The Locket

Outside, rain pelted the bathroom window. Night-daylight-night. Thunder cracked. A wave of water sprayed across the glass as I gargled and spat and opened the tap to rinse my toothbrush. Thousands of pin pricks raced from my feet to my knees. The ground was trembling.

No, the ground was shaking.

I clutched at the towel holder to keep my balance. Medicine bottles and various containers and boxes danced in the open cabinet in front of me. Above, the roof rafters groaned, and furniture jarred and jolted in the house.

“Daddy!” Angie’s high pitched voice carried faintly to me over the wind and the rain. Something clattered off a shelf in the kitchen. On and on the earth shook. I groped at the wall tiles to keep myself from falling as I dropped gingerly to my haunches.

“Daddy!”

The commotion subsided.

My daughter appeared at the door. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes honey. Just a tremor that’s all.” I stood up and closed the tap.

“More than a tremor.” Her eyes were wide.

“Anything broken?” I asked. I kept my voice steady.

“Not in my room.”

“I’ll check the house.”

A brief inspection revealed no structural damage to the walls and ceiling. “Seems like every thing’s okay,” I said finally, “I’ll check again tomorrow morning.” Angie didn’t respond as lightning followed by a loud thunder clap made me jump. It did nothing for my nerves. The rain came down hard.

As I made my way back down the passage a long drawn out creaking sound tickled my spine as it cut through the background wind and rain. What was that? We didn’t have any cranky doors in the house.

Again. The steady creaking of a door swinging on old hinges carried clearly over the background sounds of the storm. This time the door shut. I glanced upwards in surprise. The noise seemed to be coming from above me. There was nothing above me except rafters, rats, roof tiles, and an old geyser.

“Something wrong?” Angie stood in front of me, her eyebrow raised.

“Did you hear a creaking sound? Like a door?”

“No. Just rain and wind. Think it might be something’s damaged?”

“Not sure.”

“Could have been mine,” she said doubtfully.

“Your door doesn’t creak.”

“Maybe it’s your old bones.” She grinned. A twinkle in her eye.

We spoke briefly about the tremors. Angie was worried. “Definitely an earthquake,” she said.

“Over now, nothing to worry about,” I said.

She seemed to relax. “It’s God, telling you to call Jess. She left three messages on your phone and you haven’t looked at them yet.”

I chuckled. Angie, my daughter; Angie, my administrator. “I’ll give her a call first thing in the morning.”

“I like her. She reminds me of mum. You should put in more effort with her.” She reached out her arms and I gave her a hug. “I miss her,” she said. Her arms tightened around me.

“I know,” I said. “So do I.”

“Do I have to go to bed now?”

“Yes, darling.”

“I’m almost thirteen.”

“You’ve got school tomorrow. Come on, it’s a week night.”

“I hope we don’t have another one.”

“We won’t,” I said, my tone reassuring.

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Night-night.”

After she’d left I puzzled over what had just happened. The tremors, scary enough, the noise—could be a trick of acoustics caused by the low pressure storm system. Could be that something was damaged, and yet something felt wrong. The whereabouts of the sound confused me, the source seemed to be just above me as if I was only feet away from the swinging door. Not quite in the roof. That was too far away. Almost like the door was hovering just above me in the air.

Impossible.

I went to bed.

###

My eyes opened to the sound of wheels squeaking over a smooth floor. Red digits hovered in the darkness: 02:07 AM. Outside, the rain had stopped but the wind gusted. I fumbled for the lamp switch. Crash. My groping hand located the lamp under the side table and I flipped the switch. Around me the air shimmered with broken three dimensional outlines that blurred in and out of view. I blinked and shook my head, but my eyes refused to focus and around me the illusions refused to disappear. The sounds of squeaking wheels grew louder as perfect geometrical shapes appeared and disappeared, like an artist drawing straight chalk lines over the glass of a finished painting only to change his mind and instantaneously wipe them out.

I stood up groggily and stumbled out into a passage blurring with superimposed outlines and shapes.

Out of the passage wall, two shapes appeared.

“Shit!” A cold wave spilled over my spine. I lurched back and pain coursed through my shoulder as I struck the side wall.

