8/5/23

UNINVITED

Must be strangely exciting

To watch the stoic squirm.

Must be somewhat heartening

To watch shepherd need shepherd.

But you, you're not allowed.

You're uninvited.

An unfortunate slight.

Words by Alanis Morrisette

It was early December and for Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson, the countdown to the rest of their lives had begun. They had a week left of classes, then exams, which they would pass with flying colors, of course. Law school graduation, then they would have the rest of December to relax and enjoy the holidays, and party some (or a lot), if Foggy had his way. Then they would have all of January and the beginning part of February to study for the Bar. The next Bar exam would be offered in mid-February. They already had internships lined up at the same firm, contingent of course, on them passing the Bar. But Foggy wasn't worried about that. They were Nelson and Murdock, avocadoes at law, and they were going to rule New York City. Nothing was going to stand in their way.

Oh, sure, there were some details yet to be worked out here and there. Like where they were going to live in January and February, as the lease on their apartment ran out at the end of December. They had a place lined up near the firm where their internships were, but they couldn't move in there until March. So, where were they going to live for January and February? Sure, they could probably stay with his parents. Foggy always dragged Matt home with him for holidays, so his folks knew Matt and would welcome him as well. Hell, Foggy sometimes wondered if his family liked Matt more than they liked him. His sisters certainly did.

Ah, well, don't sweat the small stuff, he told himself with his usual boundless optimism. Trust that the universe will provide. Everything will work itself out…

Two weeks later, he and Matt were walking across campus, having just finished the last exam of their law school lives. They were done, finished! It was time to hit the bars for a celebratory drink, or three. As they walked, comparing answers to the exam questions, they were joined by one of their former professors.

"Ah, just the men I was hoping to run into," he said, falling into step beside them.

"Yeah? What's up Professor Graves?" Foggy asked. "Tell me you're not rethinking that 3.5 you gave me in Contract Law last semester?"

Graves smiled and said, "No, Franklin, you're fine. You earned that grade."

The professor was a tall, slightly stoop shouldered man in his mid-fifties. He was thin, with just a hint of softness around the belly and a hairline that had retreated halfway to the back of his head. He had warm, kind brown eyes and he was one of Foggy's favorite professors.

"There's something I'd like to discuss with the two of you. I was just headed to my office, why don't you join me and we can talk out of the cold?"

"What do say?" Foggy asked, glancing at Matt. The other man gave him an amiable shrug of one shoulder. "Okay," Foggy said and they followed the professor to the large, old red brick and limestone building where his office was located.

Graves' office was large and cluttered and smelled of old, leather-bound books and hazelnut coffee, just as a law professor's office should. There was a long, battered leather couch and a matching chair to the side of the desk and the professor gestured for the young men to sit there. Foggy led Matt to the couch and they made themselves comfortable, while Graves seated himself in the chair across from them.

"So, as you boys know, we have a lot of wealthy donors to the university," Graves began once they were all settled and had dispensed with the obligatory questions about exams and plans for the future. "One of those donors is Peter Forrester. His family is old money, very old money. I think they got their wealth in banking or real estate, or both. I'm not entirely sure. He and his wife own a mansion over on Riverside Drive, a beautiful house. I understand it's been in the family for generations…

"Anyway, the two of them also have a villa in Italy and as you can imagine, they prefer to spend January and February in sunny Florence rather than frigid New York."

"Wow, that sounds great for them, but what's this got to do with us?" Foggy asked.

"Well, while the Riverside house is in a very upscale area with very little crime, they're still reluctant to simply leave it empty for two months. So, it has become something of a tradition, a sort of reward for the Forrester's to hire one or two promising graduates to housesit for them. After all, the timing is perfect. You'll have a quiet, luxurious place to prepare yourself for the Bar exam and the pay is also nothing to sneeze at."

"Seriously?" Foggy asked. "They're going to pay us to live in their mansion for two months?"

"That's correct."

"Oh, hell, yeah, I'm in!"

"What about you Mattew, you've been very quiet?"

Matt didn't respond immediately. He had been listening to the professor's heartrate and it had been quickening throughout his little speech. The young blind man could also smell the older man's sweat, despite the fact that the room wasn't overly warm. He didn't think the man was outright lying, but he wasn't telling them everything either.

"What's the catch?" he asked eventually.

Graves gave a soft chuckle. "Very good, Mr. Murdock. Spoken like a true lawyer. But, no, there is no catch, truly. You will be paid handsomely, all your food and essentials will be provided, all you have to do is demonstrate to anyone who might be watching that the house is still occupied, and study for the Bar. As I said, it's meant to be a reward for worthy students and I can't think of two more worthy than you."

"How come I've never heard about this? If the Forrester's do this every year, it seems to me that the students would talk about it."

"Not necessarily. It's not a scholarship. We don't broadcast it to the student body and it's only out-going students who are offered this opportunity, and it's winter graduation, so less graduates to even know about it. Word just doesn't really spread much about it. It's not a secret or anything. It's just not really common knowledge either."

"I don't know," Matt said, "You just randomly picking a couple of students doesn't seem very fair to everyone else."

