Find Me : Novella Read online

  The living room was a mess. I felt as if the furniture would disintegrate if I touched it. The floorboards creaked under our weight and the cobwebs were hanging so low I thought they would fall on me. We gathered up the moldy carpet and I threw it out. We also managed to open the windows again. The fresh air helped the house feel better. I took the broom and started gathering the cobwebs, while Adrian took care of the mold and checking the cracks.

  "Ugh, this mold was hiding something." Adrian pointed at the wall he was scrubbing. "This is structural damage." I saw a large crack spreading from the floor up the wall. The old white paint was cracking and peeling. The wall reminded me of a bruise. My stomach gave a sudden lurch and I looked away. "If the foundations are shot, your father might be better off just tearing this place down." Just as he said that I heard a crash.

  I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to see Adrian sitting on the floor. The side table behind him was knocked over and the bucket that I had put on it was on the floor. The soapy water was everywhere.

  "Sorry if I scared you." Adrian looked behind him. "I am glad that did not fall on me."

  "Sorry I put it there." I took a deep breath. There was nothing here to be afraid of. Despite that I kept looking over my shoulder for something to jump out at me, but nothing happened. Well, nothing that could not be explained. Cleaning meant we were banging on things and moving furniture and were generally really loud.

  We had to clean the fireplace next. I stood as far away as I could while still being able to help Adrian. He did not even mention my obvious apprehension. I was wondering if he assumed it was just me not wanting to get dirty.

  He cleaned out the fireplace from ashes and then went on to clean the chimney by laying on his back and shoving a broom handle up there. I was glad he had the idea to put goggles over his eyes, just in case something falls down. "There is something stuck here." His voice echoed, and then he slid out from under there and stood up. "We should not use this fireplace. A little more and the smoke will not be able to go out."

  I thought back to when the fireplace was used last, and shivered. That voice would not leave my head. It was so desperate and filed with panic. "We should move on then. We have the upper floor and the attic to go." I tried not to focus on the fireplace.

  As night fell, we were wrapping up for the day. I was tired and sweaty. I wondered why nothing had happened today. Maybe it really was all in my head.

  A picture frame fell down on the floor, startling me. "Damm it." I rolled my eyes, and turned to look for the broom. I needed to sweep up the glass before we stepped on it. A vase fell off a shelf.

  Adrian, who was sitting on a chair, got up. "What is it?" I watched as items in the living room lifted up, hovering in the air. Then they flew at a random direction. I ducked, screaming. I felt an ashtray hit me in the back.

  The cupboards started opening and closing by themselves. Items we removed from them flew into the living room and straight at us. Adrian ducked when he realized a pan was threatening to slam into his head. It felt like every object in the living room wanted to kill us.

  "The door!" Adrian yelled above the noise. I managed to run to him and hide my head at the same time. He wrapped his hands around me, making sure to protect both my and his head from the flying objects. We needed to get out of here. My heart was in my throat. I was just hoping that this had all been the result of stress.

  Adrian had slowly started walking towards the door, maneuvering away from the items that flew at us. He pulled on it but it would not budge. Just like last time. I closed my eyes and hoped that everything would stop moving.

  Adrian had just turned to express his exasperation when the fireplace blazed to life in front of us. My body felt as if someone had dipped it in a cold bucket of water.

  "Find me!" The desperate voice screamed at us. "You promised!" The voice sounded like it was in pain.

  I didn't know what to say. I remember my dad chiding me about my morbid imaginary friend and how I should not listen to my grandmother's crazy ramblings.

  "Mary?" I heard myself say. I was hoping that if I turn around I would not see Adrian staring at me like I was crazy. A part of me suspected I was and that if I ask him he would say he didn't hear anything. "I promise I will, but you're scaring me now."

  "I'm scared. You need to find me!" The voice shrieked one last time and then the fireplace died.

  "What in all blazes was that?" I heard Adrian whisper. I turned around and saw him staring at the fireplace as if it was a shark. Now I knew I was not imagining things. I needed to tell him what I knew.

  "Remember Mary, the little girl my grandmother was in charge of?" I asked.

  "Vaguely." He admitted. I took a deep breath and told him everything I remembered. The first time I saw her, the first time the fireplace spoke to me, and what I have seen behind the house, what I had seen in the yard. How it had made me run away. He did not laugh once.

  "Well, honestly if you had told me this before I would not have believed you, but the fireplace yelled at us. I guess this also explains the window thing from last time too." Adrian put his hands in his pockets. I could not help but smile. It was a relief, having someone here that believed me. He really had changed a lot,

  "I just do not know why she keeps doing this." I admitted. "She went missing. Why does she think that I can find her? Where would I even start?"

  "Well, the obvious place." Adrian shrugged. "The house. I mean there has to be a reason why she is still here, otherwise she would just follow you."

  I shivered. Mary following me all the time sounded like a nightmare.

  "We can come back here tomorrow, in daylight, and search the top floor. There might be something in there that we can use."

  I felt good about that idea. Even if we wanted to, it would be hard to search through the whole top floor when we were this tired and it was this dark. "That makes sense. I can call you tomorrow."

