Haunting Greg - Book 1, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Five

 He walked through me!

For one second Greg and I were one person. Oh, but it frightened him. I could see that by the way he shot out of the room like a scalded cat. The look on his face broke my cold dead heart. I don't want him to be frightened of me; he might leave me if I scare him. The thought of being alone in the house again makes me want to sit and cry. I have looked forward to him finally arriving for so many weeks that I can't believe I got caught up in memories and lost sight of where he was and his stealthy approach.

I resist the urge I have to follow him to his bedroom. I may be sexually frustrated, but I'm not a pervert. Even ghosts have respect for a person's right to privacy. Instead, I stay in the girly turret bedroom that doesn’t belong to me anymore. Perhaps some other little girl will grow up here, God willing she will not die here too. I'm not sure there's enough room for more than one ghost in the house.

As the days pass I cannot help but follow him around like a star struck groupie. I delight in watching him explore the house and find his feet there. I spend time with him as he unpacks the belongings he has had shipped over and makes himself at home. It makes my heart yearn for things best left unsaid when I see him lounging on the leather sofa in the room he calls his den, watching the TV.

Sometimes he pauses in what he is doing and looks over at wherever I have secreted myself, and I wonder if he senses me watching him. But he does not seem frightened like he was the first night and I am careful not to let him walk through me again.

Greg goes out a lot the second week and a woman in her fifties starts coming in every day to clean and cook. She doesn't sense my presence at all and although she does not fascinate me like Greg does, she is very entertaining. I love to sit and listen to her sing along to the radio. She has the radio tuned to a station that plays songs I once bought on cassette tapes when they were new in the charts. Now they are golden oldies and I mourn the years that I have lost to death.

On Thursday, some men come to erect a large white marquee in the garden and I realise excitedly that Greg is going to have a party. It reminds me of the days when Mother would throw parties; but thinking of Mother always makes me sad and long to be close to her again.

I drift out to the walled garden and settle under the lilac tree that shades the patio. My mother used to sit out here in the spring, sewing or drawing in her sketch pad; and I would sit on the grass playing with my dolls, making daisy chains, chattering childish nonsense.

Mother planted an apple tree in the kitchen garden when Jory died, and the week after I was born she planted the lilac sapling. I can still see the smile on her face when she told me she had planted the sweet smelling tree so she could watch us grow together. In the years to come, when I had grown up and left her, she would be able to smell the Lilac and remember my baby years with vivid clarity.

I was six years old when she told me that story and I threw my arms around her, buried my face in her lovely fragrant neck and promised to never leave her.

I kept my promise. She left me, instead.

Sometimes I wonder if that childhood promise, made under the shade of the lilac tree, is what binds me to the house. Did I tie myself here forever with a child's innocent vow?