by Tiffany Michelle Brown
(830 words)
My new tenants seem promising.
The mother is a no-nonsense type. The moment she took possession of the keys, she repainted the walls in the shabby apartment in a single go. There was no taping of color swatches to the walls. No staring while she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, considering the light in the rooms or if a particular shade was too bright or too drab. No ho-humming. She simply hauled in two cans—one a deep forest green color, the other a vibrant orange—and set to work.
Since then, she’s scrubbed the place clean—twice—in anticipation of the movers. The floors of the apartment sparkle as men and women in tank tops and track pants carry in a couch, a bookshelf, and box after box of toys and plates and clothes. Judy—this is the name she gave the moving crew when they arrived—tells them precisely where everything should go. She has a hand-drawn diagram tucked under her arm. She glances at it now and again to ensure everything is going according to plan.
It isn’t until the movers have left that I get a look at the woman’s son. Judy’s kept him away while she’s readied the apartment, but I’ve heard her speak about him on the phone a few times. He’s a small boy with a shock of black hair that curls at the tips. Curious fingers that are eager to touch everything. Brown eyes that grow wide as he takes in his new home.
Judy busies herself with ripping open boxes in the nearby galley-style kitchen, and the boy is given full run of the living room. His head swings on his neck as he observes everything—the orange walls, the empty TV stand, the cracks in the floor. His eyes are bright, alive, probing.
The boy is the discovery type, which bodes well for me. His adventurous nature means he could be intuitive, open-minded. Perhaps he’ll be able to sense—
The boy totters over and reaches out to touch an orange-painted wall. I feel the familiar stirring. The dance that begins every time someone new moves in. The possibility. My bones reach out to the boy, desperate to tell their story. Aching to be discovered.
The boy palms the wall, and a shudder rattles through his small frame. Footsteps, and then Judy appears. “Hey, Jack. Whatcha doin’?”
“Cold,” the boy says, flapping his hand. “It’s cold, Mommy.”
Judy squats and takes Jack’s hand in hers. She frowns, because yes, his hand is frigid, as if he’d stuck it in a pile of snow. She examines him, touching his cheeks, feeling his forehead, grasping his other hand. But it’s only his left hand that is freezing, the single extremity that’s found my hiding place.
Judy curls her son’s fingers into his palm and brings his fist to her mouth. She breathes warm air into the tunnel of his hand, gifting her heat to him. He laughs at the sensation, his smile bright and alive and toothy, just as mine once was.
“Let’s go unpack your toys, little man,” Judy says and gives Jack a gentle push in the direction of his new room.
He wanders off and his mother does, too, but not before she presses her hand to the wall so she can feel the deep-down chill for herself.
In the past, it’s taken weeks, sometimes months, for tenants to find me. And even when they do, many shrug off or rationalize their discoveries. The building is old, they tell themselves. The walls are thin. It’s just a damp spot.
Others block off my hiding spot with furniture, creating a physical barricade between their lives and my cold memory. Some call the super, only to hear, “So, what exactly is the problem? I’m not sendin’ a guy over there ‘cause you got a cold wall. That would be crazy.”
But this curious little boy and his determined mother—they’re different.
Jack’s drawn to the place where I was discarded so many years ago—a mausoleum of plaster and insulation and mice and the sounds of the apartment building settling around me. He likes the novelty of the cold wall, the mystery of it.
And Judy, she won’t let this go. She’s meticulous. She wants this home to be perfect.
She’ll press her palm to the wall tomorrow, feel the cold, leave for a while, repeat. She’ll look up possible explanations online and when she can’t find any, she’ll call the super and demand he send someone over. She won’t relent, because she’s paying good money for this place.
Eventually, they’ll break through the new paint, the old wall, the horrible history and find what’s left of me. Shards of bone. A thread from my trousers. My scream in the dark.
Until then, I’ll watch them sleep. I’ll hover in the shadows, waiting patiently, holding tight to hope that someday soon I, too, will be able to rest.
END
Tiffany Michelle Brown is a California-based writer who once had a conversation with a ghost over a pumpkin beer. Her fiction has been featured by Sliced Up Press, Cemetery Gates Media, Fright Girl Summer, and the NoSleep Podcast. She is the author of Easy as Pie, a self-published short story that explores love, death, and the consequences of holding too tightly to earthly memories. Tiffany lives near the beach with her husband, Bryan, their pups, Biscuit and Zen, and their combined collections of books, board games, and general geekery. You can find her on Twitter at @tiffebrown.