Chapter Text
The wind blows and it makes a noise. Pain makes a noise. We bang on the pipes and it makes a noise. Was there no one else?
- Richard Siken
It was summer again in New York. Late summer, early August, when the trees were just hinting at signs of orange. The perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky. Beautiful. It was the kind of beauty Troy wanted to reach out and crush under his fingertips.
Something about the heat of summer just made him nauseous. Troy hated the dryness in the air, and the way the stale, stagnant suspension in time made the world seem fake and plastic. Summer was held breath before the jump scare. It was just the start of the rest of whatever happens when you graduate community college after a fucked up mental break results in a dislocated shoulder and lost scholarships. It was just the beginning of fall, then winter, then spring, then another summer. And so it goes.
Troy thought he would start small - finding a place to live far away from his shitty college upstate, mainly - because then at least he was starting somewhere. Only, housing in New York for a recent college graduate was goddamn expensive.
At least his expectations were low. He expected nothing more than four walls and a roof. He expected a creepy landlord, a painful rent bill, and creaky floorboards he could fix easily enough.
He hadn’t expected a ghost.
“This is David Stone speaking.”
“Uh, hi.” Troy said into his phone, one hand on the black door frame in front of him. “My name is Troy Barnes and I’m interested in the status of 25 Cornelia Avenue?”
Silence from the phone, then, “Pardon?”
“The abandoned house on Cornelia and Oak - I’m interested in purchasing it. The sign on the front door says to call this real estate number for information.”
“Yes, yes I -” Troy heard a rustling of paper on the other end. “Are you - are you there right now?”
Troy rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“I’ll meet you there in 10 minutes.” The call ended.
Troy stared at his phone. That was fast. He put his phone in his pocket and took his hand off the doorframe. He kicked one shoe idly against the weeds pushing through the boards of the front porch where he stood.
He had found the house while surfing through listings on the internet. He wasn’t bad-off with money since apprenticeship programs pay pretty well, but Troy was still broke enough to look for rent listings just scummy enough to be affordable. But a government-owned 1,500 square foot townhouse near downtown with a sale price even he could pull off? That was a deal Troy couldn’t refuse, no matter how big the catch.
Upon parking his truck at the curb of Cornelia Avenue, the catch was instantly obvious. And it was way bigger than Troy expected.
The townhouse was old - maybe half a century, or more. Crippled summer-browned weeds tore through the front yard and clawed up and through the brick exterior. Lichen clung to the bricks, turning them a pale, sickly green. The front porch was still intact, but just barely. The windows were too clouded with dust and grime to see through even when cupping a hand to the glass.
Based on the government ownership, it was abandoned, and had been for a while. Abandoned houses were affordable though, and Troy’s technical training would help with the much needed renovation.
And, while Troy would never admit it out loud, the house made something ache in Troy’s chest, to see something so lonely.
Mr. Stone arrived exactly when he said he would - ten minutes after the call ended on the dot. He parked his car at the curb and shuffled his way around a messenger bag and a folder of papers. Troy stepped off the front porch and met Mr. Stone on the sidewalk.
“Mr. Barnes, I presume,” Mr. Stone said, sticking out a hand.
Troy eyed the hand in front of him, noticing how it trembled a little. “Yeah, but Troy is fine.” He took Mr. Stone’s hand and shook it.
“So tell me, Mr. Barnes. What does a young man like yourself see in a place like 25 Cornelia Avenue? You must still be in college, no?”
“Actually just graduated. Two-year HVAC degree.” At Mr. Stone’s brief look of confusion - “Air conditioning repair,” Troy clarified, with a sigh.
“Oh. I um - I see.” The man flipped through the papers in his folder, and the summer air was too stale to have to worry about a breeze blowing the papers away. “Well, as you have already discovered from the exterior, it’s a bit of a fixer upper.”
“Understatement,” Troy laughed without much humor.
