The Ghost of You Lingers, page 3
“That’s kind of you, but it’s just me in this house. You’ll have to make do with only one ghost.” Her smile was brighter than all the lights of the stupid chandelier in the hallway put together. Like a lighthouse beacon with the power to break through the thickest fog.
I couldn’t handle so much cheerful beauty, so I glanced down; her legs had disappeared again. “You, uh, lost your legs.”
“Oh!” She flushed, her face becoming noticeably pinkish even though I could still see through it to the wall behind her. “Sorry. I forget, sometimes.”
“How does that work? Can you control how much of your body is solid?”
She glanced down at the end of her wide-legged trousers, now completely visible. Her feet were encased in fuzzy white slippers.
“Generally speaking, yes,” she said. “I can interact with the physical world just as you can. I can touch objects, as you’ve seen. But I do have some added. . . perks.”
“Walking through walls and shit?”
“Walking through walls and such, yes.”
I looked down at my hand, which had gone right through hers. “But you can’t touch me?”
“No. When I try to touch living beings, it’s like they’re water running through my hands. But otherwise, my body is solid when I choose to be solid.” Annabelle smiled, but it was perfunctory. Then she turned and took the first aid supplies back to the hall closet.
“Huh,” I said, astutely.
I wrapped my hands around my now-cold mug of tea, feeling strangely calm. As if conversing with a ghost in a haunted house hundreds of miles away from normal life was no big deal. Annabelle should have been terrifying—a spirit from beyond the grave haunting a creepy-as-fuck house. But all the fear and all the frustration had drained out of me, leaving only exhaustion. I still had no idea what kind of ghost story this was, but it could wait until morning. Apparently, the dead woman in my house wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll make more tea,” she said instead of asking if I wanted any.
“For reals, how much tea is there in this house?”
She gave me a mischievous look that was flat-out adorable. “Loads.”
I really didn’t want more tea. I drank three cups anyway while Annabelle chatted at me about topics I wouldn’t for the life of me remember the next day.
Chapter 5
It took me showing Annabelle four different sources on my phone for her to accept that it was no longer necessary to keep people with concussions awake. She didn’t believe “weekeepedia” or anything from the first page of Google results, but she finally accepted it when I showed her an article from the BBC. Her forehead creased when she read the other headlines on the page, and I took my phone back before she asked me to explain Brexit.
When I woke the next morning, I had a patch of hair missing, a terrible headache, and the old-lady smell of the house all around me. I got up and brushed my teeth, grumbling the whole time, then headed downstairs to see if my house was still haunted.
Annabelle greeted me at the bottom of the stairs holding a steaming cup of tea and a sunny smile. She was wearing the same clothes she had yesterday and looked exactly the same—still partially transparent and still totally gorgeous. “Good morning, dear!”
“Morning, Marley.”
“Don’t start that again,” Annabelle said, dramatically rolling her eyes. But the wide smile stayed on her face, making her eyes crinkle cutely and making my insides do a little flip. If she smiled like this every time, I would definitely keep calling her that.
She followed me to the kitchen, then sat down at the table and watched while I hunted through the cabinets for coffee. My great-aunt apparently didn’t share my need for a double espresso in the morning. I turned back to Annabelle, questions competing with my need for caffeine.
“Did Agatha know you were here?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, of course.” She smiled sweetly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It took a while for us to adjust to each other’s . . . living arrangements. But once we did, we became good friends.”
If that was true, then Agatha knew she was passing down a haunted house to me, a grand-niece she’d never met. Was this inheritance a prank? Was my great-aunt pranking me from beyond the grave? I had never met Agatha, so I had no idea if that was something she might do. But from colorful characters like Annabelle and the kooky medium Miranda that surrounded her while she was alive, I supposed I couldn’t rule it out.
I gave up searching in the cabinets. “Is there any coffee in this house?”
The look of barely contained distaste on Annabelle’s face answered my question.
“There must be a coffee shop on this island somewhere,” I said. “I’ll get some.”
