Chapter 2
SOMETHING IN MY HOUSE
Micah - Present Day
Tubes of oil paint rattled in the drawer as Micah rummaged through. He set out cadmium red, phthalo blue, yellow ochre, and titanium white.
The floorboards creaked, and he paused. His bed sat beyond a plant-laden bookcase; the covers were a bit sloppily tucked in, but the bed looked the same as always. The thick leaves of his biggest monstera crowded the corner, tangled in shadows. Like always.
Turning back to the paints, he pulled out lamp black and burnt umber. This was more of an effort to continue the landscape painting than he’d made in the past month, and he applauded himself for–
Ice tumbled into the receptacle in the refrigerator, and he startled. He shut his eyes and blew out a breath.
This was silly. His studio wasn’t haunted.
The late-night eighties music was from a neighbor, even though he couldn’t pinpoint which one.
The broken mirror was due to deteriorating silicone, even though his studio was apparently the only place with this problem.
And the marker on the mirror was… not so easy to explain away.
It hadn’t been there when he walked into the bathroom. Shaken as he was with the maintenance guy trying to come back inside, he distinctly remembered staring at the mirror, a clean and identical replica to his previous one, and seeing nothing amiss.
The last tenant died. Not necessarily in the studio, but maybe it was a familiar place he was pulled back to. Could that shadow have been him? A ghost who liked to write saccharin platitudes in pink block letters?
Leaning back, Micah wiped his hands down his face. He got up, walked back to the bathroom, and stared at the message. Everything will be okay. Maybe that was written specifically for him. He already had the pity of the landlady and his family; he didn’t need it from a ghost. He wasn’t the dead one.
He swiped at the message. It faded, but only slightly, and a fine powder of marker dust coated his fingers. Scrubbing at the glass with a wad of tissue did nothing, and neither did applying rubbing alcohol.
Ximena would be pissed if he couldn’t get that off. Actually, she’d probably take it in stride, thinking it was some therapy technique Micah had been ordered to practice.
It was hard to be frightened by an entity writing such an upbeat phrase, but it was still an invasion of his privacy, and he couldn’t take any more nights of Soft Cell.
Maybe he needed some fresh air. The coffee shop on the corner had the best muffins, but for some reason the thought of walking over there made his palms sweat.
He’d already had several cups of coffee anyway, and going there for a single muffin seemed unnecessary.
There was a gallery showing a couple streets down, and today was the last day.
But that was another activity that involved leaving his apartment.
He wiped his hands on his thighs, jaw clenched.
The gallery didn’t open until five, and rush hour was a bad time to go anywhere.
Waiting until the crowd thinned out, maybe at seven, would be better.
Except at that point, he’d be in his sweats with dinner and a book.
That was fine. He didn’t really want to go anyway.
But it would be nice to have someone to talk to about what was going on.
He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts.
Courtney was a no. She called once a month to check up on him, which was more than Micah ever expected of an ex, but she was too grounded to believe in ghosts, even with evidence.
Dad and Mom? They worried about him enough as it was.
They’d want to send him to some mental health retreat, which might help his anxiety, but it wouldn’t solve his current issue.
Oh, Grandma… If only. She wouldn’t have second-guessed a ghost’s presence. She’d claimed to have sensed many in her lifetime, including Grandad after he passed.
Reaching the bottom of the list, he pondered Ximena’s name, but what would she do? Charge the ghost rent?
Closing out of his contacts, he opened Face2Face and hit his brother’s picture. After a moment, Everett answered, the screen filled with an unflattering angle showcasing his nostrils and the underside of his chin. He glanced down.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Micah dithered in the hall, eyeing the bathroom. “Why would something be wrong? I can’t call my favorite brother in the middle of a weekday when I know he’s at work and busy?”
The clack of a keyboard filled the speakers. Everett said, “Seriously. Did something happen? You look anxious. Hey, did you get that list of therapists I sent you?”
This was a bad idea. “I did, yeah.”
“You haven’t called any of them, huh? Want me to do it? I’ll book you an appointment, no problem.”
Micah moved the phone away from his face so Everett couldn’t see his expression. “I don’t need help with it.”
“Okay.” His tone called Micah a liar, but he didn’t push it.
When they were kids, Everett was the carefree one, dragging Micah along on dangerous, sometimes illegal adventures.
But he’d become so much like Dad as he got older that Micah hardly recognized him sometimes.
The keyboard clacked. “So, what’s going on? ”
If Micah mentioned the message on the mirror, it would only make Everett more concerned, which meant he needed some other reason for calling.
The half-finished painting on the easel caught Micah’s eye. It had been sitting beside the drafting table in its current state for so long that he no longer had any concept of its quality.
“I just need your opinion on something.”
Everett’s upside-down face pulled into a smile. “You met a guy.”
“No.”
“A woman.”
“No.”
“A non-binary person so unbelievably hot and fantastic that you need my help picking out engagement rings.”
Micah sagged. “God, I wish. No, I need you to look at this painting I’m doing and give your honest opinion.”
Everett stopped typing. “You’re kidding, right? Everything you create is gorgeous. And a little creepy. But gorgeous. And you’ve never been insecure about your art before.”
“This one is different. Honest opinion.”
“Different how? It’s not a portrait?”
“Portrait, yes. I’m trying to summon Beelzebub with it, but I don’t think I got the nose right.”
