1
I decide to spend the afternoon looking at clouds. Lame, I know, but there’s nothing else to do. The heat of the day sends birds back inside their pine trees, and lizards sit on rocks expanding their necks. Even the mosquitos barely twinkle on the surface of the pond. But the sky’s an electric blue, and the clouds are puffy, wispy, and white, like cotton balls pulled apart. So I climb onto the balcony and lie flat on my back on the dusty wooden planks.
In a manner of speaking.
Technically, I astral-project my spirit to float parallel to the boards and lift my psychically-reconstructed face toward the sky--but whatever. It’s all semantics, and when you’re talking to yourself, who cares?
Clouds are pretty.
Finding shapes passes the time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be rewarded with a long-submerged memory. Like when I saw an elephant in the clouds and recalled a battle scene with hordes of barbarians riding atop those tusked, armored beasts. It was from a movie, but I don’t remember which one, even though I probably saw it a hundred times. That’s the problem with being dead. You forget.
I wish I could remember my family.
Maybe one day I’ll see their faces in the clouds.
Not these clouds, though. These particular clouds don’t want to form into neat little shapes. They want to expand all over the sky, getting longer and wispier, and the only memory they summon is that of a kindergarten craft project and me squirting glue onto cotton balls and smooshing them down onto the outline of a sheep.
Clouds and sheep. Original.
Do I even know what a sheep looks like? An actual sheep, not a cartoon one you see on T.V.? I can’t recall. Maybe I never saw a sheep, not in real life. Then again, how many animals can you say you’ve really seen? Half our images come from books or movies or computer screens. We’ve never looked the creatures in the eye, not even in zoos.
The sound of thunder interrupts, right as I’m on the verge of something profound. Only, come to think of it, it’s not thunder. The noise is low and rumbling, but also grating and harsh. Plus, I’m staring at the sky, and there’s not a hint of precipitation, let alone a storm. No, it’s not thunder. The sound is coming from the front of the house.
Oh, I know what it is.
It’s a car coming up the gravel road.
I spring to my feet. So to speak. Technically, I astral-project my spirit into an upright--who gives a damn! There’s a car on the road! People are coming.
People never come here. Except the caretaker. But only in the fall. Only when the bird-pecked apples drop from their branches, and the smell of smoke lingers in the night sky. It’s not fall. Not even close. The apples are little green bulbs just beginning to swell under the leaves. The caretaker’s either early or--
It’s someone new.
I float through the house.
Two vehicles kick up dirt clouds on the road. The first is a pick-up, not the weird olive green of the caretaker’s truck, but red. If I had a heart, it would be pumping. The lack of internal organs aside, I do feel vague anxiety. New people mean a chance to change the mess I’m in. I need to get their attention. Problem is, I don’t know how to do that, and if I ever had a plan, it’s long since spilled out of my head. I stand on the front porch and wait.
The truck pulls up to the driveway. The door opens, and a girl steps out.
She has red hair that’s clearly not her natural color. It reminds me of an ambulance light, especially when a sunbeam hits it and the sheen nearly blinds me. She wears ripped shorts and a dark gray hoodie zipped up to her neck. She slams the car door, walks to the front of the car, and leans back against the bumper, arms crossed. She seems young. About the age I was when I died.
I float in front of her face. The girl is white and fair-skinned--no sign of a tan--and she’s not done up with make-up except some eyeliner. She’s got freckles spattered like constellations on her cheeks and nose and forehead. I want to get a better look at her eyes, but she’s staring at the ground, and all I see are her lashes. They’re brown. So are her eyebrows. I don’t know why, but she seems familiar.
The girl looks up. Straight at me, or through me, I suppose. Her eyes tilt down at the edges, making them round and doe-like. They’re gray. A natural gray, I’m pretty sure, because I don’t see the small, almost invisible circle in the whites that indicates contacts. These eyes, I think--no, I know--I’ve seen them before.
The little girl with red gloves.
This is her?
No. Can’t be.
Damn. She grew up.
The slam of a car door causes the girl’s head to turn, and suddenly I’m staring at her ear. A bottle caps earring dangles off the lobe.
“What a beautiful house!”
A woman steps out of a blue Buick. She’s tall and big and looks nothing like the girl. Hot pink lipstick smears on her lips, stringy blond hair droops from a headband, and her teal pantsuit looks out of place and hot. I have no idea who this woman is.
