Cycles of Haunting
Ellie woke to the sound of the world ending. Fear iced her heart.
She slithered out of her bed, sliding under it. Dust tickled her nose. She sneezed into her elbow like Mama taught her.
Screams leaked through the walls. Ellie covered her ears with her hands. Heavy items fell, smashing to the floor. Something shattered.
Silence.
Then, soft weeping.
Tears stung Ellie’s eyes. She bit her bottom lip as her own little cries tried to work their way up her throat.
A warm hand pressed into Ellie’s back.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Green Lady.
Ellie turned toward her, scooting close, and Green Lady wrapped her arms around her. She stroked Ellie’s hair, quietly singing a lullaby as a slew of angry words broke out to smother the quiet weeping in the other room.
Green Lady tightened her hold and continued to sing softly as angry footsteps shook the house. The front door opened and slammed shut.
Ellie drifted asleep to Green Lady’s song.
“There is no Green Lady.”
Mama looked tired. Deep lines framed her mouth. Her hair was more silver than brown. She shoved another pair of jeans into Ellie’s dark blue suitcase.
“But she is,” Ellie insisted, holding her owl stuffy tighter. “She sings me to sleep.”
“Ellie, get your shoes on.”
“But I don’t want to leave Green Lady.”
“Ellie!”
The little girl flinched, ducking her head behind her toy.
Mama’s face softened. “Ellie, sweetie, look at me.”
Ellie peeked over her toy.
“We have to go before Daddy gets home. I need you—”
The front door banged open. Mama’s face turned white.
“The hell is everybody?” barked a deep voice. Daddy’s voice.
“Hide,” whispered Mama.
Clutching her stuffy, Ellie ran across the room into her closet, pulling the door closed behind her. Darkness swallowed her.
She dropped to her bottom and scooted all the way back, pushing aside shoes, clothes, and forgotten toys until she pressed into the wall.
Voices on the other side of the door. Mama spoke low and soothing.
“You think you gonna leave me?” Daddy screamed.
Ellie, tears burning, buried her face into her stuffy.
“Hush, Ellie,” whispered a voice.
Ellie knew it was Green Lady without looking up. A soft hand touched her shoulder. Tears leaked out, wetting the owl.
“What’s the owl’s name?” Green Lady asked.
Ellie didn’t want to talk about the owl. Or anything. Nothing could drown out the sound of fists striking flesh.
Green Lady pulled Ellie against her, wrapping her arms around her, and began to hum.
Mama wouldn’t wake up.
She had said her head hurt and told Ellie to be very quiet. Then, she took medicine and lay down on the couch. The sun had shone brightly through the living room windows.
But now the light was dimmer, shadows deepening. Ellie was hungry. She tugged on Mama’s sleeve.
“Mama?” Ellie said. “Mama, wake up. It’s time for supper.”
When Mama didn’t move, Ellie patted her on the cheek. The skin felt cool under her fingers. She snatched her hand away. Mama’s cheek was supposed to be soft and warm.
Ellie held Egg, her owl stuffy, tightly, and backed up.
She bumped into something behind her. Shrieking, she turned around.
Green Lady stood there. She was Green Lady because of her long green dress with yellow flowers on the collar. She stared at Mama with a sad face.
“She won’t wake up,” Ellie whispered.
“I know.” Green Lady looked down at her. There were tears in her eyes.
“Why not?”
Green Lady knelt on one knee. “She was sick. But now she’s gone away, and she won’t be sick anymore.”
Ellie looked at Mama on the couch. What Green Lady said didn’t make any sense. Mama was right there.
“It’s her soul that’s gone away, Ellie.”
Ellie didn’t know what that meant, either.
“You know what?” Green Lady stood. “Let’s go to Ms. Harmony’s house. She’ll make you dinner and call someone to help Mama. Okay?” She held out her hand.
Ellie slipped her hand into Green Lady’s.
Neither of them said anything as they walked from the house and down the street to Ms. Harmony’s home. Ellie was not allowed to go down the street unless she held a grown-up’s hand, so she was glad that Green Lady walked her.
At the front of the house, though, Green Lady stopped. Ellie looked up at her.
“I can’t go any further,” Green Lady explained. “Go on and ring the doorbell. It’s okay.”
Ellie nodded. She ran up the walk, and up the steps. She reached as high as she could and rang the bell. She looked over her shoulder, but Green Lady was gone.
