OK here goes chapter 3. I finally have a beta, my sister, so hopefully there won't be as many mistakes. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of the great Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 3
I stood there in the middle of the upstairs hallway, completely frozen and terrified beyond my mental capabilities. Adrenaline coursed through my body but I couldn't, for the life of me, find the will to move even an inch. This is not happening. This is not happening. Pleaaasseee let it not be happening. I chanted repeatedly in my head. What could I do? Who was I chanting these words to?
"Plea…ase," I barely choked the word. Was I pleading with the ghost who had just locked me out of every bedroom in my house? Why wasn't I running? Or screaming for that matter. I was in shock. That had to be it, I'm not this stupid. It clearly wants me out but right now I just can't move. Tears started falling from my eyes and my knees gave out.
"Please….Ghost…I'm so…rry, I'm so-sorry… made you mad… d-don't hurt me," I was sobbing senselessly but I needed to get these words out. I don't know why I felt that saying something would help in this asinine situation, "I'll leave tomorrow after I come back from school…just… don't hurt me please." I now lay on the floor in a fetal position.
I had been such an idiot, why had I come back here? I was going to die, if not by some weird Ghost possessing-me thing, then by a heart-attack because the jack hammering in my chest was not easing one bit. Breath in, Breath out. I wondered… if I told the Ghost I had to pee, would he or she close the bathroom? ... Ok now my randomness has gone into overdrive. Breath in, Breath out. Am I shivering? Great! now I must look like a fish out of water, shivering in the cold, hard floor of the hallway. The Ghost must be having a real laugh with this. I need to call Jasper; he'll come pick me up. Where's the phone? Downstairs. Crap. Where's my cell? In my room. Double Crap. Why is it so cold in the hallway?!
Suddenly the atmosphere changed. The cold went away and each door opened very slowly. Oh shit, now it's really going to kill me. Oh God no; plead some more Bella. "Please…d-don't." That's all I could get out through croaks and lots of shivers. But nothing happened. I must have stayed in the same position for at least an hour after the doors opened, waiting for…anything. But nothing came. Maybe it took pity on me. I need to move now. Alright time to stand. Thinking about standing up. Ok that didn't work. Move hand from clutching tightly to chest. Good. Other hand. Good. Press both hands on floor and slowly lift upper body. Good again. Now I was in a sitting position and I looked around franticly.
Too scared to stand, I started crawling towards my room in search of my phone. When I went inside, I had found some little bit of courage to stand up and all but race towards the bed. My purse - with my phone in it- was on my bed, but somehow I couldn't call Alice. It would mean giving up completely. And I had promised the Ghost that I'd be moving out tomorrow. I think it believed me. Am I completely insane for wanting to stay here another night? No. Yes. Definitely. But I wanted to stay.
"Ghost, can I stay here another night or do you want me leave now?" I asked wondering if it would answer in some way. Terrified if it actually answered. But then again, I had challenged it when he closed the door to my room and it answered by closing the other rooms. Luckily for me, Ghost was very quiet now. So I took that as a yes.
The intense horror I had just been through made me too tired to be calling Alice and going anywhere. So I took off my shoes and covered myself entirely with the blanket hoping that it would protect me.Yeah, now I'm five years old, although now I had no mommy and daddy to run to. Then again, when I was five I didn't have them either. I had just realized that if I had ever been scared before, I had no one to run to. What did I do when I was little and afraid of the dark?
*-*-*
I woke up early on Monday morning, lucky for me because I had forgotten to set the alarm clock last night. Well there had been other things on my mind. You think? Anyway, Ghost had let me sleep after that terrifying episode, so I had to make nice on my promise to leave. I went out to get the morning paper and started looking for something available. There was nothing. I'll have to call my realtor later that day. I got ready and since there was nothing else to do, left early for work.
Work was fine. The kids were your average teenagers, with only few that had any interest in the books we were going to read. I hadn't seen Alice all day. Maybe she had taken a sick day. I went to ask one of the teachers; he was getting a coffee in the teacher's lounge.
