My Grandma had always told me that our family had a gift. That no matter where we went we could see what most other people couldn’t. My Mum had made sure we didn’t visit Grandma too often. After the one time she’d taken me on a ‘holiday’ to the local graveyard to go and see her dead mother, and locked me inside the crypt, my Mum had vowed never to let me see her ever again.
I remember asking my Mum if Grandma was right. Did we see what other people couldn’t? And what were we supposed to see that other people couldn’t? My Mum had grimaced and faked a half hearted laugh. “Oh, your Grandma’s just got her screws a bit loose, that’s all,” she’d told me… which didn’t help the seven-year-old me in the back of the car that had never heard that phrase before. Still, after a couple more weeks of asking, ending with my exasperated mother yelling at me to stop asking, I gave up on saying anything to do with our ‘gift’ or my Grandma. From that day on we visited Grandma twice a year, on holidays, and my Mum would never leave me alone with her even for a second and policed what we all said.
So I never got to learn what ‘gift’ my Grandma was referring to and I certainly never felt like I had any special gifts. I was average at everything, below average at things like physics and maths, and so-so at my favourite things like acting, singing and dancing. When I began job-hunting I could never get hired in jobs that would last very long, having to mainly pick-up contract jobs that only lasted for a certain amount of time. Most of those jobs (waitress, bar-worker, seasonal retail worker etc.) were okay but not of any particular interest to me and I always looked out for the jobs in my specific areas of interest. If there was a cast calling for an elf for a Santa’s Grotto, I immediately applied. If a distant theme park needed a character actor to play a Princess or a Pirate I would move into the cheapest accommodation possible (including sharing with ten other people) just for the opportunity. Occasionally I applied for roles in television or theatre but I barely ever managed to score any lucrative, or even minor, role. Whatever gift my Grandma had been talking about, I decided, must’ve skipped a generation. I was certain I was the least talented out of everyone that had ever existed in my family.
It wasn’t often I thought about the gift (mostly when I was hating myself after losing yet another amazing career opportunity) and it had never really made any difference in my life—that was until the Scare Zone. The Scare Zone was a new concept to my town and was only being done for a limited time over Halloween. According to the fliers dropped in all of the town’s letterboxes it was set to feature thirteen haunted houses and three Trick-or-Treat Food Truck Zones in an abandoned parking lot nearby our almost fully empty and nearly abandoned shopping centre.
I wasn’t particularly excited about the concept. I’d never been interested much in anything ‘haunted’ after my experience being locked in a crypt as a child and had spent most Halloween’s either working or sitting inside my house, stuffing myself with sweets and ice-cream. But what I was interested in was the casting call that had been put out by the company running the Scare Zone. Not only were they offering acting roles, but insanely well-paid acting roles, which were few-and-far-between in my experience. I applied without any hesitation. I could put up with Halloween and all the haunted stuff if I was being paid well enough… And it’s not like any of the spooky stuff would be real or that I wouldn’t know that, since I’d be working behind-the-scenes.
After a friendly and warm interview from Mrs Kerchecker, the owner and manager of the Scare Zone through her company Flix Entertainment I was hired as a Story-Teller and Spookifier. I was given a script to learn about a haunted Ballroom, where I would be spending most of my time, and was even given a quick tour of the venue before being shown to the costume department to be measured up for my very ruffly, very tight and corseted, off-white and black hoop-skirted dress.
“You’re going to love it here, Tess,” Mrs Kerchecker had said. “You’re okay to come in on Wednesday for a trial run and dress rehearsal?”
Two days, I realised, to learn my full three page monologue. I almost felt like crossing my fingers behind my back as I said, “Yeah, that should be fine”. I knew full well that the gift was not a gift of memory. I barely scraped my Drama Exam in High School because I’d constantly forgotten my lines in the few plays I’d had to do.
Over the next two days I’d contacted everybody that I’d known, first to share my good news and urge them to come visit the Scare Zone, and second to beg them to help me go over my lines so that I could get them firmly settled in my head. Luckily everybody kindly agreed, with some bribing done with the promise of free tickets or food at the Scare Zone, and over the 48 hours before I started work I managed to learn all of my ridiculously long monologue and script.
I was feeling so proud, and somewhat terrified, when I arrived at the Scare Zone on the Wednesday. Everything had changed since I’d been for my interview on Monday morning and the entire parking lot was now covered in lights, cobwebs, pumpkins and all sorts of festive Halloween-y ghouls and spectres. I hadn’t known where exactly to go—should I go to the dressing rooms and receive my costume, the Ballroom to see the set or to the Managers office to let them know I was there?
