Ghosts of Dreams

Ghost of Dreams

       'Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there
walked alone.' #IwantToLiveInAHauntedHouse
​
           Nell Crain rolled her eyes and tossed her phone to the side of the bed. It landed next to her with a tiny thump, the vibration echoing softly through the mattress. With both hands momentarily free from holding the social media world, she rubbed the sides of her temples and sighed. He got another one.
​           Her older brother Steve's new horror book had recently been released, and it had begun its
steady climb of piquing interest to the lovers of all things strange and unresolved. Nell herself was
strange and unresolved, and her small social media circle of like-minded strangies with unresolved
issues had begun sharing excerpts from the Haunting of Hill House book on their Facebooks, clogging Nell's feed with Steve's empty sentiments, and quoting the stories Steve had been told by his siblings but didn't believe really happened. Steve had taken Nell's stories of her encounters with the "bent neck lady", a ghastly ghost woman who would show up in the night to scream bloody murder in her
face, and her brother Luke's stories about the "tall man with a cane" that roamed the halls at night, and
their sisters Theo and Shirley's stories about seeing people in the house that no one else could see, and
he embellished them and poetically and lyrically described their time briefly living in a haunted house
when they were kids, twenty years ago. Nell's ghost loving friends were now taking those lyrical phrases
from the book and writing them as their statuses like they were proclamations of their own sad worlds.
Her friend Lisa had even posted a photo of her newest tattoo she got done on her shoulder, a "cup of
stars" (MY cup of stars, Nell thought bitterly), a reference to a scene in the book where a six-year-old
Nell was drinking tea from her favorite cup decorated in stars and watched in horror as her friend Abigail drank from her own teacup and foamed at the mouth, shortly dying from the rat poison that had mysteriously been mixed in.  Seeing the cup tattoo on her screen had made Nell's mouth run dry, much like it must have been for her young friend Abigail who drank from a cup of poisoned tea. Oh, how cute, Lisa. A beautiful cup of poison. Insist on your cup of stars, even if it will kill you.
​           The years after the family left that house to assume regular, normal, non-haunted lives were
years spent unintentionally distancing themselves from each other and living their lives as best they
could in their day-to-days. The ghosts that haunted them as kids became ghosts of their pasts now, no
Crain kids having seen or felt one since living in that house. A few months ago after Steve wrote the
book and gave her a copy to read before it hit stores, Nell asked him what he really thought went on in
that house since, "you don't believe any of us saw ghosts because you never saw one yourself." Steve
had chuckled condescendingly at her question and had gone into "big brother" mode, where he acted
like he knew everything Nell didn't. It was just as frustrating for Nell there in her twenties as it had been for her when they had been kids and Steve wanted to show he knew more than everyone. Steve simply answered, "Nell, every time you thought you saw a scary ghost lady screaming at you, it was in dreams on days you fell asleep angry at mom or dad or you were just sad. You dreamed about a scary girl in despair, crying to be heard. Don't you see, Nell, YOU were the ghost lady in your dreams. Same with the others." He waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "Imaginary friends, scary shadows in a big scary house, coat racks resembling men walking around with canes, it can all be explained. "And that was that. Her torment and fears waved away dismissively by the hand of her big brother who didn't believe in anything he wrote about.
​             Outside the sun was setting, the once vivid pinks and purples in the sky dulling down to wintery
greys, a more accurate mirroring of Nell's mood. Exhaling another sigh, Nell scanned her bedroom, not set on focusing on anything in particular but searching just the same. It was how she lived her life lately, not set on doing anything, or being anything, but constantly looking. Looking for answers. Looking for anything that made sense. Things that most people were searching for.
​            Except love. Never love. Never again.
​Her eyes rested on a red silk blouse that had been flung hastily on one of the many dirty piles of
clothes around the room. Her brown eyes stayed on it, unblinking, and she felt a tingling in her throat
and a burning behind her eyes. A sob escaped before she had a chance to catch it, and the warm tears
fell down her pale face like the sun had from the world.
​        Nell hated that blouse. Nell hated red. But Arthur, her sweet Arthur had bought it for her. He
would always surprise her with gifts, stuffed animals or perfumes and such that he came across that
made him think of his sweet Nellie. She allowed her memory to bring her back to the moment he
presented the red blouse to her, how instantly offended she had been that, out of any garment he could buy her that he'd want her to wear, any sensual piece or revealing piece or intimate piece, he chose a red silk shirt. She held it up with questionable eyes aimed right at Arthur's always shining ones.
            "It'll look amazing on you, try it on," he encouraged, smiling. He was always smiling when he
looked at her. She took off her current shirt and exchanged it with the new one, and then made a well, here it is motion with her arms. Arthur's already sparkling eyes went to high beam. "Hello, gorgeous," he said softly, kissing her on her flushed cheek.
              "Really?" she asked, uncertain, looking down at the blouse like it was some foreign object that
had found its way onto her body.
             "Really," he confirmed. "It makes your eyes shine and sparkle, like you're gazing out in the world
on some heavenly day."
             The heat of Nell's flush deepened. "They sparkle because I'm gazing at you." Her words were as soft and delicate as the red silk she was clothed in.
             Just then, a loud, aggressive knock on her front door brought her out of her memory and back in her empty room. She jumped at the sound, momentarily halting her cries and complacent misery. She wasn't expecting company, hadn't WANTED any company. Another loud bang made her breath catch in her throat; her eyes went as wide as young Abigail's the moment she realized it wasn't just tea in her cup.
      Go away, she thought, getting settled underneath the soft bed covers. Familiar scents of
Arthur's cedarwood and patchouli body wash filled her nostrils as she rested her head on his pillow. She
always used his pillow now, her own laying amongst the dirty clothes on the floor. She lay tense,
listening for the sounds of retreating footsteps from whomever had invited themselves over.
           BANG.BANG.BANG.
           Nell threw the covers over her head and lay still in her blanket fort. Her heart was racing, and
her head was pounding just as loudly as the person banging on her door. Her face was wet with tears
and her eyes.....her eyes were just tired. Tired of looking in a house that would never again rest on the
one person she loved more than anything. Tired of crying.
​              When a full minute passed free of loud knocks, Nell sighed a relief. Her heartrate had
slowed as well as her breathing, and the tension that had been in her shoulders began to melt away. It had gotten dark quickly, with the sun fully set and leaving no trace of light left in her room. Under the covers it was doubly dark, so she threw them off herself, only to lock eyes with a lady's face
hovering in the air inches from her own. A lady whose skin was calloused and grey, resembling mold on a decaying, old wall. Whose hair was long and dark and rained down on Nell like watery ink. Whose neck leaned much too far to the right for any living person to accomplish.
​           Nell's scream echoed into the newly developed night. Her scream vibrated the walls and shook the very foundation of her lonely home, but no one could hear her. No one, except the sad bent neck lady hovering over her, who was familiar with petrified calls of terror and despair.