“Hmm. Yes.” Mr. Stone wasn’t making eye contact, preferring to hide behind his folder. “The house was constructed in the late 19th century, remodelled in the mid 1900s. It’s a two bedroom, one full bath, and it’s got a great sized kitchen - lots of potential. And I suppose it has been abandoned for quite some time, which is good news for your budget, not including the renovation costs, of course.”
“Yeah,” Troy nodded, hands in his pockets and barely listening. “That all sounds really great.”
Mr. Stone peered at him curiously, then shuffled around in his bag, before pulling out an antique black key. “Would you like to see the interior, Mr. Barnes?”
Troy looked up at the house. He trailed the creeping lichen with his eyes, noticed how the brick crumbled in some spots, and how the black front door closed the house off from the rest of the world.
“Yeah. Yes. I would.”
The house was empty on the inside. The yellowed wallpaper peeled in the corners, where cobwebs covered up the exposed wall beneath. Heavy curtains concealed the windows, blocking natural light and casting gaping shadows along the carpeted floor. A stairwell led up into a second floor. There was hardly any furniture - only a kitchen table from what Troy could see from his vantage point in the living room, and a boxy old mahogany television in the corner, not plugged into anything.
Troy walked slowly around the living room, taking it in.
A door interrupted one of the living room walls, leading to what Troy assumed was one of the bedrooms. He reached for the doorknob and tried to open the door, but it didn’t budge.
“Door’s stuck,” he commented.
“The house...certainly has its oddities,” Mr. Stone offered. Troy just laughed through his nose.
Troy walked into the kitchen behind him. In the dim light from the open front door, he noticed the uneven cabinetry, the dust on the shelves.
His forehead brushed into a cord falling from the ceiling and he pulled. A small light turned on, cracking and fizzing.
In the light, Troy turned back to Mr. Stone, who had not moved from the threshold.
“What do you think?” Mr. Stone asked. He did not look hopeful.
Troy looked around the kitchen, the withering fireplace, the curtained windows. “I want it.”
“You do?” Mr. Stone said through raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, I do,” Troy said, strolling back into the living room. “It’s affordable, it’s in a great location, and the guys in my training program didn’t call me the “truest repairman” for nothing. I want it.”
A very genuine, very relieved smile warmed Mr. Stone’s nervous features. “That’s so good to hear Mr. Barnes. Shall I go get the contract information now? We can discuss here or at my office, wherever -”
“But there’s something you’re not telling me.” Troy said, interrupting.
The smile disappeared. “Excuse me?”
“Look, I want the house. Give me the papers or whatever and I’ll sign it, so tell me. This house has been sitting here abandoned for how long? Yeah it needs work - but no one’s been interested in buying in the half a century it’s been here. What’s been keeping people away?”
Mr. Stone hesitated. He pursed his lips together, thinking. Then he relaxed his shoulders and sighed. “You know, I normally don’t tell clients this. It’s not often we get someone interested in this house, and even then, they never want to close the deal in the end. This house has been under my agency for so long, we’ve stopped warning people, just hoping they’ll move in.”
His bustling, nervous demeanor dissolved into resigned honesty. He took a deep breath.
“But there’s something wrong with this house. According to local lore, there was a fire here in the late 1800s - building materials weren’t as flammable back then, so the bones of the house survived, but whoever lived here...did not. It sat abandoned for decades before being remodelled in the 1950s. The property was handed over to the county government, since the former resident and whatever remaining family had all been forgotten by then. Hasn’t seen an owner since.” He shrugged, gesturing slightly around the room. “No one wants a house with ghosts.”
A low, quiet moan echoed from the upstairs floor of the house.
Troy raised his eyebrows, more of a twitch than anything. “A ghost?”
Mr. Stone nodded. “The neighbors sometimes report strange flickering in the windows, or wind that doesn’t seem to leave the yard. I don’t know if you believe in ghosts, Mr. Barnes, but this house provides good evidence.”