I looked around for someone to ask but couldn’t see anyone so I started heading towards the Haunted House building were I’d been taken on a Tour of the Ballroom. I remembered it was at the back of the parking lot, the furthest away from the front of the Scare Zone, so I expected that I would at least run into a builder, or another actor or management along the way. Even a worker for the Food Trucks would’ve done, so long as I wasn’t alone anymore, but it was eerily quiet. Too quiet. I looked around frantically. She had said Wednesday, right?
“Hi, sorry, are you here for the Tour?” a voice suddenly said behind me.
I jumped up into the air and my hand flew to my chest. When I turned around and saw the pale-faced, young, grey-haired man (or maybe even boy) behind me I started laughing. “Sorry, you startled me,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said, also laughing. “I tend to have that effect on people.”
“It’s okay. You’ve been hired at the Scare Zone too?”
He nodded, picking at the shiny silver badge that said ‘Story-Keeper’ on his red and white striped shirt. “Yes. I’m going to be a Story-Keeper. You?”
“Oh, I’ve been hired as a Story-Teller. Are they the same thing?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? Probably? Er—I’m Zahir.” He put out his hand for me to shake but quickly pulled it away as I started to move my hand. “Sorry… That was rude,” he said.
I was confused but I shrugged it off. “It’s okay. You’re a bit of a germaphobe?”
“No,” he said, also seeming confused and we stood in awkward silence for what felt like hours.
“Er—I’m Tess,” I said, trying to end the horrible pause.
“Tess!” Mrs Kerchecker appeared from the Food Trucks in the corner and walked over to me casually. “Sorry, I haven’t got round to putting the sign out for the new hires yet. Did Ted not meet you at the car park?”
“Er—no,” I said. “Sorry. I guess we got a bit lost.”
“Well, that’s okay,” she said. “Come on, we both have to get to the Office for the Introduction talk. Hopefully Ted’s at least managed to wrangle the rest of the new hires.”
Zahir had seemed to freeze next to me and looked as confused, if not more so, than earlier. “Who’s she?” he asked.
“Mrs Kerchecker? Our boss?” I said, watching as the middle-aged lady carried on walking over to us.
“What happened to Mr Bobbo?”
“Who?”
“You know, our boss—the one who hired us?”
“Oh, I don’t think I met him,” I said.
Mrs Kerchecker stopped when she reached us and gasped for air.
“Er, Mrs Kerchecker, is Mr Bobbo going to be at the meeting?” I asked, since Zahir seemed to lose his tongue and become suddenly shy.
“Mr Bobbo? Never heard of him. Now, come on dear, we’d best get going.”
We started to walk away but Zahir stayed still. I realised he wasn’t beside me and turned around, yelling to him: “Well, are you coming?”
Mrs Kerchecker turned around too and then stared at me, concerned. “Who’re you talking too?”
“Zahir… You know, the other new hire?”
She turned again to where I was pointing and then her look of concern got even bigger. “Are you feeling okay, dear? There’s nothing there.”
“What? But he’s stood right…”
I blinked. Zahir seemed to disparate into the air. I rubbed my eyes but he didn’t reappear. “What?” I stuttered, scared and sure I was losing my mind.
—————
I didn’t lose my job, thankfully, but Mrs Kerchecker decided that it was best I go home for the rest of the day and come back again the next day, if I was feeling up to it. She even recommended a Doctor just in case it was severe flu causing hallucinations, which honestly would’ve been the best case scenario I suppose from her point of view. However, instead of calling a Doctor, I decided to call my Grandma.
I didn’t actually have her number so I had to take the bus to my parent’s house and find my Mum’s address and phone book so that I could call her. It was a lot of effort but something about the whole situation had sent memories of my Grandma’s stories, and of our Graveyard holiday, to the front of my mind. I didn’t know why but I was sure my Grandma would have answers. It took almost thirty calls over a couple hours before she finally picked up.
“Yes, Hilary?” my Grandma answered, sounding excited on the other end of the line.
“No, Grandma, actually it’s me, Tess,” I said, figuring she must’ve thought it was my Mum because I was ringing from my parent’s old landline phone (my own phone had run out of battery on the journey to my parents house, unexpectedly since I’d charged my battery the night before).
“Tess? Oh, that’s lovely. It’s so nice to hear from you, dear,” she said. “How have you been doing? Done anything exciting recently?”
“Er—maybe yes, maybe no. Grandma—I think—I think…” I swallowed the wad of saliva that was blocking my throat. “I saw something somebody else couldn’t.”
