Chapter 5. HAUNTED
sunday, january 3
Indigo
The way I saw it I had two problems, I was being followed by … something and my house was haunted. I had no idea what the connection was. Perhaps there wasn’t one at all. I’d always felt there was a kind of randomness to the world of the supernatural. Like a little bit of chaos was leaking into our world from somewhere else. Or maybe our relatively ordered lives were glitches in an otherwise random universe. I hadn’t shared that thought with Dylan. He’d call it cheap sci-fi philosophy (as opposed to serious sci-fi, which was apparently acceptable). I know he liked to think there was an answer to everything, if only we had the right information. Of course, I knew he thought a séance was absolutely the wrong thing to do. It was pretty much the equivalent of going into the dodgiest, darkest place in town and yelling ‘Hey, everybody! I’m over here!’ On the other hand, it seemed like I was already pretty much marked. I knew, the moment I heard that sound downstairs, that I had to go down there and face it, whatever it might be. That was the whole point of the séance anyway – no more crawling suspense.
So I rushed out onto the upper landing, seeing the candles gutter out as I left. I switched on the stair light, blinking against the glare. Nothing. Below was the blocked off stairs, beside me the blank kitchen doorway. Ani and Dylan had come up behind me.
‘I don’t think it went right,’ said Ani. ‘She didn’t really know how to talk to us.’
So, she knew it was a woman too. ‘I think we should go downstairs now,’ I said. She didn’t answer, just went past into the kitchen.
Dylan looked unimpressed. ‘Don’t you think that’s more of a daylight thing?’
‘I have this feeling we’ve woken something up.’
‘Exactly.’
Ani hurried out with a bowl in her hands and passed into her room. I could smell burning sage and see a little trail of smoke going out behind her (“we are protected by white light! The house is protected by white light!”).
Dylan and I just looked at each another. I already knew what he was going to say. The gist of it, anyway.
‘I need to talk to it.’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s hard to find this feeling in the daytime.’
‘This feeling of dread and impending doom?’
‘If that’s what you want to call it. We need to go down now.’ I was walking down to the landing and he was following.
‘Indi, you were pulled down by it.’ He actually caught me by the shoulder and I stopped at the landing, right by the nailed up stairway. ‘It has a physical form. Don’t you see that you’re being provocative?’
‘Well, I’ve been provoked!’ I hissed back at him, surprised at the anger that prickled over my skin. ‘I’m going down there and I’m facing it. I’m not spending another night waiting to be taken.’ I stood there pretty much vibrating with fury and (let’s face it) terror.
I can only describe it as an ambush. I didn't have any time to react (spring back like an importuned cat) before he had his hands on either side of my head and had kissed me very gently on the mouth. I smelt the lovely smell that made up his particular scent (I think it was something to do with book pages and too much coffee and just the warmth off his skin) and had the sense of being rushed backwards in time to when we had first met. When he finally pulled back my lips were tingling.
Ani had appeared in the doorway to her room, but he didn’t look up at her.
‘Please don't go,’ he said, still too close for me to see his expression very clearly. The combination of his hands and the kiss created what I can only describe as some sort of hospital strength sedative effect. Weak knees. Really, I'm sure he was aware it was the action most likely to dissolve me into pliable mush. Ani was still standing there frozen at the top of the stairs, as if she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by retreating. I stepped away from him. In fact it became necessary to draw back quite a distance in order to take a clear breath. I only stopped because I came up rather hard against the wall. But now I had some clarity.
‘I have to do something.’ I said, in a pitiable little inward gasp.
I know what you’re thinking at this point. Oh, pull yourself together, Indigo! What is wrong with you? Okay, you may already be onto this fact, but let me just say that I was totally and utterly side-tracked. Should I be ashamed of that? Well, clearly I felt ashamed or I wouldn't have to ask. I felt utterly foolish and girlish. But, really, if I'd done the same to him (or if Ani had, more to the point) I'm pretty sure the result would have been the same. Side-tracked. Somewhere in the back of my mind (in a tiny region where rational thought still existed) I was aware that this was the whole point. His idea of my emergency braking system.
‘Don’t go downstairs,’ he said again, looking down at me now. ‘I’ve never said this before, but I have a bad …’ he hesitated, as if the phrase was distasteful. ‘A bad feeling. Let’s close the board together,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s just symbolic, but it seems like the right thing to do.’
‘I won’t go now, but it’s obvious we’ll have to go down there eventually.’
He didn’t answer. Let’s face it, he knew he had me snookered. I couldn’t stop staring at him.
We closed the board. But it was already too late.
monday, january 4
The first sign it was too late? We were all sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast. It was a habit we had. Ani made porridge with honey (much too warming for summer) and we all sat around and dutifully ate it together. For the sake of morale, I suppose. Only this morning was a little different. It began with Dylan saying (studiously nonchalant) ‘I had the strangest dream last night.’
We both put down our spoons and looked at him.
‘I was walking through the rooms downstairs. It was really bright. And under my feet I was crushing little bird skulls and wings. Every step.’
Ani looked as if she was reconsidering him somehow.
‘They were so fragile. I didn’t want to break them.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked. He shrugged, not directly meeting my eye.
