2
Tristan
.
She walks in like she owns the place. Which, I guess, she does.
I’m alerted to her arrival by the sound of gravel crunching under tires in my driveway, and I move to the window to catch a glimpse of my new housemate.
She drives a big white station wagon with wood paneling, and I can hear Fleetwood Mac coming from its radio; a strange sense of déjà vu washes over me.
I thought for sure that time had moved on from Woody cars and Stevie Nicks.
She opens her door and steps out into the August sun. All I can see is her hair. It’s a warm, honey blonde color, and it’s so long that it reaches her waist.
The only thing I know about her is her name, and that’s just because the realtor left some papers behind one day.
Demi St. James.
Crossing the threshold, she steps into a place that somehow suddenly belongs to both of us.
I’m unsure how to feel about it. The sound of her boot heels clomp on the hardwood.
It isn’t a wholly unpleasant sound, but the Manor is drafty and old, and any slight noise bounces off the walls and sounds like an explosion.
Or, maybe it’s just that I’ve lived in silence in this house for almost fifty years and now, without warning, I’m not alone here anymore .
I make my way down the hall to the grand staircase to get a good look at her. She stands in the doorway, with the glow of the afternoon sun at her back, haloed around her. Then she runs her hand through her long hair, moving it out of her face. She looks up, and she smiles.
That’s when time stops.
I swear to god, time actually stops.
Demi St. James is almost too beautiful to look at. In fact, I have to look away for a moment to catch my bearings, because it feels, for a split second, like she’s looking at me. That, of course, is impossible–but I really wish it wasn’t.
She has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, clear and bright. Her lips are full and soft like pillows, and I can’t seem to stop myself from returning my gaze to them over and over again. She’s got a heart-shaped face and a little cleft in her chin, with skin that looks like dewy silk.
And she’s smiling at me. Well, she’s smiling at my house, in my general direction, but it feels like she’s smiling at me.
Her style reminds me a lot of what women wore in the seventies. What’s now known as “vintage”, I suppose. High-waisted wide-leg jeans and a cream cropped blouse with bell sleeves and little red rosebuds all over it. It shows off slices of bare skin and the soft, curvy body beneath the clothes.
If I were still alive, I’d be sweating.
I sit down on the staircase and lean forward with my elbows on my knees. The space smells like her now. Incense and jasmine. She does a slow loop around the foyer, either taking it all in or cataloging all the things she might want to change; I’m not sure .
The realtor who sold the Manor brought in a cleaning crew before showing it to the only prospective buyer in years.
Other than that, and some minor construction to close off the destroyed attic, nothing has been updated in this place since I died.
Even before the accident, there had been very few changes since my great-grandparents built the house in the Gilded Age.
The subsequent owners—my grandparents, my parents, and finally me—treated it with the care of museum curators.
A thin line of unease and distrust forms within me.
I don’t know Demi St. James. I don’t know what kind of person she is, whether she is careless or sympathetic.
I don’t know her intentions regarding my house.
For all I know, she could have bought it just to gut it, turn it into some trendy vacation rental that she won’t maintain, and then sell it off to someone else when it becomes too much.
It’s not that I’m exactly adverse to change. It’s just that the world around me changes so quickly and ceaselessly. My home has been exempt from that for half a century.
My new housemate takes a step toward the staircase, then stops and looks down at the floor.
Original dark hardwood panels, well-preserved for their age.
She toes off her boots, sinks three inches to her natural height, and in that one move, I have a better idea of what kind of person she is.
Demi wears mismatched socks—one red and one white— and she cares enough about this old place not to scuff or gouge the floors with her heels.
I watch as she ascends the staircase. Her blue eyes explore the dark red damask wallpaper, and the oil paintings hung along the walls leading up to the second floor.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, her shoulders rising and falling in a way that looks so deeply satisfying that it has me mourning the fact that I no longer breathe and can’t take a contented sigh like that anymore.
A small smile plays on her full lips. She looks happy and proud, and I can’t help but smile along with her.
