She seems to understand and quickly gathers her things before we rush out. Looking over my shoulder I watch it advance, its eyes glowing from the darkness. It moves slowly, but it still shifts through the shadows, following after us, until we break through into the sun.

  I can only hope it has to stay to the shadows.

  CHAPTER 5

  That night I lay in bed with her, watching over, my gaze never leaving her. I don’t know what the figure in the library is, but it seems menacing. I really don’t like the way it looked at her. Why would something want to hurt her?

  “It’s kinda hard to sleep with someone staring at me, you know,” she whispers, and I’m confused until her eyes open and she looks at me. Her features soften, a small smile on her lips, and I know she sees.

  I reach out and move a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just scared of what I saw today,” I say.

  “Me too. You being scared of something frightens me.”

  I’m stunned—she heard me and responded. How did this happen? My chest tightens. I don’t want her scared, or upset, and the thing I saw today could do both. In my periphery I see her hand reaching out to my face, and my gaze moves to hers. A thrill runs through me over the prospect of her trying to touch me and succeeding.

  “Holly, I…”

  “Shhh,” she whispers. Her hand tries to cup my face, but her fingers fall right through.

  I’m disappointed, though it’s not a surprise by any means. I want her touch, I want to feel her—feel anything.

  “A bit ironic, trying to comfort a dead guy,” I say, trying to lighten the mood a little.

  I see tears well in her eyes, pain evident, before her expression suddenly changes, her eyes darting around, hand hanging in the air, grabbing for me.

  Gone again.

  I really wish I knew a way to control it, but I also know I shouldn’t want it. She’s alive, I’m dead. How could that possibly work or be good for her?

  And now I’m a depressed ghost.

  Moving to lay on my back so that I’m not staring at her, but still close, she eventually falls asleep.

  The next day she heads out to work and I want to go with her, but I know I shouldn’t even attempt that. I’m becoming too attached to her, it’s better to keep my distance. At the same time, I’m also afraid that it will find her and I won’t be there to warn or protect her.

  I alternate between pacing in front of the window and sitting at my attic lookout. It’s boring without her around, and I’m worried. I don’t remember ever having been this worried about a woman in my living life. Odd how the first woman to take such a fierce hold of me is one that literally doesn’t even see me most of the time when I’m inches from her. Is there something ironic in there?

  Now that song is in my head.

  My worry over her doesn’t let up when I catch a glimpse of her running down the sidewalk. She’s going to fall, I just know it. Somehow, she manages not to trip and flies up the porch steps, bursting through the front door.

  “Is this you?!” she yells out between panting breaths, her hands thrusting forward.

  In one hand there is a voice recorder while in the other a photo—o f me.

  CHAPTER 6

  I step forward, my hand reaching out to touch the picture. The paper ripples slightly, a motion that doesn’t go unnoticed. I remember the photo. Odd how the memories resurface, almost like they had faded with time, and suddenly returned.

  Flashes of the last time I stared at it—the wake. My family and friends dressed in black, food lining the counter as they mingled in my house, a large photo of me sitting in the middle of the table. The same photo Holly held in her hand.

  I was so confused then, so angry, and didn’t have control. I yelled and screamed for hours, tried to get someone, anyone, to notice me, but nothing. The me in the photo smiled back, almost mocking me in his happiness.

  “Yes,” I say in a low voice.

  I concentrate and lightly push the hand holding the voice recorder.

  “Oh! Umm, EVP?” she replies, but it sounds more like a question. “Maybe I’ve watched too many ghost hunting shows, but I thought we might be able to communicate a little. I mean, we did the other night, but it’s the same as seeing you: sporadic. The theory is that if you say something, I’ll be able to hear it in the playback.”

  Why does she want that?

  As if reading my mind, she says, “I want to know what you’re saying. I want to know you.”

  She beams at me, and my heart nearly explodes. But then I realize this will keep her from going out even more and finding a nice guy, a living guy, to date. Somehow I don’t care about that, because I want her for myself. It’s selfish, but it’s a feeling I don’t want to fight.

  “I want to know, too.”

  Her face pinks in embarrassment, and I can’t help but run my finger down her cheek. Her eyes close, a smile forming on her lips. I lean close to the microphone and pull energy from around me in hopes it will be heard. Her skin pebbles with goose bumps as the temperature drops.

  “Hi, Holly. My name is Ben.”

  Her eyes widen, probably from the cold. Simple enough, but the act drains me some. I hope she can hear it, because I want her to. I conjure up another small movement, the wind chimes, to signal that I’m no longer there. Slumping down on my chair, I wait for her to follow.

  “I brought a couple of things for us to try as well, but I want to try this first. I guess I should listen to it, huh?” she says while walking to joining me in the living room on her usual perch. “Save us some time, and me some embarrassment.”

  “But you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed,” I say with a chuckle, hoping it picks up on the recording so that I can see her cheeks pink up.

  She plays the tape back, the ghostly ‘yes’ barely heard, but my introduction is loud and clear. So much so I’m surprised she didn’t actually hear it.

