Amy liked her room. Awkwardly sprawled on her bed, she was absent-mindedly staring at the ceiling. She found the position to be most comfortable but no one who might see her at that moment would agree. There was an unnatural buzz that was filling her ears. Maybe it was the quiet sound of her thoughts. Or the blood rushing into her head.
She couldn't really put a finger on it.
There it was. The root of the elaborately blossomed problem. Amy did not know what the problem was.
Was it a problem? Or was it a peculiar adventure, promised by all the books and stories? Was she overthinking again? Or adding her own brand of dramatic flair to it?
Amy had reached home, a bit earlier than her usual time and had acted a bit more affectionately than her usual self. Her parents were bemused by the attention their daughter was paying to them. Nine-year-old Leigh giggled when her sister poked her tummy repeatedly as if to make sure she was real. She had gone inside every room like a dog inspecting a new house and touched various objects – the table lamp, the rug, the ornamental plants in the kitchen, Leigh's stuffed animals and more – seemingly at random. Amy even sniffed some on occasion.
Even dinner that night had been an interesting affair. Anne couldn't help but notice how her eldest daughter was concentrating on the tiniest of details. Common stuff like the design and texture of her spoon – things that she had always taken for granted.
Amy's confused and tangled emotions had initially morphed comfortably into disbelief. She had put on her favorite Taylor Swift songs and for a shining hour, she almost forgot everything about Caleb. In her defense, everyone had their guilty pleasures and generic pop music was hers. It was her coping mechanism. She had swayed and sashayed to the light beat in her pyjama shorts with her hair pulled up in a high ponytail – till all apprehension had been cast aside.
In the second hour however, the thoughts found her again. The fear bubbling in her stomach slowly spread jittery unease in her blood vessels. She grew restless.
But if he cannot touch anything, he can't hurt me.
Amy wanted to know why. Why couldn't he physically interact with things? The lack of a scientific explanation for what she had witnessed today nagged her. She decided that she wanted answers. Lowering the volume and switching the playlist to something indie, she dived under the covers and began surfing the internet for clues.
'Near death events are thought to be the most likely causes of out-of-body experiences or OBEs', Amy read. She noted that out of body experiences weren't uncommon and according to one source, ten percent of the human population had come across these, at some point in their lives. Interestingly, this percentage was nearly double among college undergraduates. As each vivid account of this strange phenomenon flashed across the open tabs, Amy's hair progressively reached its standard messy state.
After intensive research, Amy hypothesized that Caleb's condition could be the extreme version of an out-of-body experience. Extreme because he had to be at a certain distance away from his body to be able to roam about Sirencester freely. Unless his physical body was moving too. Which would mean that the zombie apocalypse was upon them. Ordinarily, OBEs were limited to a top view of the person's physical body.
Absurdly, this was the optimistic theory.
Her second theory was that Caleb Dawson had died. And she was being haunted by his ghost. It sounded hilariously tragic, even to a devout pessimist like her.
Under her blankets, Amy had sniggered loudly when she scribbled it in her notebook. It had some major holes. She wrote down those neatly and was secretly proud of her dedication to 'science'.
If Caleb was indeed a ghost, he should have been more malevolent. Or at least translucent. She also had petty evidence that ghosts were confined to the places where they had perished. Otherwise, the earth would literally be swamped with the spirits of the dead travelling to see the Taj Mahal or something. But then again, maybe everything humans knew about ghosts was false.
That was unlikely, purely based on the average ghost descriptions available to her.
It would be far too convenient to have her own Casper-like creature around, and she knew that nothing in her life could ever churn up something as fun so readily out of its ass.
"But that begs the question, why is he visible only to me?" she asked Bear, the only soft toy she still had. Amy added dryly, "Doesn't he have anyone better to haunt?"
Thankfully, Bear did not respond.
After about two hours, she concluded that Caleb couldn't be a ghost in the traditional sense, mostly because he looked pretty darn solid.
She was well aware that supernatural occurrences and singularities did not have much of a basis in scientific fact. Her theories relied solely on probability and relativity. Banking on the assumption that a sizable chunk of the human population hadn't been lying since the dawn of civilization till the twentieth century – about witnessing ghosts and other unexplained phenomena, that is – Amy ploughed on.
Her third theory and perhaps the most plausible one, was that she was hallucinating. She drew a stick doodle of herself and wrote 'crazy Amy' next to it.
"Ames? Are you awake?" Her little sister paddled into the room and began poking Amy through her fluffy blanket.
"What up, buttercup?" Amy emerged, with embarrassing difficulty.