There were lots of grown-ups with lots of serious faces. Ms. Harmony cried. Ellie wanted Mama, but when they told her that she couldn’t come, Ellie cried. She wanted Green Lady, but no one knew who she meant.
Daddy was very mad when he got home. So mad that he tried to beat up the policeman.
That was when they said that Ellie was going to go to a new home. So, a nice woman named Ms. Carol packed a bag for her and tried to make her leave. Ellie screamed. She didn’t want to go. She wanted Mama. Ms. Carol picked Ellie up.
Green Lady suddenly stood in the hall behind Ms. Carol. She smiled at Ellie.
“It’s going to be okay,” Green Lady said. “Be brave.”
Ms. Carol walked out of the house and Ellie never saw Daddy, or Mama, or Green Lady again.
Someone turned her childhood home into an Air BnB.
Eloise stood beside her car and tried to remember if the house had always been yellow. She wanted to think that it once was blue, but she didn’t trust much of her memory from that time. She’d only been six years old when she was taken away.
Eloise knew her biological mother was dead. What became of her bio-father, she didn’t know. If the memories that surfaced as nightmares were accurate, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find him.
Strangely, she had never forgotten the address of her childhood home. Eloise had always been good with numbers, and at some point as a child, had memorized her home address. Late one night, on her third glass of wine, she looked it up and discovered she could book it.
When she’d mentioned that during a therapy session, her therapist, Charlene, lobbed a crazy suggestion at Eloise: “Book it. Try to get some closure.”
A couple of nights in her childhood home, in her old neighborhood, would surely help with closure had been Charlene’s reasoning. Eloise had some vacation time. It seemed like a good idea.
However, looking up at it, she felt the urge to get back into her rented car and go back to the airport. What was she even doing here?
With a sigh, Eloise pulled her suitcase from the car’s back seat. By the front door was a lockbox with a keypad. She tapped in the code and retrieved the keys.
Entering the home felt disorienting, as if she stepped off an airplane expecting to see Ireland but was greeted with Svalbard, instead.
The dark brown carpet had been replaced with grey laminate. Green walls were repainted flat white. The ratty, second-hand furniture was gone, replaced with sleek, black couch and armchairs. A widescreen television was mounted to the wall.
A large canvas depicting a flower-crowned Highland cow hung over the couch. Other soulless pieces of hobby store art were scattered around the living room. One piece brightly proclaimed, “Let Love Grow” around a riot of flowers. She closed the door, dropping her suitcase beside it.
Numb, she walked through a swinging half-door into the kitchen.
For a second, she saw her mother sprawled on the floor, the motionless center of a storm of broken dishes and blood.
Eloise blinked. The phantom vanished. Memory suddenly intruding into reality, only to recede again.
The grey laminate had transitioned to grey tile. The counters were bright white and the cabinetry black. A grey-blue kitchen table and four chairs stood in a corner. The black, grey, and white sucked the warmth out of the air. She shivered.
Eloise remembered it differently. Instead of soft air freshener, it used to smell like scrambled eggs, grease, and cigarettes. Bright pine, not black, cabinets once hung on the green walls. A multicolored rug had adorned a hardwood floor.
It felt like she stood in two places: the kitchen of the present and the kitchen of her memory.
On the counter laid a welcome binder. She dropped the keys beside it and walked back into the living room. She turned down a hall into the rest of the house.
The first bedroom had been her parents’. She stepped inside. Her breath caught in her throat.
Mom sat at her vanity table, staring into the mirror. A cigarette smoldered in the ash tray by her elbow. The room was clean, a red and yellow quilt on the queen-sized bed.
“Mom?” whispered Eloise.
Mom started to turn toward her–
The room shifted. Bland grey flooring. A king-sized bed made up with white sheets and comforter. Black dresser and nightstand.
Eloise backed out of the room.
What was happening? That didn’t feel like a memory at all.
Humming drifted down the hall.
Of their own accord, it seemed, her feet took her to the next room. What had been her room. She peered inside.
A little girl sat in the center of a dark brown rug. She hummed as she danced a small doll through a metal dollhouse. Without examining it, Eloise knew that the dollhouse, a bright pink Victorian, was only partially furnished. She had kept losing the pieces. There was a big dent on one side, from that time Daddy kicked it out of his way.
The little girl looked up, her dark green eyes taking her in. “Who are you?”