Troy stepped towards the fireplace and ran a finger across the mantle. His finger came off dusty. “You know, has anyone tried calling the Ghostbusters?”
“Mr. Barnes, I am quite serious.” He did not look amused. Alright. Bad joke. Mr. Stone continued. “If you want to take this unit, I need to know that you’re committed. Ghosts and all.” His eyes flicked toward the stained ceiling, as if he’d heard a sound.
Troy glanced into the kitchen, at the flickering light, at the old television, and back at Mr. Stone. If he didn’t take it, he was essentially homeless again, with no college friends’ couch to crash on and definitely no parents’ house to return to. What were some ghost stories against four walls and a roof?
Another low moan echoed through the house, this time accompanied with a slight dip in temperature, making the hairs on the back of Troy's neck prickle.
“I’m in. Ghosts and all.”
“Alright,” said Mr. Stone, looking like a large weight just fell off his shoulders. “Let’s get back to my office to sign the contract.” He exited the house quickly, with a quick wary glance over his shoulder at the empty living room.
Troy followed through the doorway, looking back just as Mr. Stone did. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but as he stood with one foot on the front porch and one in the living room, it felt as if the entire house creaked in a wind that wasn’t there.
With one last sweep of the living room, Troy pulled his foot over the threshold, and let the heavy door slam shut behind him.
~
When Troy returned from Mr. Stone’s office, black iron key and signed papers in hand, the sun was beginning to set on 25 Cornelia Avenue. But while a warm golden glow warmed the rest of the street, the old townhouse sat in shadows, shrinking behind the weeds.
Something flickered in the upstairs window. Troy stared, waiting for it to happen again and prove he wasn’t just seeing things, but no such proof came.
Troy’s eyebrows drew together. No one wants a house with ghosts.
Troy had seen a lot of horror movies. He avoided the super gory ones, especially when in the company of other people, because he knew he couldn’t make it through a bloody jump scare without screaming and making a fool of himself. But he had seen the classics - The Haunting, Poltergeist - and if there was one thing he learned, it was that ghosts were usually just pissed off dead people, and they were usually pissed for a reason.
With one last glance at the upstairs window, Troy walked down the narrow path through the weeds and pushed the key into the lock. He shoved on the door until it gave way (he could have sworn it wasn’t stuck when he and Mr. Stone were here), and stepped over the threshold.
The door hit the frame behind him with a heavy thud. It echoed. Then it was quiet.
Except it wasn’t quiet. Not quite. A skittering sound came from one of the living room walls, like one made by a small rodent. A clanging sound like metal on metal bounced from one corner of the house to the other, so subtle Troy nearly thought he was imagining it.
Troy expected to feel some level of triumph. He had successfully pulled himself to his feet after his dad cut ties, graduated community college, and purchased a house. But instead, standing there alone in the unfurnished living room, he just felt unwelcome.
Troy reached to his right and flipped a switch on the wall. A few lights illuminated, but only barely, flickering weakly in the evening gloom.
This was what Troy asked for. Just four walls and a roof, and a place to sleep at night. He never asked for more, and he didn’t want more. And he owned the house, which meant he didn’t have to worry about eternal rent - only small monthly payments until he covered the cost of the house. This was good. This was simple.
Okay, whatever was causing that noise in the walls was getting seriously annoying. Troy stepped towards one of the peeling walls and kicked the floorboard a few times, which turned out to be a bad idea, because it splintered into soft pieces under his shoe without so much as a whimper.
The noise in the walls still stopped though, so Troy decided to call that a win.
He carried a few boxes in from his truck. Just the essentials for the first night in an allegedly haunted house: some bedding, some clothes, a few basic groceries, a small desk lamp he nabbed from a friend. Troy didn’t have much stuff to begin with, since he didn’t have much of a home after his dad kicked him out. His whole life was in that truck, just constantly moving, never settling down.
At least now Troy finally had something permanent to call his own.
Troy's first evening in the townhouse was rather unceremonious. He ate canned peaches for dinner on the floor of the living room, next to the old television.