“If you must.” Annabelle waved her hand in the air as if dismissing me. “Do get your head examined, dear, I’d hate to have you expire after going to all that trouble to fix you up. Not to mention the sofa.” She glanced at the stained pink couch, still in the middle of the hallway where it caught my fall.
I shoved the couch back to its place and added “whatever gets blood out of suede” to my Notes app shopping list.
“Right. What’s on your docket today?” I asked, then grimaced at how awkward I sounded. I reminded myself that Annabelle wasn’t a hookup who stayed overnight instead of leaving. She was the one who belonged here, not me.
But the beautiful ghost didn’t react to my terrible attempt at conversation. She glided across the hall to the alcove with all the books. “I was thinking of revisiting the Brontës this morning.”
I followed her, eyeing the extensive cottage library. “These are your books?”
“Yes.” She beamed at her collection. “Though I can’t leave the house physically anymore, these transport me anywhere I’d like to go.”
“You can’t leave the cottage?” I hadn’t stopped to consider whether the whole island was haunted or just my house.
“Not anymore, no.” Her bland smile and breezy tone didn’t hide the full stop at the end of that sentence. Annabelle wasn’t going to elaborate.
Before I could follow that thought any further or press her on the subject, the grandfather clock in the sitting room interrupted, chiming nine times. My stomach growled, loudly reminding me that the only sustenance in this house was a tin of sardines and endless bags of tea. Annabelle waved cheerfully as I left the house, wishing me a good day in her adorable accent, and instead of feeling awkward, I couldn’t help but smile.
***
I found coffee at a small shop I found charming despite my natural resistance to being charmed. Then I wandered through downtown for a while. The friendly crowds and sun overwhelmed my senses, which were calibrated for haughty pedestrians and city traffic, not chubby children and more bicycles than the fucking Tour de France.
The face of the real estate guy I met last night was plastered on flyers and signs all over town advertising his services. I hadn’t given him a second thought after leaving the bar, too distracted by my near-death experience to remember the smarmy guy in blue sweatpants. One sign boasted that he could sell a house to a turtle, which made very little sense, but the sign proclaimed it with confidence anyway. His ads made him look like a pompous ass, and he had acted like one in the bar last night. But if the man could sell Agatha’s house at a good price, fast, I needed to talk to him. I snapped a photo of one of his ads with my phone and added “call real estate guy” to my to-do list.
The day was hot, and my hair clung to my forehead like a moist mop had been plopped on my head. I pushed it back, annoyed, then hissed in pain when my hand brushed against the bandage on my head. I had stopped on the doorstep of one of the gazillion fudge shops on the island. Two teens sat on the bench in front of the door, looking at me like I was a middle-aged alien in a sweaty thrift store outfit.
Right. I was wandering around the island with a homegrown haircut and a head wound. Like a Final Girl in a horror film walking around The Truman Show.
I started walking, eager to leave before the youths started filming me to post on social media, and searched for a hairdresser with my phone. There were several salons inside swanky resorts, but I’d rather buy a pair of clippers and shave my head myself than step inside one of those. Luckily, there was also a barbershop a few streets over.
Before I reached the end of the street where I needed to turn, I passed a window with a row of real estate listings. I slowed down to peruse the houses for sale on the island, and my jaw dropped. The prices were astronomical. The houses were immaculate. The flowers in the yards were blooming. Presumably, the electrical situation inside these houses was up to code, instead of borderline dangerous.
There was no way I could sell a run-down, haunted house. Who would want to buy my dump instead of one of these normie, no-ghost houses?
I pulled up a picture of Abaddon Cottage on my phone and compared it to the listings. Where they had bright porches with built-in swings and homey furniture, Abaddon had rotting wood and protruding nails. They had open-concept kitchens with brand-new appliances, whereas Abaddon had an ancient gas stove and a refrigerator that was still labeled “ice box.” All the homes for sale on the island, and even the recently sold ones, looked perfectly ready to host a new family. My house had already tried to kill me, and it came with a ghost.
