Chapter Ten
As soon as the kitchen door closes behind us, I turn to Cole. “You can go home if you want.”
“What?”
“You can go back home. I’m fine.” I want to be alone. Today’s been too much. I can’t get over the way Jeff looked at me, like he knew every dirty corner of my insides, like it was me who caused his illness. I scour my memories for anything I could’ve done to make him so sick, but come up blank.
What else could have caused it? The rabbits? Maybe they were diseased. But he put them in the bed, didn’t he? What if he didn’t know they were contagious?
That night a couple weekends ago when I heard Jeff come in late and walk by my door—where had he been? Was that the first sign of his illness? Maybe he didn’t even know what he was doing. This whole time, something could’ve been sowing disease in his brain: a clot, a tumor, some environmental toxin from all his years working to implement pesticide dispersal on forests . . .
That could be it. I’m just paranoid. It was a stressful situation; maybe I misread his glare. How could this be my fault? Should I have said something about Aggie, warned them about the strangling hands in the night? If she did murder two people in her lifetime, what’s to stop her from killing one more invader in her space, even after death? If she did this, then I’m partially to blame for not saying anything—not that they would’ve believed me. Even if it wasn’t Aggie, something’s not right here. Whenever Jeff’s around, the house feels off. It gets cold, dead rabbits appear in beds, he takes strange midnight walks, he falls through the porch and doesn’t get a scratch. And then there’s the weight on my ribcage every night and Traci’s insomnia, worse than ever. I’m starting to wonder if the house is uneasy with all our presences.
I just want to go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning when all of this is resolved. If he dies—
“It’s not like I’m babysitting you,” Cole says. “I’m confused. I thought you’d want to find out more about this house—about Aggie and Sabrina? Is this ’cause I was weird about it earlier? I didn’t mean to react like that. Why don’t we go up and look for clues about what happened to them?” She starts toward the hallway.
I don’t follow. Cole’s question and the concern in her voice make me feel even worse. Is she just pandering to me? What I really want right now is to ask Aggie why all of this is happening. I can’t start asking questions to the ceiling with Cole here though. Anyway, how can I play detective when Jeff’s so sick? If he dies, how will Traci ever get over him? Will she spend the rest of her life in mourning? Then he’d haunt us wherever Traci ends up living. The thought of living with his ghost in the room for the rest of my time with Traci on this earth leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I know if she loses Jeff right after we had such a big fight, we’ll never be able to heal our relationship.
“Sun’s setting anyway. Shouldn’t you be getting back home?” I pull a can of chicken soup out of the cupboard and begin wrenching the can opener around the lid.
“No, I don’t care. I’ll stay.” Cole’s quiet and firm. “I don’t care about sunset. I told you. I don’t believe in any of that stuff. I just want to know you’re ok after—”
“I told you, I’m fine. Jeff will be fine. I’ll find a way to fix it.”
Cole raises her eyebrows in disbelief and pushes the stray hairs out of her face. “Fix it? How is that your responsibility?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I think of that gruesome smile spread across his face, exposing his perfect veneers, coated in slimy fluid. Did anyone else see that? Did I imagine it? Why would he look at me that way, like everything about who I am is a joke to him? Like he knows I did it. But I didn’t, right? I didn’t make him sick.
I’m starting to come up with a plan. When Cole leaves, I can call on Aggie and ask her what’s going on in this house. I don’t know if she’ll show up, or if she’ll answer me. So far she’s been passive, just appearing on my ceiling at night. But I need to do something. If I can find out why this happened, I can make it stop before it affects any of us any more than it already has.
Chicken soup splashes onto the counter and my hand. I curse and throw the can opener into the sink, splash the soup into a pot and crank the heat to high on the burner.
“Whatever. He’ll be fine. Traci’s with him.” She didn’t even say goodbye to me. She had nothing to say to me. If it was me in that car, would she be in such a rush? Would her eyes be filled with the same fear? Of course they would. Of course. She loves me. She loves me. She used to tell me all the time. I believe her. I believe her. She loves me. She’s my mother. She’ll be back. He’ll be back with her.
She barely even looked me in the eye.
Cole walks over to the stove and turns the heat down to medium. Then she sits down at the kitchen table and puts her head in her hands. “Let’s just eat something and then we can talk.”
I pour the soup into two of the hexagonal bowls. We eat in silence. Eat’s a strong word; mostly, we both stir our noodles around. I can tell Cole’s frustrated with me. I don’t care. She doesn’t understand. This can’t be an accident. On some level, Jeff deserves this.
