The Other Side by Robb J. D

Author:Robb, J. D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

He slept over at Willow House that night. To perform more ghost experiments, he told anyone who was interested, but the real reason was to reconnoiter—explore the house’s possibilities in preparation for the séance.

Lying in bed, he wrote down a few thoughts to run by Angie tomorrow—they were to meet in the afternoon and go over their plans. He missed her; he hadn’t seen her since Saturday night. Sunday she had church and whatnot—she was a Unitarian—and today she had too many piano lessons to get away.

He’d caught sight of her once, though, yesterday on her way to church, dressed in a plain gray skirt with a high-collared blouse and a little black jacket. Prim-looking, if you didn’t know her. If you’d never seen the dancing ghost. She’d stuck a clutch of yellow daisies in her hatband, and for some reason that had made him laugh. He’d watched her from his window, angling and craning till she was out of sight, thinking her outfit summed her up: perfectly proper but with flair. If she only knew it. But then again, maybe that was part of her appeal: the fact that she honestly thought she was plain. Somebody, or maybe everybody, had put it into her head that she was an old maid, so that was how she saw herself. Perhaps that made her sweeter-natured, who knew, but still. A woman ought to know herself better. Not to presume, but maybe he could help her out in that area. No, no thanks necessary; it would be his pleasure.

He yawned, blew out his reading lamp. Miscellaneous creaks and cracks he hadn’t particularly noticed before sounded louder in the sudden dark. MWS&G, he reminded himself—the four main causes of all house-hauntings. Mice, wind, settling, and gullibility. But what accounted for that faint bubbling noise that came from time to time and sounded like nothing so much as laughter? Indulgent, delighted laughter, not the evil, mustache-twirling kind. Well, it had to be something; unless Angie was playing another trick on him, it couldn’t really be laughter. He probably just needed to add a P to his list of haunt causes: plumbing.

The quarter moon would be mostly gone by Thursday, luckily—the darker a séance room, the better—but tonight it was sufficient to pick out the outlines of objects in the room. The frame around the painting of a young Angie, for instance. He didn’t need to see the details; the picture was as clear in his mind as if the light were still on. A sweet one to fall asleep to.

Wait. “What the hell?” He sat up, squinting at the mirror over the bureau. No, that was impossible—surely he’d have noticed it if it had been there before. He threw back the covers and got up to read.

’Til I loved

I never lived—Enough.

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