Eloise waited for the vision to melt away, but it didn’t. Fear knotted her throat closed.
“I’m Ellie.” The girl stood. “I like your green dress.”
Green?
“Can I call you Green Lady?” asked Ellie.
I had an imaginary friend named Green Lady.
“Will you play with me?”
And then she was gone. A single bed, made up in white, and more of the same black furniture.
Nausea roiled Eloise’s stomach. She ran from the room and out of the house.
She sat on the front steps and breathed. Her heart hammered in her throat. Her fingers shook.
Eloise drew in a deep breath, counting slowly, and then released, counting down. She did this, over and over, until she finally stopped feeling as if she was about to fly apart in a thousand pieces.
None of that could have been real. There was no way that she had been her own Green Lady. None of this made sense. Green Lady had only been an attempt at comforting herself.
Find some closure, Charlene had said. Maybe that would end the nightmares. Maybe that would make it easier to be closer to people.
Her mother died and she was taken away all on the same day. Eloise didn’t even remember attending a funeral.
Closure.
She released a final breath and stood. She could do this. These were only memories. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.
She went back into the house.
Eloise settled into her parents’ old room, putting her toiletries in the sterile bathroom across the hall.
She explored more, discovering a locked hallway door that should have opened onto a closet. Perhaps it held the Air BnB host’s cleaning supplies.
But the pulldown for the attic was still there. Hope welled in Eloise. She half-expected, half-hoped, to find an abandoned trunk full of old letters. However, the attic was empty except for some tuff boxes containing more of the same bland décor. There was even a beige, tabletop Christmas tree with white ornaments.
As she descended the ladder, giggling echoed through the home. Her chest tightened. She pushed the folding ladder back up, closing the access.
Soft footsteps, coming from her old room again.
Trembling, Eloise approached the open door.
Ellie, in a pink dress with a sparkling skirt, twirled in a slow circle. On a low table sat a blue, plastic, toy tea set.
“Want to have a tea party, Green Lady?” asked Ellie.
Eloise took a deep breath. This was hallucination, perhaps, but it felt too real. Too solid. She recognized those green eyes. She recognized those dimples. But it couldn’t be real.
My imagination, she thought. Maybe if I pretend, I can let it all go.
“All right,” Eloise said, “I’ll play with you.”
Eloise awoke to the sound of the world ending.
She sat up, eyes wide, as she watched a large man sling a smaller woman against the chest of drawers. A red vase on top wobbled dangerously. The woman dropped to the dark brown carpet.
“Lazy slut!” shouted the man. “You can’t be bothered to have my dinner ready for when I got home?”
“It is,” whispered the woman. “It’s in the oven. Please. You’ll wake Ellie.”
It wasn’t good enough. When the woman—Mama, it was Mama—struggled to her feet, Daddy slapped her hard. She screamed as hit the chest of drawers, a loud thump as she dropped to the floor. He grabbed the vase and threw it against the wall, shattering.
Silence.
Mom’s soft weeping.
Ellie.
The realization cut through Eloise as cleanly as a fillet knife.
She remembered this night. She remembered being under the bed. She remembered…
Eloise bolted from the bedroom, running into Ellie’s room. A Beauty and the Beast nightlight lit the room in soft gold and pink. It was just enough light to see someone curled under the bed. Eloise climbed under the bed, laying down beside Ellie’s curled form. Slowly, she laid her hand on the little girl’s back.
Ellie slid closer to her. Eloise wrapped her arms around Ellie. She stroked the little girl’s hair and began to…hum. It was, at first, no song in particular. But it took shape, turning into a lullaby Eloise half-remembered her mother singing in happier times.
Angry footsteps shook the house. The front door slammed close.
Eloise continued to hum, blinking back her own tears. Was this all a dream? Surely, she was dreaming.
A few minutes passed, and then soft footsteps approached. Eloise looked out from under the bed. A woman’s bare feet drew closer.
The woman paused and then knelt. Mama’s swollen face came into view.
“Oh, my poor baby,” she whispered.
“Mama?” said Eloise.
Mama didn’t look at her, only gently pulled Ellie out from under the bed.
Eloise scrambled out on the other side, standing in time to see Mama lay Ellie on the bed. Mama pulled the purple sheets up to Ellie’s chin and sat on the edge of the bed. She brushed Ellie’s hair back from her forehead.
