Ghosting (10 page)

I do.

At Emma’s.

In 6th grade.

One of the last sleepovers we ever had,

just the two of us.

Scared the living shit

out of me.

In the bathroom,

lights out,

except for a single candle

perched on the toilet seat.

Looking in the mirror.

Just say it over and over, and you’ll see her. I swear,
Emma said.

Except I didn’t

want

to see her,

whoever she was,

this malignant white-haired

witch

named

Mary Worth.

Who,

according to Emma,

might reach out

and tear at my face

because she herself

had been

disfigured

by a bottle-wielding psycho,

the skin on her face

cut to

ribbons.

The rose-colored towels

that were hanging on the shiny chrome rack,

were transformed into

shrouds,

the shower curtain,

an undulating specter

in the candlelight.

Say it, Maxie,
commanded Emma.

Mary Worth Mary Worth Mary Worth Mary Worth.

Heart pounding,

my tongue thick

in my mouth.

The image of my face

in the mirror

suddenly went jagged,

like the glass was

shattering.

Someone screamed.

Me?

Emma?

I ran out of the bathroom,

my heart

exploding

in my chest.

Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat!

Hating the sound

of Emma’s laughter

in my ears.

And now I wonder:

is it that

long-ago laughter

that keeps me pinned

to this leather car seat?

EMMA

I’ve known about the ghost house

forever.

Always wanted to check it out.

Lots of rumors.

Like someone killed someone there

back in the sixties.

Or that a bride, jilted on her

wedding day, lay dead and moldering,

still wearing her worm-infested Vera Wang gown.

Or just that a crazy old lady

lives there with her grandson,

who no one has seen in years.

Brendan is driving too fast.

Probably too drunk to be driving.

I’ll drive us home.

Slow down, Bren,
I say.
It’s around here somewhere.

We pass Walnut Creek Cemetery.

But I can’t see any sign

of a scary-looking house.

Brendan turns around,

then parks in front of the gates

to the cemetery.

Now what?
he asks.

I get out my cell, and dial my friend

Eve because she’s pretty much the expert

on everything weird in this town.

FAITH

My cell phone

is ringing.

It’s Emma.

Hello?
I say, eager.

How

amazing

is it that

she’s

calling me

just when

I’ve been

thinking so

hard about

her,

wanting

to call,

but not

wanting to

make her

mad.

Hey, Eve, this is Emma,
she says.
Listen, can you tell me where that ghost house is?

Eve?

For a second

I’m confused,

then realize

Emma must’ve

dialed wrong.

She didn’t

mean to

call me

at all.

Emma, it’s Faith,
I start.

Oh shit, sorry little sis. I meant to call Eve. Oh, I see, her name’s right before yours. Sorry. See ya later.

Emma,
I say, urgent,
don’t hang up. Mom and Dad had this big fight and . . .

But she’s

gone.

And I

get this

prickly,

scared

feeling.

The ghost house.

And

Emma

sounded

slurry.

Off.

Drunk.

Mom:
I’ll take the girls and leave.

I won’t

let that

happen.

I need

to find

Emma.

Warn her.

Don’t

screw up

tonight.

It’s too

important.

I know

the ghost house.

I know

how to

get there.

MAXIE

While Emma’s on the phone,

I gaze out at the

graves

behind the low stone wall

of the cemetery,

rows and rows

of them,

like waves on a

gray,

slow-moving

sea.

There’s one streetlight

on the block

and it shines on

a statue

perched above a headstone,

almost like

a spotlight.

Hold on,
I say to no one in particular.
I’ll be right back.

I open the car door,

take out my camera,

hop out into the

warm night.

It’s a stone angel,

with a flowing gown

and wings.

But no head.

Crouching, I find

the headless angel

in my viewfinder.

Flash.

WALTER

Tonight I watched
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
.

I watch it a lot, and Mother likes to tease me.

She says if I’d been born back in the Old West

I’d have been one of those sheriffs.

Like Wyatt Earp

or the marshal of Hadleyville in
High Noon
,

who faces down lawless gunslingers all by himself

because it’s his duty.

I like it when Mother kids me about that,

because secretly I know she’s right.

I would be a good sheriff

for one of those old western towns.

I’d ride patrol on the dusty streets.

Silver star on my chest,

leather holster with a gun on my hip,

rifle slung across my back.

I’ve loved cowboys since I was a kid.

Mother even got me cowboy bedsheets.

I slept on them until they fell apart,

and Mother turned them into rags.

I saw her using one of those rags the other day,

polishing the leaves of some roses she’d cut

to put in the old milky white glass vase

with the crack in it.

Tonight I’m wearing a T-shirt Mother found for me

at a thrift store.

It says
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, GUN, I WIN
!

and it’s my favorite.

At first Mother didn’t want to get a gun,

but there were too many times

we could hear people in our yard, bad guys,

so she went out and bought one. To protect us.

I’m lying in bed, wishing those old cowboy sheets

hadn’t worn out,

when a faint light flashes outside.

It’s almost like faraway lightning.

But the weatherman didn’t forecast

thunderstorms tonight.

I don’t like storms.

Neither does Mother.