‘It was weird’ he said, with an almost smile.
I didn’t want to share my dream. It had started to filter through the moment he said ‘dream’. I’d been searching for the little boy in the park. Only this time it wasn’t his mother screaming at me. It was the thin-faced one who’d stolen him away, screeching right up in my face. ‘Don’t take him away! He’s mine!’
‘What about you?’ Dylan asked Ani. He wouldn’t even look at me. From which I understood he was deeply regretting the whole kiss thing.
‘I never dream,’ she said, going back to her porridge.
And although I was ready with ‘everybody dreams’, I looked at her beautiful face, her wide-set blue eyes, serene as an animal’s, and suddenly felt that it might just be true. Ani never dreamed. It was another way she was special and different from the rest of us. I took a gloomy spoonful of porridge. I was really starting to regret the whole subletting thing.
Dylan was still looking at her with interest. ‘You don’t remember?’
She didn’t bother to answer, just stood up to make some more tea. That was the thing about Ani. She seemed too friendly at first, but it was actually impossible to get to know her. I didn’t even want to ask her what she thought was going on in the house. I probably should have. Maybe I was afraid of what she’d say.
The second sign? It was the same day, in the evening, and I was in the bathroom. I was looking in the mirror. My hair was getting too long. Instead of the short, smooth helmet I wanted, it was coming down past my chin and starting to wave. I was compensating by wearing make-up more often. Darkened brows. Even a little blush, because I was still too pale from the time downstairs. The energy-saver bulb gave me just enough light to see by. It was a kind of grey, indistinct light that always made me feel an answering flatness in my soul. Like it was draining the colour out of the whole world.
Bathrooms are bad pl
aces. If you see a bathroom in a film it’s likely that something bad’s going to happen. Even worse, a woman in a bathroom, naked. The likelihood of her dying or having a near-death experience is astronomical. I can only think it’s about vulnerability. And maybe bodies of water. Water was dangerous, transforming, or something. Well, I wasn’t naked, but I was vulnerable.
Another dream from last night. It had been drifting up to the surface all day and it was finally free. It started with Dylan leaning down to kiss me. We were standing on the landing and there was a very bright light, like sunlight, and I was warmly and joyfully melting from my legs up through my stomach. But then it was black and it wasn’t Dylan, but some other man – too smotheringly close, stinking of aftershave covering up cigarette smoke (familiar smell – from when?) and I was pushing at him with both hands, angry and scared, saying ‘You got no right to shut me up!’
I would need more eyeshadow. More beautiful eyes, because I was going to confront Dylan. Do you think you can just kiss me out of the blue like that and pretend nothing’s happened? (Yes, obviously, because that’s exactly what he’d done). I opened the mirrored cabinet and found a smokey grey shade. I closed the cabinet. She was right behind my shoulder. Thin face and hazel eyes. I froze. Constricted lungs, heart labouring. I couldn’t move. In that tiny room, there was really nowhere to move.
She had an ugly face. Oh, maybe it could be pretty if she had smiled. She was young. But her mouth was twisted down. Loathing on her face. She was really there behind me. Solid and real. The one that stole the child.
‘You worthless, worthless bitch,’ she said, and I was shocked to hear her voice so clear and strong. ‘You don’t deserve him. You’re useless. That’s why you need to be down here. I’m the only one who can stand you. Worthless, worthless, bitch.’ She leaned in. Her breath stirred the hair at the back of my neck. Cold breath.
I span around. Nothing there. Exactly as I’d expected. But there was a creaking in the passageway outside. Now I could move I was all action. I leapt forward and flung the door open. Ani sprang backwards. I had the weird feeling she’d been pressing up against the panels.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded.
‘I didn’t know you were there.’ She blinked and looked at me more closely. ‘Are you okay?’
I went past her and ran up to the kitchen. Dylan wasn’t there.
‘Dylan’s gone out.’ Her voice drifted from the bathroom. ‘Indigo, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine!’ I called, voice shaking. Not fine.
I stood, undecided. I heard the bathroom door shut behind her. It didn’t take too much thought. I was out of there. The evening was coming down, but it was way too hot for a coat. I just pulled on my boots, grabbed my keys and went.
I walked very fast towards Dylan’s apartment. It was on the other side of the university. The last few weeks had been so hot that the leaves on the deciduous trees had died. They lay underfoot in drifts, as if it were autumn. Not bright autumn colours, but dull brown. I’d always loved crunching through them, but out of season it seemed vaguely apocalyptic. My whole life was starting to seem vaguely apocalyptic.
My body was tingling from the mirror incident. And I kept seeing things from the corner of my eye. Not actual things. Imagined grey shapes slipping away at the edges. Twilight had arrived, which meant it must be about nine. I felt followed. I kept looking behind. Twilight seemed even worse than night – like a fog in front of my eyes.
I knew to knock at least three times before Dylan was likely to answer the door. Maybe I overdid it – a flurry of loud knocks until he finally flung the door open, looking pretty angry.
‘She was in the mirror. The woman. It’s the follower, the other one, but she’s in the house. It’s not a ghost at all.’ I hurried past him. ‘You have to have something here that can help us …’ I faltered as I reached the lounge room. There was a chaos of books strewn across the table and even laid out on the floor in significant and ragged semi-circles. I finally turned and looked at him.