“Mama, why did you stay?” Eloise asked.
Mama didn’t answer. She only watched her little girl sleep. After a few moments, she began to silently cry.
Eloise woke with tears in her eyes. Her pillow felt damp under her cheek. Sunlight poured through a crack in the curtains. She felt as if she’d been wrung dry and then left to bake in the sun.
She slowly got out of bed and went through the numbed ritual of a shower, breakfast, and coffee.
As she sat on the back patio, Eloise looked at her phone, checking her emails and text messages. She considered calling her therapist. The dream had been so vivid, surely Charlene would want to know. And then the strange hallucinations yesterday.
At the time, they’d been wrapped in a soft believability, as if Eloise had been induced into believing they were real or harmless. But now, as she sipped her second cup of coffee, she wondered if it was healthy. Maybe her mind was finally starting to break.
“Hello!”
The cheery greeting drew her attention to the chain link fence to her left. An elderly man stood there. He waved at her.
Something about him appeared familiar, but Eloise wasn’t sure. She looked around, half-afraid this was another phantasm.
“Are you staying the weekend?” asked the man.
“Um. Yeah.” She stood, leaving the coffee cup on the table.
“Well, if you have any questions about the neighborhood, just ask. I like to think of myself as a tour guide.”
“You’ve been here a long time, then?” She crossed her arms and walked across the dewy grass, stopping a few feet from the fence.
“Most my life.”
“Do you…do you remember a family where the mom died and the little girl was taken away?”
“Uh…” The man frowned as he thought. “Yee-ah. Been almost twenty years now, I think, but it made such a to-do. I think…they was the Hensons, maybe. Or O’Henry. There was an H in the name, I remember that much. The father was a real piece of work, I remember. Got the law called on him more than once.”
Eloise straightened. She didn’t remember any police before the fateful day. “What do you mean?”
“Well, his old lady would sometimes call the cops if it got too much, but then she wouldn’t let them arrest him. Never understood that. And I think one time another neighbor called. We all worried about the little girl. Why you asking?”
She took a deep breath. “Um. I’m that little girl.”
The man stared at her, surprise flooding his face. “Oh. Oh, wow. Oh, it’s so good to see you, all growed up. Honey, I sometimes wondered what became of you. No one knew what happened after-after your mama died.”
“I went into foster care, but I found a family.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Do-do you know what happened to…him?” Eloise couldn’t make herself say ‘daddy’ or ‘father.’ That’s what he was, biologically, and she thought in those terms. But, for some reason, she couldn’t make herself say it out loud.
“Wellll…” The older man rubbed his jaw.
“He moved away?”
“No.” The man shook his head. He grimaced. “He, well.” The man sighed. “He died, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
Eloise’s core chilled. She hugged herself tightly. “How?”
“He got hit by a car. Strangest thing. They said he ran out into the road. Like he was chasin’ somethin’ or maybe somethin’ was chasin’ him. That house has always been a bit strange. No one, not even before y’all, had stayed there long. It’s been one of those B-n-B places for the last decade. But, anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He wasn’t a good person.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Have a nice day.”
“You, too.”
Eloise felt the old man’s gaze on her shoulders as she walked back inside, but she didn’t look back.
Eloise didn’t know what to make of the old neighbor’s words. As she washed dishes, she realized she hadn’t even asked for his name.
That house has always been a bit strange.
Remembering that, it almost made her wonder if she was seeing reality and not fantasy. Had she really played tea party with her younger self? Was she really Green Lady, reaching back through the years?
Eloise put the dishes into the drying rack and wiped down the counters, though they didn’t need it. She needed to stay moving, however. She needed something to do.
Maybe she would go walking around the neighborhood. Maybe she would go for a drive. Maybe sanity would intrude and she would believe, again, that there were no such things as ghosts and time travel.
She walked to the bedroom she was using, intending on getting her laptop. Maybe she could go to a coffee shop.
But she walked past that room, to the other bedroom.
There was no little girl playing. The sheets were white, not purple. The room had all the personality of a glossy magazine page.
The closet door stood open. A little chill went up Eloise’s spine. That had been closed before. Hadn’t it?
She crossed the room and looked inside. It was a small closet with a few empty hangers suspended on the bar. There was nothing different about it at all.
“There is no Green Lady.”
Eloise flinched. She turned around. Her mama knelt on the brown carpet, shoving clothing into a dark blue suitcase.
