Ghost of O'Leary House

Chapter Twelve

 Grandma’s chubby fingers pressed tightly around David’s arm as she dragged him away from the four-poster bed, her voice rising as quiet murmurings echoed from within the sealed furniture.

“What did I tell you about coming up here?” Grandma shouted, spinning David around. She was wearing a fuzzy pink robe with equally fuzzy slippers, her hair in rollers and her face layered with a cream that made her appear as pale as a ghost. For a second David thought that the old woman had grabbed him, pulling him away; but it was a split-second mistake, as his grandmother was too short to be the old woman, her hands too small.

“What’s behind those curtains?” David asked, looking over at them as they seemed to breathe in, fluttering in some nonexistent wind.

“Nothing,” Grandma said, pulling David out of the room. “Now get downstairs and go to sleep, I don’t need to worry about you wandering around the house throughout the night.”

“I was just exploring!” David said, struggling to get out of his Grandmother’s grip.

“And I thought I made it clear that there would be no coming upstairs while you stayed here,” Grandma said, frog marching him out of the room, closing the door behind her. “If it hadn’t been for Oliver, I wouldn’t have realized you were out of your room!”

“Oliver? The cat?” David asked, sounding surprised.

“Oliver was meowing outside my door scared out of his mind; he doesn’t like the noises that come from people walking upstairs,” Grandma said, pushing David towards the stairs. “Now you go to bed while I make sure you didn’t make a mess with anything up here.”

“But I only went in that one room,” David said, looking back at his Grandmother.

“I won’t hear it! Now downstairs!” Grandma said, pointing a stubby finger.

David slowly padded down the stairs, looking back at his grandmother as she stood at the landing, watching him. Moving past the widened path between the boxes and crates, David moved around the banister and walked towards the hall. As he passed through the den, he spied a pair of glowing eyes from atop a bookshelf; Oliver was watching him, crouched low with what looked like a sinister smile on his face.

“Stupid cat…” David muttered, turning to move into the kitchen. Stopping at the counter to steal a few cookies, David looked out of the kitchen window towards the garden, the sun lamps turned off now that nobody was out there.

Except someone was out there.

Looking out the window, David squinted his eyes as he stared into the moonlit darkness. There! There it was again, someone moving through the garden. Walking to the back door, David opened it up and flicked on the switch to turn on the sun lamps. The entire garden erupted in brilliant light, revealing three figures standing between the aisles of flowering plants. One of them had a small bush in his hands, another Witch-Hazel bush.

“David?” One of them asked, sounding surprised.

 “Jesse! Get out of here!” David whispered, waving his arm to order the boys away. “You as well Luke, Bryan!”

The two lanky boys looked at David with matching sneers, appearing to be complete carbon copies in the glaring light. “So, what, you’re helping the witch now, eh?”

“Thought we warned you about her,” Bryan agreed.

“Guys! We need to be quiet!” Jesse said, motioning towards the house. “We could wake her up any minute.”

“She’s already awake, looking… looking over something,” David said quietly, trying to urge the boys to leave. “I just cleaned the garden for her, so get that thing out of here!”

Jesse looked down at the Witch-Hazel bush quietly before looking at David. “You cleared them out? Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not. She’s allergic to them guys, I think seriously allergic. I don’t want you planting anything in her garden anymore.” David said, stepping forward, growling.

Bryan and Luke moved forward, their fists clenched at their sides. “You telling us what to do?” Bryan asked his voice dangerously low.

David looked at the gathered teens, shaking his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.”

Bryan moved forward first, darting in close enough to take a swing at David. David, surprised by the movement, stepped back, narrowly dodging the punch. He gathered his footing and snapped his leg up, kicking Bryan in the groin, hard. Bryan let out a pained grunt and stumbled back into his brother’s hands. Jesse dropped the plant and moved forward to help Bryan, who was crying out in pain, when they all heard it.

The low yowl of a cat, as well as the rhythmic and steady clapping of hands.

Turning to look what it was, David was greeted with the sight of his grandmother in her robes, standing on the porch clapping her hands, Oliver at her side growling at the boys. She had a smug look on her face, one that even frightened David a bit. The other boys seemed petrified by her presence.

“So, you were the rascals planting those bushes in my garden?” She said, her voice sweet, yet holding an underlying threat in her voice. “Looks like my grandson caught you.”

Bryan moaned out plaintively while Luke held him up. Jesse’s eyes darted back and forth, like a rat looking for a hole to run to. Sadly, there was no means of easy escape. The fences around the garden were tall, tall enough that the boys must have spent some time climbing them. How they managed to scale them with a bush, David had no idea.

Before his Grandmother could continue, Bryan launched himself forward on unsteady legs, delivering a hard-right hook to David’s face, his nose popping as the blow caught him by surprise. David fell to the ground with a thud with Bryan falling next to him, still clutching his groin. David held a hand up to his face, blood spurting from his nostrils, his eyes seeing stars as he tried to find his way up to his feet. Luke moved forward as if he were going to try and help his brother, but David’s Grandmother shouted out.

“No!” She shouted, her voice making the three intruding teens freeze in place, eyes locked on her. “You three will wait here like good children. I’ve already phoned the police, who’ll be here any minute. I know who each of you are. Luke and Bryan Talbot, Jesse Martinez! You three ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

“T-The police? You called the cops?” Jesse stammered, backing away slowly.

“Yes, I did, and if you run now, they’ll just be waiting at your house when you show up. Now take that disgusting plant and throw it in the trash can at the side of the garden,” Grandma said, stepping out into the garden, bustling over to David. “Hold your head up, that’ll staunch the bleeding. Go inside and change clothes.”

David nodded and headed inside, holding his nose up as he allowed the blood to well up in his hand and on his forearm. Moving through the kitchen and down the hall he opened the door to his room and moved over to the cabinets where his nightshirts were kept. Pulling off his blood-stained sweater, he held it up to his nose as he sat on his bed. Heaving a sigh, he reached beneath the mattress with his clean hand and pulled the book out, deciding to try and figure out anything he could about the strange book while his grandmother was busy.

Opening the cover, he stared at the blank page before flipping to the next. Gasping as he saw the photos sliding out of their place behind the covers leather pocket, David reflexively reached down to grab the book to steady it. His blood-soaked hand smeared across the page, causing him to nearly reel in terror. What if his Grandmother needed the book for some reason and found it stained with his blood?

But before he could find a reason to panic, he watched in growing horror as the blood slithered across the parchment before sinking in, like water to a dry sponge. Then, slowly, a sentence rose from the parchment, written in a stylistic cursive.

To whom am I speaking now? The book wrote.

David just stared at it, listening to the blaring sirens of the cop cars coming from the driveway as they pulled up. He didn’t even flinch when he heard his grandmother call the police to enter, that she was in the backyard. All he could do was stare at the red lettering that seemed to slowly be seeping back into the page.