I release Enigma to cuddles and promises of supper, and then I stride downstairs, putting the dream from my head . . . as much as I can.
I take my evening tea and novel and kitten into the sitting room, where I open the front window, snuggle onto the sofa and tuck a wool blanket around me. I don’t read right away, though—I just relax and inhale the perfume of dew-laden heather as I cuddle under the warm blanket, nibble my chocolate biscuits and sip my tea.
Does it remind me of summers I curled up in a chair in this very room, munching biscuits and sipping milky tea with Aunt Judith? Or days wandering the moor with Uncle Stan? Of course it does. It also makes me think of Michael, how I wish I’d brought him to this house, shared it with him.
I let the memories and regrets float into consciousness. Like lifting necklaces from my mother’s jewelry box, running them through my fingers. I allow myself time to feel the grief and pain, hard as diamonds and just as bright. Then I put them into their box, safely stowed in a treasured spot in my subconscious.
Don’t dwell on what isn’t here. Dwell on what is. A perfumed breeze, hot tea, rich biscuits, a warm blanket, a purring kitten. And me. That last is the hardest. Focus on being in the moment with myself, comfortable in my own company.
Even as I’m luxuriating in the break, my mind compiles a to-do list from what I see around me. Strip the wood trim. Sew curtains. Buy a comfy chair for the front porch so I can curl up in the moonlight. Repaint the walls. They’d look lovely in a soft rose, a counterpoint to the cottage-chic. Of course, if I’m planning to sell the place, pink walls won’t help.
Am I planning to sell it?
I have no idea, and that’s yet another thought to tuck into a box for now.
I sit, and I think, and then I refill my cup, and my cookie plate and curl up with my kitten and my book. I read as the clock chimes eight and then nine. When it strikes ten, I declare it’s late enough to call it a night.
I take Enigma upstairs and tuck her into her box. Then I step into the hall, heading for the bathroom and . . .
A shape flits past the doorway to the master bedroom.
I go still. In my mind’s eye, I see it again, a dark human figure sliding past.
I swallow and squeeze my eyes shut. Then I glance back at Enigma. She’s curled up in her box. When she sees me watching, she only lifts her head with a drowsy meow. Nothing has set off her internal alarms. So whatever I saw exists only in my imagination.
It only ever existed in your imagination, Bronwyn. It’s time you accepted that.
I square my shoulders and stride down the hall into the master bedroom and—
A woman stands at the open bay window. A woman wearing what looks like a long dress of black lace with a veil over her face.
She turns to me, and I stagger back and knock something behind my foot, and thank God I still have the mental awareness not to step down because it’s Enigma. The kitten stares at the figure, her eyes wide, fur on end, tiny tail bristled like a bottle brush. Then she leaps in front of me, hissing and spitting.
The figure steps toward me. She doesn’t float like a horror movie spook. She walks, one soundless step at a time, her face hidden behind the veil. As she grows closer, I’m not sure it’s a lace dress at all. It seems more like a swirling layer of black, obscuring her from view.
Enigma shoots forward, hissing. The figure slows, veiled face lowering to look at the kitten.
I dart forward to scoop Enigma up. The figure lifts her head, watching me, and I’m close enough to see through the veil, and yet I can’t. There is only that fluttering black, by turns solid and semi-translucent, pale skin shimmering behind it.
The woman lifts a hand swathed in black. Glimmers of moonlight shine through her body. I see that moonlight gleam, and I swallow hard.
I’m looking at a ghost.
Not a hallucination. Not a prankster. Enigma sees the figure, and so it exists. Yet light shines through it, and so it’s not real, not solid.
That hand reaches toward me, and I shrink back. Enigma growls, her eyes huge as they follow the hand. When I flinch, it pauses there, a finger outstretched toward me. Then the hand drops, and the figure steps forward.
One step. Another. Closing the gap between us.
I wheel. Something flickers by the linen closet door, a shimmer of light and shadow. I don’t pause to look—I race past, careering down the hall, Enigma clutched against me.
I spot the stairs. I could turn that way. I should. Instead, I barrel toward my room. At the last second, I realize I’m running deeper into the house. But the last time I fled a ghost, I ran outside and—
The black-veiled figure rounds the corner, and that settles the matter. I race into my room and slam the door, the whole house shaking with it. I back up until I hit the bed, and then I half-sit, half-fall onto it, my gaze fixed on the door, expecting the woman to walk right through.
She doesn’t.
I sit there, Enigma’s tiny heart tripping under my fingers, my own heart pounding so hard I can barely breathe. When I finally wrest my gaze from the door, I scan the room, my muscles tensed.
It’s empty.
Enigma relaxes into my arms. Her purrs come jagged, like someone laughing in a carnival spook house, trying to convince themselves they’re okay. After a moment, though, those purrs smooth out, and she lifts her head in a miniature lion’s roar of a yawn, her needle-teeth flashing.
Still clutching her, I scuttle up the bed until my back is firmly against the headboard. When I listen, I hear only the kitten’s purrs and the ticktock of the grandfather clock.
I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that the moment I relax, the woman will pop up from the foot of the bed. It soon becomes apparent, though, that the ghost has never seen a horror movie. She doesn’t pop up. She doesn’t moan at the door. She doesn’t appear floating outside my windows.
I’m safe here. She can’t follow me into my room.
Or that’s what she wants you to think!
I have to laugh at that even if it’s as rough as Enigma’s forced purrs. I do relax a little, though, and still nothing bursts through the plasterwork.
The clock downstairs strikes two before I finally fall asleep, still braced against the headboard, kitten in my arms.
After breakfast, Del comes by with Ronnie, a kid from the local garage. And when I say kid I mean the guy is twenty-five. God, I’m getting old fast. So damn fast it leaves me with an ache in my heart and a panic in my gut. My life is a train rushing past, and I’m just standing there, acting as if I have no choice but to watch and grieve its passing.
Ten years ago, I had the kind of life that made my friends tell me to shut up if I dared raise a complaint. They were joking, and not joking. I’d lament a night spent marking freshman papers, and to them, it was like hearing someone complain about the property tax on her summer home.
Oh, you poor baby. Did Michael sit up with you? Bring you ice cream? Rub your shoulders?
Er, yes, actually, he did.
At twenty-eight, I had my PhD and my dream job—assistant professor at one of Canada’s top universities. I was married to my college sweetheart, who also had a PhD—in economics—and a job at a Toronto think tank. We’d spent the last two years living rent-free as we renovated our landlord’s house, and we were about to move into a house of our own after which we’d buy a dog and have a baby . . . in that order.