8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

T he moment Grandma Lydia leaves the house the next morning, Caroline and I begin the first step of our plan. The morning is clear and bright, filled with bird song and blue skies, but the sobering sight of the charred bones of the Bakker’s house across the street adds to the tension in my stomach.

Today, Caroline and I are going to try to find Henry.

We are going to the little house in the woods.

Last night, we spent hours talking, picking over details and hypotheticals. If Henry is a ghost, then how is he able to physically move stuff to fix a house? (Do ghosts have jobs?) Should I try to text the number I got? (Do ghosts have cell phones?) Is Henry actually two Henrys? A ghost Henry and a doppelg?nger flesh-and-blood Henry? Why was ghost Henry at the house fire? Did he start the house fire? (Can ghosts start fires?)

I tell Caroline all of Grandma Lydia’s ghost stories. When I get to the story about how our grandma couldn’t find the little house in the woods, Caroline frowns.

“I always forget about that place, to be honest. It’s like… out of sight, out of mind. The driveway to it is right there, but I always think of the Bakker house and Grandma Lydia’s house as being the only ones on the road.”

“Well, I think that it’s connected to Henry somehow. He talked about the house—he said he maintained it—and I think that we should go out there and look for clues. To look for him.”

It’s a role reversal for us: Caroline is the one who tackles things head-on, a whirlwind of adventure and epic plans. I’m usually the one on the sidelines, cautious and observing, waiting to see how things play out before jumping in. Now, Caroline looks uneasy while I am ready to hit the streets and knock on doors.

“What if the house isn’t there?” Caroline said. “I mean, if Grandma Lydia couldn’t find it, what if it’s….”

“Gone?” I supplied.

Caroline nods, eyes full of concern. “Exactly. What if it’s gone? Like, what if it never really was there because it’s some haunted ghost house?”

I shake my head. “Impossible. I refuse to believe it. I touched the house, Caroline. I remember seeing it as a kid, with my own two eyes. I can’t believe that those memories aren’t real.”

And so, after showers to wash off the grime of the fire, a night of tossing and turning, and a morning of eggs and toast and coffee with Grandma Lydia, we are on our way to find a haunted house.

The isolated dirt road, on which Karl and Grandma Lydia’s houses are on, ends in a widened turnaround. The forest has crept closer and closer to its gravel edges, and there is an opening in the density of the trees just wide enough to allow for a small dirt driveway to snake back into its shadowed depths.

And it’s into those depths that Caroline and I are headed.

The moment we step into the forest, the temperature drops. Caroline shivers next to me, and I regret the jean shorts and tee shirt I’m wearing.

“Isn’t this a ghost movie thing? Where it gets cold when there is paranormal activity?” she whispers.

“It’s just because of the shade,” I say. I refuse to get sucked into some panicky hysteria based on pop cinema and shaky-cam theatrics. “We’re in a forest.” A mosquito lands on my arm and as I slap it, I doubly regret my outfit choice.

“We should’ve had Javier come with us.”

I laugh, but it’s the anxious sort instead of the humorous kind. “I don’t think Javi has any experience with ghosts, Caro.”

Caroline lets out a little, desperate-sounding whine.

The forest might be shaded and dark, but once inside its lush mid-summer greenery, it doesn’t feel creepy to me at all. The smell of damp, loamy earth reminds me of the recent storm, of the way I felt when I saw Henry’s note on my door: of freshness. It only takes a minute to walk to the curve that should reveal the house, and when we break around the corner and it’s visible and real in front of me, with its ivy-covered stone walls, I feel relieved that my memories aren’t imaginings.

“Oh good,” I breathe.

“Yeah, I’m glad it’s not here,” Caroline agrees. “It was freaking me out to have to go inside.”

I slap another mosquito as I process what she’s saying.

“Caroline, what are you talking about?” I point at the house, with its shutters and antique door, exactly as I remember. “It’s right there.”

We stare at each other and then back at the space.

“No it’s not, Rency. Don’t mess with me. I’m freaking out about this enough as is.”

“I’m not messing with you. I—” On impulse, I grab her hand. If it worked last night, would it work this morning—that somehow she could see what I see when we are touching? “How about now?”

Caroline swears and blanches. “Oh no, I think seeing it is worse,” she says.

“Let’s go.”

“Oh no.” Caroline digs in her heels. “Oh no, Rency. I—”

I’ve tugged her just a few feet closer when the door of the little house swings open and Henry, looking very real and, if I’m honest with myself, very handsome, steps into the doorway. He leans against the frame of the door, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows arching. I swear there is amusement twinkling in his expression .

“There you are,” he says, his ocean eyes on my own, a smirk pulling up one side of his mouth. “I’ve been expecting you.”

****

Henry’s house is both exactly like my dreams and nothing like it. The core house is there— the same tiles on the bathroom floors, the same colors on the wall—but everything else is different. The furniture and decor are an eclectic but artful mixture of pieces from every era and style I can imagine, all perfectly complementing each other. A Tiffany stained-glass lamp sits on a mid-century modern end table, and a creamy shag carpet complements an avocado-green sofa.

