She moves in with exactly six boxes – one with clothing, one with pots and pans, two filled up with the books she has bought… or stolen… or found, one with all the notebooks she intended to burn and one that was still empty – just waiting for something new.
Because this is what it is all about, starting over, starting anew.
And you had to have some way of carrying your fresh life away with you.
//
There are no working lights.
And the oven is wood-burning.
She writes some, candles lit and causing funny shadows against the walls.
The wind ripples through the trees.
And it is the best setting ever for a scary movie.
But she doesn't really go in for those kinds of films.
This one, the screenplay of her life, is minimalist – pure and simple.
//
The first knock is too light, distant and removed, and she thinks it is a dream.
But the second knock is loud and she sits up slowly, knowing that no one would be here at two in the morning. No one but Spencer Carlin, a girl trying to reinvent everything.
"Hello?"
But there is no answer.
//
That's when the cups start moving.
First, they just shudder and slide a little bit.
Then they fly off the shelves, shards of ceramic disaster on the floor, and Spencer has to sleep with one mug just to keep something whole.
"I won't let you have it, you know. You might as well give up."
She is talking to the air, but she is making a point, too.
This is a fight and Spencer won't give in easily. This is a fight for her new and decidedly barren world.
And no angry spirit can shove her around.
//
The library is fifty miles away, in the nearest town of Deerfield.
There are tractors and hay-bales and diners.
There is a distinct gap in the ages, with random children running about and the elderly sitting outside of closed stores.
It always looks gray, the sky and the roads and the faces.
Spencer reads and reads, studying up on the history of this place, trying to find a name to put the broken things and the phantom hands knocking all night long.
And there are no witches.
Just a girl, shot and killed, dying alone in a gingham dress back in the 1800's.
Just a girl, bleeding to death upon the ground that Spencer dares to tread on today.
"I won't leave. I won't."
//
Spencer Carlin had a brother. Two in fact.
One of them died and it took all she had left to give.
Her mother retreated into a work-place affair and her father drank to excess and that other brother rushed ahead to college as fast as he could.
Spencer just drifted away.
She packed her things and left all the rest – left the family and left that house that holds her childhood and left it all behind.
Just six boxes. That is all her life is, six cardboard boxes.
I won't let some ghost push me around. I won't let that happen. This is my new life. Mine.
//
She is pushed into a wall and it cuts her skin, red gash along her jaw.
She is scratched, four delicate lines of pain along her torso.
She is bumped down the front porch steps and wakes up hours later, blinking up at the stars so far away.
"I won't leave. Go fuck yourself."
And there is a gasp from the darkness surrounding her, audible and feminine and the tell-tale sounds of skirts swishing away in a hurry.
//
"This is my resting place. Not yours."
"No. This is my house. I paid for it."
"You can't just take what isn't yours to be had."
"Oh yea? Just watch me."
The door slams and Spencer smiles, surprisingly glad for the voice finally heard.
It is raw and wild, raspy like a night too long of drinking… youthful and hard… a blast of color.
Spencer writes about it and then tosses it in the over, watches it crackle and turn to ash.
//
"I live here. And I won't share it with you."
"You're dead."
"I am aware of that."
"How did it feel?"
"How did what feel?"
"To be shot."
But even Spencer knows that is too far, too much, too soon.
And a fist is in her chest suddenly, twisting and pulsing and it hurts like hell.
It hurts worse than the time she broke her leg at the age of seven. It hurts worse than watching her brother die in front of her.
And she can feel the sensation of buckshot spreading throughout her body, puncturing lungs and piercing her heart.
She can feel the last seconds of her life stutter and stop.
"It felt like dying."
And she breathes once more, leaning against the door, alive and well.
And she catches just a flash of a girl's face in front of her… then nothing at all.
//
"Why do you write so much?"
"I have nothing better to do."
"Then why don't you leave here?"
"'Coz I have nowhere to be."
Spencer feels the gentlest breeze at her neck, the passing of a person behind her, and it sends chills up her spine.
"What's your name?"
"Ashley."
"I'm Spencer."
"That's… unusual."
"All of this is, I think."
And there is the barest whisper of a laugh, almost so light that it could have been imagined.