***
I found Burn Your Bridges Barbershop in a smallish house in the residential neighborhood not far from Main Street. Unlike the mini-mansions in the real estate listings, or Abaddon Cottage for that matter, this house looked like a reasonably comfortable fit for a small family. There was a gaggle of bicycles out front. Many of the neighbors had immaculate lawns, but this one was small and messy, with a row of vegetable garden beds instead of flowers. It looked like people actually lived in this house, instead of having it maintained by a landscaping company.
On the front door, there was a hanging sign with a logo of the Mackinac Bridge on it. The bridge was being cut in half by a pair of giant scissors, and underneath it, the Great Lakes were on fire. I cracked a smile at the weird logo. Below the sign, on the glass windowpane, was a teeny tiny rainbow sticker.
I knocked on the door. “Hello?”
From inside, a voice called, “In here! Come on in!”
I entered the sitting room of the cozy house. The indistinct chatter of a group of teens drifted down the stairs. The front room had been converted into a barbershop, with a high chair and large mirror dominating the space. Hairdresser’s tools in homemade jars sat on plastic shelves. They had cutesy slogans and children’s drawings adorning the labels. A coatrack in the hallway held jackets of various kids’ and adults’ sizes. The house was the sort of messy that implied a busy life with children and, possibly, a pet. Not dirty or cluttered, just lived-in.
Looking at it, I felt like an anthropologist tiptoeing around the life of an unknown culture.
A woman entered from the back of the house, cleaning her hands on a dish towel.
“What can I do you for?” She was young but not too young, with a friendly sort of face and beautiful brown hair that fell halfway down her back. Somehow, it was shiny without being greasy and hadn’t frizzed like mine in the humidity.
“I was hoping to do a walk-in. Nothing fancy.”
The woman introduced herself as Rebecca Johnson, owner of the shop. She came closer, evaluating my messy mop of hair with a critical but not unkind eye. When she spotted the bandage above my ear, she said, “What happened there?”
I opened my mouth to respond but paused to formulate an answer that wouldn’t make me sound insane. The truth was I almost died last night because I’m an idiot who doesn’t want anything to do with this fucking island, but a ghost saved my life. Now she lived with me, or I lived with her? And I found her stupidly adorable.
Nope, that wouldn’t work.
I cleared my throat. “Light in the hallway was out. I, uh, had a fall. It’s not a big deal. Just need to deal with the hair situation.”
Rebecca tsked lightly. “Why don’t you get the doc to look it over?”
“I honestly have no idea what kind of network coverage my insurance has out here, and I really can’t afford to find out the hard way.”
“Valid. Hang on a sec.” She yelled up the stairs, “Honey! Can you come down here and bring your stuff, please?”
“I’m fine. I don’t need—”
“Don’tcha worry about it.” Somehow, she had maneuvered me into the barber’s chair. “Do you mind if I remove this?”
I nodded, and she gently removed the bandage over my ear. A few moments later, another woman skipped down the stairs carrying a black bag. Her dark hair seemed to float around her head in an uncontrollable cloud. Rebecca pointed to my head, awkwardly trimmed on one side and slightly swollen. “Newcomer. She’s had a fall, mind having a look?”
“You really don’t have to,” I protested.
But the cloud-haired woman was already turning my head gently. I closed my eyes and let her, feeling a hot lick of shame rising to my hairline.
“Doesn’t look too deep, and you cleaned it fairly well,” she said. “But let’s go over it again, shall we?”
I swallowed. Apparently, no one on this island took no for an answer. “You’re a doctor?”
“Yep.” She reached into her bag to retrieve supplies that looked similar to the ones Annabelle had used, but much newer and cleaner. “Sorry, this might sting.” She dabbed my head with antiseptic. “I’m Dr. Johnson. Rebecca’s my wife. You’re in Agatha’s house then? Abaddon Cottage, she called it?”
