Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ My Ghost ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

My Ghost

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Chapter One

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© 2008 Ohne Sie

 

Disclaimer: All characters, places, and events contained within this story are completely fictional and owned by me. Any resemblances to existing or future works are complete coincidental.

 

 

“Are we there yet?” Callie asked, plastering her face to the window of her parents' mini van. The sixteen-year-old girl resembled an excited puppy as she impatiently bounced on the car seat.

 

“It's like five more minutes, Callie,” her mom said from the front passenger seat. Behind Callie, an infant cried. “Give your sister her bottle, please,” she told Callie.

 

“Fine,” Callie said, moving toward the baby. She grabbed the bottle from the seat and placed it in the little girl's mouth. “There you go, Carrie. Enjoy. Because soon we'll be in a new house and we'll get to see a ghost!”

 

“There are no ghosts, Callie,” her father said.

 

“Yes, there are!” Callie insisted. “Especially in this house.” She turned to the baby. “See, Carrie, eighty years ago a boy who lived in our new house disappeared. He was never found. So his spirit is probably lurking somewhere around the house, eternally searching for his body.”

 

The baby threw her bottle down and yawned in response.

 

“If there was a ghost, Callie, don't you think someone would have seen it in the past eighty years?” her mom said. “Honestly, you obsession with these things is a little…” She frowned. “Disturbing.”

 

“Ghosts are real, Mom,” Callie said. “They're everywhere. Most people just can't see them.”

 

“You haven't seen them,” her mom said.

 

“That doesn't mean that I won't. You have to be open to seeing them, and you will.”

 

“We're almost there,” Callie's father said, interrupting his family's conversation. “It's just over this hill.”

 

Callie plastered her face to the window once again. She let out a cry of excitement as the house came into view. When her father finally parked the car, Callie ran out to explore.

 

“Callie, we need you to help unpack!” her mother called, but Callie ignored her.

 

She ran to the backyard, where an old wooden swing hung from a tree. The rope looked old and withered, as if it would break the first time someone sat on it. “I wonder if that boy used to play on this,” she said. “Probably.”

 

She looked around the rest of the yard, wandering over to a stream that ran at the edge of the property. “I wonder if he drowned,” she thought.

 

“Callie!” She heard her mom shout. Callie sighed, running back to the front yard.

 

“Mom! There's a swing out back—“

 

“Don't sit on it, honey. It will probably break and you'll hurt yourself. Here,” she said, handing Callie a box, “Take this inside.”

 

Callie winced at the weight of the box. “What's in here, bricks?” she asked, shuffling away.

 

“Books, I believe. We've got about ten boxes of them.” Her mother grunted, lifting another one. “This one included.”

 

Callie plopped the box down when she got inside and looked around the foyer. The stairway was directly in front of her. To her left was the entrance to what was once probably a parlor, that her mother would likely use as an office. To her right was a bathroom. Beside the parlor was a hallway that led to the rest of the ground floor, including a kitchen, dining room, and family room.

 

“There are more boxes, you know,” Callie's mother said, setting her box down. “There are a lot more.”

 

“Where's Dad?” Callie asked.

 

“Putting Carrie to bed.” Her mother sighed, walking back out to the car. “He'll be out to help us shortly.”

 

Callie followed her mother, grabbing yet another box on the way back to the house. She looked around her at all of the trees in the front yard and gasped when she saw a glimmer of something behind one of them. She nearly dropped the box in her surprise.

 

“Callie, careful!” her mom said as Callie's grip on the box loosened. Callie caught herself just in time.

 

“I think I just saw—“

 

“No more ghost talk, okay? We've got too much to do for you to be seeing things that aren't there,” her mother said.

 

“But I really think I saw—“

 

“It was probably a bird or something. Let's go.”

 

Callie sighed, resettling the box and carrying it inside. I know I saw a ghost, she thought to herself. She decided that it would be best to investigate later, after things were more settled.

 

That night, Callie lay down on her mattress, staring up at the ceiling. She could not sleep. A mattress just wasn't quite as comfortable as an actual bed. Besides that, she wanted to go ghost hunting more than anything. “I can't just lie here,” she mumbled, sitting up. Stepping into her slippers, Callie quietly opened her door and stepped into the hallway upstairs.