The shadowy shapes of two women moved ghostlike across the passage: one pushing the other in a wheelchair. The shimmering floor below them hovered a full three feet off the floor of the passage, cutting off the head and shoulders of the woman pushing. The other sat stooped, head lolling at an unnatural angle. In a few seconds they’d disappeared through the opposite wall.

I stood frozen. The squeak of the wheels slowed. A door creaked, and shut.

The sound jolted me out of paralysis. That woman. The way she walked. It was so familiar to me. I rushed to the section of the wall they’d disappeared through. My fingers lightly touched the cold paint. Solid.

“Alice?”

Could it be?

A stab of pain ripped through my heart. No. It couldn’t be Alice. Alice was dead. Dead for five years. Just the two of us now. Cursed to live without her.

Outside the rain resumed and inside a door opened. I’d woken Angie. Light streamed into the passage, softening the effect of the stuttering geometry around us.

“Daddy?” I turned to see Angie’s head darting around and her mouth open. She could see it too, I wasn’t going mad.

“It’s okay, sweetie.”

“Is it? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, something has changed. I think the earthquake—”

Angie’s face turned ghost white. She screamed.

###

I caught her as she stumbled backwards. She pointed behind me with a trembling finger and I spun on my heels. Suspended in the air—five feet or so away—the legs and feet of a shadow swiveled to face us. Its weight shifted from one leg to another. The figure stood motionless for a moment before it crouched and its head dropped through the passage ceiling. My skin tingled as cold electricity charged the air around me. It was looking straight at me.

Angie’s arms circled around my waist, her cheek against my back. “What is it? A ghost?” Her breath tickled.

I squinted at the shape crouching in front of me, its feet somewhere near the height of my chest. Around us shapes shimmered in and out of view. The shade slowly raised its hand and I took a step back. Angie’s unbalanced weight almost pulled us both over.

I held my breath. Outside another gust of wind and rain attacked the windows as the crouching shape remained unmoved. And then, incredibly, it moved a hand deliberately from side to side. Angie whimpered.

Mouth open, I waved back as I gaped at it. “Honey, don’t be frightened,” I whispered.

“Yeah right,” said Angie, her voice small and trembling.

“It seems friendly, but maybe you should go to your room,” I said, waving my hand mechanically.

“I’m not going anywhere. There might be more of them floating around.”

I took a step closer, dragging her reluctant weight behind me. Only a few feet away from it now. The shadow hardly moved as I took a few more steps forward. Only a foot away. I peered up at it. It leaned toward me. We were poised as two men might be about to shake hands, admittedly in an odd position. As if driven by that thought I cautiously extended my hand and tried to touch its shadowed arm. It flinched as my fingers bisected its space. So insubstantial, like an illusion and yet we could both see it. No expression to read. No eyes. No mouth. No definition. Lightning flashed, lighting up the passage as around me shapes appeared and disappeared. The shadow remained a shadow—a perfect cut-out figure as if Michelanglo had taken a pair of scissors to a magazine: the page underneath, pitch black.

A distant sound of someone laughing carried to me through the space between us as the dark shape in front of me shuddered. I jumped as it grew suddenly animated, signing to me and waving its arms around enthusiastically. Angie’s face burrowed into my back.

“My name is Andrew,” I said. The shadow inched closer, cocking its head slightly. “Andrew,” I said, repeating myself. I gestured behind me. “This is my daughter, Angie.”

The dark figure shook its head, it pointed first at itself and then at me. It’s face changed shape as if it were speaking. Behind it something shimmered into view. A dining room table?

I motioned to my ear with my index finger. “ I also can’t hear you. I’m sorry.” The shadow’s body language became agitated. It looked so thin. It held up an emaciated hand as if to say wait, and then straightened and with a long stride disappeared through the wall.

###

“It’s gone,” said Angie. Her arms relaxed around me and she stepped away. Her voice no longer trembled. I turned. Her eyes weren’t as wide, but her face was serious. “That was a ghost. We just saw a fucking ghost.”

“Language, young lady.”

“A real life ghost.” She said quickly, her eyes sparkled. “Here, feel my heart. Its pounding.”

“I think it’s going to come back.”

