THE GHOST DOWNSTAIRS - Chapter Four

Vanishing into the winter night

When Lina, a thirty-two-year-old nurse, takes a live-in job in a Seattle retirement home, her life acquires two disturbing twists: she learns that ghosts have haunted the old house since a manslaughter-suicide in the 1930s; and she finds herself falling for her mysterious coworker Ren, who seems to know more about the strange house than he’s telling.

Earlier chapters and more info here

Old brick mansion: photo credit

Chapter Four

For the first two weeks of November, Lina kept away from Ren’s door and from Ren himself when possible, to avoid being tempted into any further questionable behavior on her own part. He struck up conversations with her sometimes, but they qualified as small talk and tended not to last more than two minutes. Instead, she catered to her elderly patients, took walks in the rain with her black umbrella, and sat at the piano in the living room, where she frowned at sheet music and plinked out notes. If she ended up playing the melody line of a certain Chopin waltz rather often, then it was her one indulgence, and until someone commented on it she would keep doing it whenever she pleased.

The house, too, was quiet. Nothing jumped out of its place; no unseen hands touched her. She almost believed it had been her imagination—the cold breath, the shove on the shoulder. These things had other explanations.

She awakened one morning to deep silence. It was dark outside. Her clock read 4:51. She burrowed down against her pillow to go back to sleep, but a sense of small, busy movement caught her eye. Tiny shadows like moths whisked across her window blinds. She pushed back her blankets, went to the blinds, and parted them with two fingers. A childlike thrill warmed her stomach. It was snowing! The maple drooped under a film of white, the grass and front path had gathered a patchy layer of slush, and the black spikes of the iron fence stood out against the snow-dusted street. The garden lights lining the walk twinkled like elfin mushroom lamps in Christmas Land.

She pulled the cord to raise the blinds. As she stood admiring the view, hugging herself against the chill (the radiators had not yet started up this morning), a figure walked into the yard from around the side of the house, leaving a dotted trail of footprints. Her heart jumped in fear—an intruder?—and then, upon recognizing him, shifted into a different and happier drumming.

In his usual white shirt and black trousers, with snowflakes sticking to his dark hair, Ren stopped at the fence and looked out at the street. He shivered and rocked up and down on his toes—Lina wondered in amusement why he hadn’t worn a coat—and tipped his head back to let the flakes fall on his face. They were large and wet, so he soon lowered his head again, shaking his head like a spritzed cat and dabbing his face with his sleeve. Lina grinned. She considered opening the window and calling to him, but didn’t want to wake anyone up.

He turned toward the house. Lina waved at him. He held still for a long moment, the puzzlement on his face barely visible in the snow-light as he stared at her from three floors below. Then a smile broke like dawn over his features, and he waved. Lina attacked the brass clasp on the window and tried to open it. It was stuck and would not budge. She made him a helpless gesture. He stood grinning, watching her, arms folded tight in the cold. She held up her palm to tell him to wait, and dashed away from the window. She stuffed her bare feet into rubber galoshes and flung a wool blanket over her flannel nightgown.

Something thudded against the windowpane, startling her into a shriek. From a round impact mark of water and ice crystals, gray slush slid down the glass. She returned to the window to waggle a finger at him. He continued to grin, massaging his snow-chilled hands. Then she flung her door open and darted along the hallway, down the staircase, and out the front door.