Anni and the Ghost

Anni and the Ghost


As soon as Maya woke up that morning, her mind started filling up with the million things she had to do that day. First she poked her husband into a state of half-wakefulness, skipped her morning stretches (waste of time) and darted into the shower. She made a mental list of tasks she had to do while she shampooed her hair: put sheets on the guest bed, give the house one final vacuum. She made a grocery list as put on mascara. Her fingers itched to hold a pen. She went back into her bedroom, poked again at Bill until he made some kind of noise, and whipped on her clothes. Had to be careful not to poke him too much. It caused him to fart. Her mind racing, always two or three steps ahead of her body, she was already drinking her coffee in her head as she raced down the stairs and entered the livingroom.

What she saw there blew every other thought clean out of her brain.

The vase was suspended in midair. Next to it was her heavy glass ashtray and two empty wine glasses from last night, and a small glass statuette of a naked woman. Her husband Bill won that by guessing how many jellybeans had been in a jar one year at a company Christmas party. All of this was dangling over the coffee table, no strings anywhere to be seen. Maya squeezed her eyes shut and re-opened them, but it was all still there: the vase, the ashtray, the glasses and the lady with a better body than hers, all a good two feet above from the places where they should have had the decency to be.

“Oh great, like I really need this today!” she cried out.




Bill sat down at the table and Maya brought him a cup of coffee. “Our poltergeist is back.”

Bill put down the newspaper. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. I came down this morning to floating things all over the livingroom.”

“But your mother will be here tonight!”

“I know that.” Maya rested her head in her hands.

“What are you going to do?”

“Tell her, I suppose. I can’t not tell her. If I don’t, and something happens, she could have a heart attack.” She pounded her fists on the table. “I wish I hadn’t invited her.”

“It’s too late for that. Let’s think about this logically. When was the last time this happened?”

“Six months ago.”

“And how long did it last?”

“A couple days.”

“And it always follows this pattern?”

“More or less,” Maya answered, trying not to think of the time two Christmases ago when it had haunted them for a full week.

“Well, then, you’ll have to tell her. I can’t think of anyway around it.”

“But she’ll think I’m crazy!”

“Don’t worry.” Bill stood up to leave and kissed her on the temple. “She already thinks you’re crazy.”


Maya went about her daily chores as if nothing had happened. A little wine had been left in one of the glasses, and their poltergeist had spilled it on the white rug. “Couldn’t you have been more careful?” Maya asked as she scrubbed the rug. Just then the doorbell rang. Maya heaved herself up to answer it, but there was no one there. “Is that your way of saying you’re sorry? Because if it is, it’s not good enough. Listen,” she said, trying to direct her voice to everywhere in the apartment at once. “My Mom is coming in from Florida today. She’ll only be staying this weekend. Couldn’t you, like, come back next weekend? Then you can stay as long as you like. And if you won’t, or can’t, leave, can you at least promise not to do anything too scary? My Mom is older than me, you know. I don’t know if she can handle your little tricks.” There was no answer, not even a ringing doorbell. Maya picked up her purse and left for the airport.


Her mother was the second to last one off the plane. She was limping theatrically, and Maya wondered if she would have to ask for a wheelchair. But her mother’s back miraculously straightened when she caught sight of her only chick.

“Maya, darling!” Maya was smothered in a hug.

“Hi Mom. Glad you could make it. How was your flight? And what is that thing on your head?”

Anni Roberge patted her mint green cap. “It’s called a turbanette. All of the hoity-toity ladies in Florida wear them.” Maya tried to look away from the offending turbanette, but found she couldn’t look at her mother’s dress for too long either without hurting her eyes. They walked down the hallway arm in arm to the suitcase collection point. Her mother was talking too loudly about her bridge successes. Other travellers gawked at her. Maya tried to blend in with the wall.

As soon as they were nestled in Maya’s Ford Fiesta, she broached the subject. “Mom, we have to talk.”

“Oh dear. Are you and Bill having problems? My friend Connie’s daughter is going through a divorce. It’s horrible. She—“

“No, Mom. It’s nothing like that.”

“Are you having trouble getting pregnant? Because my friend—“

“No Mom! It’s not that either. It’s about our apartment.”

Anni could not even guess what might be wrong with an apartment. “What about it?”

“We have, um, we have what you might call an infestation.”

“Bugs? My friend Elsie has a problem with cockroaches. Nasty, terrible things. She doesn’t invite the girls over to play bridge anymore since one appeared in the cocktail mix. And last year I had a problem with red ants. Florida bugs. Just terrible.”

“Mom! It’s not bugs! It’s, um, well—„

"Not bugs? Mice, then? Spiders?“

"No. It’s a ghost, Mom. We have a ghost in our apartment.”

They were stopped at a red light. Silence from the passenger seat. Maya sneaked a glance over at her mother to make sure she was still breathing. Anni was looking back at her as if she were a new brand of laundry detergent that promised to do the ironing for you. Her mother did a lot of talking, but she was no fool.

The light changed. Maya shifted into first. “Now, he’s harmless. At least I think it’s a he. It could also be a she. Usually we just call it 'it'. It does things like move stuff around and open cabinets. Sometimes it picks things up though. That can be quite frightening if you’re not used to it.”