Do I really believe that?
“He killed those rabbits,” I say, finally. Maybe things would be better with him gone. Just me and Traci in this big old house. No one else. “He’s cheating on my mum.”
Cole stares at me blankly. “What if he’s really sick? Like, if this isn’t temporary.” The confusion leaks from her eyes and a stronger force grows there. “What if he doesn’t make it to the hospital on time?”
“They’ll make it.” I don’t want him to die. But every part of me wants him gone. I want him out of this house. Jeff keeps pulling everything backwards. Me and Mum. He’s pulling us all back to something unspeakable, a deep despair that I can’t fully articulate. It’s like things are worse, but they’re also better. And things are better, but they’re also worse.
I just know I can’t survive with him here and maybe neither can this house. I can feel the way the cold dissipates when he’s not here. The way his foot crashed through that step, now he’s seeing things and in immense pain. What was he trying to say? Maybe something or someone wants him out even more than I do. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m somehow at fault. If I’d been nicer to him. If I could’ve just acted better—
“Asha, I get you don’t like him. He’s still on his way to the ICU, probably. Do you understand that? This is really serious. When my brother—”
“He was laughing at me. Did you see that? He was smiling this big smug smile and he was laughing at me. Or maybe I—I don’t know—” my voice is rising, I realize. I cut myself off. Maybe it’s this house. But I don’t know how much more I can say to Cole about the ghosts when she was reluctant to talk about the possibility of a presence earlier.
She scoffs. “He was delirious. There’s no way he was conscious enough to even—”
“What do you care? You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s like. He’s a snake. He killed those rabbits, and he’s cheating on my mum, and she’s driving him to the hospital, and she won’t even speak to me. Maybe he’s not faking it, but this is happening for a reason. He’s going to be fine. As long as he’s not in this house, he’s going to be fine.”
Cole pushes her chair back so hard it falls over as she stands. Something inside her snaps and her voice turns sharp. “Are you serious right now? He looked like he was halfway to the grave. What’s this house got to do with anything?” She pauses, leaves a space for me to interject, to protest, but I don’t. Her voice is rising too. “Be realistic! You could lose him. You’re lucky he’s around. I’d kill for my brother to be around, even just for the weekend. Illness and death don’t happen for ‘a reason.’ My brother didn’t die for ‘a reason.’ I’m so tired of that bullshit.” I recoil. It’s like she slapped me across the face. She stomps across the room and slams the door behind her.
I got what I wanted. I’m alone at the cost of hurting my one friend in this town with my thoughtlessness.
The rash on my arm itches so bad that I rip my bandages off and tear into my own skin. When I start bleeding, I run my entire arm under the kitchen tap, watching the blood circle down the drain like paint. I shiver. It’s the first time I’ve been in the house totally alone with the hum of the refrigerator and the pipes gurgling in the walls, the rhythmic creaks of floorboards as the earth moves below us. I sit at the kitchen table and stare at the paint peeling from the walls. I don’t want to be here in this town so far away from everyone.
If Jeff survives, I will make things work. I have to make things work. I can’t lose Traci. When she comes back, I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right.
I lose track of myself for a while, staring into the swirls of the melamine.
In the last pink minutes of sunlight, Cole comes back through the screen door. She shocks me back into my body when she touches my shoulder and holds up a jumbo bag of marshmallows and a pack of bamboo skewers.
“I still think you were selfish,” she says, “but I didn’t feel right leaving you.”
“I’m sorry.” I rise and pull Cole into a hug. We stand still for a moment before we step apart. “Thanks for coming back.”
Cole nods awkwardly and pulls out a skewer and marshmallow. I can tell apologies are uncomfortable for her. She clears her throat. “I went back home and got this stuff. My brother taught me how to do this. Watch.” She turns one of the elements on and it slowly brightens to orange, then she begins roasting a marshmallow on top of it. It turns golden on all sides equally, then she pulls the outside off and pops it in her mouth and continues to roast the iridescent white inner layer. I set mine on fire, then blow it out. “See, that’s why my mum hates when we roast marshmallows inside. There’s always someone who wants to set theirs on fire.”
I pop the whole thing in my mouth. Crisp, bitter, sweet. “How did your brother like to do it?” I glance at Cole sideways to make sure it’s ok I asked her. Her face opens up into a smile. I’m relieved she wants to talk about him.