‘Hi, Indigo,’ he said, a little coolly.
‘Sorry, hi.’
He sat down at the table. ‘In the mirror?’
‘Yes, she called me a stupid bitch.’ I felt kind of aggrieved, as if she were a real person.
He raised an eyebrow, but in a half-hearted way, as if nothing could really surprise him. ‘Tell me what happened.’
I sat down. There was a very thick book open in front of me, a bookmark sitting sideways across it. I read a fragment. The Fad Felen, a disease spirit with golden eyes that followed them in the dark… I shut the book.
He gave me a rueful look. ‘I can’t seem to find a match. I mean, something that really fits with it. The follower. So tell me.’
‘Don’t you want to write it down?’
He shrugged. ‘What would the point be? Tell me though.’
Ironic, I who was always challenging him over his ‘scribblings’ (at least in my mind). Now I wanted him to write it down. It would make me feel better. It would seem like we were doing something constructive. Because if we couldn’t find a way to be free of them – these followers – we could at least be proper witnesses.
I described the woman in the mirror, what she’d said, and then the dream. The horrible man pressing against me (I left out Dylan pressing against me). How I’d yelled at him. You got no right to shut me up! I thought he flinched a little when I described how afraid I’d been – of the aftershave smell. It was like it was reminding him of something. But, of course he didn’t tell me what. He took a while to say anything.
‘Thoughts?’ I prompted.
He sighed. I had a sudden fear he was disconnecting from it all. Giving up. But I should have known better. He was just thinking extra hard.
‘As far as the woman goes, there’s some connection to the house. I still think she could be a ghost. You said her breath was cold? In which case you should move out. If you really want to protect yourself.’ He gave me kind of a pointed look but I just waited. ‘Sometimes there’s a particular person in the house that just stirs things up. Once they move everything settles down again.’
‘You think I’ve stirred things up?’
‘Maybe ...’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘It may simply be that you disturbed something when you were taken down there. Under the stairs.’
He didn’t like to talk about it – the time I’d been gone. I guess I’d been relieved about that. Although I had the feeling it might help to tell him what I remembered. The little fragments. That it might be healthy for me, or something. Even if it couldn’t help with anything real. I kept imagining telling him. How I kept dreaming that my mouth was filling with sand. That I didn’t want to sleep anymore. Just in case. Surely it would feel better to tell someone? But he was lost in the possibilities and wasn’t even looking at me.
‘Something that might not have surfaced otherwise,’ he said, quietly.
‘But I saw her before. In the park. We’re already connected somehow.’
He shrugged, still not seeming to listen properly. ‘We could try to clear the house, but I don’t know how successful that would be.’
I had an image of us pacing around with burning sage leaves, chanting. ‘So what are the other options?’
He scrunched his eyes shut and scratched at his head. ‘I suppose we can find out what she wants.’
‘You don’t look enthusiastic.’
He shook his head. ‘Despite what you might see on TV, it’s not generally a good option. There is kind of a rule with this sort of thing. The more attention you give, the more things get … focused.’
‘But that’s just what we need. We need her to communicate.’
‘Focused is different from coherent.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Tell me something.’ He leaned forward. ‘When you saw her in the mirror, was she actually talking to you, or just looking in the mirror?’
I hesitated. I suppose I’d been so horrified I hadn’t th
ought about it, but I couldn’t actually remember her looking at me.
He nodded, slumping back and looking at the notebooks on the floor. ‘Stuck in a loop,’ he said. ‘I’m sure she’s a ghost. You know they might not even be her words. It might be something someone said to her. Something she can’t let go of.’
‘But she seemed so angry. It was awful.’
He leant forward across the table. ‘Do you really want to give more focus to that?’
Well, it was a fair question but I didn’t see we had a choice. Unless we wanted to stay the victims of random paranormal disturbances forever. I was certainly not going to move. It was my house and I loved it. I belonged there. That’s what I kept telling myself.
I looked around the room. ‘It feels safe here.’
‘You know you can stay.’
‘I know.’ I stood up, avoiding his eye. ‘But there’s hardly room for two of us, and the idea of leaving Ani there alone just gives me the creeps.’
‘She gives you the creeps, or you’re worried for her?’
‘Both.’
He stood up too. ‘Just wait a minute and I’ll walk back with you.’ He went into his room.
I was deeply relieved at this, though I’d been too proud to ask. Walking back alone through the darkening university campus did not appeal. Arriving in the dark lane and walking through my dark garden did not appeal either. And getting into the house would be worst of all. Even if Ani was there. I considered asking him to move right into my room, but I was pretty sure he’d take it the wrong way.
He came back and stood in front of me. ‘Just humour me.’ He slipped something over my head and I felt a cool chain around my neck. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the little St Christopher medal. It felt reasonably heavy, like it might be silver.
‘I thought you weren’t superstitious?’
He was unsmiling. ‘Superstition is irrational.’
I sobered up a little, because he looked so worn out. ‘Am I traveling somewhere?’ I asked.
‘I never know with you.’