“You get many visitors here?” Troy said through a mouthful, waving a fork at the empty air in front of him. He was humoring himself.
Troy received no answer. Obviously.
“What about reception? You know there’s a new Saw movie coming out in October.”
The television flashed on, playing an old Cougar Town rerun.
“Woah. That’s weird.” He double checked the wall - it was definitely not plugged in. He slammed a fist against the outer casing, and the clattering inside sounded far too broken to ever function. “Uh, that’s weird.”
The grainy scene was in an outdoor café, where a thin dark-haired man in a suit sat behind Busy Phillips, shaking his head and reacting to her dialogue. The dark-haired man looked directly into the camera, into Troy’s eyes, and fled from the scene, scuffling noisily with the metal chair. The TV screen blinked off again.
“Okay!” Troy said, standing up. “I’m gonna not investigate that!”
With that, Troy decided to turn in for the night.
(He left the light on in the kitchen. Just for safety.)
His trip upstairs, to where he (hopefully) would find a bedroom, would have made Troy fear for his life if he were a few decades older. The wooden boards of the stairs held up, but every creak amplified Troy’s heartbeat in his ears. He tripped a bit while moving from one step to another, which made him regret rejecting his coach’s recommendation to take dance classes for balance. Not to mention the freaky mirrors lining the stairwell like something straight out of a movie.
“Man, now you’re just trying too hard to creep me out,” Troy said, continuing towards the bedroom, but not before checking his reflection in the mirror. For old time’s sake.
Naturally, his attempt to sleep was accompanied by the sound of footsteps outside his bedroom door, a rhythmic clanging in the vents, and a strange, high-pitched whine that echoed softly behind the hollow walls. The rodent-like sound had followed him up from the living room as well. Troy tossed and turned on the one bed in the house, tangling his legs in the blanket he had brought with him.
“Fucking rats,” he hissed quietly to himself.
Troy resolved to buy a few rat traps as soon as he could. He could handle the ghost stories, but rats were taking it too far.
He drifted in and out of consciousness and must have fallen asleep at some point, because he woke up an indeterminable amount of time later.
The first thing Troy noticed was the blanket was gone - he must have kicked it off.
The second thing he noticed was the low, echoing groan reverberating through the entire house.
Troy had heard the pipes moan earlier that evening, but this was different. This was a full-body, crushing sob saturating the house like a gas leak. Troy sat up and placed his hand against the wall behind him, fingers splayed, and he could feel the vibrations in the wall.
“What the hell…” Troy murmured to the wall.
His chest ached again, listening to the moan like a whale song flow through the walls. Troy ran his fingers along the wallpaper, until he hit a rip. He brushed his fingers over the seam, pulling the paper back together so the pattern looked uninterrupted. Then he slipped his fingers underneath the wallpaper to feel the chipped plaster hidden beneath.
Troy was removed from his thoughts by a thump in the wall, right behind his fingers. He yanked his hand back and turned his back to the wall, heart pounding. He could almost feel the presence behind him, could almost hear the quiet, rattling breaths of whatever it was.
The thump sounded again, louder this time, and a yelp escaped Troy’s mouth before he could think to suppress it.
“Okay, okay!” He felt stupid for addressing the sound. But it was worth a shot, right?
“Look,” he said slowly, “I don’t really believe in ghosts...but I don’t don’t believe in ghosts, and I’ve seen enough movies to know that ghosts are usually pissed off for a reason. I mean, if I had to spend eternity in the exact same spot where I died, I’d be pretty mad, too.”
Nothing. Not even a gust of wind.
Troy scoffed, just a tiny bitter exhale through his nose. "Yeah. Thought so."
He sunk back down in bed, firmly ignoring the slight tremor in his hands as he picked up the blanket from the floor.
Then a screeching ball of flames burst out of the wall in front of Troy.