"Nothing. Would you like to hang out with me for some time?" Leigh asked in a small voice. She was perched on the edge of Amy's bed, in her pink Daffy Duck onesie. Leigh was a miniature Amy but with intelligent brown eyes. A few months ago, the relationship between the two sisters had suffered and Amy understood that she was the one to blame there. Now, she was focused on trying her best to be there for little Leigh – and figure out her own complicated life. Amy reckoned she could afford to talk to her when she would drive Leigh to her counsellor the next day.
She wanted to find the best possible way for her to proceed with the whole Caleb incident. Logically, of course.
"I am working on an assignment right now, Leigh," Amy lied. Not wanting to sound too unkind, she hastily added, "If you want, we could listen to some music here in my room."
"Sure, I will get my blanket." Leigh beamed, flashing an adorable crooked tooth. She speedily wobbled to her room.
For a short while, both sisters lay in bed next to each other. Leigh struggled to keep her eyes open, finally content. Her big sister was talking to her again.
Drawing her attention back to the task at hand, Amy glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table. It was quarter past eleven. Amy had a gut feeling that Caleb would be waiting for her verdict at midnight. She stifled a loud yawn. Her doodle stared at her from the bottom of the page.
Maybe I am fantasizing...
But then if this Caleb was the figment of her imagination, then the real Caleb had to be out there somewhere. He had to turn up sometime. And if he did, she would get medical help. Until then there was no point in pretending that this was all in her head. Amy had considered all the possibilities. From the best-case scenario to the worst, she thought she was sufficiently prepped to handle any questions Caleb had for her.
What would she do if he failed to show up? Her instincts told her he would. As the clock's hands inched towards twelve, Amy began fidgeting with everything around her. Her doodles became increasingly erratic. She checked the time with mounting frequency, sometimes on her phone, her laptop and on occasion her digital alarm clock. Amy wanted to make sure none of the devices were lying to her.
A nasty thought seized her out of nowhere, at ten minutes to twelve. I could just... refuse to help him. I am in no way obligated. He means nothing.
She let it sink in, despite knowing it was incredibly selfish. Amy knew he was obnoxious. He didn't have friends. Not ones that cared for him anyway. It was his choice nevertheless to act snooty. She had heard rumors about him. Dark, disturbing things.
The only thing Amy was sure that protected him from all the accusations and the stigma associated with them, was his glowing football record. And the fact that he was the former sheriff's kid.
Consumed by the possibility that she didn't have to do anything and everything would go on, exactly as it had, Amy happened to glance at her reflection in her bedroom window. Her face was a hooded, ugly thing. A deep, guilty flush swelled from her stomach. Amy felt physically disgusted with herself. Screwing her eyes shut, she rushed to her bathroom, grasping her middle. Not now, she groaned, all thoughts concentrated on the source of the pain.
She patiently counted to about a hundred, staring at the painting of fruits above her bathtub. Amy knelt beside it, the blistering skin on her arms and leg, soothed by the cool, cultured marble surface. She was breathing deeply, feeling the pain slowly subside. Faint tears pricked at her eyes and she wanted to believe they were because of the physical agony alone.
That selection of fruit had been the first among many art projects, Amy and her father had done. He was whimsical about their locations though. There was an abstract painting of people bathing on a riverbank in the kitchen, glass paintings of fruit and other produce in the bathrooms, war horses in Leigh's bedroom and shell-pink flowers in the living room. Hence, the house confused normal people.
Finally, the pain simmered down to a tolerable ache and Amy stood up grudgingly. She braced herself against the marble counter and turned on the faucet in the sink. With alarm, she looked at herself in the mirror, imagining that Caleb was watching her.
He wasn't there.
She took a deep shuddering breath, trying to calm her frayed nerves.
Amy knew then that she couldn't leave him to fend for himself. Even if his worth was debatable, she decided she couldn't just abandon him. She realized what a horrible person she would become if she asked him to look for aid elsewhere. Amy didn't want to believe that she was the only one who could see him, but this far into the deep waters – she was it. I deserved this for what I was thinking, she thought bitterly. Her fear lessened as her resolve hardened. She furiously splashed ice-cold water on her face.
There was no going back now.
Amy padded back into her room, tying her hair away from her face. She had been in the bathroom for over an hour. The November air felt icy on her bare legs, and she went to lower her window shut. Someone, possibly her father, had scooped Leigh up from Amy's room and put her to bed.
And then she saw him.
✧
A/N: Caleb certainly knows how to make an entrance. What do you think Amy will say to him?