Mr. Whitlock

7 - The Question

Marie held her breath as she stared at her grandmother. The old woman was pale, her hands cold and her eyes blinking slowly. She didn't notice the young girl's presence, and looked up when Marie spoke.

"Good morning grandmother," she said quietly, although the sudden noise felt deafening after so much silence. Marie watched the old woman let out a long breath, seeming so weary even though all she had done that day was lay in bed. Charlotte looked as weak as ever, and it was clear she wouldn't stay alive much longer. She was ready to move on.

"Have you met him yet?" her voice croaked with the stress of speaking for the first time in days. Marie's stomach dropped imagining that she was talking about Mr. Whitlock.

"Have I met whom?" Marie replied despite her thoughts, her eyes blinking as she feigned ignorance.

Charlotte pressed her lips together, perhaps considering whether or not to tell her granddaughter. Nevertheless she responded with two cold words, void of any emotion.

"The ghost."

Marie felt a shiver tickle her spine and she bit her lip to shake the feeling. She had known that was what the old woman would say, yet she hated hearing it out loud. Charlotte truly believed there was a ghost inside that house, which proved one of two things in Marie's mind. Either that she was, in fact, as crazy as everyone believed her grandmother to be, or that everything she had seen was real.

She didn't know which option would be harder to face.

After thinking for several minutes of whether or not to tell Charlotte the truth about seeing Mr. Whitlock, considering that it might just encourage her frightful paranoia, Marie decided to play it safe at first. The last thing she wished to do was cause her dear grandmother any more ill feelings in her dying days.

"Tell me about the ghost, grandmother." She said softly, not only curious of what Charlotte would say but also hoping to hear some sort of story.

"I had never seen him, only knew what my father told me." Charlotte spoke the words, after clearing her throat, with a distant look in her pale blue eyes. "My father didn't speak to me often, I only heard from him when he was yelling at my mother or talking about his scientific studies. But he never failed to warn me to never enter our house again. The night we left was the last time I've ever been inside, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.

"My father screamed that night, I had never seen him in such a panic. My mother appeared calm, as she always did, but the lines by her eyes told me she was stressed. I was tired, and confused, and all he told me was that there was a ghost in our house. That our house was haunted.

"But a few years later, curiosity got the best of me. My father had strictly told me to never, ever go inside the old house again, so I listened. But that did not stop me from looking at it from afar.

"One day, when I was walking home from school I did not go straight to our house like my mother had told me. I turned a different way, walked a different road, and found myself back at the house I hadn't seen in years. I didn't plan on going inside, I only wanted to look at it. And after a few moments, I saw a face peering from behind our lace curtains.

"Cold eyes. Scaring me into tears. He looked, and I looked back. Before I ran home and never returned again."

Marie didn't know what to say. Nor what to think. That story was more words than anything she had ever heard her grandmother say combined. And she listened carefully to every word, the slow hum of Charlotte's shaky voice almost comforting even as she told of such an unpleasant experience. But Marie found it fascinating.

Charlotte had seen Mr. Whitlock before, and he had seen her. For only seconds, decades of years ago, but still they had seen each other. And unless the old woman truly was deranged, having imagined the entire existence of the ghost after her father had ingrained it into her mind, Mr. Whitlock did exist. He was real.

"Yes, I met him." Marie shocked herself as she said this, digging her nails into her palms as she imagined what a mistake that confession could have been. Perhaps her grandmother would grow more panicked than ever, the sweet lady molding into the crazed old woman that the rest of her family seemed to see. Not only would that cause Charlotte to be in such a horrific state, but the rest of her family would receive satisfaction knowing that they had been right all along.

Marie hated when she spoke things without thinking it through. She was always left in agonizing silence that felt like it lasted for eternity as she prayed she hadn't made a grave mistake.

But instead of the grimace, slivered eyes, and cold silence that she was dreading, a smile spread on Charlotte's pale lips. Just a small one, tugging at the edge of her mouth in a way that was barely noticeable, but that expression was so rare that Marie couldn't have possibly missed it.

She smiled in return, hers also slight and shy, but a genuine smile all the same.

"I've met him, grandmother. He is real, I believe you, and I don't think you're crazy. Nor do I think your father was crazy." Marie spoke from her heart, feeling a wave of warmth as she saw Charlotte's face soften in a way she had never seen before. The old woman's eyes filled with tears, her lip quivering the slightest bit. That only lasted a moment, though, before she dropped her gaze and blinked away any sign of caring.

"But I'd like to ask you one last thing, grandmother." Marie said after a few minutes. She thought of how to phrase her question in the kindest way possible, for she meant it with pure curiosity, though a strong sense of guilt in giving in to her mother's wish clouded her mind. Even though she wasn't asking what her mother wanted her to, and even though she had wondered this all along, manipulation never leaves someone feeling fine. "If you're so afraid of this ghost, and if you believe that no one should ever live in the old house, why on earth did you give it to me?"

A second, then a minute, then far too long went by. There was no sign of thinking in Charlotte's face, no sign of even hearing the question. She clearly had no interest in answering, leaving Marie with only her own thoughts to come to a conclusion.

And after some thinking, never leaving the question as she said goodbye to Charlotte, arrived home, and even went to sleep that autumn night, she still wondered.

But between tossing and turning for hours, and a comical nightmare about being trapped in a house with her mother, Marie found an answer that gave her an unpleasant blend of satisfaction in finding a conclusion, and guilt in hating what that conclusion was.

Perhaps her grandmother was so sick of being surrounded by ridiculous people that she felt the only option was to force Marie to come back. And the only way to do that was to give her a reason, the reason being that she would receive a large inheritance.

Perhaps Charlotte had felt that it was worth bringing Marie into that house, as long at it was bringing Marie back to her.

As sweet at that may have seemed at first, she couldn't sleep the rest of the night.