Ghosts and Agatha

VI: The Last Day

The room was almost unrecognisable once I zipped the last of my belongings inside my duffel bag. It almost looked like a skeleton: stripped of flesh and body parts, left only with its core. I envisioned the place in a few years, with cobwebs strung among the room and dust gathering on the windowpanes; the wood of the cherry table decrepit; the quilts blanketing my sugar maple mattress musty like Grandmother's clothes drawers.

As I observed the room further, the thought of leaving this place scared me even more. I shook my head, willing my hesitance to disappear as I slammed the room's door behind me, adjusting the straps of my duffel bag on my shoulder and descending the stairs only to be welcomed by the walls of the living room, showered and soaked in glows of illumination from the fairy lights that were strung across the house like the cobwebs that'd be weaved in my room after a few months of being abandoned.

"Good morning, Agatha," Grandmother's voice greeted from the kitchen table. She addressed me with a smile, and Grandfather, who was seated next to her, nodded his head.

Settling myself on a chair, I loosened my grip on the duffel bag's strap and set it next to me. Four china cups were littered across the table with no coasters underneath, so the cloth swathing the table's patterns was smattered with patches of cinnamon-coloured beverage stains. I focused my attention on one of them, avoiding my grandparents' gazes.

"Merry Christmas," Grandmother offered. Her voice sounded as if she was trying to be enthusiastic but the edges were tugged with gloom and came out strained-like an elastic band being overstretched-and cracked, like after it'd been snapped into fragments.

"Merry Christmas," I muttered.

The room's silence was only punctuated with a rhythm of cutlery clashing. I would have willingly started talking-saying something, anything-to them both, but I couldn't think of anything: my ideas had completely dried out.

"We're going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too." I had to tear my gaze from the coffee stain to look at Grandmother as I'd responded. Grandfather didn't do so much as flinch and Grandmother thinly smiled.

After a few minutes had ticked by, the door burst open abruptly. A gust of wind circulating with ice exploded through the house and a chill snaked through, sweeping goosebumps through my skin. A silhouette slinked through the room, surrounded with swirling snowflakes in the drafts of wind and attired in what looked like a thick coat. A bag straining with belongings dangled at the outline's side.

The person's face almost looked luminescent under the artificial illumination of the fairy lights-but not in a glowing sort of way; more like their complexion was such an astonishing, paper shade that it had a stark contrast with the dim room and lit up like a cream-coloured lamp.

I expected my grandparents to look surprised at the sight of them, but they looked something akin to expectant, like they'd planned the scene to occur as if it were a play-a good play, at that, as proven by the smiles adorning their faces. This included Grandfather, to my amazement. For once he displayed an emotion that wasn't nonchalance. Though, if I looked just I little closer I could see that the smile almost looked faux, tugging with tightness like Grandmother's voice when she'd wished me a Merry Christmas.

Mother drew out a chair, the worn-out cushion emitting a soft sigh as she seated herself onto it. She looked even worse up close; sickly thin, face gaunt and angles of her cheekbones prominent against her skin. Her hair was greasy, skin sallow like washed-out amber lake water, and it looked like someone had punched the bottom half of her eyes, bruised with half-moon, livid indents. She looks like a moving corpse, I observed. The more I pondered this, the more I could see the resemblance.