“But she is,” Ellie insisted, holding an owl stuffy. “She sings me to sleep.”
“Ellie, get your shoes on.”
“But I don’t want to leave Green Lady.”
“Ellie!”
Eloise stumbled back into the closet. She huddled in a corner, shoving the heels of her palms against her eyes.
This isn’t real, she thought. She can’t be real.
In the other room, Mama comforted Ellie, urging her to get her shoes on.
Eloise remembered that day. She didn’t even flinch when her father barged into the house, demanding to know where everyone was.
She heard Ellie scurry into the closet to hide. The door closed. Eloise dropped her hands.
At her feet, a small whimper leaked through the dark. On the other side of the door, Daddy laid into Mama.
“Hush, Ellie,” whispered Eloise. She leaned down, fumbling until she found Ellie’s shoulder. She squeezed it, lightly. She tried to think of something, anything, that could distract the little girl, this former self.
“What’s the owl’s name?” Eloise asked. She couldn’t remember.
When Ellie didn’t answer, Eloise sat on the floor and pulled Ellie to herself. She hugged her and hummed.
It was morning, still, when Eloise left the closet. She felt numb. Shaken.
Mama had been the one to fetch Ellie from the closet. Daddy had insisted on dinner at the table, so they had to have dinner, no matter how battered Mama’s face was. And then the vision had ended, though Eloise could remember the meal now, how cold and awkward it had been. How Daddy stunk of whiskey.
She sat on the couch and stared at the black television screen.
She should leave. She should pack her things and go. What was even happening here?
“You need to leave, Julie.”
Eloise jumped at the new voice, her heart jerking into her throat.
The brown carpet again. A small television set on a stand. Old furniture with duct tape covering rips in the fake leather.
Eloise sat in the love seat. Mama and another woman sat on the couch. Eloise stared at the unknown woman for a second before she remembered: Ms. Harmony.
Ms. Harmony sometimes watched Ellie after school. Her flaming red hair came from a bottle, and she dressed like it was still the 1970s. Ms. Harmony was all bell bottoms, paisley, and fresh chocolate chip cookies.
“I’m trying,” Julie—Mama—said. “But it’s got more complicated.”
“Complicated how? Listen, you come stay with me one night when he’s away on a bender, and then I’ll get y’all on a Greyhound bus the next day. What’s complicated about that?”
“I’ve got an aneurysm in my head.”
Ms. Harmony rocked back slightly, absorbing the words. “Oh, darlin’. I’m so sorry. When’d you find out?”
“Yesterday. The ironic thing is that I wouldn’t’ve known if Gary hadn’t sent me into the ER. I told everyone I tripped, of course, and I knocked my head. They saw it on the scan.”
“I’m sure they believed you. About the tripping.”
Mama pressed her lips in a thin line. “Don’t matter if they do or don’t.”
“It will if they start thinkin’ he’s layin’ a hand on your child.”
“It doesn’t matter, though. One day, this thing is gonna pop, and it’ll leave her with him. Even if I died somewhere else, the courts’ll give her to him. He’s her father.”
The scene faded. Eloise could see it this time, shifting from then to now. The leather of the couch squeaked under her as she pulled her knees to her, wrapping her arms around her legs.
Mama knew.
Eloise stared hard at the grey laminate, trying to come to terms with it.
Mama knew she was gonna die. And did nothing.
Eloise spent the rest of the day, hopping from coffee shop to the mall to aimless driving around the city. It had changed a lot since she was a child. It was bigger, and she didn’t recognize any of the stores.
But she had been six. What had she really known at age six?
It was late when she returned to the little yellow house that should be another color.
She lingered on the front steps. A cool breeze brushed her cheek. It was the time of year where the days were warm but the nights cool. Soon, they would slide into true autumn. That morning, she had pulled on the green dress from the day before, without thinking, and it was too thin for chilly weather.
She took a deep breath and walked up the steps and into the house.
She walked into late afternoon sunlight.
“Mama, wake up.”
Eloise closed her eyes. She couldn’t do this. She could not do this. She wanted to turn around and walk out again, but her feet were rooted to the ground.
She opened her eyes.
Little Ellie stood beside the couch, holding her stuffed owl. Egg. She’d named it Egg.
“Mama?” Ellie said. “Mama, wake up. It’s time for supper.” She patted her on the cheek.