When she reaches the step, I’m sitting on, she stops. Her back straightens, and the strangest feeling washes over me. It’s like I can feel her awareness of me.
I’ve been dead for decades, and no one has ever been aware ?of me. I’m a ghost. When it comes down to it, I’m not there; I’m not anywhere. I’m not much more than a memory, left behind in death.
And, yet…
Demi turns in my direction, and I stand.
If I had a body, I’d be almost a foot taller than her.
We’re facing each other, and she’s not exactly looking at me, but it’s the closest I’ve come to being looked at since I was alive.
A sensation that feels suspiciously like my recollection of warmth fills me.
A crease forms between her dark eyebrows.
This close, I’m struck dumb by her beauty.
Demi’s gaze is searching the space in front of her for whatever it is that made her pause.
Searching for me, I dare to hope. Her blonde hair looks like spun silk.
Some strands are pale white, and some are strawberry red, and the rest is a golden curtain cascading down her back.
I want to run my fingers through it. I want to know if it feels as soft as it looks.
My hand reaches for her before I know what I’m doing. My fingers are about to push her hair away from her face when I pull my hand back in horror and cross my arms at my chest, clenching my fists to keep control over myself.
Jesus Christ, I almost touched her. I’m a goddamn creep.
She blinks a few times, and the crease between her eyebrows deepens. I see goosebumps rise on her skin, and she rubs her arms with her hands to try to warm them away. Is that because of me? Can she feel me this close to her? Could she feel my lawless and reaching hand?
We’re so close that I can smell the cinnamon gum she’s chewing and the incense on her skin.
I find myself wishing her eyes would meet mine, just for a second, so that I could at least pretend that she really is looking at me.
But they don’t. They search the space around me, never finding a spot to focus.
At last, she shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut.
“Get your shit together, Demi,” she says to herself.
The sound of her voice is a rush of electricity that forces me to take a step back. It’s confident with the edge of a husky rasp, like Janis Joplin or Marianne Faithfull.
Her voice sounds like the music from my time.
She continues up the stairs, and I follow. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m certain she sensed me, or maybe I’m just really that lonely, but I’m a little bewitched by her. I want to be near her; I want to watch her become aware of me again. It felt, for the first time in so long, like I was real.
So, I follow her as she moves around the second floor.
She’s learning the house room by room, and I wonder what she’s going to do with all this space.
Will she spend more time in the formal downstairs living room or in the cozier one on the second floor with the larger fireplace?
Will she have a library or an office? Which room will she pick to be her bedroom?
Sunlight glints through the windows and catches on the metal of a rogue finishing nail on the floor just ahead of where she’s walking in her socked feet.
I rush forward and pick it up before she can step on it.
She stops again, as she did on the stairs.
Like she can feel me. I watch a little shiver roll through her body, and the thought that it might have been me that made her shiver like that drowns me in thoughts I shouldn’t be having, thoughts I haven’t had in a very, very ?long time.
Demi shakes her head as if to clear it and starts humming a song that sounds vaguely familiar. I like her voice. I like the way it fills the silence of my house.
After she’s peeked into every room on the second floor, she turns around and heads back downstairs. When she reaches the first floor, she steps back into her boots and walks out the front door.
Longing hits me like a freight train, and I’m suddenly so lonely that I can’t see straight. Did I freak her out? Did she realize the rumors of Beaumont Manor being haunted were true, and it was too much for her?
I sit back down on the staircase, fully intent on wallowing in the complete and unwelcome silence of the Manor.
Then, Demi St. James walks back into my house with a giant black mass of fur in her arms. She’s carrying the biggest cat I’ve ever seen.
It has enormous, pointy ears and big paws that are resting on Demi’s shoulders, like the thing is hugging her.
Its golden eyes fix right on me, and I’m absolutely sure that the cat sees me.
It meows. The noise is surprisingly cute and demure, given the creature’s size.
“Look, Mittens,” Demi says. “We’re home.”