She was holding my head, so I couldn’t nod. “Yeah. She was my great-aunt, I guess. My name’s Gibson.”
“Well, Gibson, you could use a stitch. Won’t take long, and it’ll dissolve in a week or two so you needn’t come back.”
“I mean, I’m just here for—”
Dr. Johnson waved her hand and gave me a stern look. “No charge. Give me a moment, and I’ll let you get back to your ‘do.”
I closed my eyes while Dr. Johnson worked on my head. There was a brief pinch as she set the stitch, then I heard her opening a new bandage. She gently placed it on my head, then stepped back.
The whole process took roughly five minutes, but I felt indebted to these women in a way that made me flush. I hadn’t asked for their help, but they’d sensed how pathetic I was and helped me anyway. It reminded me of how small I’d felt as a child. How inadequate. My skin crawled with shame. I wanted to smash my hand into the mirror and throw the homemade jar into the wall.
I took a deep breath.
“Thanks, love,” Rebecca said to the doctor.
“No problem.” Dr. Johnson packed up her bag of supplies, then pressed a kiss to her wife’s cheek. “Call me if the wound becomes red or more painful than it is now. It might itch a little. But if it starts oozing, get your butt back in that seat, you hear?”
I nodded.
“So, what’re you going to do?” Rebecca asked.
The obvious answer was that I would sell the house and get the hell out of here. I could take the money and run back to my normal life where no one helped me because I never asked anyone to.
I came all this way to evaluate the property, consult with a local real estate agent, and settle on a price. Abaddon Cottage and the land it sat on were mine to cash out—if I got enough for it, I could keep living in New York. I might still have to rent even if I made a million bucks on the deal, but I could find a better place. Maybe quit my day job in marketing. Go on the road playing with Brooke and the rest of Call Me Kate Kane.
Instead of saying any of that, I said, “The house needs a lot of work. Figured I’d see what the market is like, but I’m not sure it’ll sell unless I gut it. And I’m not sure how long that’ll take.”
Rebecca gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “I meant your hair.”
“Oh. Right.”
She smiled. “But I’d be lying if I said the year-rounders weren’t dying to know your plans for the cottage, too.”
I ducked my head, trying to recover an ounce of dignity and failing miserably. “I don’t know. Never been big on plans.”
“Understandable. Need one for the hair, though.”
In the mirror, I saw a person I barely recognized staring back at me. My brown eyes looked tired. My neck skin was starting to become turkey-like, and I was clenching my jaw without realizing it. In the mirror, I saw someone who’d been hurt once, then several times more. A mop-haired fool who’d been running from the hurt ever since. There were more lines on my face than I remembered, and they hadn’t been put there by smiles.
“Cut it all off.” I mimicked a buzz cut, complete with sound effects. “You can leave some in the front, but otherwise, full Rachel Maddow.”
Rebecca hesitated, then gave me a nod and said, “Okay.” She didn’t ask if I was sure, or tell me I might regret the decision, just got down to business in a comfortable silence I was profoundly grateful for. She turned my head this way and that, moving my chin gently but firmly. I felt myself relax as pieces of hair fell away. Gradually, we returned to a conversation that didn’t go near any exposed nerves. I told her about my to-do list and that I’d put off my day job by telling my boss my phone service was too bad to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot.
“Been to the fort yet?” she asked.
“Nah, I’m not really one for propaganda.”
“That’s fair.” Rebecca smiled. There were pictures on the walls of the hairdresser, her wife, and a kid that aged and de-aged depending on which picture I glanced at. “The kids have fun doing accents and reenactments, though.”
“Accents?”
“They play British soldiers.”
I vaguely remembered the ferry captain saying something about the War of 1812 figuring into the history of the island. I hadn’t much cared at the time, though. Rebecca worked silently for a few moments, and I drifted, feeling the odd sensation of a person flitting about behind me, actually able to touch my head.
“Wait—you said British soldiers?” I wanted to slap my forehead, but my arms were trapped inside a hairdresser’s robe. “There were British soldiers here?”