  This time when we tried to leave the door opened. I had a feeling that was because Mary knew we were coming back again. As soon as we closed the door, Adrian took a deep breath.

  "I do not know how you handled this alone," he said

  "I did not handle it. You caught me running through the forest, remember?" I tried to joke about it.

  Chapter 8

  I drove to the bed and breakfast I am staying at and I trudged up to my room. All I wanted was to drop in my bed and fall asleep, but I was too sweaty for that, so I settled for standing in the shower for a bit and then going to bed.

  As soon as I closed my eyes I was dreaming. I was ten and staying at grandma's. It was late at night, and Mary was standing at the foot of my bed.

  "You promised you will find me." Mary said. She was looking down at the floor and wringing her hands.

  I did not acknowledge her. She was just a figment of my imagination, a result of my grandmother's crazy ramblings, like my dad had said. I did not want him to ground me again for talking about it. He and grandma had started arguing about it when they thought I was not listening.

  "You promised!" Mary panicked. "I hate it there, I hate the dark. You said you would help!" Things in my room started to lift up from their set place and spin in the air. I pulled up the covers of my bed to my chin. I wanted to close my eyes but I do not want to stop looking at her. I was afraid of what she would do then.

  "You are not real, you are not real." I started repeating. I wanted her to go. But I knew this was not over. She usually did not leave until early in the morning. Large nails dragged across my headboard, and I yelped. Strange hands, too large to be Mary's had grabbed me by my head so roughly, a chunk of hair along with a piece of my scalp skin was ripped off.

  "You promised!" Mary shrieked and the floating objects collided in mid air.

  Mary showed up more and more after that, but father had insisted it was just a nightmare and that I should just ignore it. He thought it was all in my head, and did not let me spend time with grandma anymore. The injuries were expl
ained with various things and I slowly stopped talking about Mary. I realized that he took me more seriously then.

  I did not know why my friend was acting like this. She used to be so nice, albeit sad. She always talked about the dark place she was in and how she hated the dark. The more I prolonged searching for that place the more desperate she became. And the more hurt I was. And then, after a day where dad yelled at grandma, he packed our bags and we moved. I did not see Mary again, and she had slipped my mind. And Mary had stayed behind in her cold dark place.

  My eyes snapped open and I caught myself staring at the ceiling. I woke up in a cold sweat. I slowly got up. I now knew why Mary was mad at me. "I was just a kid. I was scared of the dark too." I spoke to myself. "But now I can help. I promise even if I have to tear the house down I will find you." I fell back to sleep and didn't have any nightmares for the rest of the night.

  I woke up very early in the morning, and while I still remembered my promise from last night, I was apprehensive about returning there. The first thing I did after I had breakfast was call my dad. "Dad the house is hopeless. Adrian came by and even he says that the foundation might be crumbling away. The house is just not safe to go up, without heavy repair."

  I could hear him sigh. I started naming all the things we encountered in the house. I was not going to be thought of as lazy. I did not mention Mary or any supernatural stuff however. He would not believe me even if the fireplace spoke to him directly. He was the most skeptical person that had ever lived. I usually liked that about him, but now it made me feel lost.

  "Ok, I will call the contractor today and tell him to go and do what he can do. He will probably arrive tomorrow, figure out what they can do and send me an estimate. Just get what you can away from the house. Any trash, any valuable things, or rotten furniture."

  "Okay dad. I'll see what I can do." I could do that while searching for Mary. I had a day. And if I could not do it, the contractors might find her. They would be tearing out everything from there anyway. I wondered if someone else besides me found Mary, if she was going to stop being mad at me. I hoped so. I got ready again and drove my car to the house.

  Adrian met me at the house. He was leaning on the hood of his truck, hands in his pockets. This time, he looked like he had not gotten enough sleep. He looked so nervous.

  "Hi, are you ready?" I asked as soon as I got out of the car.

  "As ready as I ever can be when facing an angry ghost." Adrian spoke the word 'ghost' as if he did not believe he needed to utter that word in this situation. I understood him.

  We entered the house and as agreed, we headed straight to the top. We started with my room. There were not many things that were not rotten in there. I stood on top of the place where Mary had appeared the most, right at the foot of the bed.

  "This is where she showed up usually." I spoke. Adrian looked up from where he was sweeping.

  "You think that if we check there we might find something?" He asked.

  "You think we could check?" The thought that Mary had been here all the time had filled me with dread. I both wanted and did not want this to be that easy.

  "Wait for a second." Adrian left and got back with a crowbar from his car. He knelt down and started prying the floorboards off. He handed them to me and I placed them in a corner. I could only hear my heartbeat and the sound of the boars being ripped out. In the end we were just staring at a dirty, slightly rotten floor.

  "Well, all we found out was that the floor is not that stable." Adrian shrugged. "It was worth checking."

  I exhaled. "Let us finish this room and check the others." This room was not that hard to clean. After that we tackled the smelly bathroom. We almost gagged at the smell. But a whole bottle of cleaner fixed it. I welcomed the chemical smell.

