Mercedes' Dirge Page 4

  All the same, Ella continued to address the empty room. "If that's you, I would really appreciate it if the music boxes could stay shut. I would like to sleep." She stayed in place and darted her head around expectantly, but nothing happened. She struggled with the fear that all the music boxes would pipe up as soon as she was in bed in a hellish chorus but, all was quiet and still. She got back under the covers and left the light on. She continued to scan the room. Definitely setting up a TV here tomorrow.

  Eventually she fell into a dreamless sleep. The sun invaded the room as Ella was awoken by a click of her door and sat straight up in bed. No one was there, but someone had just been and her fears of apparitions were quickly put to rest when she spied a gift bag at the foot of the bed. She smiled and leaned over to retrieve it. It had a large bottle of peach schnapps in it adorned with a bright pink bow. Gross. She snickered and shook her head and she looked at the accompanying card.

  I thought you might need this for your morning coffee. Welcome to Casa Dolan. Thanks for being here!

  Troy

  Ella laughed as she popped out of bed and padded out of the room, further comforted by the smell breakfast, coffee and seeming normalcy wafting up the stairs and she let it lead her by the nose into the kitchen. Alexa was sitting casually at the table sipping her coffee.

  "Hey you, how was your sleep?" She said with a smile when Ella walked in.

  Ella forced a smile at the query. "Good, thanks." She lied as she helped herself to coffee and patted Troy on the back. "Thanks for the generous gift. Is it supposed to be my daily allowance of fruit? Is that the way you do it?"

  He purposely bumped her. "Mine comes from the fruit of my genius."

  “I haven’t seen that tree around here.” She smiled through a sip of rich, creamed coffee as she sat and let Troy serve her eggs and toast.

  "The light was on." He told her suddenly as he sat back across from her.

  "What?"

  "When I snuck into your room, the light was on. How do you sleep with it on?" He questioned as he loaded his fork scrambled cheesy eggs.

  How do you sleep without it in this house? She thought. "Hmm, I must have been a little more toasted than I thought last night. Sorry."

  "No problem." He shrugged and gave her a joking smile. "I can get you a nightlight, you know."

  She shook her head and threw a piece of crust playfully that hit him square in the forehead. They both laughed while Alexa stared intently into the distance and cupped her coffee seemingly for dear life.

  After breakfast Ella took a long, hot shower. She couldn't help but peek out of the shower every few minutes. The events of last night were still fresh, but as each gander into the bathroom came up fruitless, she settled into more of a sense of security. She left the fogged mirror in the bathroom as she took her time lathering on lotion and dressing. She still hadn't unpacked everything, and was glad that the first thing she pulled out of her suitcase was an outfit that would suit all her purposes for the day. The jeans were nice enough to do errands in, but not so nice as to not do housework in them; a sort of utilitarian chic. She scanned the bathroom and was glad to see that the area in front of the built in vanity there was clear enough to apply her makeup.

  There was an elaborate vanity table in the room, but she was loathe to use it just yet. It was so denotative of Mercedes as she had spent so much time there, and the personal feeling that it exuded was only enhanced by the personal effects that lay there, abandoned. Favorite, expensive makeup and perfumes and brushes that still had her silken hair stuck in them. Ella had inspected some of the remaining cosmetics and unsurprisingly the mascara was dried, the lip gloss dusty and the nail polishes coagulated beyond usage.

  Ella was intently applying eyeliner when a change in image behind her caught her peripheral vision. A girl stared intently at her through the reflection behind her. Ella's initial reaction was to yell at Alexa for scaring her while she had a stick near her eye, but she stopped cold as the first syllable left her mouth and the rest of the sentence gurgled impotently in her throat. The long dark hair was not Alexa's, but was exactly as Ella had remembered. When something so impossible happens, it takes time for your brain to process what it's seeing. She didn’t dare to whirl around and instead continued to stare and Mercedes' apparition continued to stare expressionlessly right back. She stood by the bed, motionless until Ella finally spun around in her chair to face the chimera, to find that nothing was there. Mercedes had vanished as seamlessly as she’d appeared.

  Chapter 7

  Ella sat shaking at the vanity for at least fifteen minutes. She marveled at the fact that her advice was always to run when she had heard people's ghost stories and she was doing the exact opposite. She was shaken, but had a feeling that Mercedes would not pop up behind her again right then, though she couldn’t explain how or why. She didn't feel as panicked as she would have imagined. She did, however, pour over every detail she could remember. Mercedes, although somewhat transparent, had looked exactly as she had remembered. Ella had noticed that Mercedes was wearing a dress that was somewhat out of character for her. Long, willowy and looser than she would have liked in life.

  Her mind raced with what to do. She weighed whether or not to bring it up to Troy. She knew she wouldn't say anything to Alexa. Would Troy think she was nuts? Had he encountered anything and remained mum because he was afraid of the same reaction? She was bursting to tell someone, but the delicate nature of the identity of the spirit kept her silent, for the time. She had liked Mercedes, and was sad for her best friend and had no desire to treat this haunting as a curiosity but the amount of activity in less than 24 hours was a bit overwhelming. She was no expert, but Mercedes seemed to be rather active and Ella was not anxious to encounter more. She made up her mind to pack up the music boxes. They seemed to be a hub for the energy, and she hoped that their removal would alleviate the frequency of these experiences.