The scream Troy let out rivaled that of Shelley Duvall’s in The Shining. He leapt out of bed, wrapping the thin blanket around his body like a shield. So this is how he dies. In a house fire caused by Casper the unfriendly ghost.
The flames spread along the wall, catching the curtains on fire in a matter of seconds. In the flames, for just a moment, Troy thought he saw the features of a burning face, screaming in pain and rage. But before he could get a better look, the fire flared and vanished as instantaneously as it had appeared.
Troy stared.
He checked the wall, the curtains. There was no sign of fire damage.
He backed up until his back hit a wall and he sank to the floor, head in hands. “What. The actual. Fuck.” Troy said to no one. Or, apparently, to someone. Or something.
His heart pounded and his head hurt. His breaths were shaky. The TV and the moaning was one thing, but this was different. He was crazy. He had to be.
Troy felt a nauseating whoosh in his stomach. You’re in shock, Troy, get in control of yourself. Troy refused to cry. He focused on breathing for a while, feeling stupid and also possibly insane.
Troy didn't believe in ghosts. Not really.
But the curtains should be in ashes.
"Okay. Okay okay okay." He kept repeating it over and over to himself.
He could leave. He could call Mr. Stone and back out.
Except he didn't have anywhere else to go. He didn't have the money to afford anywhere else. And he promised Mr. Stone he'd take the house. Ghosts and all.
He peered warily around the bedroom, but he neither saw nor heard a further sign of paranormal activity.
With a sigh, he picked himself off the floor and crawled back into bed, drawing the blanket tight under his chin.
“Can I sleep now?” he asked to the empty air in front of him.
Troy curled a fist in his blanket in anticipation of another fiery vision, but nothing came.
As he finally began to drift off after another hour of staring up at the ceiling, Troy thought he heard the sound of static and then a laugh track from the living room downstairs.
~
Troy spent his first few days at 25 Cornelia Avenue inspecting the house and noting the work that needed to be done. And it was a lot of work.
Mr. Stone was right - the bones of the house were good. Troy was relieved to find that the townhouse had no integral structural issues. The trim board all needed replacing, and the walls needed a cosmetic facelift, but the foundation was solid. The house needed a few modern updates as well, like a water heater and new light bulbs, and of course some furniture.
Most of the house was actually salvageable, save the kitchen. The cabinets and the countertops were cracked and molded, and the plumbing was oddly misshapen, as if ice had bent the pipes out of shape one horrible winter and they never recovered. The kitchen table was rickety and uneven. So Troy planned to demolish and rebuild the kitchen from scratch.
Troy spent a lot of quality time with his sledgehammer during those initial days of what was shaping up to be a very long project.
He started in the kitchen, which he needed to take out before any renovations could progress. It was tiring work, but so satisfying to hear the hammer splinter the aged wood of the cabinets. Troy swung his hammer again and again, until the cabinetry was broken enough that he could rip the remaining pieces off with his hands.
In less than a day, Troy had the entire kitchen gutted.
He kept trying to open the door in the living room, but it seemed determined to keep Troy out. He added it to his mental list of jobs he needed to do.
When Troy wasn’t working on the house, he tried to sleep, but keeping a regular sleep schedule was nearly impossible. Although nothing came close to his first night, skitters in the walls and moaning pipes kept Troy awake into ungodly hours of the early morning, and on nights when he could fall asleep, metallic sounds from the kitchen woke Troy up at dawn with no hope of falling back asleep.
Still, amid all the fitful nights and mechanical malfunctions, the unassuming mahogany television was the final straw in Troy’s very thin tolerance.
It was about a week into living at 25 Cornelia Avenue when Troy shifted his attention to the stuck door. It had stood closed long enough, mocking him from the wall, and Troy was done being bested by a damn door.
He stood in front of the door, arms crossed, like a general forming his battle plan.
“Let’s figure out what’s behind you, shall we?” He said.
Wooden doors sometimes swelled during hot summers, but he had to get the door open first in order to sand it down. Troy worked a little lubricant around the door (a mechanic’s go-to) but the door didn’t budge.
