We're Haunted, Too

It isn’t until I hear the chanting, the rhythmic flow of words, that I realize something has changed. I look up from the book I’m reading, and that’s when I see the Living.

To be honest, I can always see the Living, at least, when they’re around. It’s just that they’re usually easy to ignore, to overlook. The things they’re doing have no meaning to me, aren’t important to what I’m doing. So, I simply don’t pay any attention to them.

But, every once in a while, a few of them get together and do something deliberately intended to catch my notice. I know, in a general way, why they do it. That age old desire to answer life’s truly important questions, to see and in some way touch the “Other Side,” or at least someone who’s been there. I’d find it amusing, all this effort to commune with a spirit, to call up a ghost and try to get those answers.

As if we know any of that.

Now the people, seated around a small table, are becoming clearer to me. More solid; more tangible. More real, in a sense. I recall that what they’re doing goes by different names: a summoning, a séance, others. It all has the same purpose, and the same result. It’s like pushing against a curtain or a shroud, pressing and prodding, trying to touch something on the other side, and divine what it is from your fumbling probing.

You see, this was my home. Once. I don’t know how long ago; time doesn’t mean much to the dead. I know I lived here, in this tasteful manor nestled in the English countryside. And that I died here. Because of that, and certain nuances of how I chose to live my life, I now “haunt” this place, for want of a better term. I’m not sure what it really means to haunt a place. Yes, I wander the halls and chambers, occasionally make things go bump in the night, but it’s never a deliberate attempt to contact or scare the living. I never even want to have anything to do with them. It just so happens that my existence brushes against that barrier every so often. Now, what people do to me, that’s what I’d called haunting.

“We call out to the spirit of Lord Arthur Wimbley,” one of the people says, in a dreamy, singsong sort of voice. She’s middle-aged, wearing a multicolored shawl and a lot of gaudy jewelry, probably to imbue her appearance with a mystical aspect. The stereotypical medium. “Come to us, Lord Wimbley, answer our summons.”

She incants some words in Latin. Again, it’s for the effect, as if that will mean anything when calling up the dead. I really don’t care what language she speaks in; what ghosts pay attention to is persistence. And annoyance. If you want to speak to us badly, well, we’ll probably respond.

Just not always the way you want.

I snap the book I’m holding shut; the loud noise makes everyone around the table jumps, their eyes flying open.

“Congratulations,” I say, glowering at them. “You’ve summoned a ghost. What do you want?”

The medium glances at her companions, shifting in her seat, trying to recover her poise. “Um, well, uh…. Greetings, spirit from the beyond. We have reached out to you, seeking answers.”

Most of the people gathered around the table are staring at me as if I’ve sprouted second head, or as if I’ll turn into some ravening monster any second. I gather it’s their first time seeing a ghost. There’s always a few in every crowd. I don’t have to imagine what I look like to them: a pearly gray specter, insubstantial, clad in the clothing I was most familiar with in life, in this case a comfortable dressing gown, reading spectacles perched on my nose. I hope I’m not too big a disappointment. In life, I wasn’t a very interesting person, and death didn’t really improve me. But they should probably be ready for some disappointment.

“No,” I say, shaking my head.

The medium blinks rapidly, eyelids fluttering as if she’s having a fit. “I’m sorry. No? No, what?”

“No, I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“But, Lord Wimbley,” she says, with another glance around the table. “We greatly desire to know—”

“That doesn’t matter,” I cut her off. “I can’t tell you what lies on the ‘Other Side.’ I can’t tell you what happens to us after we die.”

“But… but… but you’re dead,” she says, dropping the dreamy, mystical act in her surprise. “Surely you know what happens after death.”

I shrug. “I know what happened to me after I died, but that’s about it.”

“Well, then, perhaps you can simply tell us what you experienced.” She must sense something of my annoyance; maybe she is a little clairvoyant. “Please, sir, we are so very eager to hear anything you can tell us about the Great Mystery.”

Great Mystery. I grunt. I don’t much like talking about this. But perhaps if I humor her and her friends, they’ll leave me to get back to… whatever I was doing. “Very well. After I died—”

“Oh, how did you die?” This comes from an older chap, who points his pipe stem at me, smoke wisping from the bowl.