“Well, of course you did. It’s our family gift,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You’ve been doing that since you were a child, same as the rest of us.”
“No, no—not like an imaginary friend or anything, Grandma,” I said, though I couldn’t remember ever having had any imaginary friend growing up. “It was like another person… except that he disappeared in front of me and my boss and my boss couldn’t see him.”
There was a pause on the other end. “I—I’m confused, Tess. You sound like this is new to you.”
“Of course it’s new to me. Am I—Am I going crazy? I’m going crazy, right?” I was holding the phone so close to my face and so tightly that it was causing pain in my cheeks and the side of my head.
“Of course you’re not. Why would you have rung me if you thought you were crazy? You obviously remembered about the gift.”
“Well, actually—” I said, not sure how much I should say, “Mum always told me you were a bit crazy yourself…”
“She what? Oh, that girl,” Grandma grumbled. “She just undid everything, didn’t she? Denied even her own gift and denied her daughters’ too. Well, you’re not crazy, Tess. Neither am I—and neither is your mother. We just have the gift, that’s all. We can see what other people can’t.”
I took a deep breath and asked the question I’d always wanted to know the answer to. “And what is it? What can we see other people can’t?”
“Why, ghosts of course. Although I think they prefer the Unliving these days… It’s hard to keep up with all this new terminology.”
“I can see ghosts,” I said, whispering in a high-pitched, terrified warbling voice.
“Of course we can.”
“I can talk to ghosts,” I whispered even quieter.
“Well, yes and no,” Grandma responded. “We can’t talk to all the Unliving. Only the ones that have the Gift themselves.”
“Wh—What do you mean? Ghosts have a gift too?”
“Oh yes. Do you not remember our little holiday? I explained all of this.”
I shuddered as a flutter of memory from inside the crypt came back. “I don’t know. I remember the dark. I remember all those people mourning their loved ones or having picnics near the graves. And Mr Barnaby…” This was the first time I’d remembered Mr Barnaby in almost two decades. He was a friendly, pale man with dark, shaggy hair that had been playing cricket with his grandsons near the graveyard and who had come to collect the ball after a hit went awry.
“Mr Barnaby, yes. Pleasant man,” Grandma said. “He so wanted you to play with his Grandsons… but, well, you know, it was impossible.”
“Wait, are you saying Mr Barnaby was a—a…?”
“A member of the Unliving, yes. He was so happy to be able to talk to a member of the Living with the gift again. He was especially fond of you. He always asks about you when I visit him.”
“You still see him?”
“Of course. I even wanted to invite him to a few holiday dinners but your Mum forbade it. Honestly, she’s such a spoil-sport sometimes.”
“And the other people at the Graveyard, did they have…?”
“All members of the Unliving, but unfortunately no others with the Gift. But surely you know this, Tess? Your Mum talked to you about it?”
“Mum wouldn’t answer anything so I stopped asking,” I admitted. “I—I thought they were all just normal people. I—I didn’t know they were… Wait, does that mean I’ve seen other people who are…”
“Of course you have, Tess. The Unliving are everywhere. We live and work together and share the planet, after all. I’m sorry, dear, I really thought you knew all this.”
“I wish I knew too, Grandma,” I said, rubbing my head, feeling equally as pale and woozy as the ghosts had looked.
“I really am going to have to call your mother and give her a good telling off. If she ever answers her blasted phone.”
I heard a click in the lock of the door and could hear my Mum and Dad talking as they came in. “Don’t worry, Grandma. I’ve got plenty to say to her too,” I said, standing up on my wobbly legs and putting the phone down, gently on the table, speakers up so my Grandma could still hear everything.
My Mum and Dad walked into the room, looking up at the light.
“Did you forget to…Oh.” My Mum jumped as she saw me stood in the corner. “Tess? What’re you doing here? Sorry, love, we just didn’t expect a visit. Didn’t you start your new job today? How did it go?”
“Hallo, Tess. Are you okay, sweetie?” my Dad asked, dumping his briefcase on the dining room table.
“Dad, do you mind if I just talk to Mum? It’s about… you know, lady things,” I said.
My Dad nodded and left the room quickly, running upstairs to get changed out of his work clothes.
“Are you okay, Tess? You’re not…?” She pointed down at my stomach and I shook my head.
“Grandma’s on the phone,” I said, nodding to the phone.
My Mum shuffled on her spot before trying to move over to me and grab the phone herself. “You rang your Grandma? Why would you do that?”
I blocked her from getting it and tried to stay firm, though I still felt wobbly. “I had to leave work early today. My boss was worried about me after I saw people that weren’t there.”
