Ghost of O'Leary House

Chapter Nine

“The aspirin?” Grandma asked as David rounded the corner into the kitchen.

“The aspirin? Oh yeah, right!” David said, pulling the bottle from his pocket, walking over to her, and setting it down.

Watching as she pulled her arms from the water, David shivered at the sight of her puffy digits, like overstuffed sausages splitting free from their skins, as they gripped the bottle and gently popped the top off. She shook out three tablets and downed tossed them back into her throat, swallowing them dry. She then set the bottle aside and started scrubbing at her arms again.

The long-handled brush she was using left long red marks on her splotchy arms, as if the bristles were scratching her deeply, though no blood seemed to come about. The soapy water was grimy from the dirt she’d had on her hands and arms from gardening.

She looked over at David and, with a smile, spoke to him. “Could you be a dear and go into the cabinet over the refrigerator and fetch me a green bottle? It should be about half full.”

“Above the fridge?” David repeated, looking up to see if there was a cabinet. Faded into the woodworks with wooden hinges, there was indeed a small, almost hidden, cabinet.

“Should be in the front,” Grandma said, “the medicine in the green bottle will help me a great deal now that I, well, it just will.”

David looked at his grandmother suspiciously but did as she asked. Walking over to the fridge, he reached up and opened the cabinet, straining to grab a long-necked bottle full of viscous green fluid.  He noted that there were dozens of bottles of various shapes and sizes. It sloshed about as he pulled it down, bubbling as he walked over to his grandmother, pulling out the cork.

“Careful now,” Grandma said, looking over her shoulder.

David liked to think she meant that for him, but he felt that she was telling him to be careful with the bottle.

David’s grandmother looked at him sharply, and a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes found its way onto her face. “Thank you, David. Just put the bottle down next to the sink and put up the chair.”

“Okay, Grandma,” David said, following her instructions despite his misgivings about what she could possibly want from the bottle for her arms. She looked like she needed to see a doctor or something, not have an herbal soak!

She reached out of the water with one lumpy arm and gripped the top of the bottle with a meaty paw. David could hear the hiss sizzling from the fluid as it bubbled up from this action and only watched as his Grandmother gripped the bottle and upended it over into the sink, spilling the contents into the grimy water within. Taking the brush, she began awkwardly scrubbing her submerged arm as the water slowly turned a slight green. She looked at David, mid-brush.

“Thank you, David, that’ll be all. Go back to your room and study.” She said, her voice low and even.

David nodded slowly and moved to grab three more cookies before leaving, earning a smile from his grandmother as he walked away. In the hall, David chewed on one of the cookies while walking back to his room. Why was there a hidden cabinet above the refrigerator? What were all those bottles? David chewed in silence as he walked into his room, shoeing the door closed before dropping to the floor.

Cramming the remainder of a cookie in his mouth, he set the other two on his bed as he pulled out the mysterious book. Sitting with his back to his bed, feet sprawled out in front of him, David turned the pages one by one, looking for any writing or pictures that he might have missed. Idly chewing on a cookie, he reached the end of the book and tried again from the front, where he noticed the cover was loose. Running his fingers beneath the loose area, he felt stiff papers beneath.

As quickly as he could, he nudged the papers out, revealing them to be pictures, a wide assortment of pictures.

Of children.

Some were dated, with years nineteen seventy-three to nineteen eighty-nine written on the backs of them in a scrawling script. Others were more modern, smooth, and obviously done with a poor-quality camera. These photos were of babies, all resting in their bassinets. These photos had names on the back of them. David searched through them all and, to his relief, didn’t find a picture bearing his name. He did find Jesse and Susan, and a dual picture of Luke and Bryan… along with a myriad of other kids that he was sure was from town. 

“Why would Grandma have photos of kids from town?” David asked himself aloud, flipping through the photos. “This is beyond creepy.”

“David!” Grandma called from the kitchen, causing David to jump, dropping the stack of photos to the floor.

“Y-yes?” David called out, scrambling to gather the scattered photos from the ground, before shoving them back into the book. Footsteps echoed out in the hall, growing closer by the second.

David shoved the book under his bed the second the door opened, revealing his Grandmother, her arms a sunburned red but back to their normal size. David stared at her slack jawed for a moment before pushing himself to his feet.

Grandma narrowed her eyes. “What were you doing on the floor?”

“Nothing! Just… relaxing. Yeah, kicking back and laying out, y’know?” David replied, praying she couldn’t see through his painfully transparent lie.

She merely sniffed once before her face broke into a small smile. “Do you think you could help me with my garden tonight? I’d really prefer to get those herbs out as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” David said, rushing towards the door to his room, moving past his grandmother. “Just point me at the nasty weeds that did this to you, and I’ll pull ‘em.”

David almost didn’t notice the mad glint in his grandmother’s eye as he said this. Part of him wish he’d missed it.