The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: ghosts

  • Secrets of Passages

    The door was stuck. Not the first time it’d happened to me but no less infuriating for it. There should have been an instruction card near to hand for the occasion so I thumbed on my flashlight app.

    The light popped on just above the bridge of my nose. I furrowed my brow so that the beam would be tighter. Less chance of it shining through the cracks around the door. I moved my head back and forth methodically.

    No card.

    Damn it, Boston. You’re crap at details.

    “It’s one of the Great Houses,” you told me. “That shit always works.”

    Not this time, apparently.

    I smooshed the the heel of my hand against my forehead to shut off the light. Now there was a chance this whole thing was some kind of trap. In the dark again, I ran my fingers up and down and around the frame. Along the top were two latches. Locked from the inside. I wondered who passed through here last and why there was a need to lock the door after.

    Some small effort was rewarded with both latches flipping open though neither wanted to. Rather than barging out, I listened for sounds of anyone near the other side of the door.

    Nothing.

    I pushed the door open a crack and waited. Still nothing. Deep breath, slow release and I went through.

    Nice hallway. I didn’t recognize the portraits on the wall opposite me. A quick glance left and right. I was alone in the hall.

    “Welcome.” A female voice. Nice. Quiet. Another voice and another until there was a mob of voices welcoming me. I was still alone in the hall. The dull red carpet, the white walls yellowing at the top, the brass sconces that needed dusting and the portraits were all the company I had.

    Of course, the portraits. The owner had infused the voices of the subjects into the house system. I supposed there’s a certain comfort in being surrounded by people you knew all the time. At least they’d never talk back.

    “Jimmy Cavanaugh,” a strong lady’s voice said. “I thought never to see you again.” (more…)

  • In Possession of a Mother’s Intuition

    “I just don’t understand why you throw away all the scraps. You could make a stock, you know.”

    Alethea grimaced as she tipped the last of the vegetable odds and ends from the cutting board into the trash, her back to the dining room. She closed her eyes. Maybe the woman would go away if she just waited…

    “Did your mother not teach you how to make a stock? I can’t imagine that she would want to see you being so wasteful.”

    Holding in a sigh, Alethea dropped the cutting board on the counter. She arched her back and pressed her hands in at the base of her spine to try to massage away the unending ache. The last trimester was wreaking havoc on her body, and the last thing she had any patience for was to wait out the ghost yet again. The woman could talk about nothing for hours; they had come to discover that more than once when they were trying to clear up from dinner.

    But Alethea couldn’t bring herself to ignore the old woman. The old woman certainly never ignored her. (more…)

  • The Locked Door

    She rubbed her hands together, trying to restore some semblance of warmth to them. When she took the trash out to the curb, she wasn’t expecting the door to lock behind her. She hadn’t even realized her door could lock without a key.

    She thought about knocking on one of her neighbor’s doors and asking if she could sit inside until her landlord opened the office in half an hour, but she hadn’t had a chance to get to know any of them yet. The only neighbor she’d met had given her the creeps and she didn’t want to risk knocking on his door in a robe and slippers.

    She didn’t even have her phone on her. Whoever designed her robe and pajamas clearly felt that pockets were unnecessary. Up until now, it hadn’t been an issue.

    Chafing her hands wasn’t doing much good in the freezing weather, so she shoved them under her armpits, dancing about to keep her blood circulating.

    This was the last time she would ever leave the apartment without her keys. (more…)

  • Timber

    http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/common/files/catalogue/55/large/falseacacia%20_lr_nov092.jpgI held still.

    The forest all around me soughed with the gentle breeze and I closed my eyes and listened to the symphony of oaks and maples and larch and locust and poplar. Each leaf gave an individual sound, the wind breaking through the different shapes and sizes and positions. I understood the complexities of playing a clarinet or bassoon suddenly even though I’d never picked up a musical instrument in my life.

    Tools I understand. I’m a Builder. That’s why I was in the forest.

    *

    “You have to do this for me,” my brother said. He lay in a hospital bed dying of colon cancer. He was too young for this and younger than me. Life isn’t fair. “You have to.” His voice was not even a fourth what it had been when he was strong. Now it was reedy, full of too much air and almost hollow.

    He held on to my hand with a strength he’d always had but never showed.

    “I will, Ollie. I promise.” I hated this. I was crying and I didn’t want my little brother to see me crying. Our sister would have torn me up for showing emotion like that. Susan was a bitch but I loved her and Ollie more than almost anything. My own family were the only ones above them. I sniffed and stopped trying to hold back the tears.

    “I can’t go until you do, Jamie.” Ollie always had a penchant for gravitas and that’s what made him good at what he did. He could write copy like no one else and he had that shelf of awards to prove it.

    “I’ll go out there first thing in the morning,” I said. I sniffed again.

    Ollie nodded and let go of my hand. The drugs finally took him and let him rest.

    *

    Out in the hall I stopped to hug Ollie’s wife. We both cried and held tight to each other. In another world, I might have won her affection if I hadn’t met Marta around the same time. Charlene chose Ollie, picked him from all her suitors and made sure he knew just how much she loved him. Being a former Miss Texas USA, she attracted all sorts of men – and women – just by being in a room.

    “What does he want you to do?” She hadn’t put on any makeup and her face was blotchy from crying.

    “A small thing,” I said. I looked at the floor. “Tomorrow morning.”

    “Oh god.” Charlene wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Jesus.”

    I took a step back. “He’s sleeping now.”

    “You haven’t told me.”

    “What?” I shuffled to my left half a step.

    The glare she shot me withered away any resolve I might have had. Still, she didn’t need to know everything. I sighed.

    “There’s a tree out on our parents’ property. He wants me to use it in the house.”

    Her face melted from stern reproach to confusion. “I don’t understand.”

    “You don’t really have to, Char,” I said. “This is what he wants me to do for him.” (more…)

  • Throwing in the Towel

    I groaned as the last box thudded to the ground. Sweat pooled uncomfortably in my bra. All I wanted was to take a long shower and scrub away the evidence of my hours of physical labor. I’d forgotten how much I hated moving, but when you catch your former roommate fucking the guy from the truck stop in your bed, you know it’s time to part ways.

    Two weeks later I had paid the deposit on a two bedroom house for rent over by the old churchyard. The place was a bargain, it had been empty since the previous tenants moved out in the middle of the night, leaving behind all of their possessions. Some minor trouble with the law, the landlord had said, but he wouldn’t quite meet my gaze when he said it. It didn’t matter. The place was available and within my budget, especially after I had to shell out nearly a grand to get out of my previous lease.

    Six days later, I had packed all of my belongings. Everything fit into the back of my SUV. I’d left the bed behind—some stains just don’t come out—and didn’t have any other furniture to move. She’d already had everything when I’d moved in with her two years earlier. (more…)