedspread that I found on sale.