We walked through the university in silence. I was pondering the unknowableness that was Dylan. Just when I thought I knew everything about him (a stupid thing to think about anyone), he would do something surprising. I realised that I’d never even asked if he was religious. I certainly wasn’t going to now. It seemed crass. And although I didn’t really believe in the medal, somehow I felt better now I was wearing it. Maybe just because he’d given it too me. It had already warmed to my body, so I kept reaching up to make sure it was still there.
I suppose it made sense, what he said. If you knew something was true, you wouldn’t call it superstition. And I flattered myself for a moment that he had chosen to kiss me out of love. It hadn’t come from nothing – just a device to throw me off course. I clutched at the idea for a moment that it was real. That something new could happen that wasn’t entirely catastrophic. I looped my arm through his and crunched through the leaves with a feeling that was becoming close to optimistic.
‘We’re going to work it all out,’ I said. ‘It will be okay.’
‘Just keep saying that,’ he said. ‘You might start to believe it.’ But he didn’t pull away.
‘We’re going to work it all out,’ I repeated and he finally smiled. We walked for a while in silence. Back towards the house. The woman in the mirror was starting to seem real again. I didn’t want to be there.
‘Dylan, would you do me a favour?’
There was a noticeable pause.
‘Sure.’
‘Would you take me out to dinner? I don’t want to go home yet. And …’ This was less glamorous. ‘I have no cash.’
‘You really need to get a job.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t know, but I feel like walking.’
We walked quite a long way, towards Fitzroy, with the warm night coming down. And I was starting to feel there was an actual world outside my claustrophobic house. There were dogs tumbling together in the off-leash park and lorikeets shrieking and chattering in the palm trees on Canning Street. By the time we reached the pub, I felt like even the air had changed. The breeze was moving from the south. To tell the truth, there seemed more and more oxygen the further we got from the house. We ate a huge meal. I even seemed to have a bigger appetite away from home. I was too focused on eating to talk, but once we had finished, Dylan took a pen from his pocket (he was the kind of person who always has a pen somewhere).
‘So these are the stages of haunting …’
He wrote very fast on his napkin. It was clear he’d thought about it quite a lot and I was sure he had a pretty lengthy dossier somewhere, of which I was getting the simplified (and probably censored) version.
1. Dream interference. Sensations of heaviness, sadness or fear.
2. Random energy. Quick glimpses. Noises. Tactile sensations. Things falling or being moved from their place.
I was reading upside down.
‘Like a poltergeist,’ I observed.
‘No, not really,’ he said, without looking up or pausing in his writing.
3. Re-enacting. Repetition of things done in life or repetition of a death scene. (Stuck in a loop).
4. Sentience (materialised or non-materialised).
‘Your ghost has pieces of the whole list,’ he observed. ‘Although maybe not sentience. It’s hard to tell. You don’t really want sentience,’ he added. ‘You don’t want any kind of awareness. Not if she died violently.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because people who’ve died violently are pretty much always malevolent as sentient ghosts. It doesn’t matter how nice they were as people. They just have so much fear and anger.’
‘Sentient ghosts …’ I repeated, pausing for quite a large draught of my beer. ‘I don’t think she’s dangerous. I think she’s stuck in a loop. How would she become sentient?’
‘You already know that. Attention.’
‘Like a séance?’ I asked, meekly.
‘Exactly like a séance. Or even just looking for her all the time, paying attention to every little sound that might be her.’
‘It’s going to be hard to ignore her if she keeps appearing in mirrors and yelling like that.’
‘And that’s why you should move out.’
‘Not going to happen.’ He met my challenging look and I was the one who looked away. Because my not moving out stance was seeming more and more ridiculous every time I repeated it.
‘One more thing. How will we know for sure when she becomes sentient?’
He smiled a kind of wry smile. ‘You’ll know.’
‘But how?’
‘If she can talk to you, answer questions coherently, then she’s sentient. But Indigo … don’t try to talk to her.’
There was a silence in which I thought of ways I might get to talk to her and Dylan (no doubt) wondered what he could say to more effectively stop me.
I took the napkin from him. ‘Do you have a list like that for followers?’ I asked.
‘Yes. But that’s before … I knew more about them.’
‘What is it?’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘Stalking, communication, disappearance.’
‘You need to add return,’ I said. ‘Now we know it’s possible.’
‘I will,’ he answered, looking at me so solemnly that I found myself actually blushing a little and looking away. ‘You’re still going to go down there, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He sat back, looking deeply tired. ‘We’ll all go then.’
Dylan
I already knew that she wasn’t mine. So why did I kiss her? I couldn’t forgive myself for it. I was cauterized by her pulling away. Burnt and sealed up straight away. I knew I was too proud to try again. So it would probably be forever – this wordless ‘no’ from her. Granted, I’d already known. But as long as I didn’t ask, it would
n’t have to be said aloud and finalised. It was just the impending loss of her that pushed me to it. Her hazel eyes and her hair and her skin – it was all right there in front of me and about to be swallowed up in the uncertain dark underneath. There was a feeling of calamity in the bare light of the stairwell – the way it lit up every little crack and imperfection on the walls. I knew that I was about to lose her again.