“Hmm,” Troy mused, eyes narrowing at the door.
He tried everything he could think of - removing the hinges, trying to slide a plane between the unforgiving frame - but the door would not budge.
Troy even tried simple brute force - shoving a shoulder against the door, bracing a foot and pulling - but even that couldn’t coax the door out of the frame, although the wood of the old door couldn’t have been strong enough to withstand it.
The TV switched on behind him, just running low static, but that wasn’t unusual to hear. Troy ignored it.
Troy sighed. Worst case scenario.
He grabbed his sledgehammer from his truck, braced himself, and swung.
Not even a flinch.
“What the hell?” Troy said aloud. The door was far too old to not give way to that kind of force.
Troy faintly noticed the static getting louder in the background.
He tried again, swinging the sledgehammer into the usual weak spots, but the hammer bounced against the wood, the force reversing and sending a shooting pain into his bad shoulder.
“Ouch!” Troy dropped the hammer, wincing at the creak when it hit the ground and holding his shoulder. But the pain was already subsiding into a dull ache, so it probably wasn’t injured. Just reminded of the pain from his senior-year keg flip.
As Troy shook out the ache in his arm, he was made painfully aware of a high-pitched whine coming from the boxy television in the living room.
Mind fuzzy with noise, Troy picked up the hammer again for another go at the door, but the whine rose to such a high volume that Troy let go of the hammer with one hand to cover one ear.
He turned to look at the television, still unplugged from the wall but still making a horrid screaming sound.
“Alright!” He yelled over the whine. “That’s it.”
He marched over to the television, raising his sledgehammer above his head and ignoring the twinge in his shoulder.
“I can’t sleep, I can’t rest, and I can’t do my fucking job because of you!” Troy spat. “It’s time for you to go.”
Troy planted feet hip width apart and swung.
Nothing happened. His arms hadn't moved. The head of the sledgehammer was still poised slightly behind his head, as if someone had grabbed it in mid-air. The noise was still earsplitting.
He tried again, but his arms and the sledgehammer were still frozen in place.
Crap.
Troy couldn't fight it - he couldn't move. But he could still talk.
“What is wrong with you! What is it?" He could barely hear himself.
"Look! You got me! You're a ghost and you're pissed! But I'm here now, and I'm asking you!" He was practically begging. "I’m asking you, what do you want?”
Troy looked helplessly around the room as a sharp pain began to press against his temples. He dropped to one knee and set the sledgehammer on the ground so he could place both hands over his ears. “Please just tell me what you want!”
But his last plea fell in silence. Just like the fire, the static stopped in a sudden gush of air.
Troy knelt in front of the television, head pounding and breaths coming in heavy pants.
The house was absolutely quiet. The most quiet it had been since Troy moved in.
The silence was almost creepier than the spooky skitters and moans in the walls. As if the whole house was holding its breath.
“If you wanted to kill me,” he whispered so as to not disrupt the quiet, “I’m pretty sure you would have already. So you’re trying to send me a message. But I don’t know how to understand you when you don’t just talk.”
All he got in response was a small crackle from the television and the soft hum of voices from the speakers. Troy knew he wasn’t going to get a clear sign, or message, or whatever.
So Troy had to understand anyway.
“This TV. It’s yours. Isn’t it?
A gentle breeze blew through the living room, even though no windows were open.
“It’s important to you?”
The breeze curled around Troy’s ankles, the chill sending shivers up Troy’s spine.
“And you don’t want me to destroy it?”
The breeze brushed upwards past his cheek.
“Okay then. The ghost says no sledgehammers to the TV. Got it.”
Troy got to his feet and stared at the television with knitted eyebrows. “Next time just write on the mirrors or something.”
He walked back to the door with the intention of trying to crack the door frame around it. But the sledgehammer in his hands somehow felt too heavy to continue.
Troy stared at the door for a moment, eyebrows knitted.
