In Recovery

I lived in a haunted house in England. I know, you think I’m crazy or making stuff up. No, I didn’t see someone in Victorian clothes drifting around the house. I didn’t hear moans or clanking of chains. My ghost was far more mundane.

The house was old, several hundred years old. That probably sounds ridiculous to you, but really old houses are sprinkled about in English villages, too far from cities to be worth redeveloping. It belonged to my friend Hilda, and she said I could use it while I recovered. Hilda had inherited it from an aged aunt, and now she used it as a vacation home, and often let friends use it. “It’s an easy way to keep it in livable condition,” she assured me breezily, “so I don’t have to go out there every few weeks to take care of it.”

I suppose I should explain why I was recovering. I’d been in a major car accident that killed my fiancé and left me with a few minor injuries and severe panic attacks. I needed a quiet life away from work and responsibilities while I returned to normal. As normal as you can be after an experience like that. I’d been conscious throughout the wreck. I’d watched Davey die, while we were both trapped in the car waiting for rescuers to get us out.

So, Hilda’s house was a godsend for me. It was in a quiet village, far from the city and the suburbs. There wasn’t even a railway station, just an infrequent bus service to the next village. I had given up driving for obvious reasons. The house consisted of two stories, downstairs was a small main room that combined a kitchenette and living space, with a sunroom extension that was used as a bathroom, and there were two small bedrooms upstairs. Literally, that was the whole house. Heating and cooking were achieved on a coal-fired Aga in the main room, so the chimney heated the bedrooms. There was a very friendly elderly next-door neighbor who kept an eye on the place and its occasional occupants for Hilda. Her name was Lily, and we would often have coffee together in the mornings, sometimes at her house, sometimes at mine.

We were sipping coffee and chatting about nothing in particular in the living room when Lily casually asked, “Have you met the ghost yet?”

My face gave me away. Of course, you don’t send your emotionally fragile friend to live in a haunted house. Lily caught my expression and reached out a hand, smiling. “Oh no, it’s nothing scary, just funny. We don’t know who it is, and no one’s ever seen it. We think it’s probably female. It has specific likes and dislikes on the television. You’ll find out.”

“Does Hilda know about the ghost?” I asked. I found it hard to believe that she hadn’t mentioned it, harmless or not.

Lily shook her head and laughed. “Her Aunt Agnes talked about it all the time, but Hilda thought she was going senile. Hilda never watches television here, so she’s never had any experience with it. She thinks it’s just a story us old gossips made up.”

I decided that I agreed with Hilda. Lily and Agnes had been making up stories. Old spinster ladies in an English village, whiling away their time in their twilight years, imagining things. Maybe that would be me one day. I couldn’t imagine going back into the dating pool after losing Davey. At least I’d had a healthy sex life – these two old biddies had probably never even had that opportunity.

Nevertheless, I started varying my evening television viewing, checking for a “ghost” response. The nightly news didn’t seem to cause any problems. Sitcoms were fine. Panel discussions elicited no otherworldly complaints. I was not fond of detective shows, but one night I tried Columbo. The temperature in the room plummeted. I had been sitting in the armchair, warm and comfortable, and suddenly I was shivering. I went over to the Aga to see if it had gone out. I knew they could be a problem to start up once they went out. But no, the Aga was hot to the touch, and when I lifted the cover, there was plenty of coal in there.

I looked around the room. Surely not! I changed the channel on the TV. A nature documentary about urban foxes. The room no longer felt cold. “For pity’s sake! Columbo? That’s enough to make you show yourself?” There was no threatening presence, and I felt safe. I poured myself a glass of wine and learned about foxes.

The next morning, I decided I’d imagined it. Probably some kind of PTSD triggered by the murder in the show. I was too embarrassed to mention it to Lily. I took a long walk through the fields in the afternoon to settle my nerves. Touching nature and getting exercise were both highly recommended by my psychotherapist. It was both invigorating and tiring. I hoped that meant that I would sleep better; my dreams were still haunted by memories of the crash and its aftermath.

Back home in the evening, I started to cook a chili con carne. As it simmered, I looked at the night’s viewing. After laughing at the ridiculous characters in ‘Allo ‘Allo!, I stayed on the same channel and the TV started to play a Miss Marple murder mystery. Immediately, I felt cold. No! Was this really a ghost? I switched over to BBC-2 and found a history program about the Wars of the Roses. Once again, the cold disappeared. This time I was quite cross with the ghost. “So Miss Marple can’t show a single murder, but people dying in the battle of Agincourt are OK? What is your problem?”

I snuggled back in the armchair and took a sip of wine. I was sure now that this was the ghost Lily had mentioned. I’d talk to her about it tomorrow. I pulled a blanket over myself and set the glass down.

I woke up shivering with cold. While the TV shows had made the room feel cold, it was positively icy now. Of course, my first thought was to look at the TV. It was still showing the Wars of the Roses. I must have slept for a while, as Richard III was now on the throne. Then I sniffed and realized the room was filling up with smoke. I rushed to the Aga. The chili had boiled dry and was burning. I’d left it on the hot burner instead of moving it to the cooler one. Grabbing a towel, I took the pan off the stove and put it in the sink. Then I opened two windows on opposite sides of the room. I ran upstairs to air out the bedroom too. There were no doors inside the house, so the smoke had gone everywhere.

Downstairs, I started filling the sink with cold water to cool the pan. I’d have to throw it out, but I didn’t want to start a real fire in the bin. Then I heard loud knocking on the front door. Lily was there, in a nightdress and housecoat, wearing boots, with her hair in curlers and covered by a scarf. I waved her in, and she looked around, sniffing and seeing the pan in the sink. “I smelled the smoke, and I was afraid the house was on fire! Are you alright?”

I hugged her. “Thank you so much for coming to check! I almost started a fire, but your ghost woke me up. She probably saved my life.”

Lily looked at me suspiciously. You have one nervous breakdown, and everyone thinks you’re crazy. “How did the ghost wake you, exactly?” she asked cautiously.

“She brought the temperature down to freezing!”

As I said the words, I realized the temperature was perfectly normal, despite the open windows.

I poured Lily a glass of wine. “This is going to sound strange. Does this ghost dislike detective shows on television? Like Miss Marple or Columbo? Because the temperature dropped when I tried to watch those. Then it went back to normal when I changed the program.”

Lily took a sip of the wine and nodded carefully, watching my face. “Yes, that’s what we noticed. She hates those sorts of shows and makes you change the channel or turn them off. But she doesn’t make it freezing cold.”

“No, she just made it uncomfortable for me too. But tonight I fell asleep in the chair while I had a chili con carne cooking on the Aga.” I pulled the pan out of the sink and showed her the black, smoking mess inside it. “She made it very, very cold to wake me. My teeth were literally chattering, and that woke me up.”

Lily looked at the pan, and then at me. “Agnes always said the ghost watches over the house. I thought she was being fanciful.” She took a mouthful of the wine this time. “Will you be all right here tonight, or do you want to sleep in my spare bed?”

I suddenly felt safe and peaceful in a way I’d almost forgotten. “Thank you, Lily, but I’ll be fine here. The ghost will make sure I don’t come to any harm.”

And she did.