“Do ghosts usually have cats?” Caroline bursts out, pointing at a familiar black-furred creature curled up on a velvet maroon pillow positioned partially under the fronds of a massive fern.

“I’m not sure,” Henry says, sitting on the brown leather chair that somehow looks both shockingly contemporary and intensely retro. “But I do.” He gestures to the sofa, inviting us to sit down.

Caroline and I both refuse, lingering in the entryway, both scared to go too deep into the room.

“You are a ghost, then.” I say it like a statement, even though it’s phrased like a question. He smiles at me. It’s a bit softer than his greeting smirk, a little more reserved. As if now he’s worried about me knowing.

“Guilty.”

“But you helped me fix my grandma’s house. ”

“I like your grandma. She’s a nice lady. And she has a great garden.”

“But you touched the same stuff I touched.”

“Yes. It took a few decades to master, but now I’m pretty adept.”

“I paid you in cash.”

“Which I appreciate. Ever since Karl passed away, I haven’t been able to do business as usual, so having cash was nice. I have bills to pay, after all.”

“Do ghosts usually have jobs?” Caroline interrupts. We’re still holding hands, as if reminding ourselves that we are very much real and alive, no matter what else might be going on here with ghost Henry and his ghost house and his little ghost cat.

“I like to keep busy. I’ve been dead since ’29. It gets boring.”

“But you talked to Karl? He could see you?” I ask.

“Yes, I talked to Karl.” Henry rakes a hand through his hair, a gesture that belies his discomfort. For a flash he looks like he did in those black-and-white pictures: waves of hair slicked back in a style nearly a century old. “Would you both like to take a seat?”

“Why? Are we making you nervous, Mr. Ghost?” Caroline says, a glimmer of her usual spark coming back into her voice.

Henry barks out a laugh. “Actually, yes. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen once Rency figured it out, but I don’t think I was expecting this particular sort of inquisition. Or last night’s events either.”

“Well Rency certainly wasn’t expecting the hot guy fixing her house to be a ghost, so I think she is a little more shocked and nervous than you, Ghost Boy. Man. Ghost Man.”

His smirk is back, and when his eyes land on me, they warm me up from the inside. “The hot guy fixing your house, Rency?”

I shake my head. “I never said that,” I deny. “She’s the one who said that.”

“Don’t get too attached now,” Caroline interjects, shooting him an I-mean-business glare. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

Henry gestures to the sofa again. “Why don’t you two have a seat then. You’ll be more comfortable.” Caro and I exchange glances, silently gauging how we both feel. In agreement, we cross into the room and sit, my leg pressing against hers when we unclasp our hands, just in case the lack of contact would dissolve this place from underneath her entirely. Underneath my fingers, the fabric is velvet soft.

“I would offer you something to eat or drink, but as you can imagine, I don’t do either, so I’m a bit… understocked.”

“It’s fine,” I reassure him. “We already had breakfast.”

Henry watches as his cat stands and stretches, its tiny nails actually making small traces in the carpet, as if this place is more ghost world than material. “Well, I know how much you enjoy a cup of coffee. I wouldn’t want you to hold my lack of caffeinated options against me.”

I must be blushing because Caroline jabs me with her elbow and shoots Henry a glare. “You’re not holding anything against my cousin, sir. You’re. A. Ghost. You literally can’t touch her. ”

I’m caught between laughing and groaning. In true Caroline style, she’s gotten over whatever fear she’s feeling and is back into being scrappy and protective.

“Yes, we’ve established that.” The small cat approaches him, twirling around his legs. He reaches down, long fingers scratching its delicate head and behind its paper-thin ears. I swear I can hear the dark creature purr. “But I think that you might have more pressing questions to ask, yes?”

“Yes,” I say, interrupting Caroline before she can take her own claws out. “I want to know everything. I want you to tell us what you were doing at my grandmother’s house. Why you lied to me. How you got this way.” Henry’s nodding along as if taking mental notes of what he will have to present for a final exam. “I want to know what you were doing at Karl’s last night and who you were talking about. And I want to know why I can see you but Caro can’t unless she’s touching me.”

“And I want to know how you managed to get a ghost cat,” Caroline quickly interjects. She keeps eying the creature like she can’t decide if she’s in love and wants to squeeze it or if she’s a little bit scared of it.

Henry doesn’t hesitate. “I can answer all of those questions for you, but it’s quite a long story. I think you’ll regret that I don’t have coffee for you both.”

Caroline taps her wrist as if there’s an imaginary watch on it. “Tick-tock, Mr. Ghost.”

“You ask the questions, then.”

“When did you die?” Caroline asks .

“1929,” Henry and I say in unison.

He grins at me and I try to pretend that his smile doesn’t make my heart race. “You’re an excellent historian,” he comments.

“No flirting,” Caroline says, snapping her fingers at him. My ears heat at the suggestion. He lifts a single eyebrow, tilts his head just so, and it practically confirms Caroline’s accusation. “Tell us how you died,” she says.

“A lightning bolt came down from the sky and fried me right where I stood. It was the day of my wedding. I was vaporized.”