Spencer almost believes that all of this is in her mind.
//
Two months, one week, five days and countless minutes and Spencer Carlin burns every notebook but the last one.
Ashley takes it from her and tries to make sense of the words written.
"You always seem so sad."
"Life is hard."
"But you are alive. Shouldn't you be happy?"
It always comes back to this and Ashley never answers questions, never tells Spencer about existing while being dead and never tells Spencer why she was killed.
So why should I answer her? Why should I give over all of me when she reveals nothing?
"We all lose someone, Spencer."
"Who have you lost?"
"Everyone."
She looks up and actually sees Ashley's eyes, golden brown and still faint, but definitely there.
They are beautiful and haunting and Spencer knows that they were that way even when the girl was living. Some things… you just know.
"It's impolite to stare."
"Then disappear."
But there is a smile now to match the gaze and a face takes shape and Ashley is shimmering like water, rippling and fluttering, and Spencer can't stop looking at this mirage of a girl.
//
Five months, three weeks, ten days and countless seconds and Spencer Carlin finds her head too eager for the moments when Ashley makes her presence known.
And it bothers her, so she becomes moody and Ashley stays away – lingering somewhere among the bare limbs of ancient trees or running along moss-covered riverbanks.
They don't talk. They just look warily from corners of this house.
But Ashley still runs into her every so often, like a reminder, palms to the wall.
And Spencer loves it.
//
"I was sinful and I broke the commandments of God."
"Who hasn't?"
"One shouldn't, no matter the temptation."
"How did you offend God?"
"I broke a vow."
"I've broken many of those."
"Then someone will one day shoot you, too."
"Times have changed."
Ashley looks wounded and lost and Spencer keeps traitorous hands to herself, because Ashley can touch… but Spencer cannot.
And that is for the best.
//
It is warm and delicious and unexpected, curled against her like a cat might – but too large to be one of those taken-in strays from when she was twelve – and Spencer wakes up.
Or so she thinks, so she believes.
But the light is hazy and the world seems unfocused, so it must be a dream.
Turning around in arms and kissing lips and caressing skin – she is making love to someone and it is wonderful and it is making her breathless… but those eyes, those eyes are familiar and terrified… terrified and full of so much desire… until they roll back and that sweet mouth emits a groan and Spencer is awash in ecstasy…
And Spencer wakes up.
Or so she thinks.
//
"Please, just leave… please…"
Ashley is begging from the shadows and Spencer feels her heart beat too fast.
There is a race she didn't even know she was running and she is losing as much as she is winning.
And the end is in sight.
"Please, Spencer… please…"
She grips the edge of the table, digs nails into soft wood and bites her bottom lip, because Ashley sounds like she doesn't know what she is pleading for anymore.
And Spencer does not know either.
Not anymore.
//
Gingham feels rough and stiff against her fingertips, but it is the echo of Ashley's want that wraps Spencer up and ties her up – knots and lust caught upon each other.
"Is this the vow you broke?"
"Yes."
And Ashley's voice hisses like a snake, water turned to steam.
"I can't do this, not again…"
"Sure you can."
"But God will never take me home if I continue, don't you see? I want His forgiveness."
"Who doesn't?"
And Spencer feels just like the devil, corrupt and wanton, dragging innocence into the mud.
And she'd do it again.
//
When they kiss, it sets fire to that notebook as surely as flames would.
And the house goes down with it, cracking and splitting, a wailing of fire and brimstone.
Even the land beneath them is charred and then reborn, finally draining out the blood of Ashley Davies of the 1800's and her sins, preparing for new bones and new life.
And Spencer wakes up.
She tosses that mug into an otherwise empty box and she pictures Clay's face as he fades away – not with a grimace, but with a subtle grin.
She leaves the rest of her things there for someone else to find or throw out.
All she wanted was a new life, a chance to start over again.
All she wanted was… forgiveness.
For living when he died and for running when she should have stayed… for everything that went wrong and that wasn't really her fault.
And God is a girl, beautiful and free, golden-brown eyes gleaming in Heaven's sky – a second chance at love, a hand to hold in the darkness.
//
One year and Spencer Carlin goes home again.
//
END