Disclaimer: C'mon folks, you know the drill...

A/N: I'm going to have to rent the movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." I've never seen it, but its description at Yahoo! Movies has me confident that I'm not treading on copyrighted ground as far as my plot is concerned...though I am on just the other side of its fence.

888888888888888888888888888888

Chapter Five: When Walls Talk

888888888888888888888888888888

Andrea spent the rest of the day babying Rum and convincing herself that she had NOT seen a fading message in her bathroom mirror. Well, trying to convince herself. Okay, she was convinced that she had seen a message in the mirror and what she was really trying very hard to do was convince herself that she wasn't crazy.

Rum stuck close to her side as she cleaned the first floor of the house. Its damage from being unoccupied wasn't as bad as what Norton had led her to believe. There were a few spots where water damage had occurred, but for the most part the first floor just needed a few coats of fresh paint. By noon, she was ready to quit cleaning and try to figure out what the problem with her computer was.

With Rum snoozing in her lap, Andrea had one hand on her cell phone as her computer booted. "Yes!" she shouted, waking Rum from his catnap, as Windows XP successfully loaded and allowed her to log in. She inserted her disc, and quickly skimmed over her last chapter. "Hmmm..." Andrea closed her eyes and smiled as she typed a verbal description of the scene in her head.

Oh, the fine tuning would come later. What happened now, this communion between Tale and Talespinner, was no less a sacred act of creation than that of the Universe itself.

With a few stops and starts, it didn't take Andrea very long before her chapter was done. She hit "Save" and began the serious work of finding flaws within the text. She frowned as she read. What she meant to write was there but...somehow off.

Her hero had blue eyes, why did she write that he had brown? And he rode a black horse, not sailed a black ship! Andrea growled as the inconsistencies began to mount. Had she been writing on a piece of paper it would have been crumpled into a ball and Rum would have been chasing it around the floor. As it was the slow and tedious process of salvaging her chapter took Andrea the better part of the afternoon, and she was unsurprised to see the sun lowering as she hit "Save" for the final time.

What did surprise her was the fact that Rum napped through the entire writing process. Normally he'd have been jumping in her lap every five minutes begging for food or attention. "Poor little guy." Andrea said as she skritched his ears. "What did you tire yourself out doing?"

The cat jerked awake as the sounds of Beethoven's "Fur Elise" filled the air. The music stopped as Andrea picked up her cell phone. "Hello?" "Andrea...it's 'kkrss' Norton. Are you 'psss' anything?" "You're going to have to speak a little more clearly, there's a lot of static." "Oh...'kkrrss' I was just wondering if you'd 'sssss' join me for dinner. There's a 'pssss' diner about three 'kkkrrrss' miles down the road from you, the food's 'pssshhhcraacckllee'." "I don't know, I'd hate to leave Rum here alone..." "Bring him. The lady who 'ssssss' the place loves cats, she'll 'whooosh' have a dish of 'sssssss' for him."

In between bursts of static, Norton gave Andrea driving directions to the diner. Rum stared at Andrea as she changed into a clean, and very attractive, outfit. "What?" she said defensively. "It's NOT a date. So stop looking at me like that!"

'Liiiikkkee whaaaat?'
Andrea stood stock-still, then shook herself. "Rum, I'm letting my imagination run away with me again. For a moment, I could have sworn I heard someone talking back to me. Quite the echo in here, eh?" She laughed weakly. Andrea knew there wasn't an echo on the first floor, knew it with the certainty of someone who had cursed - loudly - whenever she'd dropped a piece of furniture she'd been moving that day.

'Echoooo....Hahahahahahahahaha'

Andrea looked around uneasily. "Yep. Just an echo. 'Cause there's no such things as ghosts. Just echoes." She scooped Rum off of the bed and quickly made her way out the door.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, the "echo" seeped from the walls. It was able to take a more solid form than the previous night. Binding with a mortal always gave the ghost a boost.

Jack smiled. Even if the cat was there, he'd be able to enter the girl's mind without hindrance now. Sleeping, waking, it mattered not as long as the sun was down. He would be able to do much more than spy on her or make the walls talk.

As soon as she came back, Captain Jack Sparrow was going to have some fun.

888888888888888888888888888888

A/N: More is on the way...thought I'd surprise you all and have this bit up a little early. It's a tad boring, but necessary.

Oh, and I have a feeling the story's rating is going to change for the next chapter...expect it up by Sunday night. winks