She stole a glance around me. Something that looked like a skirting board flickered on and off between us. Was it a ghost? Had we just communicated with a ghost? My entire body tingled and the hair stood erect on my arms.

“It’s like we’re on acid or something,” Angie said.

Outside, the storm raged on relentlessly.

“He’s back!” Angie’ eyes—like saucers.

This time the ghostly shape didn’t hesitate to approach us on its hands and knees. The figure motioned for me to come closer. In its hands it carried something which it proceeded to unfold.

“Looks like… a newspaper,” I said.

It poked the top right corner. The front page? I shook my head.

“He can’t read it,” said Angie to the dark figure.

The ghost cocked its head. It hadn’t heard her but it seemed to sense a response. It pulled something else out of its pocket. The object swung from a chain in front of me.

The ground under our feet dropped and rose with a shudder. The ghost’s world settled a few feet lower and jolted around ninety degrees, leaving the shadow man gazing at the side wall of the passage, away from us. Its head jerked around until it found us. Finally orientated, it pointed a long quivering finger at Angie as I stayed her with my hand.

“This is getting way too creepy,” I said, “Come on. Let’s move back. I don’t like this.”

I grabbed Angie by the hand and we took a few steps backwards. The shadow, now standing upright, tried to follow us as we retreated to the back of the passage. It stopped and put its hands up and moved them up and down like a mime pressing his hands against an invisible wall.

“Something about it seems so… familiar,” said Angie.

“I don’t think it can see us anymore.” I waved my hands in front of me. The shadow did not acknowledge me. It seemed propped against an invisible barrier.

Suddenly the earth under us lurched again: stronger this time. I felt Angie’s hand clutch at my shoulder as I tried to steady myself on the shaking floor. The shapes and geometrical lines around us fuzzed and flickered in and out of view and a booming sound intensified. Crack. I glanced behind me. The mounted passage bookshelf had split. Books piled off like dominoes.

When it was over, the shadow man had disappeared together with the shimmering blocks, dimensions, and skirting boards. We clung speechlessly to each other. Outside, the rain settled into a steady drone in the background.

###

In the morning Angie waited for me in the kitchen, her eyes puffy. I hadn’t slept either.

“Been on the Internet.” she said.

“Anything?”

“Lots of reports of tremors. Some claims of supernatural activity.”

“You’re the clever one. What are the scientists saying?”

“Lots of theories, dad. Some of them believe a black hole passed through the earth.”

“That’s absurd, Angie. We’d all be dead.”

“Not if it’s a primordial black hole, the size of an atom.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. They think it might have been the cause of the earthquakes.”

I looked through the window. The sun was out, the storm was gone. I remembered something.

“Angie, you said the ghost looked familiar?”

“It looked like you.”

I stared at her. “That’s impossible.”

“I know, but it moved and gestured like you do. Couldn’t be you, though. It was skinny, and you’re alive.”

“It was holding something on a chain.” My eyes fixated on the glinting silver resting on the skin above her blouse.

Her eyes narrowed. Her hand moved to cover it.

“That’s creepy. Couldn’t be my locket. How could a ghost have my locket, when I’m wearing it?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t a ghost.”

“What else could it have been?”

“I don’t know. I heard some sounds but not others. I saw broken shapes, like I was looking through the cracks of an invisible wall.”

“Daddy, don’t freak me out. Last night was really weird.” She laughed nervously. “I’ve got to go,” she said. I’ll miss the bus if I don’t. Can’t wait to tell my friends. Are you going to call Jess? You promised.”

“I promise.” Then I said, “Angie…” She paused, waiting for me. “Be careful.”

“Careful of what, daddy?”

“Just be careful, that’s all. Stay out of trouble.”

“Sure,” she said. She grabbed her bag and kissed me. So full of life, so happy and talented—my little girl. So clever, just like her mother. Always telling me how Jess reminded her of Alice: so close to her heart, resting against her young chest..

“Bye bye,” she said. I waved. My eyes followed her as she stepped out of the kitchen. Not sure they’re ghosts, Angie. A future me pointing at a newspaper? Didn’t tell you about the other two. The woman pushing the wheel chair can’t be Alice if it’s the future. Could it be Jess? Could the hunched, broken creature be—?

No. It can’t be. Can’t be you, Angie.