Voices

Words: 1149

She had no siblings and had never married, so when both her parents died (seventeen years apart) she chose to live by herself. The simple truth was she just could not abide sharing space with anyone but her dear Papa, and he had gone beyond any physical space that she could now share.

Oh, she got along well enough with people. She had her poetry group and her postal group and family members in the same city whom she dropped in on for a meal now and then. It was just her own house she was territorial about.

Sometimes, though, the silence got to her. It was strange, she thought. Silence had never disturbed her before. Childhood on, she had always reveled in it. But now with her sixtieth birthday looming and her eyesight weakening, silence sometimes bred thoughts that were not welcome.

She had to fill the silence with voices. Mechanical voices coming out of the computer weren't fulfilling. She needed real voices, but voices that didn't invade into her space.

So when the owners of the house across the lake advertised 'property for sale cheap', she was naturally interested.

It was going cheap because it was said to be haunted and nobody wanted it. Its 'haunting' was its very attraction for her. Ghostly presences are present without taking up space or needing to use the washing machine.

It was so cheap that she could afford the down payment and a couple of easy installments, and the papers were in her name and the key handed over to her. She hadn't given up her existing place, and it amused her that she was now the owner of two houses.

Carrying the minimum stuff in a small night-case, a loaf of bread, a pat of butter and some coffee powder, she went to spent her first night there.

There was complete silence when she got into bed at 9 PM, and it continued till she had switched off her bedside lamp at 10.30 after reading a chapter or two.

The first creak came at 11 PM.

"Who is there?" she called, awake at once.

Creak.

"I can hear you, are you on the stairs? I'd like to make friends. If you're a ghost, that's what I came here for."

Creak. Grunt.

"There is someone there!"

She got out of bed and flung a dressing gown over her nightie. Grabbing her mobile and turning the flashlight mode on, she ran to the bedroom door, unlocked it and flung it open.

Silence.

"Are you there? Who are you?"

Silence.

"Listen, I'm really not scared. I came here for the ghosts. Can we be friends?"

Silence.

She stood there, calling out at intervals, till the clock chimed midnight. She went back to bed, not bothering to close or lock the bedroom door. She slept soundly till morning.

*********

"That's funny, I didn't order any newspaper to be delivered here," she muttered to herself. She'd been standing in the doorway, enjoying the sunrise over the lake, when a newspaper had thwacked her on the shoulder, and looking up quickly, she had seen no newspaper boy hurrying away. In fact she saw no one at all, and yet there was the paper she hadn't subscribed to.

She put the coffee on and bunged some bread in the ancient toaster the old owners had left behind. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and unfolded the paper.

Her own face stared out at her — a black and white photo of herself, taken maybe five years previously. The headline screamed, "Brave woman spends night alone in haunted house." It went on to describe how she had been woken by creaks and grunts which had ceased at midnight, how the paper had appeared out of nowhere and how she was now reading it while waiting for coffee to brew and toast to burn.

The toast was, indeed burning. She jabbed at the switch, put on her gloves and managed to grab the coffee pot and prevent spillage all over the clean granite surface. She took off the gloves, scraped the completely black bits off the toast, buttered what was left and sat down to eat.

There had to be a logical explanation.

"I wanted voices, not weird stuff happening in silence," she muttered, picking the paper up to finish reading the bit about herself. The concluding words quoted what she had just muttered, verbatim.

She washed up the breakfast things and went to shower. She emerged from the bathroom clad in jeans and T-shirt. Her face had a determined look. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

But first, she had to watch 'Home Alone' carefully ...

*********

She went to bed that night feeling almost-smug. All the booby traps were in place. She was going to catch those who were pranking her.

At 11 PM she heard it. The creak. She sat up in bed and listened. Another creak. She held her breath - and heard what she expected. A muffled thud. The booby trap had worked!

Jubilantly, she went to her bedroom door, flung it open and switched the staircase light on.

"YOU!"

The young man sprawled across the middle three stairs was no stranger. He was, in fact, the son of the owner of the house and had been there when the contract had been signed.

"Yes, me," he acknowledged, grudgingly. "Now will you get these dratted things off me? What are they anyway?"

"Never mind what they are, and I'm not going to untangle you till you explain yourself."

"I didn't want Dad to sell the house."

"So you scared people off so he would sell the house?"

"He was considering it. I didn't want him to."

"But that's silly. He would've bought a nicer one for you to live in."

"I don't want a nicer one. I like this one. I've grown up here and rigged up many tricks. How'd you like the newspaper?"

"How did you do the newspaper thing?"

"Long story. Untangle me and I'll tell you."

"But why?"

"Did you rig all this up watching 'Home Alone'?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll understand. I wanted to make it the site of a reality TV show. Only needed some funds to get it going - advertise, audition, set up and so on. And Dad thought it was a weird idea and wasn't going to help. Now please untangle me so I can tell you the rest."

She helped him get untangled. Then she helped him navigate a booby-trap-free way to the kitchen, where she fixed a couple of cheese sandwiches and some cocoa.

"I bought this place because I was lonely," she confessed.

He grinned. "You won't be, if you have a TV crew and contestants around ... we could start small, if you're in it with me."

"Hmmmm. I bought this house because I wanted voices. You'll let me plan the voices?"

"Done!"