Before the rods could move again, Charlie placed them on the table. “I’m exhausted!” she told Tess. “I don’t think I expected anything to actually happen.”
“What did it feel like? Using the rods?”
“Honestly, it was a little surreal,” Charlie answered. “The rods never forced themselves in any direction. It’s like they were just…drawn where they needed to go. It was thrilling connecting with Marie. But at the same time…”
Tess broke the silence between them by reading Charlie’s mind. “Dreadful?”
“Exactly,” Charlie answered. “Dread. But not about Marie. It felt nice connecting with her.”
“I wish I were there with you for all of this,” Tess said wistfully. “I’d love to give it a go too.”
Charlie smiled. “You and me both. You know, I think I need to go for a walk. Shake this off.”
“Tres bien. You do that, ma chère.”
“Love you forever, Thérèse.”
“Je t’aimerai pour toujours, ma Charlotte.”
Charlie sighed as she hung up. A notification popped up on her phone asking her if she’d like to turn on extreme battery saver; she felt a bit the same about her own body. Standing, she was turning to look at the corner of the living room, where the rods had pointed, before she consciously realised what she was doing. The room looked empty to her. Taking a breath, she hit “ignore” on the phone notification and flipped open the camera app. She looked at the corner again, through the phone camera, and was relieved to see nothing change.
A few minutes later, Charlie was out the door, a warm jumper thrown on. The weather was still unpredictable, and once again, what had started as a warm, sunny day was quickly turning brisk. Clouds hung low in the sky, but it seemed like no rain was looming. Locking the door behind her, Charlie made an unconscious decision not to walk to the hills, like always, but to head to the back of her property. The land in front of her house was a pleasant series of hills. The land behind gently sloped down to a small creek. The creek never normally appealed to her like the hills, but today it seemed appropriate.
“What do you reckon, Marie? Let’s give it a go.”
The walk to the back of her property took about thirty minutes, at a decent pace. It was relaxing walking the gentle slope, rather than challenging herself with the hills. In fact, it was just what her body needed. Already she felt revived. Unlike the majority of her property, the trees around the creek hadn’t been cleared. Here, the gum trees stood thickly, blocking the brisk wind that always seemed to pick up in the afternoon. With winter so recently passed, the creek was nice and full; in summer she could easily jump over it. Right now, even with her farthest leap, she’d land in the middle of the steadily flowing water.
Charlie made herself comfortable on a nearby patch of thick grass, resting her back against an old white gum tree. These gum trees were her favourite. The trunks were smooth. The bark like paper. Comfortable. The gently flowing creek made a lovely bubbling sound as it flowed over the stones beneath. Charlie wondered why she hadn’t come here on her walks before. She’d known it was here; it had been part of the tour (on the back of the previous owner’s 4WD buggy) when she’d bought the property. It hadn’t seemed so calm then, though it wouldn’t with that engine rumbling.
Leaning her head against the tree, she closed her eyes, enjoying the tranquility. She could afford to rest here a while before walking back before dark.
She’d closed her eyes only a moment when she heard the pattering of small feet. Charlie scrambled to her own feet. It could have been an animal — a wallaby or a rabbit perhaps — but it had the distinct sound of a young child’s pattering footsteps. “Marie?” she whispered. Again the pattering feet sounded right in front of her, running past her towards the creek. “Holy fuck… Ah, I mean…” Was it rude to swear in front of a child ghost? One who’d been dead almost a hundred years? She heard another giggle in front of her, besides the creek.
“Marie, it’s Charlie. Did you…did you follow me here?” Charlie bent double and slowly walked towards the sound. With sudden clarity, she reached for the phone in her back pocket, fumbling as she unlocked it and opened the camera app. She lifted it to the creek bank and gasped as through the camera she could see not just Marie but another young girl, perhaps five years old. The details captured through her phone weren’t exactly clear, but both looked to be wearing pale dresses, one peeking out behind a warm green cardigan, the second behind a thick cream jumper. Both wore stockings with worn boots and had their long dark hair in pigtails. “Marie?” Charlie asked again, but the girls ignored her.