Well, at least she was still listening to me. And a postponement of catastrophe seemed better than nothing. We all held hands to close the board. Ani and Indigo’s fingers were vibrating. I was no longer concerned about suggestibility. It was all real. All the doors were torn open inside us and everything was alive under our touch. And maybe that was another reason for the kiss. Anything was possible – just for a moment. But now we had to shut it down. You couldn’t live like that all the time. It only took a few moments to close the board. I thought Ani should do it and was bracing for some long, flowery speech. But all she said was ‘Thank you, Lily. Goodbye. The board is closed.’
We stayed linked together for a moment. Nobody questioned the name. Her hand was too hot and buzzing and Indigo’s too cold. It might seem surprising but we had nothing to say after that. We separated and went to our rooms.
I lay awake in the kitchen for a long time, listening to all the settling noises of the house. I was trying to make the impossible distinction between architectural and supernatural noises. It only got worse when I fell asleep. I was walking through the rooms downstairs, crushing little bones under my feet, washed out in bright sunlight. I stood in front of the door. A feeling of dread was growing. I opened the little space under the stairs and there they were, bright-lit. Indigo and her follower. Wrapped together tightly with his bland hands pushing and stretching at her dress. Eating her up with his hungry, blank, reptile eyes and saying Indigo, Indigo, Indigo like a broken record. And Indigo not pushing him away at all, just gazing emptily at the ground.
I woke up feeling like I was literally going to be sick. I was in the kitchen, on the too-short couch, and looking at that spot where she was taken. Only now Ani was there, making breakfast, giving me a sideways look. I decided not to tell them my whole dream at breakfast, I had the feeling it was too personal.
Maybe I should have been focused on the ghost, but it was the follower that took me to my place after breakfast. It was the dream of Indigo, wrapped up so close to him. I pulled every book off the shelf that seemed the least bit useful and soon I was surrounded by them. I was looking for any kind of being that latched onto an individual, stalked them. I searched for hours. Through dubious occult dictionaries, folklore and even Victorian novels, then online – at useful sites and stupid sites and pages of sleaze. Vampires, ghosts and incubi and demon lovers of all kinds. But nothing was the right fit. I was just left with a buzzy, spinning head and a hundred more possibilities, each more bizarre and lurid than the next. And the whole time Indigo was still looping in my head, backing away from the kiss with a look of shock.
I told myself – just keep working. Let time pass and keep working. It even seemed to help for a few hours. Until she turned up at my door. And then it kind of hit me that I had nothing to show for a whole day of research. And information was all that she needed from me. Even as she sat there, describing what had happened with the ghost in the mirror, only a part of me was afraid for her. A part of me was picturing kissing the side of her mouth, pushing away the strands of hair stuck to her humid cheek, backing her into my room.
I was messed up. It was lucky she’d just had a terrifying supernatural encounter because it gave me a kind of privacy – to be just as screwed up as I needed to be and not have to worry whether she would notice and suggest that we ‘talk about it’ in that scouring way girls had. Only, her not mentioning it at all was probably just as painful. We had a whole meal together and she didn’t say anything about it. If I so much as looked at her too long she would blush and look away, like she was just embarrassed about the whole thing.
So I went into information mode. I gave her all the relevant ghost-related facts I could, which was not much. I warned her, which was useless. I sat and watched her ravenous eating and wondered if I would dwindle down to some sort of following ghost too. I knew it was the worst possible time to come unstuck in this way. She really was in danger and I needed to focus. She was wearing a singlet and leaning forward to eat and the little St Christopher medal was tapping against her collarbone.
‘So these are the stages of haunting …’ I said and I started to write them down, partly to help her remember and partly to stop myself staring at her. She read them very carefully. I hoped I’d frightened her a little. But it would take more than that to make her back off. In fact she would have to be pretty much paralysed with terror and that did not seem a safe way for her to be. So I left out some salient points.
She’d been grabbed and pulled down by this ghost, seen it for a long time (more than a few seconds was exceptional), and felt it’s breath as it spoke (so it wasn’t simply an image – it was becoming material). This same ghost had somehow gotten into Ani’s head just to lure Indigo downstairs. So not only was it amazingly strong, it was also locked on to Indigo. I had heard of poltergeists attaching themselves, especially to troubled children or teens, and some had even theorised it was a person’s inner turmoil made material. In these cases, it didn’t matter where they moved – they brought it with them. This ghost – ‘Lily’ Ani called her – was not a poltergeist anymore than the follower was, but I wondered if there was some link. Something in Indigo. Because she was surely calling them. And they were following.
Another fear pulling at me (it was a very cold current, beneath the surface turmoil) was the idea that maybe the follower had once been a ghost – made gradually material by its hunger, fed and shaped by people like Indigo. And if that was the case, could Lily be in the process of changing? Finding something in Indigo that echoed her own hunger, or fed it. And could this ghost become strong enough to take her too – to make her disappear like the little child?
It was humbling. Because I thought I was the special one – the one that noticed and wanted her. But now these things were flocking to her, fighting to take her with them to their own particular worlds.
