LITMIR.BIZ

      2. THE BEDROOM GHOST

      My father’s death made sense. I had visited the crash site, seen the trees along the road, and spotted several deer walking in the woods. I wasn’t at all surprised he’d swerved to save a deer because it fit the man I’d known—one who’d cared for me and my mother and hadn’t, despite his advice, put his own life before anybody else’s. I missed him and I grieved, but his death had given me answers.

      My mother’s death had left questions. Now with Mr. Stick’s address, I could visit where she’d gone and learn what had happened. If the building was as special as my mother had described, I might be able to do what I’d failed to do at home: speak with her directly one last time and finally make sense of how and why I’d lost her.

      I learned that Mr. Stick’s former home belonged to a woman named Mrs. Zabka, a widow of late-middle age whom I was able to reach by phone.

      Mrs. Zabka was a shut-in, and although she declined my invitation to visit her in person, she was a friendly conversationalist, happy to answer my questions and, when I probed too deeply, polite in her refusal to divulge information.

      She had acquired ownership of the brownstone from Mr. Stick a week before his death, which he had apparently known was imminent, and she even remembered speaking to my mother on one occasion.

      “I liked her,” Mrs. Zabka said. “I was sorry to hear what happened.”

      “What did happen?” I asked.

      “Heavens, who can say? I never understood the place or most of what occurs there.”

      I tried to engage her on the subject of her brownstone’s otherworldliness, mentioning some of the marvels and phenomena my mother had told me about, and Mrs. Zabka listened like a woman who believed or was simply too mannerly to baldly contradict me. I talked too long about my academic interest in the occult, trying to convince her I wasn’t a lunatic or quack, and then abruptly shifted to a personal appeal.

      “I’m still haunted by my mother. By the mystery,” I said, “and not just the loss. I realize how off-putting all of this might be, but I’d like to see your house and spend some time exploring, if only so the place itself isn’t such a mystery.”

      “You’re coming to a haunted house to stop feeling haunted.”

      “That’s a good way to say it. So you do think it’s haunted?”

      “I can promise you’ll encounter more than you expect, but I can’t guarantee it’s haunted by your mother.”

      “If I can’t find my mother, I’ll try to find closure.”

      “You might find a whole new opening,” she said.

      “I’d appreciate the chance more than I can say. I’m happy to compensate you for letting me visit.”

      “You could live there,” she said, “exploring all you like.”

      She told me she was willing to sell the house, and had in fact been waiting years for an appropriate buyer—someone who understood the brownstone’s nature and wouldn’t balk at the stack of legal disclosures, failed inspections, decrepitude, and warnings. Given her shut-in status, I was surprised she wanted to move.

      “Oh, I’ve never lived there,” Mrs. Zabka said.

      She was an absentee owner, residing in the suburbs, and hadn’t visited the place in the years since Mr. Stick died.

      “May I ask why you bought it?”

      “Someone needs to own it.”

      “Has anyone maintained it?”

      “The house maintains itself,” she said.

      Years of study and experience had taught me there was more than one kind of ghost. Some were caring. Some were violent. Some were grieving, scared, or lost. There were conscious ghosts who interacted with the living, and there were others who were more like residues or echoes—perceptible but totally unable to perceive.

      What they all had in common was a tether to the world. Whatever the links or reasons, they were here instead of gone.

      When my mother had left Mr. Stick’s house only partially herself, maybe part of her had stayed. Would she talk or be an echo? At very least, the house itself was bound to give me answers, and I was more than willing to face whatever dangers might exist if I could finally escape the limbo of unknowns.

      I moved into my new home on a feverish January day that started off sunny and ended—auspiciously, I thought—with a squall producing thundersnow. Being immediately housebound because of the storm didn’t worry me, since I had already arranged for reliable grocery deliveries, I had no local friends or family to visit, and I had no intention of leaving the house after waiting so long to thoroughly explore it.

      The building was an abnormally narrow but otherwise unremarkable brownstone, wedged like a shim between a pair of other brownstones. There was no house number, no baroque doorknocker, and no uncanny chill produced by its appearance. The chocolate-brick façade featured an oak door on the first story and skinny twin windows on each of the two upper floors. The neighboring buildings abutted mine directly and allowed for no side windows in the front two-thirds of the house. In the rear, however, my brownstone extended fully to the alley and the neighboring buildings didn’t, leaving space on either side and a smattering of windows that offered light and limited views.

      My house’s slenderness contrasted with its extraordinary depth, which made the interior feel simultaneously claustrophobic and endless. Its hallways ran lengthwise but zigzagged at intervals, with the doorways to rooms alternating sides, and so it was impossible to stand in the front and look directly to the rear. The layout was nook-like, many-cornered, and disorienting. A child playing hide and seek could disappear for hours.

      The entire building smelled of burnt cinnamon, except for my second-story bedroom, which smelled of warm spring mist. No actual mist was perceptible but the window overlooking the street was fogged with heavy moisture. I had a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a lamp, along with a small and tidy bathroom next to the bedroom closet.

      The house contained a comfortable study, a formal dining room, an additional bathroom, innumerable closets and compartments, and many other rooms, both major and minor, that were connected in semi-logical ways and enticed me with unique personalities and auras.

      And yet for all the promising character, nothing otherworldly revealed itself during my initial walkthrough, and shortly after dusk, with the January slush-light of sunset around me, I wondered if the house distrusted me. I was new, after all—as foreign to the building as the building was to me. Maybe the house was keeping secrets in the presence of a stranger.

      Over the years, I’d found that undressing in unfamiliar places—hotel rooms, for instance, or long-neglected burial grounds—fostered greater openness and trust in my environment. My body was so compounded with my identity that physical nakedness seemed to expose my truest self. And while my vulnerability was largely symbolic—a necktie and pants hadn’t made me safer, especially since paranormal dangers were more liable to threaten my sanity and spirit—I felt more at risk

Скачать книгу