“Okay.” He said. “I guess you get to stay too.”
He put his hammer back in his truck, and pulled on a pair of gloves instead.
Troy spent the rest of the day picking up the remaining debris from his earlier work in the kitchen. He even swept the floor.
That night, Troy heard a short flare of static from downstairs and then the soft sounds of TV characters arguing followed by a laugh track. In the dim moonlight of his bedroom he finally slid into peaceful sleep, lulled by sounds of Cougar Town and Parks And Rec.
~
Troy continued to sweat and bleed his way around the house, pulling splinters out of his hands as he replaced trim boards, light bulbs, and stuck door handles.
It wasn’t all bad. Cleaning the windows allowed the sun to stream into the previously shadowed rooms, hitting the brick on the fireplace and casting rainbows on the walls when the light hit at just the right angle. When Troy pulled up the fraying carpets around the whole house, he was particularly surprised to find 50s-era red-oak flooring. After a full day of sanding and a few coats of stain, Troy had the floors gleaming under the midday sunlight.
The kitchen was still unfinished, his nights were still restless, and the door was still stuck. But it was progress.
Troy worked. He made a profile on a freelance site and got a few local gigs, just to pay for groceries and renovation materials. When he could, he put a small amount aside to save. Now that he had an actual residence to his name, Troy was more stable than he’d been since freshman year of college. He intended to keep it that way.
Nearly three weeks into living at 25 Cornelia Avenue, Troy finally turned his attention to his bedroom. He had restored the hardwood flooring in his bedroom along with the rest of the rooms, and since then it remained untouched behind a closed door. But with the rest of the house in somewhat acceptable condition, it was only the next logical project on his to-do list.
With a bottle of watered down vinegar, a rag, and a broom in tow, Troy approached his room. He opened the door, looking around the space, empty except for the bed and old curtains around the window.
Troy felt awkward, just standing there in a room with no proof of human activity, despite sleeping there for weeks now. He had two bedrooms as a kid, one at each parent's house, and neither ever looked like his. His mom tried to make the guest bedroom at her house seem more like a boy’s room, and he loved her for it, but it still never felt like his. Still, it was already better than the trophy cases his dad had insisted on. Troy never had the chance to create a space that was truly his own.
Until now. And he had no idea what to do with it.
So he did the only thing he knew how to do. He got on his hands and knees, and he fixed it.
He tore the wallpaper down from the walls, exposing the plaster underneath. He wiped down the window until it looked invisible. He swept the floors, and he didn’t mind when his calloused hands burned from the rough wood of the broom.
As he swept, Troy’s broom sent a loose floor nail leftover from the carpet skimming across the room and under the bed. He knelt to reach it underneath.
“Fuck!” Troy’s knee knocked against a loose floorboard sticking out beside one of the legs of the bed. He let out a hissed string of swear words and tried to push the board down, but it sprang back up — it was bent into a shape that opened a gap in the floor.
Troy shifted positions, trying to get a better angle on the board. His movement allowed the sunlight from the clean window to slip over his shoulder and shine into the crevice. A glint of metal caught Troy’s eye. There was something hidden beneath the loose floorboard.
He dug his fingers under the loose board and pulled. It gave with little resistance. He set the board aside and reached into the dark space inside. He lifted out a wooden box about a foot in length. Painted a faded dark green with floral embellishments that had blurred into smudges decades ago, the box was singed black at the edges. It had a brass keyhole, but the lid was loose and slid off the box when Troy tilted it.
Troy coughed at the plume of dust that rose from the box. The dust cleared, but the smell didn’t: the smell of old libraries and secondhand bookshops magnified tenfold, of wood pulp and aged ink, of something old turned into ashes.
Inside the box sat a stack of yellowed envelopes with broken wax seals, filed neatly. Troy pulled out the one closest to him. In spidery handwriting, it read:
Rachel
45 Cornelia Street
Port Vincent, NY 10274
Troy traced his fingers over the name on the front, Rachel. He gently slid the letter out of the envelope, shook off a cloud of dust, and unfolded it.