The woman inspects the house. “So this is where you grew up, Charlotte.”
Charlotte. That’s the girl’s name.
Charlotte stares at the ground again. Her face is blank.
The woman glances at the carved wooden statue of a fox in front, a sign dangling from its paws.
“Thornfield Manor. Home of the Landry’s,” she reads.
Yeah, I never got that.
I guess you could call the house a manor, although I think it looks more like a cottage, at least from the front. The house is made of unpainted wood. Cobblestone pillars hold the gray roof over the wraparound porch, and high above the door is a half-circle of stained glass. The flower boxes on the windows are empty and pigeons have nested in the beams, but all in all, it’s pretty cheerful for a haunted house.
The woman moves away from the sign and turns to Charlotte. “Returning to your childhood home is bound to be painful. It takes courage to face the past.” She smiles in a way that oozes compassion. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
Well, that tears it. This woman’s a shrink.
Not that I’m that familiar with therapists. I don’t think I am. Who knows? But she seems like the kind of touchy-feely person who might be susceptible to psychic energies. I think as hard as I can. I picture wavy beams radiating off my head.
I am Curtis, the ghost of Thornfield Manor. See me!
“I feel a little sad,” Charlotte says. “Numb, mostly.” She glances at the house. “It still looks the way I remember it.”
I am Curtis, the ghost of--
“Anything you want to talk about?” the woman asks.
Charlotte shakes her head. “No, Dr. Lerner. I just want to get this over with.”
Oh, shit. They aren’t staying. I think louder.
I AM CURTIS--
“I know it’s a lot to process. Sometimes nostalgia creates a shrine of permanence around our memories. We cling to an idealized past because it gives us a feeling of security.” Dr. Lerner puts a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “Shattering the illusion may cause pain, but ultimately it frees us to embrace the present.”
What the hell does that mean?
No, really, what does it mean? I sort of want to know.
But there’s no time to dissect her words. I’m supposed to transmit my psychic energies, but I keep getting distracted. Maybe the problem is that I’m thinking the words, instead of feeling them. I need to summon emotions from the depths of my soul--years of frustration, confusion, and boredom--, put them into a ball of energy, and shoot it at the people standing before me.
I AM CURTIS--
“I don’t care about the past.” Charlotte gestures angrily, her arm slicing through my chest. “My parents are dead. Yeah, it hurts, and I’m still angry at how they were taken from me. But I’ve accepted it. I know my life will never be what… what it might have been.” She swallows. “But that’s not why we’re here.”
Why are they here?
Ghosts are supposed to be vessels of raw, unbridled emotions, but right now, all I’m filled with is raw, unbridled curiosity. Who were Charlotte’s parents and how did they die and why did Charlotte bring a therapist to her house? Not to mention what happened to Charlotte since she went from a kid to… whatever age she is now.
Dr. Lerner withdraws her hand from Charlotte’s shoulder. “You have some things you want to bring out?”
“In the back.” Charlotte motions her head toward the truck.
“Do you need a hand?”
“Maybe moving the display case.”
They make their way to the back of the pick-up, which is covered by a tarp. Although I desperately want to see what’s inside it, I need to clear my head. Who knows when I’ll get another visitor? I need to focus. I need to make them see me, make them know my name.
I charge at them like a bull.
“I AM CURTIS!” I scream. “I AM CURTIS, I AM CURTIS, I AM—”
“Curtis. Yeah, I got that.”
I lurch to a halt. A second girl sits inside the truck.
She peers at me from the other side of the dusty passenger window. She’s similar to Charlotte, except that she has brown hair braided into two pigtails on either side of her face.
She said my name.
What do I do?
“I am--I’m--You see me?” I blurt.
A dumb question. She’s staring right at me--not through me, at me--and her gaze is a little intense. Her eyes are an odd color, but that may be the reflection off the tinted window. She’s not smiling. Her mouth is hard.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
“I live here,” I reply. “Died here. Sort of exist here.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
What’s she asking? How do I, as a ghost, exist? Frankly, I wish I knew.
“I’m trapped here,” I try to explain. “I can’t cross over, and I can’t leave. I’ve been waiting for someone to notice me. You’re here, and I thought--”
“Stop.”
Her voice is weary. She brings a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but this is my last day with Charlotte. I’m sure she has good intentions, but I just don’t want to do this. Go away. Please.”
I don’t know what to say.