"Excuse me, hello. I'm Isabella Swan the new English teacher." I said politely.
"Hey there. My name is Mike Newton. I'm the school's gym teacher." He answered. He was just a little taller than me, with blonde hair that was clearly starting to thin and light blue eyes. "You're new to the town, right? It's just too small a town to not know everyone." He asked.
"Yes, I'm new to Forks, grew up in Portland."
"Ah, well, so not too big a change. Where are you living?"
I was surprised that he had asked me that. Is it me or is he a little too forward? But apparently he had lived in this town a long time, maybe even longer than Alice, so I just had to answer to see if he knew something about my Ghost.
"Well I'm living on a house near the woods; it's about a mile away from that camping gear store."
"That's Newton's, my father owns that store." He said matter-of-factly. "Wait, you mean the house with the broken picket fence that has been abandoned for years?"
"Yes" I said cautiously.
"Wow, you're brave."
"I don't understand." I said feigning ignorance.
"Well my grandfather told me that the man who built that house was murdered in it. And that about five years after the incident a young couple had bought the house but then they move away like two days later. Apparently, they told everyone the house was haunted." He said. Then he saw my fake, disbelieving look - not noticing the fake part – and was quickly back-tracking. "Well, not that I believe in those kinds of things…" I stopped listening to him while he was trying to regain some of his "manhood"- men are crazy sometimes - and thought about this new piece of information.
"Do you know the date of the murder?"
"Well I think it was in the 50's or something. I don't know for sure."
"Thanks for the warning Mike, but nothing has happen yet so…" Liar. "Anyway, have you seen Professor Brandon today?"
"No, I haven't; maybe she took the day off."
Though the conversation with Mike had proved what I'd already suspected about Alice's absence, it wasn't fruitless. So Ghost had been murdered in his house many years ago. At least now I knew it was a he. I decided to call Jasper to ask him if he could dig something up. Jasper was a historian and had written several books; he spends most of his time in the library doing research and they must have some old newspaper articles. Surely a murder in such a small town would be highly publicized. And I should ask about Alice as well.
"Hello" he answered.
"Hey Jasper, its Bella."
"Ah! So you finally caved and you're calling to ask if you can move in." he said with a little too much humor in his voice. I'm not helpless. "Alice said you'd cave eventually." Ah well, Alice knows everything.
"Yeah, well no, not exactly...I mean I'm moving out but…I have to …" I trailed of.
"Come on, it's no problem, you can stay with us darlin'."
"Wait no, listen that's not why I'm calling. I do want a favor, but it's not moving in with you guys."
"Alright, shoot."
"Do you think maybe you could snoop around some old newspaper articles and find a murder in the 1950's?" I asked.
"Is this about your house?"
"Yeah. A teacher at school told me there had been a murder long ago."
"So it is haunted, that's very interesting." He said. Good. I had sparked his thirst for knowledge. "I'll see what I can dig up."
"Great. Now, why isn't Alice in school today?"
"Oh, she got really sick this morning and almost fainted. Then she was completely fine, but I made her call in sick."
"Oh ok. I'll come over after school to check on her and maybe make some soup or something."
"That'll be great Bella! thanks darlin'. I've been distracted all day worrying about her, she never gets sick." He said relieved.
"I'm sure it's nothing Jasper. I can stay with her until you get home, if you'd like." Ok, I realize I was putting off going to my house and having to start packing and/or having another Ghost-wants-a-good-laugh-so-he-brings-on-the-freaky-supernatural-crap episode.
"Great Bell, I'll see you tonight."
*-*-*
"I puked once and right after that I felt completely fine." Alice said casually
"Hmm" was all I said and then I just stared at her.
"What?"
"Alice, you're never sick."
"People get sick, Bella. You might think I'm different than other people and maybe I am a little, but still, it was just a stomachache." She said.
"Yes Ally, you are different than other people, but in this particular matter you're just the same as any other…woman…who's…pregnant." I said a bit amused actually.
Her eyes bugged out. "No…I can't be…no way."
"Are you sure?"