“Like you. He’d burn them to a crisp.”
“It’s the best.”
“People like you and him always say that, but the truth is you’re just impatient.”
I laugh. She’s right. I don’t have the patience for a thousand-layer golden marshmallow. I pull another out of the bag. We roast another four each before Cole talks again. “I’m sorry too.”
“Why’d you come back?”
“Because I realized if I wasn’t here, I’d just be thinking about you anyway, and sitting around feeling guilty I let Traci down. I like you. And I wanted you to understand where I was coming from. It was really hard for me to see Jeff like that. It scared me. I think it scared you too, but maybe you’re not ready to admit that.”
I nod.
“I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all or anything, but I’ve been down this road before with my brother. It was a late winter night, he went out, and he was driving home drunk or high or whatever. My parents won’t say what he was on.” Cole pauses. I become a statue. Any movement or too loud a breath might rush into the space and interrupt her telling and my listening. “He slid across the road into a tree. He was in a coma for a month. We were at the hospital every day. I know it’s silly now but somehow each day he was on life-support, my hope that he’d be ok again kept growing. I had hope he would pull at my hair and drive me to school and sports and to get ice cream in the summer, just the two of us. I kept hoping harder, even though the reality that he wasn’t going to survive became more real every minute.
“I think my parents still believe on some level that it was his fault he died because he wasn’t sober. But how can I blame him when I do the same stupid shit, make the same stupid mistakes he did? I just wish he was here to tell me how not to repeat his fuck-ups.” She’s not crying, but her voice is pulled tight. The marshmallow she’s roasting sets aflame. “I’m just scared. I don’t want you or anyone to have to go through a loss like that.” Cole hands me the marshmallow. I blow on it, then pop it in my mouth.
Cole seemed so self-assured when Traci was loading Jeff into the car, but maybe that’s just a result of her having experienced abrupt loss before. Now that I’ve had time to sit by myself, I can recognize she’s right about me too. I am scared. For me and Traci, but also Jeff. If he survives, this house might still want us gone. If taking out Jeff this way was its first attempt on our lives, what will it be pushed to do if we decide to continue to live here despite its warnings?
“I was hurt when you told me to leave because I know what this is like,” she continues. “When Ben was at the hospital, and I was back in my bed at night, not knowing if I’d ever see him again, I felt so alone. Nothing could change that. So, if you don’t want me here tonight, I can leave, as long as I know you’re going to be ok.” She has marshmallow on her right cheek. She won’t look me directly in the eye.
I nod. “You can stay. I want you here too.” I don’t tell her I think I’m crazy half the time. Or that I’m not as scared of losing Jeff permanently as I am of Traci having to live with that pain. It would be like losing her too.
So Cole stays. We eat marshmallows until we feel sick. The evening slips into night, and before we know it, we’re in bed, and Cole has her arms wrapped around me. I don’t know if any of us are going to be ok, but in her arms I feel safer than I have in years.
It’s the first night in days that I don’t wake up gasping for breath. Instead, it’s Cole’s screaming that wakes me.
Cole is lying flat on her back with her palms up, shrieking with her eyes open wide. I don’t know if she’s awake or not. Her face is blank and open in terror. The covers are twisted around me; I must have stolen them from her in the night. They tie me to myself. In the panic of trying to get out of the knots of the sheets, I’m not able to follow Cole’s gaze. Whatever she’s seeing is still eclipsed for me. If she can see what it is. To me, it looks like darkness. Finally, she takes a hoarse breath, then starts shaking with uncontrollable sobs.
When I get loose, I rub her shoulder softly. I still can’t tell if she’s awake or not. I don’t know if you’re supposed to disturb someone who is stuck between dreaming and waking. My hands are trembling, clammy. I follow her gaze to the exact point on the ceiling where I watch Aggie before I fall asleep.
“Did you see her too?” I ask Cole. It’s strange to feel this much excitement as tears continue to pool on the pillow, in her hair, on her cheeks. Aggie’s not here right now, but if Cole saw her, then that means she’s real. It means Traci and I do live in a haunted house. “Did you see her, Cole?” I don’t know if she hears me, even though I can see she’s awake and aware of my physical presence beside her. Cole grabs my arm, her fingernails digging into me. I pull her closer into a hug, let go of the question. She curls into my warmth. I rub her damp back until she quiets, catches her breath, and eventually stops crying.