“I am--” I start, when the girl hops out of the truck.
She doesn’t open the door; she jumps through the steel panel. And now that she’s out of the car, I can see sunlight stream through her translucent body. Dust particles dance through her skin like glitter in a snow globe.
In a manner of speaking.
Technically, I astral-project my spirit to float parallel to the boards and lift my psychically-reconstructed face toward the sky--but whatever. It’s all semantics, and when you’re talking to yourself, who cares?
Clouds are pretty.
Finding shapes passes the time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be rewarded with a long-submerged memory. Like when I saw an elephant in the clouds and recalled a battle scene with hordes of barbarians riding atop those tusked, armored beasts. It was from a movie, but I don’t remember which one, even though I probably saw it a hundred times. That’s the problem with being dead. You forget.
I wish I could remember my family.
Maybe one day I’ll see their faces in the clouds.
Not these clouds, though. These particular clouds don’t want to form into neat little shapes. They want to expand all over the sky, getting longer and wispier, and the only memory they summon is that of a kindergarten craft project and me squirting glue onto cotton balls and smooshing them down onto the outline of a sheep.
Clouds and sheep. Original.
Do I even know what a sheep looks like? An actual sheep, not a cartoon one you see on T.V.? I can’t recall. Maybe I never saw a sheep, not in real life. Then again, how many animals can you say you’ve really seen? Half our images come from books or movies or computer screens. We’ve never looked the creatures in the eye, not even in zoos.
The sound of thunder interrupts, right as I’m on the verge of something profound. Only, come to think of it, it’s not thunder. The noise is low and rumbling, but also grating and harsh. Plus, I’m staring at the sky, and there’s not a hint of precipitation, let alone a storm. No, it’s not thunder. The sound is coming from the front of the house.
Oh, I know what it is.
It’s a car coming up the gravel road.
I spring to my feet. So to speak. Technically, I astral-project my spirit into an upright--who gives a damn! There’s a car on the road! People are coming.
People never come here. Except the caretaker. But only in the fall. Only when the bird-pecked apples drop from their branches, and the smell of smoke lingers in the night sky. It’s not fall. Not even close. The apples are little green bulbs just beginning to swell under the leaves. The caretaker’s either early or--
It’s someone new.
I float through the house.
Two vehicles kick up dirt clouds on the road. The first is a pick-up, not the weird olive green of the caretaker’s truck, but red. If I had a heart, it would be pumping. The lack of internal organs aside, I do feel vague anxiety. New people mean a chance to change the mess I’m in. I need to get their attention. Problem is, I don’t know how to do that, and if I ever had a plan, it’s long since spilled out of my head. I stand on the front porch and wait.
The truck pulls up to the driveway. The door opens, and a girl steps out.
She has red hair that’s clearly not her natural color. It reminds me of an ambulance light, especially when a sunbeam hits it and the sheen nearly blinds me. She wears ripped shorts and a dark gray hoodie zipped up to her neck. She slams the car door, walks to the front of the car, and leans back against the bumper, arms crossed. She seems young. About the age I was when I died.
I float in front of her face. The girl is white and fair-skinned--no sign of a tan--and she’s not done up with make-up except some eyeliner. She’s got freckles spattered like constellations on her cheeks and nose and forehead. I want to get a better look at her eyes, but she’s staring at the ground, and all I see are her lashes. They’re brown. So are her eyebrows. I don’t know why, but she seems familiar.
The girl looks up. Straight at me, or through me, I suppose. Her eyes tilt down at the edges, making them round and doe-like. They’re gray. A natural gray, I’m pretty sure, because I don’t see the small, almost invisible circle in the whites that indicates contacts. These eyes, I think--no, I know--I’ve seen them before.
The little girl with red gloves.
This is her?
No. Can’t be.
Damn. She grew up.
The slam of a car door causes the girl’s head to turn, and suddenly I’m staring at her ear. A bottle caps earring dangles off the lobe.
“What a beautiful house!”
A woman steps out of a blue Buick. She’s tall and big and looks nothing like the girl. Hot pink lipstick smears on her lips, stringy blond hair droops from a headband, and her teal pantsuit looks out of place and hot. I have no idea who this woman is.
The woman inspects the house. “So this is where you grew up, Charlotte.”
Charlotte. That’s the girl’s name.
Charlotte stares at the ground again. Her face is blank.
The woman glances at the carved wooden statue of a fox in front, a sign dangling from its paws.