I knew she would have to go down there again. As much as I told her not to. It was something to do with the house and it couldn’t be ignored. I would have to go with her. That was about the only thing that comforted me – and it was not a great comfort. Ani would come too. She seemed to have some kind of insight. And her change might be the first sign of something wrong. Like a canary down a mine. Maybe it was wrong to think of her in such utilitarian terms, but I wasn’t sure what I wouldn’t do to keep Indigo safe. Spurned though I was.
We got back late from the pub. I watched Indigo go into her room, wondering if I should say something. But her door clicked shut before I’d even found the words.
Indigo
After such a good night with Dylan you’d think I’d sleep well. But as soon as I got back in my door it all came back. The stifling feeling. I slid shut the little lock in my room. I got into bed. Covered myself with a sheet, put my earphones in and drenched myself in music. But I couldn’t seem to lose myself. I was eroding and I was trying to hide it, but it was getting higher and higher. I knew I should say something to Dylan about my fragments of memory. If only to be reassured by how calmly he took it all. But it was too complicated now – by the kiss and the silence afterwards. I imagined it anyway. Telling him everything, having him stroke my head and comfort me. Well, maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes it’s the simplest fantasies that are the sweetest. I drifted into sleep, all wrapped up in his imaginary arms.
Soon I was dreaming, clawing at my mouth and coughing out the dry dust and a hand was holding the back of my head and forcing in more and more.
I sat up in bed choking and coughing. There was no dust. No one else. Just me in my room. My heart was pounding. It felt like an enormous bird trapped in my
ribcage, beating and scraping to get out. I lay back down, trying to breathe.
There was a soft noise at the door, a little click, and it opened enough for a silhouette to appear. I suppose someone had to notice all that coughing and spluttering.
‘Dylan … I keep having this dream.’ I gasped. I pressed my hands to my chest feeling my lungs heaving beneath them. The door shut very quietly and I knew that it wasn’t Dylan, but I just lay there. I could see all the familiar dark shapes of my room. And another shape. I wasn’t even sure where it was. Just that it shouldn’t be there. I was paralysed, as if in a dream. I breathed, the sharp pains still scraping at me. But slowly they were easing, and a silence was falling. More quiet than the usual night. No sound of cars, or far-off voices or even the hum of the fridge. As if I’d lost my hearing completely. There was a waiting feeling. It wanted me to speak.
The sound of my own voice surprised me. ‘I can’t bear it any more,’ I whispered. ‘Please tell me what I should do. The way to stop it all.’ The fingers closing around my arm were very cool but I wasn’t afraid. I still couldn’t really see it.
‘Downstairs,’ it said, very softly. And there was a growing grey light. It was sitting on the edge of the bed. Sort of formal, only with a look of compassion on its face. My follower.
‘Will everything just disappear when you take me?’ I whispered.
‘Everything,’ it said, soothingly. ‘Everything.’
I woke to soft light and a pair of wide eyes right in front of me.
‘It’s me,’ Ani whispered.
I rubbed at my face and half sat up. I saw the growing rectangle of light on the wall, wondering whether it was all a dream again and I’d just continue waking up into different segments of it.
‘Who were you talking to?’ she asked.
‘I was dreaming,’ I said. ‘What time is it?’ We were both whispering. Not that we were likely to wake Dylan. But the dawn had a hushed feel about it.
She looked out the window at the sky. ‘Really, really early.’
I lay back down and breathed deeply.
‘I know it was here.’ she said, leaning in again. ‘You were talking to it.’
I held my breath. ‘Who?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her anything.
She sat back and stared at me. ‘You shouldn’t ask to be taken,’ she said. ‘Unless you actually mean it.’
I sat up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You called it here, Indigo.’ There was a harsh look to her face. ‘It’s time to take responsibility for that.’ She stood up and seemed very tall beside my bed. She made as if to go, then suddenly turned back. ‘You know what bothers me the most?’
She waited, but I didn’t say anything. She narrowed her eyes.
‘You’re not even that scared of it anymore.’ She stalked out of the room and the door shut firmly behind her.
Ani
My lovely girl.
I keep wanting to write but you know I hate email. We won’t hear each other’s voices and it’s all wrong. Things are the same here. They still don’t like me. But I didn’t come here to be anyone’s friend. I know we said we’d go away together – and we will, but I had to be here. When I saw that ad up for the house, I knew I had to come. I was called. I guess I say sorry every time I write – but if you’d only write back once, I could stop. It’s all a big mess here. I can’t get a clear reading on anything. It’s just like white noise. Please tell me what you think.
I do know that this thing, Indigo’s follower, it’s not a ghost. Even Dylan and Indigo can see that. Maybe it was once. Who knows? It’s some sort of dark energy now. I don’t know exactly what it is. It looks like a man. It was here this morning, just a few moments ago. I was dreaming I left the front door unlocked and when I woke up, I knew it was here.
You’ll say it was stupid of me, but I went down to her room. It was leaning right over the bed. And she was speaking to it. Lying there, flat on her back. Talking away to it like they were the best of friends. It went the moment I reached them. But I don’t think it’s afraid of me.
I’m really worried. Because it wants her downstairs. I don’t know why. But it said ‘downstairs’ and the whole room really … shimmered for a moment – because its want was so big. It wants her to see what’s down there. Wants her to know whatever bad thing happened there. But I don’t think it really cares about Lily at all. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I can’t get much of a reading on it because it’s not a ghost or a person.