I stare at the space on the wall lit ice-blue this time of the morning. A perfect corner of my window reproducing our heads side by side. “Sh, it’s ok.” I hear myself whispering over and over again. The sound echoes back to me from the blank wall, almost like someone else is saying it, almost like it’s coming from the whole house, through me, to Cole. I close my eyes and can almost feel the house as if it’s an extension of my own body. I know whatever was in the room with us is now gone.
When she’s been quiet for a few minutes, I release her from my arms and walk across the room to open the window, let the fresh night air in. My door, which must have swung open by itself in the night, swings shut with the air pressure. We’re closed into my room with the peaceful harmony of crickets, a distant stream, the trees breathing in long yawns, the way they only do in the privacy of night. I let the outside in, and it breaks something hard that was in the room to softness. We lie side by side and Cole curls into me. It’s the first time I feel she needs me as much as I’ve needed her.
“I saw something . . .” She trails off. I know she’s searching for the right words to make herself sound sane.
So instead, I tell her, “I didn’t think anyone else would be able to see her. Was she in the ceiling?”
“Her?” Cole asks. She doesn’t know what I’m talking about. A chill runs through me.
“The woman in the ceiling. Aggie.”
Cole’s voice drops to a whisper. She holds onto me hard again, so hard I’m worried she’ll leave marks. “I didn’t see Aggie. It was a man. He was on my chest. With his hands around my neck. He kept saying ‘you’re going to hell.’ Over and over. I knew it was true. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I died. There were . . . colors popping, like fireworks. He was so close to my face, like he wanted to kiss me . . .”
I reach a hand up to my own neck, the place where I feel cold hands grip me each night before I wake up gasping for breath. But I’ve never heard those words, never woken up to a face close to mine, threatening hell.
“But I know it was just a dream. Just Mum telling me haunted house stories about this place all these years, and then all my grief stuff . . . it got dredged up earlier, seeing Jeff.”
I hold her tighter. And as my discomfort rises, thinking about the man she describes sitting on her chest, Cole settles in, her breath deepens. Mine quickens. I count each in and out to try to stay calm, but this trick no longer works. My body is pumping adrenaline. Everything around us sharpens, becomes dangerous. I don’t believe it was just a dream. The way she was screaming was too real and prolonged. Aggie’s not the only ghost in this house. And she’s not in the ceiling right now. So where is she? Where is he? I stare at the thin sliver of light coming in from the moonlit hallway. Eventually, as hard as I try, my eyes begin to droop too.
And then I hear footsteps. As quietly as I can, I pull on a pair of wool socks and creep toward my door. I open it quietly and peek out into the hallway. When I see who it is, I step out in full.
“Jeff?” He’s pacing back and forth at the end of the hall. I didn’t expect him back from the hospital so soon. He must’ve been fine after all. Maybe it was just an allergic reaction. I’m angry at him for recovering so quickly, so easily, angry he would smile at me like that and then come back home the same night, fine. And I’m relieved that he’s ok, despite all of his shortcomings. “You’re already back? What happened?”
I rub the sandiness out of my blurry eyes. He looks taller somehow, more solid. I remember how small he looked this afternoon when he was on his way to the hospital . . . how can this be the same man who could barely breathe earlier today?
But then—Jeff never wears suspenders. And he isn’t as tall as the man who is now walking back down the hallway, straight at me, staring through me as if I’m not even there. As if I’m the ghost and not him. I recognize him from somewhere. The sharp light in his blue eyes, the early signs of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and his hair, parted to the side and greased. His solid, muscular form shrinks me. Jeff is slight. How could I have mistaken him for this man? This other man in our home who I do recognize. I’ve seen him before—arms around Aggie in that photo on the mantel. And standing next to Jeff when he barged into my room after finding the rabbits, I realize suddenly. I’d thought it was sleepy double-vision. But it wasn’t Jeff’s double, and neither is this: it’s Ellis.
He’s walking fast toward me, his feet creaking the floorboards in all the right places. And I’m so stunned that I forget to move. I freeze outside my bedroom door. As he approaches, the best I can do is close it behind me so Cole is protected. That is, assuming he can’t walk through walls.
He’s covered half the distance between us when his eyes lock onto mine and he smiles with the same loose malice that marred Jeff’s face earlier. My head spins, an itchy buzz fills my ears until I can barely hear, and I grip the wall for support, thinking I might pass out. My knees go weak and I’m on the floor, watching Ellis’s patent leather shoes stomp toward my useless body.