“You… You did?” She seemed to go pale herself and she stopped trying to get to the phone.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Mum? Why did you make me feel like Grandma was just crazy? Like I was just crazy?”
“It’s not like you ever noticed, Tess. You just thought they were other people and I told you not to talk to strangers so… They weren’t a problem.”
“Not a problem? I had this special gift and you kept it from me.”
“It’s not a special gift. It just gets you labelled.”
“What?” I said, and my Grandma on the other end of the phone seemed to say the same in unison with me.
My Mum pulled a chair out from the dining room table and sat down, slumping against the table top. “To other livings you look crazy, talking to invisible things. To the Unlivings you look rude because you won’t talk to them when you don’t want to look crazy. Either way, you don’t look good. It’s better that the Livings think we’re normal, so that we can do all the regular things—keep a job, have a family—and the Unlivings who can see us would just think we’re other Livings that can’t see them. Nobody gets hurt.”
“But I can see them,” I pointed out, sitting on the chair across from her. “I can talk to them.”
“But you never did. You kept away from them—especially after all that crazy crypt stuff, I knew you’d never go near an Unliving hub again. And for the rest of the time, you wouldn’t just go and talk to random strangers.”
“Really, Hilary? How silly,” my Grandma’s voice said from the phone. “To deny your child… I never denied who you were. And as for the crypt, you know that usually the best parties are thrown inside the crypts. It’s not my fault I got the wrong crypt that night or that the door got jammed.”
Mum sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You got to decide what do with me, mother, because I’m your daughter. I got to decide what to do with my own daughter, and I decided to let her try to have a normal life. She can still have one… Tess,” she leaned over and grabbed my hand. “You can still have a normal life. Just—next time if an Unliving tries to talk to you, just don’t answer. They won’t think anything of it. They’ll think you’re just another Living without the Gift.”
“Even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t know if I do—like I really don’t know—I already talked to Zahir. He could’ve told anyone about me.”
“He wouldn’t,” my Mum said. “Trust me, they don’t want to seem crazy as much as we don’t want to seem crazy. I bet your Zahir will ignore you, the same as you ignore him.”
“I—I’m not sure. It just seems rude…” I said, though I wasn’t sure how comfortable I felt talking to him now that I knew he was a ghost anyway. And I didn’t really want to come across as even more crazy to my boss… I still needed to make a living, you know? And I’d been so looking forward to this job.
“Trust me, Tess. Life’s better if we just don’t acknowledge each other. Just give it a go, okay?”
“Ignore her, Tess,” my Grandma yelled down the phone so she could be sure to be heard. “Use your Gift. The world’s better for all of us if we work and play together.”
I looked between the phone and my Mum, my stomach doing flips and a sick feeling coming to my throat, without any clue what the right thing to do was or what I even wanted to do.
————–
I showed up to work the next day still feeling wobbly but I didn’t need to lie to my boss when I told her that I had been ill the day before as I’d spent the night throwing up in my bathroom from the stress and fear I’d felt after my discussion with my Mum and Grandma (or perhaps it was food poisoning from the cold chicken wrap I’d salvaged from the back of my parents’ fridge). I hoped and prayed I wouldn’t run into Zahir or another Unliving/Ghost, so that I wouldn’t even be able to acknowledge him, let alone decide whether I would—and for most of the day I managed it just fine.
I went to my dress fitting and got my spooky make-up done, no Unliving. I went to a private one-on-one meeting with Mrs Kerchecker to catch me up on all the information she’d given during the Introduction the day before, no Unliving. I rehearsed with my fellow actors and special effect supervisors inside the Ballroom Haunted House, not an Unliving in sight. By the time I was half-an-hour away from the end of my shift I felt so happy about not having run into another Unliving soul that I waltzed around the big, empty ballroom to the old, creepy record that had been playing in the corner since I’d started work, overjoyed.
The other actors and special effect workers had all gone to see one of the other houses and I’d been left behind to go over my script in the setting a bit longer. After missing the day before I’d fallen behind and had forgotten some of my words in my other read-throughs of the day. I danced and read my script; danced without my script and spoke my words out loud. “The old witch walked through the ballroom and… and? What did she do? Come on, brain, work. You know this.”
“I could help, if you want.”
I stumbled and slipped across the floor as Zahir appeared near the record player at the other side where I’d left my script. “Wh—What?”
