Ghosts of Christmas Past

Chapter Twelve

She must have fallen asleep, because she wasn't sure exactly what she had been thinking of, but she found herself suddenly listening to something, some background thing, trying to determine was it was. She realized she had been hearing it for a while now, just under her thoughts, whatever it was she had been thinking of. It was a low...

Whispering. It was whispering again, and it was close. She could almost hear the words, almost make out what they were saying about—

"Leo," the woman's voice whispered. "Such a good boy."

Emily sighed in her sleep. He was. He was a good man. Kind. Generous. Great smile. Good hugger.

"We shouldn't be here," the man said, a little louder.

He wanted her to go to the high school Christmas pageant. She smiled in her sleep. What a nerd. What a cute, kind, sweet, handsome nerd.

"Shush, you," the woman whispered. "She likes him. He likes her."

"Don't shush me!" That was really loud.

It was loud enough to wake her, and her eyes snapped open. Standing over her bed were an old woman and old man. They seemed just as shocked to see her as she was to see them.

Emily practically fell out of the bed fumbling for the lamp, the phone, the knife. But when the light came on, the two...ghosts?...were gone.

Her heart pounded dangerously hard. Surely it wasn't built to pound this hard. Surely, she would drop dead from the fear and shock any second. She held the knife in front of her (as if a knife would do any good against ghosts) and scanned the room.

Nothing was out of place. The chair was still under the door. The door was still locked. The windows were still locked and the curtains closed. There was no one else here.

Except there was. She knew there was. She sat up in the bed and checked the time on her phone. Six-thirty am. Apparently, she was up for the day.

**

She spent the morning shipping her resume out to any place she could find a website for. And she drank enough coffee to put her off coffee for a while. Still, despite the extreme caffeine content of her bloodstream, she fell asleep at her new kitchen table with her head resting on the laptop keyboard.

She awoke in the afternoon, a pattern of little squares on her cheek and a stiff neck. But at least there was no ghostly whispering, no old man and old woman staring at her. She rubbed at the back of her neck and stood, carefully unfolding her body and stretching to ease the ache.

Obviously, she hadn't seen ghosts. She was stressed. She was sleep deprived. She was sad and angry. All of that worked together to give her a bad dream. In the wee hours of the morning, in the dark room, all stressed out... Yeah, maybe she convinced herself she'd seen ghosts. But now, in the light of day, after a surprisingly refreshing nap, she could laugh and shake her head.

Logic dictated that there would be some reasonable explanation for seeing something like that. The most logical explanation was that she didn't actually see it. That said, she still kept her eyes and ears open while she took a shower. In fact, she ended up with shampoo in her eyes more than once because her mind convinced her ghosts were watching.

As soon as she was dressed, she decided to get out of the house. Not that she was trying to get away from her ghosts/imagination, she just had to go back to Walmart to pick up some things she still needed, like an indoor trash can. She couldn't keep going out to the garbage can every time she wanted to throw something away, especially with a malfunctioning door lock.

Or ghosts.

In the parking lot at Walmart, because she just wanted to cultivate a friendship and not because she was afraid to go home or anything, Emily dialed Madison's number.

Madison picked up right away, but it was fairly noisy where she was. "Emily! How are you doing?"

"Good. I'm good," Emily lied. "Hey, I know we just saw each other, but I was wondering if you wanted to get together and have some dinner or something."

"I would love to get together," Madison said. "But I hardly ever have an actual dinner anymore. Not during the school year, at least."

"Oh, okay." She slumped in the seat. Of course, Maddy would have her own life. Most people did. Most people weren't slowly going crazy, thinking their house was haunted.

Madison continued, "But listen, I'm at gymnastics for the next hour and a half. If you want to come hang out, that would be awesome."

It took Emily a second to process. "You're doing gymnastics?"

Madison laughed. "No, two of my sons are. I'm sitting in the bleachers, watching. You could come keep me company."

"Your sons?" Emily half laughed. "The baby?"

"No, my oldest two sons are part of an intermural elementary gymnastics league," she explained. "Third and fourth grade."

"Your oldest two sons?" Emily almost laughed at how differently their lives had turned out. Madison had kids and a vibrant life, and she had... Nothing. "How many kids do you have?"

"Five." She sighed dramatically. "I have five tiny men in my house."

"Wow." Emily marveled at that. She and Madison had gone to school together, grown up together, liked the same things, did the same activities. But Maddy's life had turned out so different from hers.

"Yeah. Tell me about it." She laughed. "You'll get to meet them all. They're all right here."

Emily winced at the shout of a small child too close to the phone. "I don't know. You sound pretty busy."

"I'm literally sitting in the bleachers with three children," she said. "I'm so bored. Come give me some adult conversation."

That would be nice. She could use the adult conversation herself. What else was she going to do? Go home and be alone for the rest of the night? Well, hopefully she would be alone. Hopefully there were no more ghostly visitations.

"Okay," she said. "I'll come and be bored with you."

"Great!" Madison said. "It's at the high school gymnasium."

Emily started the car. "I'm at Walmart. I'll be there in ten."

"Okay. Good," Maddy said. "See you soon."

Emily dropped the phone back into her purse and consulted the rearview mirror as she backed out of the parking slot. It would be nice to just talk with someone. She hadn't counted on being so lonely.

"What? You didn't count on being lonely when you left everything—job, home, friends—and moved to a totally different city?" She sarcastically chided herself. "That's just crazy talk, Em."