The only thing I know for sure is that it’s Indigo’s slave. She called it to her. By mistake, but still. If she just said ‘no, I don’t want you here’, and believed it, I really think it would vanish. I don’t want to sound hard-hearted or anything, but tough as she seems she’s got a victim mentality, just like poor Lily under the stairs. And if she keeps calling, it’s going to take her and answer all her wishes. Only I’m really starting to worry she’s just got one wish.
Things are moving very fast. So know that I’m coming home soon. Whatever happens. Please write to me and tell me what you think. I miss you and I’m afraid.
xxxxx Ani
tuesday, january 5
Indigo
‘Why so urgent? I thought you were going to wait?’ Dylan was squinting against the orange dawn. I shut the door behind us and we stood at the top of the spiral stairs, looking over the rooftops. There was a kind of a tang in the air. I guess it was smoke from controlled burn-offs in the leafy hills around Melbourne. Though for all I knew we might be encircled by bushfires – I hadn’t seen the news for days. It was cool but the threat of heat was already there and the faint smoke turned the air a rosy colour.
‘Third time lucky,’ I said. I breathed deeply. I was wired. I’d actually woken Dylan by grabbing his shoulder and shaking him.
It would be better to go on my own. I was the one who had to find out – who had to go down there. All of the messages were for me. It would be the heroic thing to do. But I mustn’t actually be a hero because I simply wasn’t brave enough to go on my own.
He yawned hugely. ‘Are you sure about this? It just seems to make things worse.’
‘I’ll be okay. I’ve got my St Christopher medal.’
‘Don’t be cynical,’ he said, leading the way slowly down the stairs. ‘Just so you know. I don’t actually want to come with you. But I know you’ll go anyway, so …’
‘I appreciate it. Do you think Ani heard us?’
‘I asked her to come but she’s tapping away online. I didn’t think she even knew how to open the laptop.’ Again I suppose he was making a joke, but he had a listless look about him. We descended into the house’s cool shadow and went to the window. I liked the look of it less and less. But the morning felt like a good time to go in there. A blackbird was singing a very pure series of notes above us.
‘I thought she might try to stop me.’
Dylan had pushed open the window and now hoisted me up onto the sill.
‘I’m still not sure what the emergency is.’ He still had his hand on my waist, but I pretended not to notice. ‘Did something happen during the night?’
‘No. I want to have a look around.’ I ducked my head and lifted my legs over the sill – to avoid having to lie to his face. ‘Like you said, she’s connected to the house. Maybe we can find a way to let her … you know, move on.’ I couldn’t tell him the actual reason. Because it had told me to. I had the feeling he would not approve.
We stood in the first room. The daylight didn’t make much difference. There was nothing much to see. It was all just ordinary junk, boxes, vinyl records and an old hat stand.
‘We should split up,’ I whispered.
‘Why?’ he asked, not bothering to lower his voice.
‘We’re not vulnerable enough like this.’
There was a silence. I turned to find him looking at me with deep misgiving.
‘We need to communicate with whatever’s down there. I don’t think it’s going to work in
a big group.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But this ghost doesn’t seem particularly shy.’
I was just gathering myself to argue the point when Ani appeared at the window. I braced myself for further disapproval, but she wasn’t even looking my way.
‘Oh I have a good feeling all of a sudden,’ she said, landing gracefully amongst the shifting junk. ‘Something really amazing’s going to happen today.’
‘Right,’ said Dylan. ‘I have a great feeling too.’
Ani ignored him. She walked straight past him and we followed her to the front room. There were still boards strewn about the ground, some of them with jagged nails jutting out. It occurred to me how lucky it was I’d hit her with a nail-free one.
There was nothing particularly creepy about the front room. It was really just another junk room. Boxes were piled up against the walls and blocked the fireplace. Dylan opened the shutters with a snap and a cloud of dust.
‘There was a body,’ said Ani, circling and looking at the floor. ‘It all got eaten up.’
Dylan and I exchanged glances.
‘Eaten by what?’ I asked, against my better judgment.
Ani put her head to one side, as if thinking. ‘The sadness ate it all up. And the darkness and then … bugs and things. And then he took it away.’
‘You mean the woman I’ve been seeing? Her body was here?’
Ani was rubbing circles into her arms, softly at first and then gradually harder and harder. She started to inspect her forearms closely as if there was something crawling on her.
‘She’s not really here now,’ said Dylan, watching her in fascination. ‘Who do you suppose ‘he’ is?’
I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to come to the obvious conclusion. I was pretty sure it was just a rhetorical question anyway. Though I was on reasonably good terms with my landlord, I knew boarding shut half a house was not normal behaviour any more than charging a single tenant a hundred dollars a week for a Carlton terrace that could have comfortably housed five or more students. Ani seemed not to notice us talking. She was absorbed in scratching carefully at her hands now. I thought about stopping her, but I was too nervous to go any closer. Dylan was giving her a wide berth, moving about the room, opening boxes.
‘Clothes,’ he said, drawing out a long, tie-dye dress and studying it as if it could give him some clue about whoever used to wear it.