 

Callie winced each time the floor creaked as she slowly made her way downstairs. She glanced around her every few seconds to check for any signs of a ghost. She saw none. She reached the kitchen, becoming a bit discouraged, when she thought she saw something white moving out of the corner of her eye. Whirling around, she realized that it was the living room curtain blowing under the air conditioning vent. Callie sighed.

 

She turned around to head back upstairs and gasped, coming face-to-face with a boy about her age. The boy seemed just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

 

They stood for a moment, neither of them moving. Finally, Callie whispered, “Are you a ghost…?”

 

The boy didn't answer right away.

 

“Can you not speak? I mean, I guess maybe ghosts can't speak, but I don't know…”

 

“You can see me?” The boy asked.

 

“Yeah,” Callie said. “So…are you really a ghost? Can I touch you?” Before the boy could respond, Callie reached an arm out. It went straight through him.

 

“Yeah, thanks for that,” the boy said, rolling his eyes. “It's always nice to have someone rubbing it in that I'm dead.”

 

“Wait, so…” Callie narrowed her eyes. “If you're the boy who went missing in the twenties, why do you—“

 

“Use modern slang?” The boy finished. Callie nodded. “Because, although nobody has been able to see or hear me for eighty years, I've been able to see and hear them. Times change, language evolves. Therefore, so does my own. Is that a good answer?”

 

“Yeah. So…why are you here? Are you waiting for someone to come along so that you can tell them how you died and they can finally find your body?”

 

The boy laughed bitterly. “Oh, it's much, much more complicated than that,” he said.

 

“What do you mean? I could totally do that for you.”

 

“Yeah, if I could tell you how I died.” He shook his head. “Jesus. I have no idea how I died, where I died, or anything in the…I guess it was twenty-four hours before I died.”

 

“Really?” Callie asked, frowning.

 

“Really,” the boy replied. “I only know anything of what happened around that time by listening to the detectives and my parents talking about it. And it's not like I can just leave this place and go investigate on my own.”

 

“Wow. That…”

 

“Sucks, yes. It really does. And while you're the only person in eighty years who has been able to see me or talk to me, I seriously doubt you can be of any help whatsoever to me, so you might as well pretend I'm not here and carry on with your existence. Meanwhile, I'll continue not to exist and to wallow in self-pity for the rest of eternity.”

 

Callie shook her head. “No. There's probably a reason I can see you, and that's probably because I'm supposed to help you. So I'll search every inch of this house and every inch of the town until I find something.”

 

“Don't you think the detectives looked everywhere already? They tore up every foot of the floor in this house, they search all over the stream out back, and they dug up the entire yard. There's nowhere else to look.”

 

“Did they look beyond the property?” Callie asked.

 

“Probably,” the boy said. “I couldn't exactly follow them to find out.”

 

“Well, I'm still going to try to figure out what happened.”

 

“Suit yourself, but you won't get anywhere.” The boy sighed. “You'll just end up wasting your time.”

 

“It won't be a waste of time,” Callie said. “And anyway, I can do whatever I want.” She stuck out her tongue. “By the way, I'm Callie.”

 

“I'm aware of that. I heard your parents talking to you earlier,” the boy said.

 

“Okay, well…now would be a good time to tell me your name?” Callie suggested.

 

“William.”

 

“So I can call you Will?”

 

“I guess,” he said. “I can probably deal with that.”

 

“Okay. Will, I promise you that I'll find out what happened to you eighty years ago so that your soul will be at peace.”

 

Will shrugged. “Yes, well, I think you should probably leave that task until tomorrow morning.”

 

“Why?” Callie asked.

 

“Because,” he said, “Your mother is standing behind you, and she's staring at you like you're insane.”

 

“Oh…” Callie bit her lip, turning around to face her mother. “Hey, Mom…”

 

Her mom yawned, shaking her head in exasperation.

 

“I was sleepwalking.”

 

“Sleepwalking.”

 

“And talking. Sometimes I talk in my sleep. And walk in my sleep. At the same time.”

 

Her mother sighed. She tiredly pointed a finger toward the stairs. Callie ran quickly up the stairs to her room, closing the door behind her.