I can't tell you what it is exactly that attracts me to this house. Maybe it's the gorgeous view of the river and the ocean, or maybe it's the lines and the facade that gives the building a unique victorian charm. I just know that I fall in love with it the moment I step foot inside, and part with the money willingly once inspectors assure me it's safe.
Though if I wanted to be honest I would have bought it anyway and had whatever repairs necessary done.
My parents left me a lot of money, and I had even more once I'd sold the family mansion. This is to be my fresh start, the place for me to come into my own, as it were. It's close enough to Oxford for me to easily commute back and forth for my position there.
Even though there's hardly any furniture, I make camp in front of the fireplace that first night. For reasons I can't quite understand, I don't feel lonely. This place is empty, just waiting to be filled, but as I fall asleep I feel a warm presence envelope me.
In the morning the fire has gone out and there's a crick in my back. I've dreamed, but I can't grasp onto what it was about, only that it was very pleasant. I reluctantly leave my new home to get to work. By the time I come home, the movers should be done.
Then I get to start the long, arduous process of putting everything in it's place.
I tackle the library that weekend. I have so many books that it takes me six hours just to get everything in place and in order. The room is cozy, with a large cushiony chair in one corner for reading, next to a table for my tea. I'm glad for the chair, because I have to collapse into it as every muscle in my legs and back is protesting at the exertion. As I drift off, I feel something brush my hair back.
The next week is hectic as I prepare for a month-long expedition. We're joining a dig in Jordan and I'm incredibly anxious about it, as it's my first time on site since I was a little girl nipping at my father's heels. As I wait for the cab to take me to the airport, I feel something whispy and soft at the back of my neck. There's no one there, but I feel an aching loneliness open up inside my chest. I don't know where it came from, or how to fill it. Something is missing. I don't have time to think about that mystery, because there's the cap.
The dig is hot, and dirty. I'm constantly soaked in sweat and all my muscles are solid pain, but I love every minute of it. It's what I'm born to do and even the littlest discoveries feel like gigantic ones. I don't sleep as well as I should. That missing piece still bothers me and so I bury myself in my work. Ten, fifteen hour days and exhausting nights but I push through until the end.
I'm happy to be home though. After a month in the field I can sleep in a real bed, take a real shower or a real bath. That sounds so perfect that I end up falling asleep in the tub. Warm fingers caress down my cheek and over my collarbone and I jerk awake. A figure is sitting on the edge of the tub. She's a woman with raven-black hair and tanned skin. When I blink she's gone.
I ease myself up out of the tub and wrap a towel around my body. A thorough inspection of the house discovers nothing. I switch to a robe and sit down on my bed.
"Hello? I'm not afraid. I'm curious." Oh lovely, Lara. You sound like a loon. There's no answer. I lay down and stare at the ceiling. There's a rational explanation for that. I just spent a month in the desert with a bunch of sweaty men and clearly I need companionship. They were all good people but not the kind of company I'd like to bring home.
I'm painfully shy when it comes to dating, though. I'm just more at home surrounded by books and artifacts than I am in someone's bed. And if I start seeing ghosts then I'm never getting a date again.
It's a few days later that I actually have a chance to go out with someone, when one of my grad students ambushes me after class. I really don't get the chance to say no and staring into sapphire blue eyes I find I don't want to. So I take Amanda out to dinner and we spend a lot of time talking shop. She's signed onto a trip to Peru and of course I have to encourage her. I'd go myself but I have prior commitments.
I think it's gone well. She follows me to my door and I find myself asking if she wants a night cap. The night cap leads to Amanda straddling me, her hands pushing my shirt open and her teeth leaving a trail of marks down my throat.
A loud crash startles us. A lamp has fallen over and I lean my head back on the couch. "Shit, I think I just lost a year."
Amanda slips out of my lap and holds out her hands. "Clean it up later, I'm not done with you yet."
The blonde is really exciting. I haven't felt like this in a long time so I let her pull me to my feet. Then I'm the one leading her, up the stairs and into my bedroom. We've barely made it to the bed when the door slams.
"What the fuck?" Amanda looks back at the door, but I turn her face back to mine.
"It's probably just pressure equalizing in the house." She starts to say something else but I kiss her before she can. I don't want to talk any more. We fall onto the bed, scrambling to peel each others' clothing off. Mine is harder than hers but she's clever and I'm sure she can figure it out.
Sitting up, Amanda looks around. "Did you hear that?"
"It's just the house settling."
"I don't know, Lara, I'm sensitive to this stuff..." We both jump this time when one of my bookshelves teeters over and smashes onto the floor. A book shoots out from the new pile as though someone is throating it and catches Amanda on the arm. She rolls off the bed as another one hits her in the head. "Fuck! Fuck this!"
I don't know what's happening. Books are flying and my date is running out of the room. The bedroom door slams behind her and locks. It's like something out of a scary movie, and my mind can't quite handle the implications. I hold up my hands as if trying to appease whatever this is. "Okay, you're angry. I understand that. But some of those books are very valuable and it's rather rude to throw them at innocent people."
The remains of the bookshelf rattle. If I look closely I can see the faint outline of a person. It gets closer, before I can feel that faint whispy touch. Fingers move up my arms, and others trace a scar on my collarbone from lacross in Uni.
I feel tears in my eyes. I'm alone in my room with just my knickers on and talking to thin air, yet it feels like my heart is breaking. "...who are you?"
I'm pushed back onto the bed, suddenly, as the light flicks out. In the dim glow through the window the figure stands out more. The woman is young, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and Asian. Her dark hair looks silky smooth but even though she can touch me, I can't touch her. I'm already worked up from Amanda and now I'm frustrated. "I paid for this house fairly and I'm a grown woman, I can bring home anyone I wish."
That ache in my chest returns a thousandfold when ghostly lips touch mine. I gasp into the touch, even though there's no one there to touch me. This is completely mad. Ghosts don't exist and they don't make me want to cry.
My pulse quickens as those hands move down over my body. They know me intricately and in ways no one else has ever understood. I arch into her touch, I hunger for it and I even beg near the end. A name passes my lips, one I shouldn't know and yet do. Sam. "Sam..."
I'm not alone as I drift off to sleep. I know tomorrow I'm going to research this history of this house. Discover who this woman was in life. Her presence is warm and comforting next to me. In my dreams, my mouth finds hers, my hands follow a rhythm I seem to know by instinct as I listen to my name called in an angel's voice.
I wake up alone, to a cold chill in the air. The presence is gone and with her a piece of my soul. In one of Plato's stories, he recounted a myth in which all humans were originally created with two faces, four arms and four legs. Zeus, fearing their power, split them in two. Forever would these two beings wander in search of their missing half, and when they found each other they would know unspeakable joy.
My other half is gone before I even got to know she existed. Joy and heartbreak in the same night. Numb, I pick up the books, and start to read through anything I can find about death, ghosts and reincarnation. I have so many questions. Who she was and what happened to her are at the front of my mind. Yet I also have a million other questions. What other supernatural events could possibly be real if a ghost could break my heart?
But I won't spend my life in mourning. There's so much unknown out there that I realize I can't spend my life in a classroom or behind a desk. It was dirty, tiring work but I belong out there.
"Thank you," I say. "I'll see you some day and I'll have so many stories to tell."
And maybe, just maybe, I feel her smile at me.