Everett made an indecipherable noise. His brother never knew how to take his jokes, and that was part of what made them so funny.
“If it’s not good,” Micah said, “but you lie and say it is, you’ll only be wasting my time, not saving my feelings.”
“And your demon summoning will fail. Gotcha. If it’s ugly, I’ll tell you.”
A thud came from behind him, and he gasped and nearly dropped the phone. The sound of a closet door slamming closed came from the other side of the wall. For god’s sake. Just the neighbor.
Pressing a hand to his pounding heart, Micah turned the screen to face the landscape.
“It’s ugly,” Everett said.
“I knew it.”
“Not technically. It’s very skillful, just like everything you paint. But it’s boring. A field and a barn. I think I would have preferred Beelzebub.”
“That’s what the client wants. I’m doing it from a photograph.”
“In that case, I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
That it was soul-crushing for him to be doing this. That he needed to get over his problems and let people into his studio again so he could draw them. That he needed a new therapist. All the things Dad would tell him.
He must have paused for too long, because Everett pulled his phone so close to his nose that Micah could practically see up into his brain. “Are you low on money?”
“What? No, no. I’m... fine.”
“You sure? You have money for food? For prescriptions?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you still getting commission profit from that gallery you’re in?”
“I’m not in a gallery anymore. I missed a couple of networking receptions, and they dropped me.” He’d also missed the yearly art fair and had turned down the chance for a group exhibit, the lure of staying in bed much more tempting.
“What the hell? Don’t they know what you’ve been through? Let me wire you some money. I have to get some emails sent, but after–”
“You don’t need to do that. I’m getting this commission done and have others lined up.
” He didn’t, and skinning his own hands with a potato peeler sounded more appealing than painting another landscape, but he wasn’t going to take Everett’s money.
His emergency credit card would just have to do more heavy lifting.
Micah dropped his arm to his side and turned in a circle. “I’m managing, but I feel like I’m stuck in limbo. I haven’t made any progress on getting my life back on track–”
“It’s been, what, nine months? You’re not lying in bed twenty-four/seven, unwashed and barely present. You’re making art again. Your studio looks clean. That’s progress.”
He wanted to argue that he wasn’t progressing fast enough.
That he should be able to let people come inside.
He should be able to go on dates or hang out with friends, or even attend a life drawing event somewhere other than his studio, in a group setting in the safety of other people.
But saying that would only reinforce that he did need a new therapist, and he wasn’t ready to attempt that again.
He realized Everett was saying his name. “Sorry, what?”
“I have to get back to work. Want me to call you later tonight?”
“No. Thanks for your perspective. I’ll let you go.”
Everett bent over his phone and looked into the camera. “Hey. Hang in there.”
Everything will be okay.
The screen blinked off, and Micah was staring at his own reflection. He scowled and tossed the phone on the bed. He’d rather stare at the ten thousand blades of grass he’d be painting than look at himself.
Dropping onto the stool, he pulled up the client’s field photo on his computer, then mixed greens with blobs of crimson and ochre, and layered the strokes over swipes of deep evergreen.
After a break to stretch his back and eat some of Ximena’s food, he went back at it, determined to make enough progress that he could snap a picture to prove to the client that it was getting done.
Something thudded down the hall, and Micah’s hand jumped, creating a dramatically long blade of grass. He stared at the canvas. That wasn’t his imagination, and this time, it wasn’t the neighbor’s closet door.
He groped for the knife under the table, squeezed the comforting grip of the handle, but left it there and crept into the hall.
“Hello?”
Faint music from someone’s TV drifted; a car door slammed from the street below; ragged breath whistled through his nose.
A sudden cacophony of metal jangling against metal thundered from the bathroom. A hard thud reverberated off the tub.
Micah screamed, imagining Jacob Marley using his shower. He hurried back to the drafting table and ripped the knife free. This was ridiculous. Ridiculous. But whether it was an intruder or the Ghost of Christmas Past, they were going to get a knife in their gut.
Squeezing the handle until his fingers cramped, he inched toward the bathroom and hoped his voice sounded aggressive. “Who’s there?”
After pulling in a steadying breath, he lunged through the doorway, only to be met with a bathroom as spotless as it had been earlier.
He peeked behind the door, then turned to the tub.
The frosted shower door was closed. Had he left it that way?
He certainly hadn’t kicked the bathmat into the corner.
Light flared off the trembling blade in his grip, and he was certain he wouldn’t be able to hear anything else beyond the roar of blood in his ears. He reached for the handlebar on the shower door, straining for shadows moving beyond. The glass shuddered as he flung it open.
The knife pointed at empty space. Micah stared at a blue glob of body wash on the tile, then glanced down. A cherry red metal hoop sat in the bottom of the tub. He picked it up and turned it over. Hard water deposits laced the enamel surface. A shower curtain ring.
Micah slid the glass shower door closed and open, then turned in a circle, perplexed.
Pocketing the ring, he strode for his phone. Ximena was going to think he’d lost his mind.
He typed,
All of the apartments in the complex were designed in a similar manner, but it had been so long since he’d entered a neighbor’s place, let alone used their bathroom, that there was no way to remember if all the tubs were the same.
His phone vibrated.
It took a moment for Ximena to respond.
He snorted.
Micah took out the curtain ring and turned it over in his hand.
Cosmo.