“I could help you learn your lines. I know they’re quite hard to learn…”
“Er…” I couldn’t think what to do. I tried to ignore him but instead of looking nonchalantly in any other direction I found myself staring at the floor, with a bright red flush over my entire face. I tried to continue dancing and pretend he wasn’t there but my eyes kept darting towards him to see if he was still there.
He walked over to where I was dancing and followed everywhere I moved. “Have I done something?” he asked. “Why do you keep moving away from me? Is it because of yesterday? I swear I didn’t mean to disappear on you like that… I just, I got scared, I guess.”
“You got scared?” I asked, before turning away again and staring at the other side of the ballroom and trying to whistle (something I can’t really do and it came out as if I was blowing raspberries).
“Yes, I’ve never had a Living talk to me before. My Aunt said it might happen but I never expected it. I didn’t even realise you were a Living until—well, until you talked to that other Living lady… The one who couldn’t see me. I found Mr Bobbo not long after you left. He couldn’t see you either. I guess he doesn’t have the Gift… Though,” Zahir sighed, sadly, “most people don’t.” He kicked his feet against the blue and white fake tiles on the floor. “I hate having the Gift. It’s not fun to look crazy to everyone else.”
“You’re not crazy,” I said, swinging round to him, empathizing with the sadness in his voice. “Believe me, I thought I was crazy too yesterday. I didn’t even know I had any Gift.”
“Really? Your family didn’t tell you?”
“Apparently my Mum didn’t want me to know.” I raised an eyebrow and frowned. “Apparently she didn’t want me to look crazy.”
“Well, that’s stupid. We all look crazy,” Zahir said, laughing. “So yesterday—you didn’t know I was—Unliving?”
“I didn’t have a clue. I thought you were just another person…”
“Well, I am just another person, to be fair. Just not a Living one.”
“And you thought I was—one of you?”
“Like I said, a Living’s never talked to me before,” Zahir said, shrugging. “And you looked just as pale as I did.”
“I didn’t get much sleep, I guess,” slightly offended at that comment though I didn’t really know why. “Is that the only way to tell who’s Living and who’s Unliving? How pale they are?”
“Not really. I mean, all Unliving are plenty pale… but some Living’s are plenty pale too. Most of the time the only real way to tell for sure is if another Unliving, without the Gift, can’t see them. Then I know that they’re Living.”
“Really? That’s the only way to tell? By making yourself look crazy to another person?”
“Being subtle about asking—it’s an artform for us Gifted,” Zahir said, with a cheerful wink. “So, do you want some help with your lines? I’ve already finished my work for the day, so I’ve got plenty of time.”
I nodded, accepting that not only was I going to talk to Zahir and he was going to talk to me, but also that I quite enjoyed talking to him. I really felt like we understood each other, in a way I’d never felt with any of my Living friends… and honestly, if I was going to be crazy I might as well make a new friend out of it. Whilst he went over to my script again a thought suddenly came to my brain and I stared at him, confused… “Wait, where do you work? What are you doing in the Scare Zone?”
“I work here,” he said. “I’m a Story-Keeper, remember?”
“But I work here. You mean, are ghosts doing Haunted House tours too?”
“Yep… Though, we don’t go by Ghosts anymore. Just Unliving.”
“But what can you possibly get from a Haunted House? Do Ghosts—I mean, Unliving—do they have ghosts too?”
“Of course not… The Scare Zone is a Historical Tour. Isn’t it the same for you?”
“No. Our Haunted Houses are to scare people.”
“And you like that?”
“Some people do.”
“If we wanted to get scared we’d probably go on a Monster Tour… Though I don’t really go on them. I got lost in one when I was little and ever since then I’ve been terrified to go back in one.”
“I got locked in a crypt,” I said, remembering and shuddering at the thought of the dark, cold, empty space.
“Lucky,” Zahir said. “They throw the best parties.”
“So I heard…”
“Are you ready?” He stood over my script and I was surprised when I saw that he was able to move the pages. I expected his hand would go straight through them. He saw my startled staring and laughed. “Side-effect of the Gift. Don’t worry. Most Unliving can’t touch anything on your side. Just like your side can’t touch anything on ours. Only us lucky Gifted ones.”
“I think—I think you’ve got a lot to teach me Zahir,” I said, walking over to him. “Just maybe we restrict it to when nobody else is around—you know, neither one of us wants to get carted away to a hospital, do we?”
“There’s no arguments from me,” Zahir said with a smile. “Let’s get to work then.”