  Ella had never lined her eyes so fast in all her life. Once they were even enough, she threw down the pencil and swung her door open. She retrieved one of the empty boxes from the hallway and carefully wrapped each of the music boxes in a cocoon of newspaper to protect them. She marked the box and carried it into the hall. She tracked down Troy, who told her that she could either put any unwanted boxes in an empty room on the first floor or up in the attic.

  "This is Southern California, who has an attic here?!" She exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

  Troy shrugged. "Rich people?"

  She shook her head and walked away. "You'd have to pay me to have an attic." She complained under her breath. She let her cowardice direct the box to the vacant room on the first floor. It was already piled high with boxes, and she placed the box in the corner carefully.

  She arrived back in her room and dusted where the boxes had been, as their sudden absence brought to attention the layers of filth that had collected around them. After that task she looked curiously at the closet. She knew it was filled with Mercedes’ clothes and decided to take the opportunity to start looking through the clothes and packing them up. She knew it was just an excuse to look through for the dress she had seen Mercedes in.

  The closet was huge and packed to the brim with clothes, and while most were steeped in 2000’s fad, she had had a lot of classic pieces as well. It was hard to pack some of them away, but there was no way she would wear the dead girl’s clothes, lest she upset more paranormal activity.

  She had made it through a third of the closet and could not believe that Mercedes would have owned anything like what she had seen her apparition in. Ella stopped and stretched and cringed when she heard her back crack loudly.

  She sighed and emerged from the closet feeling like she did after leaving a thrift store, as if she had a layer of grime glazing her from head to toe. She ran downstairs and fixed herself a quick sandwich, which she chewed on slowly as she tried not to obsess on her earlier experience.

  Alexa came into the kitchen as Ella was washing her plate. “Hey Ell
a, how’s it going up there?”

  “Pretty good, but tiring.” Ella smiled over her shoulder. “I think I’m going to venture outside soon and run some errands.”

  “What’s on the list?” Alexa asked as she leaned over and perused the contents of the refrigerator.

  “A TV for my room; I didn’t realize how much I depend on it to get sleepy at night until I was without it. Sad, huh?”

  “Nah, It can be comforting, especially in such a big, old house.” Alexa commented, as she pulled a container of salad out of the refrigerator.

  “Thanks for not making me feel like a five year old.” Ella smiled.

  “Do you have someone else in mind?” Alexa laughed, carefully drizzling a viscous dressing onto the wilted greens.

  “Yes. Your worse half. He’d have a field day with my need for a TV.”

  “It just proves I’m right. It’s just a bigger night light than I had in mind.” Troy boomed as he suddenly strode into the room.

  “Yikes.” Ella yelped, startled by his arrival. “You’re omnipotent.”

  “I prefer to be called Troy.” He told her as he pulled a soda out of the refrigerator.

  “Did you consult your genius tree for when to bust into the conversation?” Ella joked.

  “No, it’s just a good bet that you’ll be saying something embarrassing at any point in the day.” He laughed as he poured the caramel colored beverage into a large stein.

  She couldn’t help but laugh out loud as she got up and located her purse. “I’ll leave you to annoy your wife instead of me.”

  He tossed her the car keys which promptly landed on the floor in front of her. “Great hand eye coordination, Ella.”

  She snorted and bent down to pick up the keys. Her back cracked loudly again and they all laughed. “I guess my body doesn’t like manual labor.”

  Ella was able to disengage from the thoughts of paranormal as she shopped for a television. She stopped and picked up some essential toiletries that she had somehow forgotten and ended up leaving the store with all kinds of accoutrements to make her room feel more alive than dead. She found herself picking up a book of true ghost stories, and was curious as to what other people had dealt with in their personal experiences.

  It was nearly nine o’clock by the time she started on her way back home. She felt it comforting to drive around her old city, like a worn and loved old blanket; a breath of fresh air that happened to be familiar to her. The drive up to the house was winding and sparsely lit at night, and she was as nervous to do it as she ever was, perpetually paranoid of an animal running in front of the car and causing an accident. The views were magnificent in the daytime, but after dark you could only smell the ocean to orient yourself and the water just looked like a blackened abyss off of the coast.

  She pulled into the large driveway and her eyes were immediately drawn to light in the house and she realized that it was shining from her bedroom. She shivered and hoped that it was Alexa or Troy rooting around in there because she certainly had not left the light on. As she watched a figure darkened the window briefly and was gone almost instantaneously.

  She quickly hurried inside without her bags and swallowed hard when she immediately saw Troy and Alexa sitting on the sofa watching television side by side. It looked like they hadn’t moved in some time.

  Troy looked back at her. “Do you need help bringing stuff in?”

  She was pleased with the offer and nodded eagerly. Her back had already grumbled bitterly as she had hauled the television into the back of the SUV. As they headed outside she silently kicked herself. Surely Troy would notice the light on in her room and admonishments and jokes would follow.