“Have you talked to Bill about this?” Anni’s voice was a flat line.

“Oh, he knows. Listen, I know how I must sound. But I felt that you had a right to know.”

“Ghosts—“ Maya could her mother shuffling through her mental file cabinet of friends to see if anyone had any supernatural experience, but the ghost file came up empty. The shuffling continued. She’s looking for the file on insanity, Maya thought, and had to bite back a laugh.

The subject changed with a snap. “So, how’s your job going? I think it’s great that you have a career, but what about children? You know, Rosie’s son just had his third. I think I have the right to know when I’m going to enter grandma-hood—“ she prattled on.

Maya didn’t even bother to answer.



When they reached the apartment, Anni was still talking. Maya looked nervously around the room for any sign of activity. She was sure the ashtray had been moved just a fraction, but otherwise everything was completely normal. She opened the blinds.

“What a lovely view you have! If I didn’t love Florida so much, I would move right in with you.”

Maya prayed silently that Florida would never fall into the ocean. “You can take your things back to your room and freshen up before dinner if you want. I’m going to get a head start on cooking.”

Maya was cutting the carrots when she heard her mother call her name with a touch of alarm in her voice. Maya dropped everything and raced out of the kitchen, knocking all the chopped carrots to the floor.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Her mother was standing naked, wrapped in a towel. Her blue hair had turned a shade of midnight with the dampness. She was pointing at the bed. The reading lamp was in the center of the rose comforter, and it was on.

“You shouldn’t do things like that, Maya. It’s a fire hazard.”

Maya quickly replaced the lamp and flicked it off. “I didn’t do it.”

“Well, then, who did?”

“It must have been the ghost.”

“Ghost schmost! Maya Elizabeth, this is your mother you are talking to! You can’t just do things and blame some mysterious ghost for them!”

Maya sighed. It was going to be a long weekend.


Bill came home promptly at five, a bit earlier than he had said he would, and Maya blessed him for that. “Where’s your Mom?” he asked, loosening his tie and kissing her cheek.

“She’s hiding out in the guest room.” Maya said. She dumped the carrots into a pot. She’s mad at me.”

“You’ve made her mad already? She hasn’t even been here two hours!”

“She thinks I’m trying to kill her.” Maya recounted the lamp incident as she stirred the carrots.

“But you told her about the poltergeist?”

“She doesn’t believe me.”

Bill rubbed his forehead. “I’ll bring it up at dinner. Maybe she’ll believe you when I back you up.”

“You’re an angel.“ Maya kissed him. He smiled at her and went upstairs to change.

“Mom! Dinner’s ready!”

Anni came into the dining room, turbanette in place, and took her seat making various huffing and sniffing noises. “How do I know it’s not poisoned?”

“Mom!”

Bill came back into the dining room at that point.

“Bill, tell her!”

“Anni,” he said. His voice was like a fur rug over a bed of nails. “It’s true. There is some kind of spirit haunting this house.”

“Why, you’re as batty as she is!”

Bill shrugged. He had no argument against that. Instead he helped himself to the mashed potatoes. “These are delicious,” he said to Maya.

As Anni fell into her silent reproach, wondering how soon she could get to the phone to call the men in white coats, the gravy moved a fraction of an inch.

“There, Mother!” Maya exclaimed. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“The gravy, it’s moving!”

Sure enough, the gravy moved another inch in Anni’s direction. She stared at it, mouth open, eyes wide. “Are we having an earthquake?”

“No earthquake, Mom. It’s our ghost.” Suddenly the gravy lifted two feet off the table, floated over to Anni, and dumped out all over the turbanette. The pitcher clonked her on the head and fell to the floor. Maya and Bill sputtered laughter.

“Well, now. It’s seems you do have an infestation.” Anni’s faded blue eyes stared out from her gravy-covered face. She began wiping herself off with a napkin. “Steps will have to be taken.”



The next morning Anni wanted Maya to take her to the library.

“Pick me up in two hours,” she said, getting out of the Fiesta.

“Don’t you want me to go with you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Her mother smiled, and Maya felt bad about laughing after the gravy incident.

Two hours later, she collected her mother. Anni had an armful of photocopies and a new list of requests. Maya took her to stores with names like ‘The Magic Kettle’ and ‘The Wiccan Discount Supply Store’. She waited in the car while her mother rushed in and made some purchases.

When she was finished and they were on their way home, Maya finally asked what her mother was up to, although by now she had a good idea.

“We need to have a séance and contact the unruly spirit that haunts your home. Maybe then we can find out more about it.”

“Can’t we just call ‘Ghostbusters’?”

“That was a movie, dear. Don’t you want to get your life back to normal?”

Maya shrugged and swung into a rare find of a parking place. “I don’t know. I’m sort of used to it. And this is the first time it has ever done anything really dangerous.”

“The first and the last,” Anni said, and spent the rest of the day in closed quarters. Maya tried to ignore the strange odors that slipped under the guest room door. She set about making dinner. At least her mother was happy, she thought, and not bringing up the ‘grandchild’ question constantly.