"True, but then again, life isn't fair, is it Matthew? You of all people should be well aware of that. I could also remind you, that many of your fellow graduates will also be heading to warmer climes for the winter. Many of them come from wealthy families and they will be studying for the Bar on warm beaches. Can either of you afford to do that?"

"He's got a point…" Foggy said softly. "We've never even been able to go anywhere for spring break. And may I remind you that our lease runs out in December and we can't move into the new place until March. So, unless you want to camp out at my parents' house for two months and try to study with my crazy sisters around…"

"Okay, okay, you made your case, Counselor," Matt said with a smile.

"Yes! We're going to be living in the lap of luxury for two whole months. This is going to be great!"

Later that evening, they were at one of the local student bars, drinking with several fellow graduates, discussing their various future plans. When Foggy excitedly told the others about the offer Professor Graves had made to him and Matt, an awkward silence fell over the group.

"What?" Foggy asked. "Why are you guys looking at us like that?"

"Well, there's been a lot of stories about that house…" Justin said. He was a tall, athletic young man, with blond hair and blue eyes who looked like he could have been the product of Nazi eugenics. He came from a long line of lawyers and his family had their own firm, Young, Young & Young, also known as Y-tri, as in, why try to going up against them?

"Like what? That the place is haunted?" Foggy asked, voice laced with sarcasm.

When no one laughed, he said, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!"

"Seriously, man," Justin said. "A friend of my older brother was offered the job a few years ago. He and his buddy only lasted two weeks before they bailed."

"Aw, man, I knew this was too good to be true! So, wait, your brother's friends, they just left the house empty?"

"No, I guess they'd go back during the day and make sure everything was okay, but they wouldn't stay once it got dark."

"Oh, come on, Foggy, you and Matt don't believe in ghosts, do you?" a petite brunette named Ashley asked.

"No, of course not!" Foggy said quickly. "What about you, Matt?"

"I don't know, maybe. I certainly believe there are things in the universe that we don't understand…" the young blind man responded.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, you're a good Catholic boy," Ashley said. "There's that whole Holy Ghost-thing, right?"

"No, that's not it. It's just, things happen that we can't control and can't explain, that don't conform nicely to the known rules of science or religion, so… ghosts? Maybe. I try to keep an open mind."

"Oh man, does that mean you're going to make me live in that house all by myself? 'Cause I cannot live at home with my sisters for two months," Foggy said.

"No, we gave our word, so we're going to do it," Matt said firmly. "And we have nowhere else to go. Besides, just because I'm open to the idea of ghosts and people say that it's haunted, doesn't mean the house is actually haunted. Stories like this spread because people want to believe their true. That doesn't mean they are."

"Here, here!" somebody shouted and they all clinked their beer bottles together and drank in honor of these brave words.

"I gotta say, it's also weird that, it's only guys that get asked to do this," Justin said. "I don't think any women have ever been asked, at least, none that I've ever heard of."

"Well, maybe they think us poor, defenseless, little girls would get too scared," Ashley said in a high-pitched, baby voice.

"Course, what they don't know, is that you're a black belt in Jujitsu, and you can kick any ghost's ass!" Justin said, throwing an arm around Ashley's shoulders.

"Damn straight!" she responded.

"Okay, so, lay it on me, what's the story on this house?" Foggy asked.

"You sure you wanna know?" Justin asked.

"Yeah, I want to know what to expect."

"Okay, so, apparently this house has been in the Forrester family for, I don't know, a long time, several generations. Anyway, one of the previous Forrester's, back in the '70's, early '80's maybe, went a little nuts and offed his whole family, or probably did, and then offed himself."

"Wait, 'probably'?" Foggy asked.

"Yeah, the whole thing's really weird. See, the police came to the house because a neighbor reported hearing a gunshot, just one. And when the cops got there, they found Forrester lying in a pool of his own blood, handgun lying by his side. Obvious suicide. But before he shot himself, he evidently painted a circle with some of his kids' fingerpaints around his body, weird, right?

"So, the cops go upstairs to look for the rest of the family. They go into the master bedroom and find a big pool of blood on the wife's side of the bed, but no body. Forrester and his wife had two sons, twins, which is a creepy detail by itself. I mean, there's just something creepy about twins, am I right? Anyway, they go check on the boys, but they're gone. There's no blood, no bodies, nothing, just gone.

"Now, the coroner determined that there was enough of the wife's blood on the bed to determine that she's dead. Nobody loses that much blood and lives. But where's her body? Where are the boys? Are they still alive somewhere or are they dead, too? Nobody knows. Their bodies have never been found."

"So, the ghosts haunting the house are the kids and the wife?" Foggy asked.

"Yeah, I guess so, I'm not really sure. I don't know that anyone has ever actually seen a ghost. They've just heard a lot of weird noises and stuff like that."

"Oh, if that's all it is, I can handle that," Foggy said, sounding relieved. "Houses make noise all the time, but I suppose if you've lived in apartments all your life, you might not be used to it. Eh, we got this, Matt! No problem."

In a show of solidarity, Matt held one fist out for his friend to bump.

To be continued…