"No"
"Ha! This is a first." I said gleefully.
"Ok…no…wait, don't say anything to Jasper. Tomorrow we'll go get a pregnancy test and…oh god."
"Ally, this is a good thing ok? But yes, let's not tell Jasper yet. Tell you what, I'll get the pregnancy test tonight on my way to my house and you can come over tomorrow before school. And you'll take it then. Tell Jasper you're picking me up for school."
"Yeah that's…a good plan. What if I'm really pregnant Bella? Do you think Jasper wants kids?"
"Alice, of course he wants kids. First of all it's you; he's planning to spend the rest of his life with you. And then you told me he comes from a big family."
"He hasn't proposed yet"
"He will in due time."
We heard the sound of the door being unlocked, and I turned back to the dinner I was making.
"Ally love," Jasper called out.
Alice ran out to greet him. I heard some muffled sounds and then whispers of love. Yeah... you really can't live with two perfectly paired people.
"Hmm… Bella that smells great." Jasper said as he entered the kitchen holding Alice's hands. "Is Alice feeling better?" he asked me.
"Hey!! I'm standing right here, you can ask me," Alice said a little peeved, "and incidentally Jazzy you didn't need to send a babysitter." Alice blushed slightly at the mention of baby. I chuckled mentally. Jasper didn't notice.
When we were finished with dinner, I asked Jasper if he had found anything on the library.
"Yeah, I almost forgot to tell you. I found an article from June, 1950. It was very short, said something about a man named Edward Masen. He was doctor that had just moved in from Seattle and was found dead on his bed with a gunshot to his chest."
"Oh that's horrible! Did it say why though?"
"Why he was murdered? It said the contents of his safe were gone, so they assumed it was just a normal robbery and the poor man had been on the wrong place in the wrong time."
"That house was the wrong place." Alice said looking intently at me.
"Yeah well, I guess. Thanks for looking it up Jasper. I should be going now."
Surprisingly enough they let me go. I picked up several pregnancy tests because I knew Alice would want to take it a million times just to make sure. Though why her supernatural powers weren't working in this situation was beyond me. As I reached my house, I remembered that I hadn't called the realtor today. Crap. I'll call tomorrow.
I opened the door warily, afraid of what I was going to do next. Now that I knew his name, I couldn't very well keep calling him Ghost and I was afraid he'd be upset with me.
"Hello…" I croaked and walked further into the house looking around. Nothing was out of place. "Look…Edward." I waited to see if something would happen. I felt something change in the air but it wasn't bad exactly, maybe he was surprised I hadn't call him ghost. So taking courage from the fact that there were no…say knives flying towards my face, I kept talking. "If you're listening, I'm going to have to stay here at least a couple more days so I can get in contact with my realtor to find a new place to live. Is that alright with you?" I said afraid of how he might answer. Nothing.
"Look I'm really terrified of you and I never meant any disrespect. Aside from the supernatural episodes of course, I really like this house. I want to make it pretty again, it was probably beautiful when you bought it and I'm really sorry about what happened to you." I kept walking around leaving my purse in the kitchen table. I went up the stairs since most of the previously mentioned supernatural episodes had happened there.
"Could you tell me if you're ok with this? In a not so terrifying way, please."
Nothing again. Well, last night when nothing happened after I had asked to stay another night, I took that as a yes, so I did the same now. "Thanks." I said while I walked to my room. I turn on the light and took my shoes off. And then started undressing for bed. Hey the Ghost is probably watching right now. Oh well nothing I can do about that. I finished dressing in my pajamas and went to the bathroom.
I must not have looked at my bed before I left to the bathroom, because when I came back, I saw a beautiful, yellow daisy nestled on my pillow.
Thank you for reading.
I don't know when my next update is gonna be cuz I have a million things to do and next week I'm gonna be really busy, with 3 finals and a big project. But after next week I have two weeks vacation from school and I'll be able to make writing a priority I swear, though I do want to read Bel Ami. Has anyone read it? Is it good? Reviews are always encouraging. See ya!