“Thornfield Manor. Home of the Landry’s,” she reads.
Yeah, I never got that.
I guess you could call the house a manor, although I think it looks more like a cottage, at least from the front. The house is made of unpainted wood. Cobblestone pillars hold the gray roof over the wraparound porch, and high above the door is a half-circle of stained glass. The flower boxes on the windows are empty and pigeons have nested in the beams, but all in all, it’s pretty cheerful for a haunted house.
The woman moves away from the sign and turns to Charlotte. “Returning to your childhood home is bound to be painful. It takes courage to face the past.” She smiles in a way that oozes compassion. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
Well, that tears it. This woman’s a shrink.
Not that I’m that familiar with therapists. I don’t think I am. Who knows? But she seems like the kind of touchy-feely person who might be susceptible to psychic energies. I think as hard as I can. I picture wavy beams radiating off my head.
I am Curtis, the ghost of Thornfield Manor. See me!
“I feel a little sad,” Charlotte says. “Numb, mostly.” She glances at the house. “It still looks the way I remember it.”
I am Curtis, the ghost of--
“Anything you want to talk about?” the woman asks.
Charlotte shakes her head. “No, Dr. Lerner. I just want to get this over with.”
Oh, shit. They aren’t staying. I think louder.
I AM CURTIS--
“I know it’s a lot to process. Sometimes nostalgia creates a shrine of permanence around our memories. We cling to an idealized past because it gives us a feeling of security.” Dr. Lerner puts a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “Shattering the illusion may cause pain, but ultimately it frees us to embrace the present.”
What the hell does that mean?
No, really, what does it mean? I sort of want to know.
But there’s no time to dissect her words. I’m supposed to transmit my psychic energies, but I keep getting distracted. Maybe the problem is that I’m thinking the words, instead of feeling them. I need to summon emotions from the depths of my soul--years of frustration, confusion, and boredom--, put them into a ball of energy, and shoot it at the people standing before me.
I AM CURTIS--
“I don’t care about the past.” Charlotte gestures angrily, her arm slicing through my chest. “My parents are dead. Yeah, it hurts, and I’m still angry at how they were taken from me. But I’ve accepted it. I know my life will never be what… what it might have been.” She swallows. “But that’s not why we’re here.”
Why are they here?
Ghosts are supposed to be vessels of raw, unbridled emotions, but right now, all I’m filled with is raw, unbridled curiosity. Who were Charlotte’s parents and how did they die and why did Charlotte bring a therapist to her house? Not to mention what happened to Charlotte since she went from a kid to… whatever age she is now.
Dr. Lerner withdraws her hand from Charlotte’s shoulder. “You have some things you want to bring out?”
“In the back.” Charlotte motions her head toward the truck.
“Do you need a hand?”
“Maybe moving the display case.”
They make their way to the back of the pick-up, which is covered by a tarp. Although I desperately want to see what’s inside it, I need to clear my head. Who knows when I’ll get another visitor? I need to focus. I need to make them see me, make them know my name.
I charge at them like a bull.
“I AM CURTIS!” I scream. “I AM CURTIS, I AM CURTIS, I AM—”
“Curtis. Yeah, I got that.”
I lurch to a halt. A second girl sits inside the truck.
She peers at me from the other side of the dusty passenger window. She’s similar to Charlotte, except that she has brown hair braided into two pigtails on either side of her face.
She said my name.
What do I do?
“I am--I’m--You see me?” I blurt.
A dumb question. She’s staring right at me--not through me, at me--and her gaze is a little intense. Her eyes are an odd color, but that may be the reflection off the tinted window. She’s not smiling. Her mouth is hard.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
“I live here,” I reply. “Died here. Sort of exist here.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
What’s she asking? How do I, as a ghost, exist? Frankly, I wish I knew.
“I’m trapped here,” I try to explain. “I can’t cross over, and I can’t leave. I’ve been waiting for someone to notice me. You’re here, and I thought--”
“Stop.”
Her voice is weary. She brings a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but this is my last day with Charlotte. I’m sure she has good intentions, but I just don’t want to do this. Go away. Please.”
I don’t know what to say.
“I am--” I start, when the girl hops out of the truck.
She doesn’t open the door; she jumps through the steel panel. And now that she’s out of the car, I can see sunlight stream through her translucent body. Dust particles dance through her skin like glitter in a snow globe.