  As they reached the car she reflexively looked back and immediately saw that she’d had nothing to worry about. The light was off and the second story was completely still again. She swallowed hard.

  Troy was somehow able to bundle the television and everything else she had bought into one armful. She raised her eyebrows in admiration.

  “Nice,” she commented. “I guess I’m only here for moral support.”

  “And to close the door,” he told her in a muffled voice, face covered by bags. “And to turn on the light in your room so I don’t trip and die.”

  She nodded and jogged ahead of him to make sure the front door stayed open as wide as it could as he shuffled through with the wide load. As soon as he was safely through she closed the door and ran ahead of him on the stairs. She was given pause as she reached the top of the stairs and faced the dark corridor. She almost laughed at herself in her stumbling to get to the light switch as quickly as possible. She breathed deeply when she scanned the corridor and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  She heard Troy trudging up the stairs and just stuck her hand into her room to feel up the wall for the light switch. She popped it on and let him enter first. She wasn’t sure what she had been fearful of, but was glad to see there was no ghoul danse macabre in session.

  Troy unceremoniously dumped the merchandise on the soft bed. “Do you want me to hook the TV up?” He offered magnanimously.

  “If you’re good at that sort of thing, I’d love it.” She said, started to empty her merchandise from the bags.

  “Ok, you just have to be my helper.” He told her as he immediately started to unpack the large flat screen, already pulling out styrofoam partitions.

  “What will that entail?” She asked as she kicked off her shoes.

  “Keeping me in beverage and talking to me while I labor for you.”

  “Deal.” She was impressed to see that he had already freed the TV from all its packaging and was looking around the room for where to put it. “What do you want to drink, brother?”

  “A beer, dude.” Came his muffled response from behind the no doubt dusty stand.

  She nodded and ran downstairs and grabbed a beer and poured herself a glass of soda.

  She found Troy still sneezing behind the stand and placed the beer next to him and then sat on the bed with her glass of soda. She sorted through her purchases in between sips. “It’s crazy that Mercedes didn’t have a TV.” She couldn’t help but remark.

  “She did.” He told her matter of factly.

  She looked up quickly. “Where is it?”

  “It was broken so I took it to the attic until I can recycle it. It kept turning on.” He said as he lifted the television and started wiring it to cable.

  She had been lighting a new candle as he stated that and found herself nearly burning her finger. “All by itself?”

  “Yeah, sometimes during the day, sometimes during the night,” he was on his hands and knees, his face covered by the dark cherry stand. Muffled, it was impossible to decipher from his tone how he felt about it.

  “Isn’t that a bit weird?” She asked carefully.

  He looked at her briefly over his shoulder. “It was a bit unsettling, but it was an old TV. There was water damage in the house so it could have shorted out.”

  “Why didn’t you just unplug it?”

  “Well, you're just going to love this, but,” he sighed. “We did unplug it.”

  “What? And it still turned on?” She squeaked, eyes wide.

  He sat against the wall and took a swig of his beer. “Kind of, it would be plugged in again.” He took a long look at her face, which she could only suspect looked quite shocked. “Ella, don’t look at me like that. It was nothing. We had some work people in the house, they could have plugged it back in.”

  “Sounds creepy to me, anything else I should know about?” She tilted her head and regarded him sassily

  He suddenly got up without warning and listened outside the hall, where they could both hear the television coming loudly from downstairs. Satisfied, he nodded and closed the door before joining her on the bed.

  “Yes, stuff has been happening around the house.” He told her seriously.

  The hair on her neck stood up immediately. “Well? Like what?”

  He shrugged. “Noises mostl
y, footsteps up here when no one is upstairs, sometimes I hear it in the attic.” He took one look at her face and quickly continued. “Please, please don’t freak out. It can’t be what you think. I’m sure there is an explanation.”

  “Yeah, that this house is haunted.” She told him pointedly.

  “No, there could be an animal in the attic. Workers could have plugged the TV. I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary that couldn’t be explained.” He studied her. “Have you?”

  She ran her hands through her hair nervously. “You’re going to think I’m nuts.” She accused.

  “Well, that’s no change from now.” He smiled boyishly.

  She lightly smacked his arm and then proceeded to tell him of the music box, but stopped short of telling him of Mercedes’ apparition. She didn’t really know why she omitted that important detail. Perhaps because she was still reconciling the fact that she had seen it.

  He was speechless for a record twenty seconds. “Well, I won’t lie, that’s certainly scary. Is this the reason for the lights being on?” She nodded and he continued. “Well, this is an old house. People could have died here.”

  She didn’t point out the obvious fact that a murder had most definitely occurred only little more than a decade ago. He had never mentioned that it may be Mercedes, and didn’t seem to want to approach that obvious conclusion. It was the large, beautiful and spectral elephant in the room.

  “Has Alexa had any experiences?” She asked curiously.

  “She hasn’t mentioned anything, and I haven’t said anything to her. Though I’m fairly sure she heard the TV go on up here one night. It really isn’t subject matter that would be good for her, unless she brings it up first.” He told her pointedly.

  “I’m not a moron, Troy. I won’t say anything.” She assured him. “But I’m really glad I have someone to talk about it with. It wasn’t easy to keep to myself.”