Chapter 7: Meet Me at Midnight
Day Three at the Haunted House (Midnight)
He stopped just beyond the painting and the batteries went dead again.
Sylvia materialized. Rey was holding two more fresh batteries.
"I need these to make this thing work, okay?" Rey explained, pointing to his flashlight.
"So don't drain these, okay?" he requested, pointing to the fresh batteries.
Sylvia nodded.
Rey set the useless cells on the ground to pick up later. He replaced them and turned the flashlight back on.
Sylvia stared at it in awe.
"It's called a flashlight," Rey told her. "Nice, isn't it?"
Sylvia grinned and nodded.
Rey smiled. He was starting to think that he and this ghost girl were getting along better than he was with a lot of his living friends lately.
"Sylvia, I have something I need to ask you."
The little girl stared up at him.
"I have a friend that got lost last night. He's um…blonde and a little taller and heavier than me. His name is Chris Jericho. Do you know what happened to him?"
Sylvia nodded.
"Did you…did you take him?" Rey asked quietly.
The girl stared at him and shook her head.
Rey smiled, relieved. "I didn't think so. Do you know where he is?"
Sylvia paused for a second and then shook her head. There was something odd about the motion that time. Like she had hesitated to answer him. It was almost as though she did know where Jericho was but was afraid to say.
"Okay. Thanks anyway, Sylvia."
The ghost motioned for Rey to follow her.
"You want to show me something?"
Sylvia smiled at him and waved him forward again.
Rey considered not following for a minute. Something chilled him in his bones. He had a bad feeling about tonight.
But he saw Sylvia's bright blue eyes, shining with desperation. He couldn't believe that a little girl would want to harm him.
So he followed her.
"Okay, lead the way, baby girl; you know this house better than I do."
Sylvia smiled at him and took him down the hall and turned a corner. She led him up a flight of stairs, leaping them two at a time. Rey couldn't do that any more, he had to step carefully with his knees after having several operations on his left one.
He laughed at her energy. It was hard to believe she was dead, she seemed so spritely.
She led him down another hall and to the attic stairs.
"You might have to lead me back to my room, Sylvia, this is getting hard for me to find my way back from here," Rey told her honestly.
In the dark, everything looked the same. They'd only turned a few corners, but there were endless corners and hallways in the house. It was becoming impossible to differentiate between them.
Sylvia nodded.
Rey stood still once they were up in the attic. Sylvia skipped off somewhere. He looked all around him, shining the flashlight in his line of sight. Everything was coated in a layer of dust so thick that it looked like frost. There was an old crib, probably Sylvia's; cast-iron. A wooden rocking horse that looked ornate by today's standards. Tons of old everyday objects, many of them pertaining to Sylvia's infancy. Rey felt like he was in a museum storage facility. Everything was just so perfect that he wished it was in a museum. He saw a pile of ancient herbs tied together and lying atop a wooden crate and he knew that if he pricked them with his finger they would disintegrate into dust. Just the thought of it astounded him. He didn't touch a thing and treaded with great care.
Sylvia stared at his body while he wasn't looking. He was muscular and his color was darker than hers, and his eyes were dark brown and very deep. He had a kind face. She wondered why she couldn't stop staring at his naked chest. She shook herself out of the trance, dismissing it as senseless. She was forever ten years old. She would never blossom to the age where she could understand that she thought Rey was handsome.
"It's beautiful up here," Rey whispered, either to himself or the ghost he didn't know. Maybe to both of them.
She pulled on his pant leg.
He turned and looked down at her.
"What is it?"
She pointed at something on the floor a little ways away. Rey went over to it and knelt down. It was rectangular and thin. A photo? It couldn't be, could it? He picked it up.
"This is from a digital camera, and it's in color!" Rey exclaimed. He brushed the thin layer of dust off of it and saw that it was a group image of Michelle McCool and all the other Divas together, smiling and giving peace signs and generally taking a break from their typical on screen cat-fights.
Rey smiled. Most of them were very nice girls in real life.
He flipped it over and saw Michelle's handwriting of the date and event on the back.
"This is Michelle's," Rey said to Sylvia, who was staring up at him.
"Did she give this to you?"
Sylvia nodded.
Rey looked down at the photo. "Why did you bring it into the attic?"
Sylvia bent down and wrote into the dust.
I cannot hold things.