  “Hello, Ben,” she says, smiling an almost reverent smile. I freeze as warmth spreads through my being from the tightness of my chest. I haven’t felt anything in so long that the sensation is strange. If I had a beating heart I’m certain it would have skipped.

  I get my wish when my compliment and tease are heard, not as loud and clear, but understood. She bites down on her lower lip and holds up my picture.

  “I didn’t need this to tell me the same thing about you. You were and are very good looking, as you know.”

  Her remark catches me off guard. I know she has seen me a handful of times, but her words imply more times than I remember.

  “That was… awesome!” she exclaims as she finishes up listening and hits the power button on the recorder, a grin covering her face.

  I love that she wants to talk to me, that she wants to interact with me. I wonder if she… No, she’s alive. She has no interest in a fucking ghost, you moron.

  “Ok, don’t laugh, though I think you might. I read up on you a little. I hope you don’t mind. So sad, I can’t even imagine going through that. I’d like to know more about you. I mean, we are… living together,” she begins, leaning over to pull something out of her bag.

  Out comes what looks like a board game, and then I read the name. She has to be kidding.

  “The recorder is a lot of talking and then listening, so I have another idea that is more instantaneous. I thought we could give this a try.”

  A Ouija board.

  Opening the box, she takes it out and lays it on the coffee table, while I hang my head. It’s so cliché, but I suppose if it works…

  She places her finger tips lightly on the curser. “Ready?”

  For what?

  Oh, right.

  Sighing, I move forward and poise myself to move the piece of plastic.

  “I guess I’ll start off with something easy. I heard this house was haunted, things being thrown, things destroyed, but you’ve never been anything but nice and sweet to me. Why?”

  I grimace. I don’t want to tell her I like her, but there is no reason not to. Moving the curser I spell out that I like her. Unfortunately she reads that I “kild” her—whatever that means, but it doesn’t sound good. I have no idea how, but I have a feeling it’s not landing in the right place, my view different from hers. It’s frustrating trying to get it to land just right as the letters are so close together.

  Eventually I get her straightened out, but I’m so pissed off at the damn thing I end up throwing it across the room.

  “Well that didn’t work so well,” she says dryly, looking at the bits piled on the floor.

  I’m not sorry, I hate the damn thing, and she’s muttering about other avenues. I want to shake her and ask her why. Why does she care about me? She shouldn’t. We should just stop trying to interact, it would be better not to get attached.

  I sigh, knowing I can’t leave her alone now even if I want to. I like interacting with her.

  I like her, and far more than I should.

  I’m the one that’s attached.

  CHAPTER 7

  She doesn’t try to talk to me any more for the rest of the night. A good thing, as my mood soured after the Ouija debacle.

  I stare out the window, watching as life moves around in the darkness. A flash of dark covering the lights catches my eyes, and I watch it move around, growing ever nearer. If I had hackles, they’d be rising, because I know it’s the thing from the library.

  Suddenly, it’s staring at me from the other side of the glass, and I stumble back in shock. Its glowing eyes stare me down before moving to Holly.

  A resonating, bone-chilling, low voice emits one word before flying away into the darkness and out of sight.

  “Time.”

  I don’t know what it means, or what it wants, but it makes me even more fearful for her safety. It is definitely trained on her.

  I run over to her and stare. She looks up and her eyes widen.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, and I have never wished more that she could hear me, so that I can tell her.

  Holly scrambles around to find the audio recorder and begs me to say what has me so upset.

  She pushes record.

  “Danger,” is all I can muster.

  My quiet mutter barely comes across on the recording, and it was definitely inaudible to her ears when I spoke. She shudders with fear, rubs her arms like she’s cold, and finally nods that she got it, though she has no idea what to do about it. Neither do I.

  After that, she decides it’s time for bed. Both of us are unsure of what else can be done. She sleeps fitfully all night long under my watchful eye.

  ***

  A few days pass, and I haven’t seen the figure again. I watch for it almost as much as I watch her. She’s tried the voice recorder a bit more, and we trade questions, but it is very draining on me and only lasts a short while.

  Nearly a week later, she comes back from the day out, rushing into the house, a huge smile on her face.

  “Ben!” she calls out as soon as she enters.

  I love hearing her say my name. It makes me feel almost human again. Not just some nameless, faceless specter.

  “Ok, that Ouija board was kinda slow and a disaster. So, I came up with this after visiting my friend Krista. She has a toddler,” she says, rushing into the kitchen and throwing her bags onto the counter.

  I move the table back slightly before she bumps it with her leg. She smiles before continuing, dumping package after package of colorful magnetic letters out and ripping them open.

  “Sorry for the colors. They only come like this. And I don’t know if this will work or not, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try,” she explains as she begins placing the magnets all over the fridge door.

  Standing next to her, I reach out and the pieces move under my fingers with ease, taking no real toll. She gasps and freezes, watching as the letters swirl around.

  HI HOLLY

  Her expression softens and she smiles. “Hi, Ben. How was your day?”

