2. Giving Up The Ghosts-4
525 Words
I sink into the couch cushion as if Malcolm’s confession has knocked the wind from me. Perhaps it has, figuratively, at least. An eater of ghosts. I’ve never encountered such a thing; my grandmother never mentioned it.
“How do I figure into all of this?” I ask.
“You ... saved me. I was using the samovar as a holding place, so I wouldn’t swallow the ghosts, wouldn’t be tempted to.” He heaves a sigh. “Now that I know there’s an option, that I don’t have to carry them with me or inside me, I can live a normal life. You know why I was fired from the brokerage, don’t you?”
“I thought it was the recession.”
He shakes his head. “That’s the excuse. A layoff. After I graduated, my brother followed me there. My first job after college. I thought I was all set. Then Nigel shows up one day. He ...”
Malcolm breaks off and searches the ceiling as if the words he needs are there. “He would stand in the public lobby, like some sort of crazed prophet, talking about ghosts—and of course, me. He harassed people, the women brokers in particular. It was…” He shudders. “Awful.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was all over. I took one suitcase and left everything else behind, except the samovar, and drove until I was nearly out of gas. I stopped here. I liked the town. I heard about you and your grandmother. I thought maybe you had the same problem I did.” Here, he shrugs. “It made sense to stay.”
I guess it would. “I kind of hated you when you first showed up.”
Malcolm tips his head back and laughs—the first light sound I’ve heard from him since yesterday. “I know,” he says once he’s caught his breath.
“Do you want to swallow ghosts now? Is it like being an alcoholic?”
He shakes his head, his smile still there, although his eyes grow somber. “No, fortunately. I don’t think I could function when we go out on calls if I did.”
I wonder how true this is, but don’t contradict him. “What happens to the ghosts once your brother swallows them? Do you know?”
“He says they give him strength, but I don’t know if they’re there inside, if they disappear or dissolve.” He shrugs, palms skyward. “Maybe they become part of him.”
At his words, one horrible thought strikes me. “My grandmother!”
“What?”
“She’s ...” I choke back the words.
I’ve never told Malcolm my secret, that my grandmother’s ghost haunts me. Or rather, she has a series of haunts, and when our bank balance dips to a certain level, she kicks up a ruckus—and we get a call and some much-needed cash.
“My grandmother is a ghost,” I admit, at last. There. Now we’ve both confessed. I want to sink into the cushions, but the expression on Malcolm’s face won’t let me.
“How can you know? You’ve said yourself that most ghosts lose their human personality.”
“Most do, or they cling to one aspect of it. In life, the thing my grandmother wanted most was to take care of me. So in her afterlife?”
“She’s still taking care of you—or us.” This time, his laugh is soft. “Last month’s ghost in the bank vault?”
I nod.
“I suppose she’s the one who shows up in the law offices as well.”
“That too.”
“What about Sadie?”
Sadie Lancaster is my next-door neighbor, one who believes herself continually plagued by ghosts. “No, Sadie just has a low tolerance for sprites. But that isn’t my point.”
Malcolm raises an eyebrow.
“What if your brother finds my grandmother and swallows her?”
- Writer