“I beg your pardon?” I don’t much like being interrupted, either.

“It’s just that there’s some debate among the academic world, you see,” the old man says. “Some believe that you were killed while in service to the crown, fighting in India. Others,” he shifts, shoots a glance at a plump woman sitting a few spaces away from him, who glowers back, “have come up with some tawdry tale involving a sordid affair with a married woman and a duel with her vengeful husband. Which version is true?”

I can’t help but roll my spectral eyeballs. “Neither. I came down with a bad chest cold, and died choking on phlegm in my own bed.” I shake my head. “Fighting in India. Sordid affair. Indeed!”

Both the old man and the plump woman look immensely crestfallen. I think I’ve gotten the only satisfaction I’m going to out of this business.

“Back to the point,” the medium says, in a tone implying she’ll brook no further interruptions. “What did you experience at the moment of your passing?”

I purse my lips, glance heavenwards. “I stopped breathing. It was something of a relief at that point. I’d been sick for months before that. Most unpleasant. I found myself standing beside my own death bed, staring at my livid corpse. My family was gathered all around, bickering. I wasn’t even cold yet, and they were arguing about the estate.”

“Then, you didn’t feel a call?” The medium leans forward, intensely curious. “A pull or urge to… move on? No brilliant light at the end of a tunnel?”

I wave a hand dismissively. “No, no. None of that. Some ghosts just like to joke about with you Living. No. I died. I found myself just as I am. And that is the end of the story.”

The people at the table share baffled looks, as if they can’t believe what they’re hearing.

“That’s it?” the medium asks, sinking back in her chair. “Nothing else?”

“Nothing else. I simply stayed here.”

“But, why?”

Now I feel a bit baffled. I’m sure I’ve asked this question of myself, but I don’t know the answer. “I’m not really sure,” I say, some of my confusion finding its way into my voice. “I simply… know that I have to stay here. Not why; not for how long. Only that I have to stay.” I look back at the group, scanning their faces. I shrug. “That’s all I can tell you.”

“Hmm,” grunts the old fellow around his pipe stem. “You don’t know why you haunt the halls of Wimbley Manor? Why those who visit this place see spectral forms drifting from room to room? Why books and teacups and other objects float about? I must say, the haunting of this place is quite well documented. Bloody great let down if you don’t even know why you do it.”

I glare at the man, feeling truly annoyed now. I think it’s time this little amusement ended. “Oh, all that. Well, let me just say that I have nothing to do with all that. And perhaps you had best be leaving now.”

“Why? Is something wrong?” asks the medium, looking concerned. “Have we done something to upset you?”

As a matter of fact, they have. I never like thinking about my death, and my current state of… limbo, I guess you could call it. Or maybe purgatory is a better word. “I’m afraid that I may have overlooked something important about this place,” I say. “You see, while I don’t know why I’m here, I do know that I’m… not alone.”

It’s fairly easy for me to create an eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere. Lower the temperature, make people’s hairs stand on end. It’s quite effective at unsettling them.

“Again, I don’t know what it is that shares this place of waiting with me, but I do know that it is far less… obliging.” Some of those gathered around the table rub their arms, noticing the sudden chill. “It resents intrusion. Very much so.”

The lights in the room begin to dim, candles guttering and the lamps flickering. Simple trick, really, but effective.

“It haunts this place, much as I do,” I say, looking around at my library, lowering my voice and sounding a little fearful. “But where I couldn’t care less about you Living, it seems to bear you ill will.”

The medium finally seems to get what I’m hinting at. “Very well, we’ll… we’ll just end this gathering, and be on our way.”

“A wise decision,” I say. “I only hope you aren’t already too late…”

That clears the room. The group breaks up, men and women hurrying away, jostling each other in their haste. The medium is the last to leave the room, sparing me once final glance as she closes the door. It takes an effort on my part not to smile. I don’t suppose any of them will forget their encounter with a ghost, here in this haunted house.

Then they’re gone. I breathe a sigh of contentment, opening my book again. The feeling of gathering dread and malice lifts immediately. Always a useful trick for driving off the curious, especially those who don’t know when it’s time to go.

The Living. They’re the worst part of this eternity I’ve made for myself, never content to leave us well enough alone.

I suppose you could say we ghosts are haunted, too.