Bill arrived home from work, a bit later than he could have. “What’s that horrible smell?” he asked.

“Don’t worry. We’re not eating it. It’s something Mom is concocting in her room. She wants to hold a séance tonight to contact our poltergeist.”

After dinner, the table was cleared in silence. Maya dreaded what was to follow. Anni brought her potion from her room and started laying candles out with great ceremony. Bill wrinkled his nose. “What is that?”

“Herbs I have mixed to open a channel with the spirit world.”

“One whiff of that and the spirit will fly away and never come back.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad.” Maya sighed. “But I can’t keep that potion in the apartment all the time. The neighbors will think we’re keeping a body in here.”

“One man’s sewer water is another man’s, or ghost’s, tofu crumpets,” Anni said.

“Whatever that means,” Bill agreed.

“All right.” Anni spread out the Ouija board. “We have to sit in a triangular pattern.” She took the Ouija finder and held it over the candle so that the glass finder filled with smoke. Then she placed it on the board. “Everyone lay their hands on the finder.”

Maya and Bill exchanged looks, but did as they were asked. Anni closed her eyes and made ‘ohmmmmm’-ing sounds.

“Isn’t that the noise you make for mediation, not for summoning spirits?” Maya asked.

“Now our ghost will never come,” Bill commented.

“Hush!” Anni opened her eyes. “I feel it is close. Spirit! Tell us your name.”

The finder started to move under their thirty fingertips.

“Are you doing that?” Bill whispered to Maya.

“Don’t look at me.”

F-O-G

“Yes, I know,” Anni whispered. “You come through a great fog.”
“It’s not finished,” Bill said.

H-O-R-N

“A foghorn?” Maya asked.

“Maybe he’s the old caretaker of a great lighthouse,” Anni suggested.

“It’s still not finished,” Bill said.

L-E-G

“Yes!” Anni exclaimed. “He knows my leg has been troubling me! With these horrible varicose veins—“

“It’s still not finished.”

H-O-R-N

“Foghorn Leghorn?” Anni asked.

“Of course!” Maya laughed. “Foghorn Leghorn is that cartoon chicken!”

“Rooster,” Bill said.

“Seems we have a practical joker on our hands,” Anni muttered. “All right Foogy—“

“Foggy,” Bill said.

“All right, then. Foggy! Why are you here?”

The finder didn’t move.

“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Maya said.

“I think that question is too complex,” Bill said. “Why don’t we try some ‘yes’ or ‘no’ ones?”

“O.K. Foggy, are you a chicken?” Maya asked.

“Rooster,” Bill said.

The finder slid over to ‘no’.

“Are you a lost and lonely spirit, trapped forever in the dimension between the living and the dead?” Anni asked.

“That’s too complicated,” Bill said.

“What’s your problem?” Anni asked. “He can answer yes or no.”

The finder slid over to ‘no’.

“So he’s not lost, or lonely, or trapped forever?” Maya asked.

“He’s a cartoon chicken!” Bill said.

“Rooster,” Maya said. “And you still haven’t answered my mother’s question: why are you here?”

H-O-M-E.

“The poor dear,” Anni said. “He thinks this is his home. Spirit!” She raised her arms as if to embrace the whole room. “This is not your home! This is only a way station for you. You must move on.”

W-H-E-R-E.

“He wants to know where he should go, Mother. I assume you know what you’re talking about.”

“You're my child. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Don’t make me answer that.”

“Well, I think I know where he has to go,” Bill said. “Foghorn Leghorn, go into the light!”

“Of course!” Anni beamed at her son-in-law. “That’s what all ghosts have to do. Spirit, you must go into the light! Don’t be afraid!”

Silence. The table trembled slightly, and then stopped. They all looked around the room. “Do you think—“ Maya started, but she was cut off when the light bulb above her head exploded.

“Incoming! Take cover!” Bill cried, and ducked under the table.

“You’ve seen way too many movies,” Maya said. “I think it was an isolated incident of friendly fire.”

“Let’s see if Foggy’s still with us. Bill, get up here and put your hands on the finder.”
Bill sheepishly re-took his place at the table.

“I think our spirit went into the wrong light,” Maya said.

“Spirit!” Anni called. “Are you still with us? Are you all right?”

The finder slid over to ‘yes’.

“Hmmm.” Anni said. “This is a much harder case than I thought.” She turned to Maya and Bill. “I’m going to have to move in with you until I can figure out how to help Foggy find his way home.”

“Move in with us!” Maya and Bill exchanged looks.

“My bridge ladies will just have to do without me.”

The finder started to move again.

“Look! Foggy wants to say something.”

N-O-T N-E-C-E-S-S-A-R-Y. H-A-V-E D-E-C-I-D-E-D T-O M-O-V-E. T-O-O C-H-A-O-T-I-C A-R-O-U-N-D H-E-R-E.

Bill laughed. “He’s certainly right about that.”

A-L-S-O T-O-O S-M-E-L-L-Y. Then the finder slid over to ‘Good Bye’.

“Mom! You did it!” Maya hugged her mother. “You drove our ghost away!”

“But I was just starting to have fun!” Anni protested.


Word count: 2,972