  The next room we tackled was my dad's. It was the easiest to clean, because he had not left many things there. My parent's room was the same. I looked at the almost fully utilitarian room. Most of the things there were obviously left by grandma. I crinkled my nose as we threw away those old bags filled with stuff grandma kept for god knows why. Mary might have been real but grandma was nevertheless crazy.

  My grandmother's room was a mess this time. I frowned at the furniture that had flipped over.

  "Wow, I did not know your grandma was this messy." Adrian came in.

  "She was not. The first time I came in here, the room was really neat. Really pink and frilly, but neat." I spoke.

  "So, we better search this part of the house thoroughly." He started picking up broken things and putting them in the black garbage bag. I helped. Most of the things in the room were ready to be tossed away. The furniture was wrecked too. We wound up stacking the broken things in the corner. Adrian knocked on the walls and on the floor. His idea was that a little girl was big enough that if she was hidden somewhere, the hole that would be left would leave behind some evidence. He dropped the trash bag in frustration when he did not find anything.

  The guest room did not have many things in it. We first tackled the dust, because when we moved things, the dust would move and we would cough. We checked those walls too. I was beginning to think that we would not find anything today.

  The next room we cleaned was the room my mother stayed at while she was sick. I did not like being there at all. The room she stayed in was small, with large windows. And even those huge windows could not stop it looking and feeling closed in. I could not get the hospital smell out of my nostrils, even though it should not smell like that after all of this time. We opened the windows and Adrian got to work on one end, while I rifled through the bedside table. An old leather bound notebook was all that was inside. I recognized my mom's handwriting. I did not even know she kept a diary. Maybe this will shed some light on things. I put it in my bag and did not say a word. I wanted to look through it by myself first. I wanted to make sure that there was not anything too personal inside.

  The last room we got to was my grandpa's. I was so tired that I was just going through the motions at this time. This room filled me with chills so I did not want to stay in it long. We cleaned up the room and opened the windows there too. The clean air streaming through the house made it feel lighter.

  The sun had begun to set and I and Adrian were so tired that we could barely stand. I did not even flinch when a pan lifted up and threw itself against the wall. Mary was upset again. And rightly so, we have not found her yet. The fireplace started speaking again when we came down the stairs. I grabbed Adrian's hand.

  "Find me!" the voice shrieked again. I was reminded of the voice in my dream. Mary sounded a lot sadder now.

  "We are trying to Mary." I spoke as calmly as I could. I imagined that I was taking to a small child wanting to go home on the first day of school. She might be dead, but she is still a child. "We cannot search the whole house in one day, we are too tired. We will come back tomorrow and continue searching, and we will not stop until we do."

  Adrian stood behind me, and despite the fact he didn't say anything, his presence was making me feel calm and safe. If Mary started taking out her frustration on the furniture, he could help me get out.

  The fire blazed a bit stronger for a moment, but then died down. I could not help but shiver. A wave of sadness overwhelmed me. I knew I would want people to try and find me if I got lost. It must have been frustrating trying to get our attention all these years.

  I drove to the bed and breakfast alone. I could not stop thinking about Mary all the way there. I convinced myself that I was going to go to bed and stop thinking about it when I get inside my room.

  I settled in my bed, but I could not sleep. I kept turning over and over. So I sat on the bed and cracked open my mother's diary. Maybe it would jog some memory for me. I rarely thought about my mother these days. The year marked on it was the last year she was alive.

  When I opened the diary, a photo fell out of it. I picked it up and my breath got caught in my throat. A small girl with flat dark hair and large dark eyes was staring
at me. She was wearing a white dress and smiling. My breath caught n my throat.

  "Mary," I whispered. She looked so alive in the photo. Her face was full of joy, albeit there was a string of nervousness in her eyes. She had been her own person before she was my imaginary friend and way before she was a screaming fireplace. I compared the person on this photo with the person I saw in my room and in my dreams. The innocent face was full of life in the photo. I could imagine, despite the pale color of the photo, that Mary's lips were not blue. I would have liked to know her when she was still alive.

  I put the photo down and opened the diary. Some of it was just her speaking about normal life and then about her getting sick. As I went through the diary I wound up reaching the place the photo seemed to mark. I tried hard to make sure that I didn't stop breathing.

  Chapter 9

  February 5th

  I find myself filled with dread. I have been unable to sleep these days, so I walk around the house a lot. Usually I do not see anyone else. But a few days ago I saw my father in law walk out of his room and walk down to the basement. I have never seen him go there before. I waited for him to go out, and he stayed there all evening. In the morning he walked back to his room and closed the door. Usually I would not think nothing of it, but the expression on his face was so ecstatic that it gave me chills.

  I asked my husband, but he did not know what I was talking about. I feel he hates his father so much that he actively refuses to pay attention to him. I stopped trying to get him to see it my way. Mother in law refused to tell me why her husband went down to the basement and stayed there for most of the night almost every night, but she did not seem too surprised when I mentioned it. The more I stayed up the more I got curious about it.

  Yesterday I decided I was going to go and see for myself. I could not stop thinking about it either way. I walked carefully, knowing that if he saw me. I would never find out anything about what he did there. He was hard at hearing so I knew I could get away with him not hearing my footsteps. I just needed to stay away from his field of vision.