“And then you became a ghost, just like that?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Henry admits. “I don’t remember the moment. I just remember walking, in my suit, to the church. And then… then not being in my body at all. I was me, and then I was dissolved, and then I was this instead.”

I want to ask more questions, to find out how it felt and what the reaction of everyone was and how he coped, but Caroline is already moving on.

“So you’ve been haunting around your property for what, almost a hundred years? Why not try to cross over to the other side? What’s holding you back?”

“That’s a question that I can never quite figure out,” Henry says. “I don’t think I have a purpose here or any unfinished business. I think I’m a ghost because I was cursed.”

And just like that, my Henry and ghost Henry and dream Henry all collapse into one singular Henry. The details of my most recent dream rush to the front of my mind as my brain leaps into hyperspeed to make sense of it all.

“I will curse you to a life without love. I will curse you to a world without touch. I will curse you to never being able to have or hold what really matters to you.” The words echo in my mind as I say them. It was here, in this house—or a here of the past, a here of an alternate reality?—that those words were spoken, but the words feel discordant in this current moment. As if speaking them tainted this clean space.

It’s dead silent. Not even the cat is purring anymore. A shocked expression is on Henry’s face, and Caroline’s jaw has dropped.

“Uh, what was that , Rency?” she says.

Henry knows exactly what it was, no explanation needed. “How do you know that?” he breathes.

“Um, well. It’s a funny story, actually,” I start to say, scrambling for words. I don’t know how to respond. Oh, ever since I met you I’ve been having dreams of your past. I watched you in your house, burying things in your greenhouse, chatting with a mysterious woman who apparently was serious about cursing you. “I’ve been having some strange dreams lately. Ever since…” Ever since I signed a marriage license with both our names on it. “... moving here. And in one of the dreams I had, there was a woman in your kitchen and that’s what she said to you.”

“Mallory,” Henry says, nodding. “Yes. My uncle’s wife. She… she wasn’t a nice woman.”

“She didn’t seem all that nice,” I agree.

“Wait wait wait,” Caroline interjects. “You’re telling me that you have been having dreams about the past? About Henry and this house?”

“Yes,” I say, the word lifting at the end as if it is a question.

“And you didn’t tell me?” she gasps.

“Caroline, I already thought I was going completely crazy! You never would have believed me if I had led with that. Oh hey, I’m hallucinating at night and P.S. my handyman is a ghost.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I would have. It’s so wild that it almost makes it more believable.”

“Only you would think that strange on top of strange makes something more believable.” I groan.

“Well, it’s not like that’s the only strange thing that lines up. Like, for example, how you signed the—ack!” Henry’s small ghost cat has jumped onto the sofa, prowling towards us.

“He won’t hurt you,” Henry says, watching his pet pad closer to Caroline. “He’s a ghost. Neither he nor I can touch you. He’s just going to walk—”

Right through her, apparently. The cat steps completely through her physical form, its bottom portion of paw and legs disappearing entirely. It startles Caroline so much that she squeals and jumps to her feet. The cat, startled by her response, leaps onto my lap—and promptly digs his little razor claw right under the hemline of my jean shorts and into the flesh of my thighs. I also yelp, but the cat is already gone, bolting underneath Henry’s chair.

“Ouch! He scratched me!” I gasp, slightly offended to be the collateral damage in the creature’s hasty retreat .

“He touched you,” Henry replies, eyes wide. He pushes up from his chair and closes the space between us in three strides, a look of astonishment and hyper-focused purpose on his face. I’m a statue on the sofa, too shocked by the intensity of Henry’s seafoam eyes and urgent expression to do anything but watch as he kneels in front of me. “You felt his claws? The weight of him as he ran over you?”

I nod, speechless.

“This is so weird,” Caroline says, but her voice sounds strange, a bit far away.

Henry’s hands are hovering over my legs, the line where the hem of my jean shorts ends and my skin begins. I don’t tan well, so the skin is pale, contrasting with the indigo of the dark wash. His hands float above the exact spot that his pet’s claws scratched, as if he’s trying to imitate the same placement, as if that matters for some reason. Thin scratches, bright red, appear on my skin: physical evidence of the creature’s panicked retreat.

And then he puts his hands down on my thighs, a firm, solid, and very not ghost-like contact.

My breath catches in my lungs, and a strange tingling spreads across my skin—the same feeling as when I had shared tools with Henry.

And, I realize, as when I signed the marriage license.

“Incredible,” Henry whispers. I look up from where his hands are touching me, from where the edge of his thumb is rubbing at the hem of my shorts, and his bright eyes are on my own, filled with a swirl of inseparable emotions. Heat races through me, even though the contact of his skin and mine is neither warm nor cold, just firm and making me very aware of the fact that his hands are calloused against the smoothness of my skin. “Rency, I—”

“Guys, guys,” Caroline gasps. “I hate to interrupt this little touchy-feely revelation that you’re having, but I think I’m going to be sick.” Behind Henry, she’s still standing in the center of the room, but her hand is pressed to her mouth as if she’s about to puke. “I feel… fuzzy,” she says.

And then she passes out, right there on the shag-carpeted floor of Henry’s ghost house.