June 20, 1886
My love,
Scarcely have I spent a day outside of our home and your embrace, yet I already feel as if a part of me has been cut away. Beloved, I began counting down the days until I will see you again the moment I boarded the train with one suitcase and your letter tucked in my breast pocket — resting over my heart. This conference may be a step forward in my career as a writer and a scholar, but I cannot help mourning each mile it wedges between us.
Forgive me; I do not mean to be maudlin. I did not begin writing this letter with the intention of complaining. I only wish you were here with me. I am sitting in a compartment very close to the dining car and the aroma of croissants and tea reminds me of afternoons spent reading penny dreadfuls aloud to you, of the crinkles around your mouth and eyes when you laugh at the gory parts and the little dip in between your brows that appears when I begin rambling about character motivations and genre tropes instead of continuing on to the next chapter.
The view is just divine — we are now rumbling past a rolling countryside and the sun is setting — darling, you would have adored this scene. Look, there’s a lavender field — and now a pasture complete with grazing heifers.
On any count, I’m sending along with this letter the penultimate chapter for my sequel, having just finished it during the early hours of my train ride. But don’t read it without me. Keep it as a promise of my return, upon which I shall read my own words to you as you lie in my arms on our Cornelia Street veranda once again.
Yours forever,
A. N.
“A. N.…” Troy repeated out loud, wondering.
Someone died here in this house, Troy knew that for sure. Late eighteen-hundreds, in a house fire - that’s what Mr. Stone said. Troy didn’t know anything about dating antiques, but the paper under his fingers definitely felt brittle enough to be 120 or so years old.
Was it Rachel? Or was it the writer of the letter - A.N.?
Curious, Troy reached to pull out another envelope. His fingers brushed the seal.
The curtains snapped shut over the window, casting the room into darkness.
Troy froze, fingers hovering in mid-air. “I uh - I don’t have to open this letter, man - or woman, I guess -”
The lightbulb overhead shattered. The static turned on from the TV downstairs. Troy’s ears popped, like when taking off in an airplane.
After the bedroom fire and TV incident, Troy knew a full scale ghost meltdown was on its way.
Not wasting any time, Troy quickly replaced the letter box back beneath the floorboard and ran out of the bedroom to the bathroom next door.
He stared at himself in the mirror, eyes wide, breath forming small clouds - when did it get that cold?
“Come on,” he urged through clenched teeth. “Haven’t you seen a damn ghost movie?”
Small strands of ice crawled over the mirror glass, filling in the cracks in the mirror and obscuring Troy’s reflection.
“Tell me what you want.” Troy’s hands gripped the side of the sink. His head hurt. “Tell me what you want!” he yelled.
Then, with a sound like nails on a chalkboard, an invisible finger scratched a vertical line through the ice.
Troy’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the letters appear in the mirror.
It’s rude to look at other people’s stuff
Troy blinked.
“Really?” He read the sentence three more times. “That’s it?”
Troy could almost feel the entire house shrug.
A laugh grew in his stomach until it bubbled from his lips, unbidden and surprisingly warm. “Okay. I guess I won’t look through your stuff.”
Troy couldn’t see his reflection through the ice on the mirror, but he thought his smile was probably the first genuine-looking smile he’d had in a while.
His eyes skimmed the mirror, tracing the small crystals, the thin lettering slicing through ice. These were human fingers, once.
Troy felt a strange grief fog up the laugher in his throat.
Slowly, he raised his hand towards the mirror, but did not touch.
“Who are you?” Troy whispered.
A fresh layer of ice swept across the mirror, erasing the letters. A clean slate.
Troy let his fingers rest on the mirror, carefully, as if it might break. The ice melted where his fingers touched.
“Rachel?”
New letters appeared in the ice, underneath his fingertips. He pulled back his hand to read.
A.N.
Abed Nadir