Rey read her message. "But you're pretty solid right now. How is it that you can't hold anything at certain times and at other times you can?"
She stared at him, not sure what he was asking.
"Never mind baby girl, that was a hard question, sorry. It's okay that you don't know the answer."
He didn't know why he'd thought a little girl would know the laws of being a ghost; Sylvia may not have even known that she was one.
He was about to set the picture back where he'd found it but Sylvia touched his hand. He looked at her and she shook her head and gestured towards him.
"You want me to keep this?"
Sylvia nodded.
He smiled. "Thank you."
He stood up and tucked the picture into the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. He didn't have any pockets.
Rey shone his flashlight around and he saw something further back than the area where he'd found the photo. He walked over towards it and knelt down again. Sylvia knelt down beside him, mimicking his movements. He smiled at her.
There was a small pile of trinkets grouped together on the floor with great care; buttons, a spool of brilliant blue thread, a bag of marbles, toys from her era, and the types of things that a child would find in the corners of a house and consider them buried treasure.
"May I?" he asked her.
She grinned and nodded emphatically.
He was very careful as he sorted through the things. Sylvia pointed excitedly at one of the baubles all of a sudden. It was about an inch long and stark white.
He picked it up in between his thumb and index finger and smoothed it over with his thumb. It had a long, sharp beak and huge eye holes. A little bird skull. It was striking.
"This is a…estornino…" Rey murmured to himself in Spanish. "What's the word?"
That was the trouble with being bilingual; sometimes his brain forgot a word in one language and could only say it in the other. He frowned and then smiled suddenly when he remembered the English.
"A starling?"
Sylvia smiled and cupped her hands. He dropped it gently into them and to his surprise, it didn't fall through.
"My boss- I mean, uh, my friend told me that there are owls out here. Did you find this in an owl pellet?"
Sylvia nodded, excited that he understood.
Owls could eat other birds, including starlings, but they would cough up all the unpleasant parts into their pellets- bones, feathers, etc. This was a whole skull.
"It's pretty," he told her, smiling.
She beamed proudly. A moment later she set it back down and picked up something else. It looked like another photograph, except without the sheen of modern film. It was tan and white like an old picture. It must have been from her time period.
Rey let out a small gasp as she handed it to him. He was afraid it would crumble at his touch, it looked so fragile.
In the picture were a beautiful little girl in a dress- Sylvia- and a lovely woman in a white dress that looked like a doily holding a pale parasol. They were sitting on a latticework bench in what looked like their backyard. Their garden. So there had been a garden once. It was probably overgrown now.
"Is this your mother…?" Rey whispered.
He looked up at the girl. She nodded tearfully and mouthed the word "Mama."
Rey wouldn't ever need to hear her say that word out loud or write it out for him. He could see that word in the eyes of his own kids even before they could form it on their lips. And he would run and get Angie right away if he could.
He smiled sadly. "Your mother."
Sylvia wiped her eyes.
"Come here baby girl. It's okay. You'll be all right."
She ran into Rey's side as he sat there, and he hugged her with the arm close to her.
He rocked her a little, feeling a little odd that he could hold a ghost. She felt solid and just as soft as any child, like she was the right weight and everything. He couldn't believe it. But his arm, torso and hands were all uncovered, so he felt like she was unusually cold. "It's okay to be sad, Sylvia, its okay."
She was squeezing him tight and kept her face buried against him as she sobbed silently. Her little shoulders shook. She probably hadn't had any physical contact since her death. The thought of it broke his heart: a sweet little girl completely devoid of any comforting touch at all for years and years on end. Completely alone in this old house.
He rubbed her back.
She was painfully cold to him on his bare skin, but he tried not to show it. The longer he held her, though, the more the marks on his skin spread. They were dark, maybe purple or blue, or even black, he couldn't tell in this light. The burns spread through his skin, but he felt like they were beneath it, dying the blood in his veins. They stretched out from his hand and his stomach where she was touching him directly and crept upwards along his arm and towards his heart. It ached horribly, but he knew it wasn't her fault she was hurting him and he was reluctant to let her go until she finished her cry.
Her skin wasn't skin any more; it was made of something unreal, something worse than ice. Finally Sylvia dried her eyes and upon opening them, she herself noticed that it was her touch that was burning Rey's skin.
She pricked his bicep when he wasn't looking and she saw the marks spring up when she touched his arm and he flinched.
