Grandmothers & Goddesses

Nelson, The Ghost

I wasn't sure what woke me up.  It could have been the temperature dropping suddenly.  Or some sort of sound.   When I opened my eyes into my dimly lit room it was freezing.  Under the red glow of the Christmas lights I had hung up in my window I could see my own breath.  I shuddered and pulled my blanket closer to myself, while rolling out of bed.  I went to the thermostat and found that it was turned to 65F but the heat was not running.  I turned it up and heard the soft 'click' of it kicking on, followed by the hiss of the heat beginning to blow into the room.

I shivered and licked my lips.  Since I was awake, I might as well go get a class of milk.  I pulled my blanket tighter around myself and stepped out into the hallway.  It was even colder than my room.  I shivered violently and my teeth started chattering.  As I walked down the stairs I caught the sight of a strange blue flickering on the first floor landing.  I swallowed back my unease and began to approach it.

As I got closer it resolved itself into the flickering image of a young man.  He couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me.  He turned and peered at me, sticking one hand into his ghostly pocket.  He was dressed in a pair of old time slacks, a long sleeve shirt, and a vest.  He pulled a watch out of his pocket and peered at it before looking toward me.

"Excuse me, Miss." He spoke to me, his accent slightly different than those I had been hearing all day.

My jaw dropped.  It was a ghost.  I had a ghost talking to me.  I had felt my Oma's ghostly servants before, but I had never seen one of them.  I most definitely had never been spoken to by one of them before.  I felt dizzy and decided it would be a good idea to sit down.  So I did, right on the bottom step of the stairs and looked up at the ghost.

He frowned at me and squatted down to peer down at me.  He put his hands on his knees and said, "I guess this is a bit of a shock.  Yes, I know Miss, I'm dead.  Dead as a doornail."

"I can't see the dead!" I exclaimed, pulling my blanket tighter around myself.  I stared in transparent face, seeing the outlines of the family pictures on the wall behind him. 

"Clearly, Miss, you do."  He patted his hands against his knees, and they made the soft patpat noise of flesh against cloth.  It startled me, because I was pretty sure he didn't actually have a body.

Curiosity overtook me and I reached out toward him.  My fingertips skimmed over his knee.  It was like touching freezing jelly.  My fingers slipped into his knee, and it felt slightly wet.  He jerked faintly and gave me a scowl before hopping backward from me.  I looked down at my hand and found it covered in a slightly luminescent blue substance.   I rubbed my thumb over my fingertips and it slowly disappeared.

"What?" I asked looking up at him.

The ghost stood up, and so I did as well.  I wrapped my blanket around myself tighter again, constantly adjusting it.  I wrapped it around my shoulders, and then shifted on my feet nervously.

"My name is Nelson."  He put his hands into his pockets and rocked on his ghostly feet a moment.  He looks briefly confused and said, "I am surprised that a child of The Death Lily does not know more about ghosts."

"Death Lily?" I asked, and felt my blanket slip once more.  I shifted the fuzzy material of my shoulders, draping it like a cape.  I tilted my head in his direction.  "Wait.  Do you mean my Oma?  You call her Death Lily?"