A Ghost Story
500 words
His eyes are bleeding tears. “Mama, I hear noises again.”
“Hush, Dear. You need to sleep.” I pat his head absentmindedly. I’ve grown tired of this nightly routine, and the book I was reading calls to me from the next room with its promise of a surprise ending.
“But I’m scared!”
“This is the last time I’m going to tell you!” The sharp words startle us both, and I reshape my voice to cradle him instead. “It’s your imagination, Sweetie. We all hear things when we’re kids.”
“Even you?”
“Of course. Everyone does.”
I go through the motion of tucking the covers around him once more and stand to leave, but his small hand pulls me back. “What did you hear when you were little?”
“Nothing really.”
“But you said — ”
Annoyed, I spout, “Footsteps and voices. And when I screamed for my parents, they didn’t hear me — didn’t come.”
It was more than I’d meant to say, and he has latched tighter to my hand. Hurriedly, I add, “But nothing happened. Because it was just my imagination.”
“Oh.”
A hug and a kiss and another, and finally I’m able to close his bedroom door.
In the study, I sink into an armchair and pick up my book. But my thoughts blur the words. Stirring my tea, I gaze at the swirling whirlpool. For a moment, I spot the whiskey separating from the tea-stained water, but a blink and it’s all the same swirling liquid again.
In trying to comfort my son, I’ve stirred a forgotten memory — a whisper of two worlds swirling, separate but together at the same time. I shiver, imagining the invisible brushing against my skin and recalling the night my parents didn’t come.
That night the pacing footsteps continued until voices joined the unseen march and my bedroom swelled with the glowing warmth of a campfire. Against the bedroom’s moonlit darkness, images flickered, emerging in jerks and shudders like an old film reel.
“It’s just my imagination,” I panted, the hands of fear clasping tighter around my throat. I squeezed my weeping eyes shut and tucked the sheet tight over my head.
“Ha! You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” a deep voice joked.
My father!
But when I threw off the sheet, my father wasn’t there. Instead, a terrified young boy was pointing a trembling finger at me like a loaded gun. The man beside him chuckled.
“That’s Anne-Marie, son. A local legend, but she’s harmless. Been showing up here for years.”
Like candles blown out, they disappeared.
Lost in thought now, I close my unfinished book. The study is calm, but panic overtakes me like a sudden storm. I imagine my son, his screams unheard. I see him shrinking away from a pointing finger.
Dropping my cup, I race to his room, the smell of a campfire reaching me outside his bedroom. I fling the door open, praying I’m not too late. Praying he hasn’t yet learned that we’re ghosts.