————-
The next couple of dress rehearsals ran perfectly, thanks to Zahir’s help at keeping up with practicing my lines. Whenever nobody else was around we would meet up to go through each other’s scripts, which were both different versions of the same story oddly, though with a slightly different slant on the ghostly happenings—his more a matter-of-face historical retelling of events, and mine designed to provide plenty of spooks and scares. He even helped to teach me how to focus enough to be able to see and hold his script which, at first, disappeared and reappeared in a similar way to how he had on the first day we met. As he explained: “The Gift has to be practiced to see a whole picture, otherwise we only really get snippets of the other side. I can see you, I can see some of your room, but even I can’t see it all. Don’t worry. You’ll get better at it… Whether you want to or not.”
“Have you ever thought of not using it?” I asked. “Just ignoring that you have the Gift and pretending you can’t see the Living so you don’t seem so crazy?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “My Aunt thinks we should be proud to have it. I think she’d be disappointed if we didn’t use it.”
“But have you ever wanted to—you know—not?”
He thought about it for a few seconds. “It—just didn’t feel like an option so I never thought about it. It’d probably be a lot easier though. A lot less pretending to other people, you know? But, I wouldn’t really feel like myself either.”
I nodded. The more I’d spent time with Zahir the more I understood what he meant. Even after only a short time I couldn’t imagine not being able to talk to him, to not see him. And yet at the same time I wished I didn’t have to ignore him every time another one of my co-workers came into the room. I always felt rude and like I was denying his existence. No matter how many times he told me it was okay, that he was used to it as he’d pretended most of his life too, I still felt uncomfortable and upset.
“I really wish I could introduce you to everyone I know,” I told Zahir once, whilst we were sat in the Ballroom looking over Zahir’s script again. “I know my friends would love you. We could all go bowling together. I love bowling. Do you like bowling?”
“Yep. It’s one of my favourite games,” he said, flatly. “But I couldn’t hang out with your friends, Tess. They wouldn’t even know I was there. I’d be nothing to them.”
“But you wouldn’t be to me,” I said.
“Aw, how sweet. You’re not nothing to me too, Tess,” he said, sarcastically and laughed.
I frowned and blushed, sorry that I’d come across so sentimental. I attempted to laugh it off also.
Eventually it was the big night and our first guests to the Scare Zone were set to arrive. I’d taken up my place near the front door of the Ballroom, ready to welcome the guests. I pulled nervously at the ruffles surrounding my neck and hastily went over my lines in my head. “The lady in the ballroom was… She was…” Oh no. I couldn’t have forgotten them again, surely? I tried again. “The lady in the ballroom was…”
“Pale white…” Zahir whispered, appearing next to me wearing an equally ridiculous and ruffled outfit that I’d never seen him in before.
I took in his pale face, now covered in off-white make-up and bright pink blushed cheeks and burst into laughter. “What are you wearing?” I looked down at the rest of his orange and yellow striped jumpsuit and found myself breaking into even harder laughter.
“I told them it looked silly but they wanted us to look bright and colourful and cheery for our guests,” he grumbled. “I know, I know. I look horrendous.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, hoping that I hadn’t messed up my own make-up by doing so. “No, no. It’s fine. It was just a shock, that’s all. And, hey, it’s no more ridiculous than what I’m wearing.”
“Your first guests are arriving soon?” he asked, desperately trying to change the subject and self-consciously picking at the ruffles on the bottom of his sleeves.
“Yeah. Should be here any minute. Yours?”
“In half-an-hour or so. I can’t stop sweating,” he complained.
“Ghosts—I mean, the Unliving sweat?”
“Yep—and it’s making me feel freezing. Worst luck.”
“Lucky you. I feel like I’m absolutely roasting. I just know I’m going to mess this all up.” I chewed the bottom of my lip, nervously.
“You’ll be great,” he said. “Just, you know, don’t forget your lines and you’ll be great.”
“Wow, gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically. I pushed on the door gently and had a quick peep around the edge. I could see the first group walking towards me, their tour guide in front of them to take them to their first house. A nervous wad of saliva came to the back of my throat and I felt that familiar butterfly whacking at the inside of my stomach, daring me to throw up in front of a whole group of paying customers. “I—I can do this. Right?”
“Yep, you can do this,” Zahir said. “I can do this too, right?”
“Of course you can. You’re Zahir. You’re amazing.”
