A Ghost Story

Be Our Guest

I was lounging in the attic when the car arrived.

Perhaps it was a little stereotypical, but the attic was the only place where there was something to do. Being dead can be incredibly boring. There wasn't much to do in the old house, anyway. The TV got about seven channels, and there was hardly any internet connection--even if I had been able to use a computer.

There was, of course, the library, but after the whole 'dying' episode, I tried to avoid the dusty room.

That left the attic.

The attic was enormous--it was the entire top of the house. Dusty rafters supported a triangular ceiling, which stretched on for yards. A circular window at each end and two skylights in the ceiling let in light for most of the day, sunlight illuminating the dust as it floated in the air. It was my favorite haunt (pun intended). It was also pretty suitable because Mrs. Treason almost never wandered up. It wasn't that I didn't want to see her, it's just that...I didn't. She was alive. I didn't like being reminded that I wasn't. And the fact that she couldn't see me, but I could see her was plainly unnerving. The living and the dead are never meant to mingle.

The only downside of the attic was that it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but, as a ghost, I couldn't really feel much of temperatures. I was stuck at a permanent...nothingness. I never really felt anything. I was just...there. And not there, at the same time.

But it wasn't the space or the isolation of the attic that made it so alluring; it was--as I called it--the collection.

The Treasons seemed to have taken anything that seemed vaguely interesting, eye-catching, or objects they just didn't have the heart to throw away, and they'd tossed it up here. There were chests stocked to the brim with photos--new photos, old photos, photos I was pretty sure the Treasons didn't have anything to do with.

There was furniture of every kind: old, sunken chairs, broad and stiff dining chairs, couches with faded flower print, mahogony desks, dressers full of old clothes--everything you could think of and more. An ancient, out of tune piano sat lonely and broken behind a precariously balanced tower of old books. Chests and globes and maps of the known world. Stuffed animal heads and jars of shark teeth and an enormous set of stag antlers. Wood carvings, journals, discarded toys, bird cages, typewriters. It was like a hidden antique shop.

Another plus of the attic was the bed situated directly in front of the east window. It was there that I spent most of my time: curled up on the faded comforter, gazing out the window at the green countryside, the maple trees and the long driveway that wound up and through the hills to the front of the house.

After I'd died, the gravel road was flooded with police cars, ambulances, a psychologist who came for awhile, and the Treasons' son and grandson. Then the income of vehicles slowly trickled to once a week, once a month, and, finally, hardly anyone at all.

My parents' tiny, silver car never once rolled up to the house.

I suppose it was expected, because they didn't want to come to the house where their daughter had unexpectedly died. But I would've liked to see them, at least. To remember them. I could hardly call my mother's face to my mind anymore--her eyes were there, blue-gray, but her nose and mouth were all wrong. Same with Dad. I couldn't remember the way he laughed. And Addie, my twelve year old sister. We'd quarreled nonstop when I was alive, and sometimes we'd hate each other with the passionate fires of hell, but now, I'd give anything just to see how she was doing in school. I loved them so much, but they were fading.

They'd never driven up that stupid driveway.

But, on September third, a year and a half after I'd died, someone else did.