Charlie watched in fascination as the girls laid out an old rug by the creek, neatly arranging a tin tea set, a teddy bear, and what looked to be a new doll. At least the doll was in far better condition than the tea set and the teddy bear, which was missing an eye. The girls knelt on the rug, arranging everything just so, then pulled four arrowroot biscuits from their pockets and gently placed them down in front of the toys. The girls could have been twins, if not for one being slightly slimmer and taller than the other. The taller girl seemed to almost glow a bright blue, while the second was so pale as to almost be transparent, colourless.
“Happy birthday, Alice!” the glowing child said, moving her teddy bear as if it were doing the talking. She looked up to make sure her audience was as captivated by her performance as she was.
The second child giggled, picking up the empty teacup and answering, “Why, thank you!” Thinking of Tess in this moment, Charlie pressed the button on her phone to take a photo, wanting to share this moment with her friend. As the camera noise clicked loudly, the glowing child turned to stare directly at Charlie. The second child, Alice, continued to play, munching happily on her arrowroot. Marie, meanwhile, looked through the camera at her, her eyes just as wide and piercing as they’d been in the obituary photo. She smiled. “Come play with me,” she said.
In spectacular timing, the battery on Charlie’s phone died in that moment, the phone screen going black, the white pinwheel swirling as the phone shut itself off. Charlie’s heart hammered, and it took all her control to keep her breathing even. “Marie?” Charlie said loudly, hating the quaver in her voice. “You stay here with Alice, okay?” She turned and jogged back to the house. She could have sworn there was still plenty of sunlight when she’d set out from the house, and when she’d arrived at the creek, but it must have been later than she’d realised. The clouds must have hidden how low in the sky the sun was, because it was quickly getting dark. And freezing cold.
The jog didn’t last long, with the ground uneven beneath her (especially in this light) and the “gentle” slope now working against her. Instead, she struggled at a brisk walk for what felt like much more than half an hour. By the time she reached her door, she was covered in sweat, chilling her even more. With her porch light off, and her phone light not an option, it took her a while to fumble her key into the lock. Finally inside, she slammed the door behind her, using the key to lock it again from the inside. Only then did she flip on the light switch before turning to see that every cupboard door in her kitchen had been flung open. Every mug and glass had also been removed and was balanced on the bench in intricate, stacked patterns.
“Marie!” Charlie yelled angrily. “You stop this now! This isn’t a game!”
She cleaned the kitchen so quickly and vigorously that a mug bounced from her hands and smashed on the floor. “Not another one,” she mumbled, putting her head in her hands. “Jesus, I’m going mad…”
That night, Charlie lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t bothered to dry her hair after her shower, and it felt uncomfortably cool and soggy against her pillow. The house had stayed blissfully quiet since she’d had her meltdown in the kitchen. She’d stood in the hot shower for at least half an hour, letting her mind go numb. Am I actually mad? she thought. And swept up in my delusions, I’ve dragged Tess along for the ride? Charlie rolled onto her side and reached for her phone, now charging on the bedside table. She unlocked it with her code and scrolled impatiently to the photo gallery. “Nothing,” she breathed, seeing the photo of the creek. It was an awful photo, dark and blurry. It was also just the creek.
She clicked off the phone screen and rolled onto her back once more. Come play with me…the words rang in her head again. In that moment, with her phone choosing to power down, and the dark of night starting to creep around her, she’d been utterly terrified. Now, as she lay awake pondering the words, she realised there’d been no malice in them. They seemed almost innocent. Charlie sat up and grabbed her phone again. “Arnotts arrowroot biscuits…” she whispered, realising the biscuits she’d seen had been far more familiar than she’d first thought. Almost exactly the same as the ones she’d eaten as a child. She typed her query into her phone. The first page of search results was just a long list of places to purchase said biscuits. “…history…” she finished typing.
“Huh,” she mumbled, lying back down and scrolling again. The biscuits were first sold in 1888 — originally a staple for sailors, then sold as a first food for babies. Quickly they became a household favourite and treat for all ages. Charlie did the maths in her head as she placed the phone back on the table. The girls had looked around five or six years old when she’d seen them by the creek. Marie was born in 1927, so the flashback, or whatever it was, must have been in the early 1930s. “Those biscuits had already been around forty years.” She yawned loudly, wondering how long they’d been around when she herself was a child and if children still enjoyed them as much now. Who knew? The benign thought calmed her, the exhaustion from the day once more creeping in.