He looked at her and knew he'd been found out.
She looked up at him desperately with a look that clearly asked why he was holding on to her if it hurt him so badly.
He kissed her forehead even though it burned his lips like dry ice. He didn't mind if it made her feel any better. "I'm right here. I'm not going to abandon you."
She looked up at him gratefully with trusting eyes. She knew from the marks on his skin that he would help her even if it caused him a great deal of pain.
"What happened to your mother…?" he whispered.
Sylvia broke away from his embrace to spare him any more hurt from her touch. The marks started vanishing off of his flesh the moment she removed herself. Rey looked down at himself and saw them starting to fade away. They looked almost like bruising, but some of them were as thin as a spider web. He watched as the marks were receding on his palm and back down at his body, where they were shrinking away from his chest and back towards the source of her touch on his abdominals. Astonished, he prodded the thickest, blackest area on his stomach. It looked like it would have been excruciating, but it was just numb. And then the marks vanished altogether and he could feel his skin again. He looked at Sylvia.
"It's…it's nothing, baby girl, it doesn't hurt," he lied.
She frowned at him. He could tell she saw through him.
"Well …it doesn't hurt any more," he told her honestly.
She saw he wasn't lying. She smiled weakly, glad that she hadn't caused any permanent damage to him.
She bent down and wrote on the dusty floor.
My mother died.
He didn't want to frighten her with this next question. His tone of voice would be very important while he asked this.
"How did she die?" He managed to make enough concern slip in and as little worry as possible find its way through there. And most importantly, he filled his voice with love.
Sylvia furrowed her brow, thinking. She didn't seem to know how her mother had died. Maybe she was too young at the time to recall. But Rey thought that that was unlikely since she was a ten-year-old now and in the photo she didn't look any younger than six. A six-year-old would definitely remember her parents.
"Was she sick?"
Sylvia thought about that and shook her head.
Well, maybe her mother had been sick without her daughter knowing. Rey decided not to rule sickness out. People died of consumption all the time back then. They dropped like flies from all sorts of things that didn't make any sense to die from nowadays.
Rey sighed.
"I know you brought me up here so that I could help you. But what do you want me to help you do?"
Sylvia looked at him and pointed at the ceiling.
Rey frowned and densely looked up at the actual ceiling. He stared back at Sylvia for a second, not understanding.
She stared back at him, not knowing how to say it any clearer.
Just then she blinked and saw the rosary tattooed to his chest.
She dashed over and barreled into him.
"Sylvia, what are you doing?" Rey asked her, taken by surprise. She was touching the crucifix on his chest. "What?"
She poked him and looked at him sternly.
"Oh! The cross?" he asked her. She nodded frantically and pointed at herself, then at the picture of her mother, at the crucifix, and then at the ceiling again.
Rey understood now. "Oh, you want me to help you reach your mother in heaven!"
Sylvia exhaled in relief.
Rey chuckled at his own mistake. "Sorry, baby girl. That was silly of me to think you meant the roof. I don't know what I was thinking."
Sylvia sighed at him. The roof? As if.
Rey thought for a minute. "Sylvia, you know that you are…do you know that you were murdered?"
She nodded sadly. That was a relief. He didn't know how he would have explained to a ghost that she was dead. And that someone had killed her.
He thought again. "If I find out who killed you, will that help your soul rest?"
Sylvia nodded firmly.
"Okay. I'll try to find who killed you, Sylvia."
He looked at his watch, which he hadn't taken off because he knew he'd be on this outing. It was already one AM.
"I lost track of time, again, baby girl. I think maybe I should head back now."
She nodded reluctantly, understanding that he needed sleep in order to help her.
There was a single, circular window in the attic at the front of the house and it was ajar. The bitter, freezing wind blew hard and rushed into the small space through there.
Rey abruptly felt very cold.
"Ah…" he shivered, doubling over.
His skin felt so sore now, and after already making contact with Sylvia, his body couldn't handle much more intense cold.
Sylvia rushed over to him and was about to touch him, but then clutched her hands to her chest. She gazed at him, her eyes full of regret and concern.
"Don't worry, Sylvia, I just need to get warm again and I'll be fine," Rey said, his teeth starting to chatter. Jesus, the air chilled so quickly here.
He tried to stand and fell back onto his knees again, shuddering.
He was beginning to feel faint. He dropped the flashlight and it rolled a little.