Zahir smiled and slowly disappeared into the air, I suppose not wanting to distract me any further. I personally wished he’d stayed. I swung open the door gently and greeted the group of people waiting. “The stories inside here aren’t fit for the Living… or the Unliving…”
Everything ran smoothly. The effects were perfectly timed, all of the actors managed to get some good scares in… You could hear people screaming from all over the building. I, miraculously managed to remember all of my lines with the First Group, then the Second Group, then the Third Group, then the Fourth Group. By the fifth and final group I thought I finally had it down to a tee, but by the time I’d led them inside the Ballroom something seemed to happen inside my brain. Suddenly I couldn’t remember anything. I froze, staring round at the bored faces in front of me, unable to think of anything as I hastily looked around the Ballroom for any clues. There were people hidden. I remembered exactly where they were, I remembered exactly where to lead my guests—but I couldn’t remember the story that tied it all together. How could this be happening? And why now, just as my first day was going to come to a perfect end?
“The lady was… er… pale-white and…”
“Daddy, this is boring,” I heard a nine-year old boy tell his Dad, who told him to be quiet but looked equally as bored as his son. “But Daddy, they’re clearly hidden behind that curtain.” The boy pointed to the exact curtain where one of my co-workers was hidden. “And there’s another one over there, and there.” He proceeded to point at the other places my co-workers were hidden, making every other person in my audience annoyed as I tried to find some words to say.
“The lady was pale-white and would dance around the ballroom, waltzing this way and that as she waited for her love to return…”
“Daddy, this story’s lame. Can we go back to that other House?” the little boy asked loudly, causing more grumbles from the crowd.
In the distance, in the centre of the ballroom I saw Zahir appear and he held a finger to his lips. I didn’t know what he was doing here as he didn’t usually come when other people were around but I decided it was best to try and keep up with my story as best I could.
I started to lead the unenthusiastic and miserable guests around the ballroom, going the same path I was meant to take and hoping my co-workers or Zahir managed to think of something that could salvage the night. I continued the story with slight changes, making sure to tell a story, even if it wasn’t exactly the right story. “The lady wailed miserably as she waited for her love. She stamped her feet on the floor and cried, hoping somebody would hear her and answer her plea…”
Suddenly a loud screaming wail sounded through the ballroom and everyone jumped in the air, including me. The lights flicked on and off, causing even my co-workers to look out from their hiding places in confusion. I saw Zahir run up to the crowd following me and start swinging his legs up and down, stamping fiercely in large wooden slippers which caused such a loud sound that everybody threw their hands over their ears and cringed. I fought hard not to do the same and continued my story.
“Yes, the lady would… She would dance and dance, and she would run to other people and try to force them to dance with her. Grabbing their shoulders to pull them into her waltz.”
Zahir leaned over to the tall broad-shouldered father of the little boy and grabbed hold of his shoulder, lightly pulling on it so that he stumbled backwards. The man yelled and swung his fist round but couldn’t see Zahir, who was grinning at him wildly. I tried hard not to laugh and ruin the illusion. Zahir ran to another lady at the side who was looking stubbornly around her as if she wasn’t going to let herself be afraid of a silly Haunted House and pulled on her shoulder too. She screamed as she spun around to the centre of the Ballroom.
“You’re—You’re just messing around,” the little boy stuttered. “Daddy, stop it.”
“I swear it wasn’t me,” his Dad said back, looking as pale as Zahir.
Zahir disappeared and the lights started to flash again.
“The lady danced and danced until she died, right here in the Ballroom, right on the spot you’re standing on. They say she’s still dancing, waiting for her love to come back and trying to drag anybody into her eternal dance.”
Zahir appeared again and ran his hands across all of the guests backs, making each one of them jump and scream. They started to hurry towards the exit and Zahir, cheerfully ran behind them, poking and prodding them, pulling them backwards. For an added touch he disappeared and set the record spinning backward, which caused a horrible scraping sound that almost made me throw-up.
As the guests left and the door shut behind them, Zahir smiled, waved and disappeared. The lights turned on fully and my co-workers crawled out of their hiding places.
“What just happened? I was so sure that kid had given us away,” said my co-worker in the curtain.
“He pretty much did. Hey, good improv there, Tess,” one of my other co-workers said. “You managed to keep it going. I think that was the most successful one of the night. It wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t stepped in.”
“Yeah, I guess it was pretty good improv.” I blushed, knowing how close I’d been to blowing the whole thing.
“How’d you do all those crazy effects?” the curtain co-worker asked the man who had been in charge of our special effects as he walked over to us looking baffled.
“That’s just it. I didn’t. My entire set-up just seemed to go hay-wire. I don’t have a clue what happened.”
“It’s an easy answer, guys,” I said, smiling round at them. “We’ve got to thank the Unliving.”
“You mean, the ghosts?” the special effects guy said, with a raised eyebrow. “I suppose that’s one answer.”
“Well then, thank you ghosties. You saved our skins there,” the curtain co-worker said raising her hand like she was holding a glass up in celebration.