  BORING

  BETTER NOW YOURE HOME

  I M

  I stop myself from spelling out what I feel. It’s the first conversation I’ve had in so long that my joy floods from me. She notices the pause and waits.

  “Please, don’t stop. Tell me,” she pleads.

  I sigh and begin spelling out the words.

  I MISSED YOU

  Her hand reaches out and lightly touches the letters, smiling sadly.

  “I missed you, too. Is that weird?” she asks, and I chuckle.

  Her eyes glance around—she must have heard it.

  NAH JUST CRAZY

  BUT IM HAPPY

  By the end of the week, there is a magnetic board filled with colorful letters in the living room and her bedroom, in addition to the ones on the fridge. She even found punctuation magnets and other shapes on the internet; they’re on the way.

  CHAPTER 8

  It’s amazing, being able to talk to her in some capacity. We interact now, instead of me just staring at her. Though I still stare—she’s too beautiful to look away.

  It’s in this time I find just how good her senses really are. She sees me a lot more than I realized. She’s special, it seems, and not just to me.

  HOW CAN U SEE ME?

  She chews on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. When I was five, my grandmother passed away. During the wake I was sitting in my grandparents’ living room, talking to someone. My father came in and asked who I was talking to, and I told him ‘Grammy.’ I remember the sad smile on his lips and the tears that filled his eyes as he kneeled down in front of me and explained death. I also remember turning to the chair next to me and looking at my Grammy.”

  A sigh leaves her. “Nobody believed me. Nobody could see the spirits that roam around. They all said I had an active imagination, but that’s not it. I stopped talking about the ghosts, but it took me years to understand that I was different.”

  I LIKE DIFFERENT

  LESS LONELY

  She smiles at the letters on the board.

  IS THAT WHY YOU WEREN’T AFRAID?

  She nods. “I’m not some all-seeing person, but I do see some. It comes and goes, and doesn’t happen all the time. Trust me, nothing is as disturbing as seeing the living, then suddenly seeing all the dead as well.”

  WHY DID YOU CHOSE MY HOUSE?

  “Because it’s beautiful,” she says with a smile. “And all the rumors of weird things happening, well, they didn’t bother me. I thought maybe if you did start up, we might be able to talk and I could help.”

  DONE BEFORE? HELP

  She shakes her head. “I’ve never really tried before, but I wasn’t going to let your reputation scare me away.”

  A sheepish grin spreads across my face. It all seems so stupid now, but at the time, it was all I had. Now, I have Holly.

  “I’ll admit, I thought you tripped me, until I looked up and saw the wide-eyed shock on your face and realized I was my own worst enemy.” She laughs and shakes her head. “You lost a lot of scare points then.”

  Great. The look of utter shock on my face apparently discredited my menacing ghost reputation I had worked hard to acquire.

  My brow scrunches as I look at her.

  DO YOU HEAR ME?

  She stares at my question and purses her lips. “Yes and no. Sometimes I do, especially when you laugh. I heard you say your name, loud and clear. Didn’t need the recorder for that, but I did for some of the other things.”

  That explained her reaction. It wasn’t just the cold. She heard me.

  “I wish you could hear me,” I say.

  She blinks and stares at the area I’m sitting, but she doesn’t see me. “I do now.”

  “How?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe it’s like seeing you.”

  It’s then I realize something—I don’t speak. What if she thought she just couldn’t hear me, but it was actually because I rarely speak? I wasn’t used to talking to the living. Why talk to someone who can’t hear you? Utterly frustrating, like talking to a wall. I stopped years ago.

  She asks a lot of questions about me, about the man I used to be, and about the sickness that claimed me. I’m shocked at the amount of times I have difficulty recalling the memories. It’s as if over time they are fading away just as my existence fades away.

  I remember how my cousin used to stop by the house a lot. She’s the one who did most of the clean out after I died, but I would often see her after that, sitting at the park across the street. She was the one who stayed with me, cared for me, up until the moment my heart stopped beating.

  She hasn’t been by in years and I’d forgotten all about it, all about her. Amelia.

  How is this an afterlife if I lose all memories of my life? What happens when they’re all gone?

  CHAPTER 9

  “Question for you,” she says the next night as she eats dinner. “I keep seeing something in my periphery, but I can never get a true look at it. It’s something dark, looming, but the second I look over, it disappears. It sends a shiver down my spine.”

  She can hear me tonight, but not see me. Sometimes it’s one or the other or none at all, making us rely on the letters.

  “The shadow.”

  The smile that draws her lips up from hearing my voice quickly falls as she processes my words. “I first noticed it a few weeks ago, but lately I’ve been seeing it a lot more often. A flash here, a flash there. Do you think it’s the thing from the library?”

  “Probably. I’ve seen it multiple times, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea. No manual for the dead.”

  “Too bad, that could be helpful right now.”

  We are both silent after this conversation, lost in our thoughts.

  “No need to worry,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “Your clumsiness will probably get you before any strange darkness does.”

 

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