I cross to my bedroom window and

look down the block at Walnut Creek Cemetery.

And I wonder, like I always do,

how many gunslingers are buried there.

EMMA

What’s Maxie doing?
I ask.

Communing with the poor dead fucks who live here.
Brendan laughs.

I watch Maxie take pictures

of graves. Then look down at my cell

at the directions Eve texted me.

The ghost house is about a block north of the cemetery entrance,
I say.

Brendan polishes off his can of MoonBuzz

and crumples the aluminum in his hand,

tossing it at my feet.

C’mon, Maxie,
I call out the window, and she suddenly appears, climbing back in the car.

North is the other way,
I say to Brendan, impatient.

I know,
he says, with a frown.

He swings the car into

a sharp U-turn,

tires skidding.

Go slow,
I say.

And as he pulls closer, I see it, or what must be it.

An overgrown mess of shrubbery and trees,

on a corner.

There’s no streetlight on this block, but the

moon is more than half full and through the foliage

I see the outline of a house. The ghost house.

FELIX

back when we were kids, when we were EMFAX, emma was always the one who loved the thrill, the close call. always braver than me, bolder. but i never let on when i was scared. boys can’t. and while i was reading, and rereading, joey pigza books, emma read those goosebumps books. one after the other.

it suddenly hits me, as i watch her lean toward brendan, pointing through the windshield at something, that he, brendan, is now her thrill, her close call.

i think about lighting up another joint, but i’m already too wasted. i remember that gun in the glove compartment. maybe i should let my head clear.

EMMA

You can hardly see the house.

It’s completely dark, a dim silhouette

behind the tangle of bushes and weeds.

Like a fairy-tale castle with everyone

asleep inside. Hushed and expectant.

Waiting to be awakened.

My heart starts beating faster.

Maybe there is no crazy old lady.

Maybe it really is haunted.

I’ve always wanted to meet up

with something not of this world.

I mean truly.

Vampire stories, that old Mary Worth thing,

and the tales told at camp about vanishing hitchhikers

and bloody hooks dangling from car doors.

Even Santa. The tooth fairy. Easter bunny.

I always knew they were fakes.

And it pissed me off.

But a ghost. What a rush that would be,

to see something from another world,

something that most people never get to see.

ANIL

1.
If my father lived next door

to the house

we’ve stopped in front of,

with the wild, unkempt yard,

he’d be on the phone,

on a daily basis,

to a local government official,

complaining about standards

and property values

and respecting your neighbors.

2.
From the little you can see of it

the house looks abandoned,

like no one has lived there

for a long time.

Maybe the owners moved away,

a divorce, a job transfer,

or an unexpected death.

I get the sudden image in my head

of a dead person, a corpse, lying inside,

on a tattered rug, rotting.

3.
My father once took Viraj and me

to a master class on anatomy

at the hospital

to see a cadaver being cut up.

Viraj couldn’t wait.

I didn’t even make it into the room.

In the hallway outside, my dad started explaining

how they preserve the bodies

by pumping the arteries full of a combination of

alcohol, glycerin, and something called formalin,

which keeps the body from decomposing

from the inside out.

I barely made it to the men’s bathroom,

where I threw up in a urinal.

Viraj mocked me for weeks.

4.
While I’m watching that dark, lonely house,

I suddenly see

a dim light flicker on

in a second-story window.

I see the outline of a person.

Standing there.

Looking down at us.

MAXIE

Emma turns around

and looks at the

four of us.

I keep my eyes down,

reviewing the images of the

headless stone angel

on my camera.

So who’s coming with me?
says Emma.

Brendan turns off the engine,

and the quiet in the car

suddenly seems suffocating,

like everyone has stopped

breathing at once.

I glance at Felix.

His eyes are closed again.

And I suddenly get this crazy picture

of our three younger selves,

back when we were

EMFAX.

It’s like stuff we did

in the old days.

Of course it was always

Emma who’d

dare us.

And, breathless with fear, we’d sneak up to:

the crumbling gravestone

the sleeping pit bull

the house with the crabby cat-lady

the dead chipmunk with its belly gaping open.

Urging each other onward,

a daring, heart-stopping

adventure.

Like Jem, Scout, and Dill

in
To Kill A Mockingbird.

A dare, to sneak a look

through the window

with the hanging shutter,

into Boo Radley’s

run-down, lonely house.

And Jem does it,

but a gun goes off

and he loses

his pants.

A gun.

I start to

shiver.

Let’s not,
I say, so loud you can hear the shake in it.

Scaredy-cat,
says Emma.

Like that long-ago sleepover,

and the words that

stung.

C’mon, Bren.
Emma turns to him, laying a hand on his arm.

He laughs.

Hell no. I’m the getaway driver. ’Sides, I’ve gotta answer this.

He has his cell out,

texting.

Emma turns and looks back

at the rest of us again.

Who’s coming?
she repeats.

And her will is so strong,

like iron,

unbreakable.

I picture Felix opening his eyes

and following Emma

wherever she beckons,

down the path,

onto the field,

along the railroad tracks,

just like he did

when we were kids.

I pray for his eyes to stay closed.