“Thank you, ghosties,” the rest of my co-workers parroted with a laugh.
“Thanks Zahir,” I whispered to myself and hoped that he would hear, wherever he went when he disappeared.
————
The snow was falling on the ground and strings of little lights led our way over the pavement and up to the front door. I knocked loudly on the door and waited for someone to answer. My Dad was the first one to get there and greeted me cheerfully in his bright red and green ugly Christmas sweater. I remembered making the Sweater for him when I was twelve years old. I’d been so proud of all the work it had taken, though it really wasn’t the best sweater in the world and I remembered how proud I’d been when my Dad had opened it on Christmas day and sworn to wear it every year until the end of time. Despite how ragged it now looked, he’d kept his promise.
“Welcome, sweetie,” he said, leading us inside and shutting the door behind us. “Do you—er, and your friend—want a drink?”
“Hot Chocolate up for offer?” I asked him.
“Just made a fresh batch,” he told me.
“Then I think you know what I want then. What do you think, Zahir, want to give it a go?”
Zahir smiled at me sweetly, proudly wearing his own ugly knitted sweater we’d made just for the event. “I’ve never tried to drink a Living drink before. Sounds like fun.”
“Zahir’ll have one too, Dad.”
“Two hot chocolates coming right up. Er—it’s good to meet you, Zahir,” my Dad said to the floating sweater in front of him as he ran to the kitchen.
I led Zahir into the dining room where we found my Mum and Grandma sat down at the table having, seemingly, a very hearty argument about the Christmas Tree in the next room.
“I’m just saying, the least you could do is put up my ornament. I brought it from home just for you,” my Grandma said.
“Please, Mother, you brought it for yourself. You could’ve left it on your own tree,” my Mum answered back.
“And the lights are clearly crooked, though I didn’t want to say anything.”
“Then don’t say it.”
I cleared my throat, loud enough to get their attention.
My Mum jumped to her feet and brushed down her trousers, even though they were perfectly clean. “Er—Tess. It’s good to see you. You—you must be Zahir…” She came forward slowly, holding out her hand and Zahir went to grab it. They both stopped mid-air. “Wait,” my Mum said, looking at her hand. “This is rude, isn’t it? Sorry, it’s been a long time since I talked to a—well, an Unliving.”
Zahir reached forward and shook her hand anyway. “It’s not rude in your world. I’m perfectly happy to do it for a Living. Especially Tess’s family.”
My Grandma smiled at me, knowingly and I rolled my eyes with a smile. I wished I’d never told her about Zahir and I now. She was far too invested in us.
“Please,” my Mum said, pulling out two chairs from the side of the table, between her and my Grandma. “Take a seat. We’re having Nut Roast for Dinner. Is that okay?”
“Sounds lovely,” Zahir said. I knew he meant it. He’d become really interested in cooking recently and was willing to try everything and anything that was offered to him. I’d tried some of his food as well, but other than the Ecto-Candies I hadn’t been a big fan so far.
My Mum and Zahir, along with my Father when he returned with hot chocolates and sat down with us, got to talking about the most interesting dishes they’d ever cooked and eaten—my Mum translating for Zahir so that my Dad knew what was being said. I watched happily, sipping on my hot chocolate.
My Grandma poked me in the side and I looked round. “You were always one to break the mould,” my Grandma whispered. “You’re a Gift, Tess. You really are.”
I smiled and felt warmth spread across my chest. “Thanks, Grandma. Merry Christmas.”
Despite the final line, I actually wrote this as a way to say Happy Halloween everyone who celebrates. Similar to Tess in this story, Halloween was never a big thing in my household. It wasn’t until I was an older child (11/12) that I first started going trick-or-treating (I went to Nursery up until that point so was never at home to do it) and by the time I was around 14 nobody in my village seemed to care to celebrate anymore. We hardly ever got any trick-or-treaters at our house/borderline none and hardly anyone would open their doors if you tried. But I love the idea of Halloween– this fun holiday where you dress up as characters, eat things you wouldn’t other times of year and play games with friends and family. I wish I’d been able to share in it. I hope you enjoy the story. If you did, you can leave a like and let me know that you’re interested in seeing more of this type of work. Again, Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates– Happy Toussaint/All Saints Day to people who celebrate this/Happy Dios De La Muertos (apologise if I’ve spelt that wrong) to everyone who celebrates this– and happy every other holiday my uneducated person may have forgotten. Whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a great time. Thank you for reading.
Sighed,
The Literary Onion
The Literary Onion 