Roommates -- Part Seven

"So...what are we doing?"

"I don't know." Cassie pushed open the door to her apartment. Or, well, what used to be her apartment. She somehow didn't think of it as hers anymore. She didn't really like that. "I just want to spend some time here in the daylight. Trying to figure out what I can do about this...thing."

"Right. I'll make coffee then, shall I?" Gilhen headed for the kitchen.

"Tea would be better, I think. There's some in the cupboard." Cassie went into her bedroom and dropped her overnight bag on the bed. She'd stayed at Gilhen's for the past two nights. She couldn't do it any longer. Not just because she needed to be in her own place, either. Gilhen's roommates had started to think they were an item, which she couldn't stand, and also couldn't say anything about -- why else, after all, would somebody with an apartment of her own be staying there? Plus, there was really no place to sleep. Gilhen had offered her his bed the first night and taken the couch, but the bed was uncomfortable, and only slightly better than the alternatives, being pretty much an old mattress on a broken frame, held up by milk crates.

Still, the idea of staying in her own apartment made her stomach tighten in anxiety.

How am I ever going to stay here again?

Despite her misgivings, she was beginning to wonder if the ghost touching her hadn't been her imagination, if she really had felt it after all. It had all happened so suddenly.

Or is it just that I want that to be true?
But it's not a real person. It can't have touched me.
Can it?

She emptied the clothes from her overnight bag into the overflowing hamper.

I really need to do the laundry at some point.
Yes. Doing laundry. Good idea.

Giving herself something to do while she was there would make her feel more comfortable, get her mind off of what might be standing behind her.

"If anything seems to be happening," she had told Gilhen before they came in, "if I seem like I can't get away from something, if I'm screaming, if anything, I want you to get me out of the apartment. No questions asked, no waiting to see what will happen. Just throw me over your shoulder and get me out. Got it?"

Gilhen had nodded. They had discussed what might have happened at some length when she'd showed up at his place. Actually, his roommates were around, so they'd gone out for coffee again and sat in a quiet corner well away from the other tables and talked in low voices. They hadn't really come to any conclusions. Not that you really could with something like this. Gilhen was quite concerned about the new development in Cassie's ability -- if it could actually be called an “ability” and not, as Cassie suggested, "the creepy-ass shit that happens to me." He was also worried that the ghost acted as if it both wanted to leave and didn't.

He brought up the idea of an exorcism again and she'd grudgingly asked him what was involved. He'd been a little vague on the details, muttering things about "candles" and "incense" and "energy work". He'd also said he might want to ask a friend or two for help, at which point she'd shut the conversation down. He wasn't allowed to tell anyone about this. No one.

There was a clatter of things falling from the kitchen and the sound of Gilhen cursing loudly. Cassie hurried out to see what had happened, hoping that the ghost hadn't developed into a poltergeist while she'd been gone. Heck, if it could touch her---

"Are you all right?" she found herself yelling as she went. She hated the panicky tone in her voice.

Pots and pans and lids were strewn across the floor, among the shards of what looked like a ceramic tray. Gilhen was looking at the mess with dismay.

"Yeah I'm fine," he said, glancing up and then back down at the havoc at his feet. " I'm sorry. I was looking for mugs and I just opened the door and everything slid out." Cassie sighed.

"It's okay," she said. "That's one of the cupboards Nanna left full of stuff. I should've cleaned it out. I didn't realize it was so...precarious. Are you okay?" Gilhen was holding his arm and wincing.

"I'm fine. It was just a glancing blow. One of the pot lids caught me, I think." He looked around at the floor. "Do you think you could get my shoes? I don't want to walk on any shards."

"Yeah. Sure." Cassie dashed back to the entryway and came back carrying Gilhen's shoes. Then she went to the laundry closet, where she hoped she'd find a vacuum to clean up the mess, or at least a broom. Her grandmother had left her older appliances when she'd moved to the new apartment, but Cassie wasn't sure exactly what she still had.

There was a broom, and a mop. And behind it, back in the corner, a vacuum that looked like it had seen better days. The hose was duct-taped to the nozzle, and the cord looked like it had been sucked into the vacuum in places, but it wasn't exactly frayed, and when she plugged it in, it worked, which was really the most important thing.

Once the shards were safely out of the way and the pots piled on the counter, Cassie and Gilhen sat down at the kitchen table with their tea. They didn't talk. Gilhen seemed about to say something on two or three occasions, but didn't. Cassie glared at the still-open cupboard door.

"I'm going to clean out those stupid cupboards," she told Gilhen. "It'll give me something to do. Do you mind helping?"

"As long as you remember that I have to be at work for three, I don't care what we do."

Cassie pulled out one of the boxes she had folded up from her move, and started sorting. Actually, it wasn't so much sorting as it was moving all of the junk out of the cupboards, examining it, laughing at how old, or broken, or ugly it was, and then tossing it into the box. The job went fairly quickly. Then Cassie and Gilhen sat at the table and stared at one another some more, until Cassie heard the washing machine finish its cycle and went to toss the clothes into the dryer.

"I need to keep doing things," she told Gilhen when she came back. "I don't think nearly as much when I'm busy."

"If you're still in sorting mode, there's all that stuff I saw in the closet that looked like old junk."

"What stuff?" Cassie raised an eyebrow.

"The boxes in the closet. In your bedroom. There were old suitcases and cardboard boxes and stuff. Did you not see them there?" Cassie shook her head. "I'll show you," he said, and got up. She followed him.

The boxes were on an upper shelf in the back half of the closet. Cassie had to go get a chair to get them down.

"Careful," she told Gilhen as she passed the first box to him. "The bottom on this one isn't sturdy." The next two boxes were heavy suitcases, so Gil took them down for her.

"These look old," he remarked. "Vintage, almost."

"Yeah, except they're falling apart." They might have been lovely leather suitcases once, but they were old now and the material was cracked and flaking. "I wonder if that's why Nanna left them here."

"Maybe she forgot about them," Gil said. He was inspecting the contents of the cardboard box. It was full of china, carefully wrapped in old newspaper. Unlike what they'd found in the kitchen cupboards, it was all in good condition.

"I think I'd better leave these for Nanna," Cassie said. "I'll ask her about them next time I'm over there. What's in the suitcases?"

They proved to be full of old clothes, mostly women's dresses. Cassie pulled one out for a closer look, and stopped. "Gilhen --"

"What?" He was examining a particularly odd piece of china, trying to figure out what its purpose could have been, and didn't look up.

"This is her dress."

"Which dress?" This time he did look up.

"Her. Dress." Cassie said each word with equal emphasis. Her hands were shaking. She put the dress back down.

"Are you sure?" Gilhen's eyes were wide.

"Positive. I recognize the colour... and the style. It's hers. This one too." Cassie pulled the next dress out of the suitcase. Something tumbled out of the skirt and onto the floor in front of her. Cassie picked it up.

"Well, that's it then!" Gilhen was beginning to get excited. "She's trapped here because her suitcase is here! She's still being held here by these last fragments of her life!"

"I think it might be more than that," Cassie said quietly. "Because I think this thing is her diary."

"I long for release from this."

***

Return to the Echo and Afterimage Main Page