He tried to warm himself with his arms, but it was no use.
Sylvia was very worried, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't touch him without freezing him further.
She looked into his eyes. They were starting to lose their focus. She knew that if he passed out, she might not be able to convince one of his friends to come help him.
She jumped up and down and picked up the flashlight and shone it into his eyes.
He blinked. "Ah, Sylvia…?" he shook himself and woke up enough.
"Sylvia, the wind is getting to me somehow," Rey managed to tell her.
Sylvia looked around desperately searching for the source of the air. She dropped the flashlight and sprinted towards the window. The hinges were metal, but they had rusted a long time ago.
Rey gasped suddenly and bent over, shaking horribly.
"Oh, God…" he murmured.
He'd never felt anything as cutting as this cold. It was making every inch of his skin ache and it felt as though it had penetrated deep into his muscles. She was terrified that he would die this way.
Sylvia leaned her back against the window and pushed with all of her might. Finally, it budged forward, getting unstuck. Then she pushed it closed.
Rey shivered, delirious with the immense pain and after a while the lack of wind blowing against his skin prevented it from freezing any further. He was lucky. If he had started to feel numb, then he would have been a goner.
"Uh…" he uttered the sound and closed his eyes a couple of times, opening them again. His vision became clear after a moment, and the searing pain lessened. He sat up slowly and picked himself up. He swayed for a moment on his feet, because standing apparently made the cold circulate through his system. Every footstep felt like he was sending a nail through his foot and pain shot upwards from there through his lower legs. He winced.
"Sylvia, I need to hurry and get back to my room, please," he pleaded.
She picked up his flashlight and he followed her down the steps, trying to breathe despite the freezing that was taking over his body. She would run down each flight of stairs and hold the light up to make his pathway clear to him.
She saw his breaths grow progressively raspier the further they went. He managed to make it to the last few steps of the second staircase by clinging to the railing before he stumbled. He startled himself, and gripped the banister, breathing heavily as he sunk to a seated position. It seemed the closer he was to lying down, the more the pain went away.
Sylvia ran over to him and shone the light in his eyes again, hoping it would make him move forward. He covered his eyes and she moved the light away from him.
"Sylvia, I…I can't," he panted. "I can't move, the more I move, the more it hurts…"
The little girl pulled at his pant leg and shone the flashlight down the hallway. He only had one more stretch to go before he would reach his room.
"Okay, okay…" he told her and pulled himself up, wincing. He stumbled down the hall, leaning against the wall with his palm and using it as a sort of crutch. He managed to get into his room and collapse onto his bedding, gasping for air.
Sylvia came over to him and looked at him mournfully. She was crying.
"No, no. Sylvia, it's not your fault. I just won't be able to touch you without gloves from now on, that's all."
She sniffed. He tucked himself into his sleeping bag and hoisted the blanket up. He threw it around his shoulders. He propped himself up slightly with his pillow. He held out his hand. "Here, let me get that for you."
She handed him the flashlight and he turned it off, setting it beside him. He could still see her in the dark because of her glow.
"I'll be fine as soon as I warm up and get some sleep, all right? I'm just cold, that's all."
Sylvia shook her hand and tears rolled down her cheeks. She was mouthing the words, "I'm sorry" to him.
"You didn't know that you were burning me, it's not your fault. I forgive you. It's all right."
She shook her head and inhaled sharply, crying harder. It was the first hint of a voice he'd heard from her.
Rey turned the blanket around and covered his hands with it.
He reached out to her and she was about to pull away, but then she saw that he'd covered himself.
"It's not your fault," he whispered gently, wiping her eyes with his blanket-wrapped fingers. He set his covered hand on her cheek and she leaned into it, laying her hands over his and squeezing it.
"See? That doesn't hurt me at all now," he said and smiled tiredly at her. She smiled weakly and kissed his hand through the fabric.
"Good night, baby girl."
He brushed his blanketed thumb just under her eye, wiping away her tears.
"Good night" she mouthed.
"I will see you tomorrow night, all right?"
She nodded, in awe of Rey. This man seemed like he would do just about anything for her. He barely knew her but already he seemed to have given her his heart. Sylvia decided after that night that he meant the world to her.
She went through his doorway and her footsteps vanished.
Rey lay down onto his sore back, wrapped himself up in everything he had, and fell asleep.