And then she drops into me. I know it’s not Aggie. Aggie’s presence always comes with a gentleness, the rosewater and mothball scent. This presence is more energetic, with a damp, earthy smell that reminds me of the forest after rain.
The easiest way to explain what’s happening is that I’m realigned; I’m standing, but I am looking down on my body as if it is not my own, from above. And a reassuring voice tells me, without sound, I will care for you. Don’t worry. I won’t let you be hurt. Ellis’s hands grip the shoulders of my body and slam it against the wall. The house shakes like my bones. Though I can’t feel it from up above, I know it. Like watching a movie, I see my mouth move—not the way I’ve noticed it does in the mirror, small and tight, but loosely, casually, in an accent that belongs to an older generation. How Aggie used to speak, and a little like Cole.
“What are you going to do, kill her just like you killed me? Bloody hell, Ellis.”
He opens his mouth and lets out a tortured yell that could only have its roots in a combination of grief and fury. “You took my wife to hell with you. You made this place hell. You, Sabrina.”
Sabrina. Cole’s grandmother. That’s you, I think to her.
Yes, she replies, that’s me. Ellis’s body is pulsating, coming in and out of focus. My body, below, is floating a foot off the floor. Don’t let me die, I plead with Sabrina.
I told you. I’d never let him hurt you.
“This place has always been hell, Ellis. And you’ve made it so for others. You know it.”
“I’ve never—”
“Who built this house? Whose money? Whose blood?”
Ellis’s grip on my body’s shoulders loosens, then flickers. My body falls to the floor, and Sabrina becomes visible. She’s dressed in a flannel nightgown, her hair limp. Her body’s tiny, just like Cole’s except for the bruised hand prints on her neck, yet she manages to look bigger than him.
“What was it for? Your death was only Aggie’s idea of justice,” Sabrina yells at Ellis. And Ellis turns, begins walking down the hallway toward the head of the stairs, as he fades.
I fade too. Before I’m even aware I’m back in my body and Sabrina is gone, Aggie is floating down wordlessly from the ceiling. She kisses my forehead, and everything goes black.
It’s the slamming kitchen door that wakes me. The jingle of Traci’s keys. I unglue my face from the carpet and wipe the drool from my cheek. I grip the doorframe to lift myself up. Bile rises in my throat, but somehow, I keep my vomit in. Sabrina. I remember what happened last night and look at my hands. I’m in my own body, but there’s something of not being the driver that lingers in the dizziness and nausea that crawls all over me inside and out. I open the door and see Cole sleeping undisturbed in my bed. I close the door again and head slowly downstairs.
It must be only a bit past six. The sun’s golden, just coming up and filling the kitchen with light. Traci leans over the sink. She’s quiet, but I know she’s crying from the shake of her shoulders.
“Mum?”
Traci turns to me, pulls me into a hug. And I’m holding her tight too, because I want to.
“Jeff, is he—?”
“He’s stable. You didn’t answer my call.”
“Guess I slept through it. Do they know what’s wrong?”
“Long night. Tests will come in over the next few days. Is Cole still here?” I nod and Traci sighs in gratitude. As if we were safer together. Maybe we were. Traci reaches out and tucks a braid behind my ear. “You’re sure you’re ok, sweetie? You don’t look like you slept well. I should make you breakfast—”
“No, sit down. I’ll make you coffee.” I pull the glass pour over and a filter from the shelf. Traci sits with her face in her hands and I pull out the coffeemaker. All slumped like that she looks like an old lady. Tired, given up.
She lets out a shaky breath and runs a hand through her greasy hair, then speaks. “I don’t want to ask this right now, but did you see Jeff going out to the woods? Did you hear anything before he came in that night and found the rabbits?”
“No.” The receipt proving he was out there is upstairs. But looking at Traci now, I can’t tell her I know it was him who brought those rabbits inside. Not after last night. “Maybe he wasn’t fully here if he did it.”
Could a ghost have dropped into him? Ellis? I can see how they would have attracted each other’s presences now. If it was contact with the ghosts that caused Jeff’s illness, could they have the same effect on us if they wanted us out? Like something in the water poisoning us, maybe we can only withstand exposure for so long. Maybe one of them wanted something with Jeff.
Traci doesn’t respond. I pour us each a cup of coffee and we sit together in silence. Jeff will be ok. Will Mum? Will I?