I took the opportunity to drift away from them, out into the passageway, and inevitably, to the door under the stairs. I could see it more clearly now. There was a bolt on the outside of it. Quite thick and heavy. I reached forward and pushed. I guess I felt compelled. To see where I’d been for so long. Or maybe to make contact once and for all. Ani had said something good was going to happen. Perhaps it meant I could speak to her properly, without her fearing me, or me fearing her.
I moved into the little space. It was a dark box really, much too stuffy. The idea that they’d found me here was as unreal as ever. My shoe scraped against something on the floor, but it was too dim to see. I was prickling all over. As if a thousand little tendrils were brushing the wrong way against every pore of my skin.
‘Are you here?’ I whispered. ‘Lily?’ There was just a moment of silence. Then the door slammed. I threw myself back against the wall. I waited in the blackness. Holding my breath. It wasn’t necessary to ask again. I felt her everywhere. I waited, hearing the plaster drifting down, settling softly over my skin.
‘Is that you?’ I whispered, just because the silence was finally too much. My heart was banging but I was determined I would speak with her.
‘Say something.’ slightly louder now, speaking into blackness so heavy I might have been a hundred miles underground. But my voice didn’t sound good. It came flatly back at me from the walls. There was a heavy, strained feeling. I didn’t like it.
‘Indigo?’ Dylan’s voice – seeming far off.
I moved towards the door, hands groping out, but something grabbed me. Hands around my throat – real hands. Cold fingers pressing deeper and deeper. I tore at them but couldn’t get a grip. I was scratching at my own neck. I gasped but couldn’t call out.
‘I’m here! Down here!’ she whined, right up against my ear. ‘Can’t you hear me?’
I made a muffled noise, kicked out against the wall. The fingers only tightened. I thrashed and bucked and suddenly was free. I sucked all the air in that I could. ‘Dylan!’ I shouted, ‘She’s here!’
There was banging on the door. Dylan and Ani’s voices.
‘Unlock it!’ Dylan was yelling.
He sounded so close. But the door wouldn’t move. I felt all over its edges – its hinges and handle.
‘There’s no lock here!’ I was rattling at the handle when the strangling hands grabbed at me again. They were not pressing now – just holding me firmly. I froze. Hoping she might speak and even let me answer. Gradually I realised there was a noise, so low I couldn’t make it out. A very low, forced voice, speaking words too quiet to hear. Not a woman’s. Almost a man’s but more like an animal’s. The hands closed again, pressed deeper into my throat. I let my knees give way, trying to drop down and break free. But I was just hanging and choking and she was too powerful.
Shut up. Shut up. An enraged growling right up close. With each syllable she jerked on my throat. I … told … you … to … keep … quiet!
‘Indigo!’ Banging on the door again. Blood banging hard in my head. The hands weren’t pushing on my throat. My throat was swelling. Pressure was expanding my head to bursting. Black blots bloomed everywhere. My whole body was rigid. I was thinking – strangely calm – I’m actually dying and it’s all over. I won’t have to go with the follower. I can be free this way. Softly, I lifted off the ground, the sounds receding. Or was I plummeting down? Faster and faster, freer and freer.
It was all terribly clear in that inbetween space. I could stand and watch myself. Not quite in my body. Just as I’d been for all those days. Sand forced down my throat. But it wasn’t sand, it was food. Something dry and old and near tasteless. I was choking on water, but I was drinking it too. I could feel the movement of my throat as I swallowed it, someone cradling my head. I was drifting numbly through the rooms in the darkness, as if sleep walking, and a little, bony hand was guiding me, resting on my arm. Not him, my follower was long gone. I almost remembered it. He left when she came. She was the one who had dressed me, fed me, supported me like an infant. You got to keep moving. You got to, or you die. Her voice right into my head. I was so confused for a while. I forgot. Forgot he had to eat. Forgot he had to keep moving. My little one. I didn’t deserve him. But now I have you. And I’ll look after you forever.
There was a thud and a crack. A burst of grey light.
‘Leave her alone!’ shouted Ani.
It was her voice that rocketed me back. I sucked in a breath. I was in my body. It hurt. My back was pressed against something very hard. I reached out my arms. They scrabbled at blank walls – or was it the floor? I couldn’t tell which way was up. Something hard and hollow shifted under my fingers.
It was Ani’s voice, coming from above me, that made me realise I was lying down. ‘Get her out!’ She sounded frightened.
I was lifted up. In the weak light I could see Ani and Dylan holding me. I stood there blinking at them, head and throat aching, trembling all over.
‘Let’s go,’ said Dylan, sounding angry. ‘This isn’t helping at all.’
‘Wait. There’s something down here.’ I pushed him off, went down on my knees, searching outward with my hands.
‘Here,’ I held it up. A tiny bone. I dropped it straight away.
Ani pushed past me and reached down into the corner. When she stood, I saw she was holding a small, delicate skull, both hands cupped around it – as if it were a bird and might fly away.
‘Oh God,’ said Dylan.
‘Oh, he’s a little boy!’ cried Ani, as if startled. ‘Oh, he’s so little!’
‘Pu
t it down,’ said Dylan.
****