A Ghost Story in 3 Parts

A Story by Kate Napoli

Our pasts never really leave us.

Two Sides

I remember the first time I saw her. I can picture her face just as clearly as I can picture my own. She was tall and slender and white. Not pale. White. At the time she looked like something out of a cheesy children’s book. Now it’s easier to just say she looked like the nun on the American Horror Story poster for Asylum. But I fear I am getting ahead of myself. My story doesn’t begin with the woman, it begins just a bit before her arrival.

When I was a child, my parents frequently left me alone in our apartment. I was always particularly small for my age and my mother had fancies of being an interior designer so everything in our home was modern, clean and big. So much larger than it ever needed to be but she had a penchant for oversized furniture. I always thought that she liked feeling small. But I was already small and our home made me feel tiny. Being alone in our oversized home made me feel uncomfortable so I usually had a lot of trouble getting to sleep.

I was seven the first time I saw her. At seven, your nightmares still hold you fast and keep you from dismissing the noise from the kitchen as the ice settling. Instead, it become the boogeyman you always knew would come. At least that’s how it was for me. So it was not unusual for me to be up at odd hours of the night, cowering under my covers. On January 21st,I found myself in such a position at around 3 am.

To pass time I would read. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. That night my little mind was held captive in the town of Derry, running with Richie and Beverly among the terrors of IT, which is why I am terrified of clowns and why I was more fascinated by the woman in white that scared. I had taken to reading aloud, albeit quietly, just so the apartment didn’t feel so empty. Hearing my own voice echoing off our polished white walls gave me a sense of comfort and covered up the noises I so desperately wanted to block out. (Which I would just like to reiterate was almost always just our ice maker.) I had just finished a passage that detailed the white of IT’s face and eyes. Fear was taking over my senses so to calm myself I took a deep breath and looked out the window.

Side note, at that time my favorite book was Inkheart and I had always hoped I would have a gift like Meggie’s or Mo’s. Considering this was a hope in the forefront of my mind why I decided to read IT is a questions for my shrink. So when I looked up and saw her there standing outside my window the first thing I noticed was that she was the exact shade of white that I had just read read. And for a brief moment I believed that I had read her into existence. That by some miracle instead of bringing the monster to life I had created an angel. But she didn’t move or breath or even look alive really. She just stood there blankly looking straight ahead into my room. As I have grown older, the image of her standing there has refused to fade. But now, having seen one too many action adventure movies the only way to describe her stature is that of an action hero when confronted by a dinosaur or alien. Impossibly still. As if staying so would prevent me from seeing her. That, beyond all other thoughts, is the one that haunts me. I have no theory as to why she would be afraid of me or not know if I could see her. Either way, after hours of my eyes being transfixed on her figure, I must have fallen asleep though I don’t remember ever closing my eyes or laying down. But when I awoke the next day, light poured in from my window illuminating my comically large room and matching furniture, she was gone. IT was lying open on my bed face down on the page that I had left off at. I could hear my mother down the hall making breakfast and my father watching the morning news.

It was January 22nd. I was seven years old and everything I thought I knew had changed. For if ghosts were real then what else might be out there? I dedicated my life to that question. I have helped others find solace in its answer. I now run a small paranormal investigative team and tonight we are taking on our most important case yet.

Of The Same Coin

I forget the last time I saw the living world. It must’ve been a long time ago because everything is different now. The buildings are taller and made of a material I don’t fully recognize, the people are louder, faster, and fatter. Everyone must be quite wealthy now to be of such sizes. They all carry around little rectangles made of yet another indiscernible material that fascinates them a great deal, for they only look up to make sure that they are going in the right direction. And while all of this is very interesting and exciting I cannot find it within me to get too excited or attached to this new world.

“I won’t be here long,” I tell myself, “He let me return but I know he will bring me back before long.” Yet, with that thought still echoing around in my skull a question pushed forth. “Why? Why let me return at all? In all my years below I had never once tried to escape or plead my case. I was where I belonged. I was paying for the sins I committed during my life and I understood that. So, why let me return topside? What was his endgame?”

I toyed with the concept that it was just a mistake. That he had in fact, for the first time in millenias, made a mistake and I just happened to benefit from it. But Death had a sick sense of humor and the Devil loved his punchlines so I doubted that this was gift. Of course there really wasn’t anything for me here now. No one can see or hear me and anyone I would have wanted to haunt and torture is long dead. I had been at the gates when most of them arrived just like my victims had been for me. If nothing else I could at least enjoy seeing how the world had progressed since my absence.

A thought crosses my mind. Less a though and more a label. Ghost. I am a ghost.

“Ha!” I laugh bitterly. No one around me stops or notices. Because I am a ghost. I laugh again, louder this time. I begin drifting across the city, laughing hysterically at my predicament. You see, when I was alive I did not believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe in much of anything. I certainly did not believe in an afterlife, which the Devil himself delighted in when I was cast into his domain. Another one of Death’s punchlines. He had many of them.

I had been drifting about the city for hours now and I passed a building that was completely dark except for one window. It was a few floors up and its light called to me, beckoned me closer. So I floated up and looked in. A small boy of maybe six or seven sat in a comically large bed reading a comically large book. I pondered if that was the trend now, have everything thing in a house be far too big. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

The boy seemed both enthralled and afraid of what he was reading. His eyes were wide and flying over the pages. His mouth was moving as well, as if he was reading out loud.

“That’s odd,” I thought “What kind of boy stays up late reading aloud to himself?”

I chalked it up to yet another eccentricity of this new era that I had yet to understand. I was about to turn away and find more oddities to discover when the boy looked up with such fear and intensity that I hesitated just a moment. A mistake. For this boy looked up and looked directly at me. I froze. He should not be able to see me. No one should. My heart, if I had one, would’ve been racing. I stayed as still as possible hoping that he had just seen something out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t actually see me and if I stayed still enough he would look away quickly enough and allow me to move on. But, he didn’t. He stayed, eyes glued to me for hours until the sun had begun to rise. Amidst the mist of the morning I slipped away and he slipped into sleep.

And The Penny Drops

12:00

It’s cold out here in front of my childhood home. I’m out front having a smoke and updating this journal. My crew has already set up inside my room and are just waiting for me to get back so we can begin. I am unsure of what I want from this. I know she was real so it’s not confirmation I’m looking for. I suppose I just want to know that she still exists. And I suppose that if I am honest with myself I want to look into her eyes and let her see what affect she had on that little boy from so long ago. Alex is calling me so I’ve got to go. (Why I’m excusing myself to a journal I’ll never know)

***

It’s cold topside today. Not that I can feel the weather but everyone is walking around in ridiculously large coats with hats and gloves, so I know it must be cold.

Death almost caught up with me yesterday. I managed to evade him by using his own tricks against him. Faking left, jumping right. Giving him what he want for just a moment and then ripping it away. It turns out that my years amongst the dead and damned taught me more than I had ever learned in life.

So, I know that this feeling in my, where there should be a stomach, isn’t normal. And I know that the reason I’m drifting towards this musty old apartment building isn’t because it’s my decision. Someone is pulling me here. It might be Death and if it is then I suppose he has finally outsmarted me. Oh well, topside was getting boring anyway. I’m almost up to a the fourth floor window, pulled here by Devil know’s what.

Wait...

I’ve been here before.

***

3:00.

The camera’s are aimed at the window.

The candles are lit and my old copy of IT is laying in the center.

She should be here any second.

3:04

She’s the exact shade of white that I remember.