Eloise often wondered how many times she had passed her dead mother on that couch during that long afternoon. Mama often had headaches, so Eloise had worked so hard to be quiet. All afternoon. But then she got hungry. The shadows grew long.
Ellie backed away from the corpse on the couch. She bumped against Eloise’s legs. Shrieking, she turned around.
Eloise tried to smile, but couldn’t, her gaze going back to Mama.
“She won’t wake up,” Ellie whispered.
“I know.” Eloise forced herself to look down at…herself. She blinked away the tears. “She won’t wake up.”
“Why not?”
She knelt. “She was sick. But now she’s gone away, and she won’t be sick anymore.”
Ellie looked at Mama on the couch.
And even though Eloise knew she wouldn’t understand, she said, “It’s her soul that’s gone away, Ellie.” She touched the little girl on her arm, drawing her attention back to her. “You know what? Let’s go to Ms. Harmony’s house. She’ll make you dinner and call someone to help Mama. Okay?” She held out her hand.
Ellie slipped her hand into hers.
The walk was as Eloise remembered: quiet, slipping through the cooling shadows as they went down the street. She wondered if the people who lived in her time saw her, wandering, acting as if she was holding someone’s hand.
They reached the house, a pretty two-story with flowers out front. They stopped. Eloise released Ellie’s hand.
“I can’t go any further,” Eloise explained. “Go on and ring the doorbell. It’s okay.”
Ellie nodded. She ran up the walk, and vanished.
A cold wind blew, and the memory faded. Eloise wrapped her arms around herself, looking up at the two-story house. It needed a new coat of paint. There weren’t any flowers in the front. She turned away.
The house’s front door opened. An elderly woman stepped out. “Can I help you, miss?”
Eloise tensed. “Um. No. I’m just. I used to live around here when I was little. And a lady I knew lived here. I was just—sorry. I’m going.” She started to walk away.
“Ellie?”
Eloise whirled around.
The woman had come to her top step. Her hair was flaming red.
“Is that Ellie Harris?”
“You…recognize me?”
The woman made her careful way down the steps and limped down the walk. She stopped halfway. “Ellie Harris was the only little girl I was friends with, and that was ‘cuz I was friend with her mama. Are you her?”
Eloise approached her. “I go by Eloise Barker now. You’re Ms. Harmony?”
“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around Eloise and hugged her tightly. “Oh, girl. I have wondered, all these years.” She drew back. “They wouldn’t let me take you, you know. Said my home wasn’t up to standard or something. Come. Come on in. Have you had supper?”
“No, ma’am.”
Ms. Harmony took her hand. “Come on in. Let’s eat and catch up.”
There were no outstanding memories in Ms. Harmony’s house. It was clean, tidy, and home to at least five cats. They ate meatloaf and collard greens in the dining room. The walls were covered with pictures of Ms. Harmony with friends and family, interspersed with needlework and paint-by-number pieces.
Eloise told her about her brief stay in foster care before being adopted by a family that lived in another part of the state. How she went to college to become an architect. Now, she had a job in a big firm in another city.
“Good.” Ms. Harmony smiled wide. “I knew you’d go do great things. Your mama and me, we always knew you’d go be greater than where ya came from. You’d like some apple pie?”
“Um. Sure.”
Eloise helped her clear the dinner plates. While Ms. Harmony cut slices of pie, Eloise looked at photos on the kitchen walls. She paused in front of one.
“Is this us?” She pointed. It looked like her mother, Ms. Harmony, and her, sitting at a table. Uno cards were scattered across the surface.
Ms. Harmony looked over her shoulder. “Yes, it is!” She set down her knife and limped over to stand beside Eloise. “That sure was a fun night. You’ll never believe it, but it was your Daddy that took that photo.”
“It was?”
“There was a time when he was a good man.” She went back to the counter and picked up the plates. “C’mon. Everyone loves my apple pie.”
Eloise followed her back into the living room. She took her seat but didn’t touch the food. “What happened?”
“To your Daddy?”
“Yeah.”
“He had bad habits before he met your mama. Drugs and alcohol. He got clean. But then, he lost a good job at a factory and had to take a lesser one at a warehouse and… I guess it was easier to fall back to bad habits cuz life was hard.”
Eloise stared hard at her pie. A question lingered on her tongue, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to voice it.
“Sweetie, what is it?”
She lifted her head. “Why weren’t Mama and I enough for him to stay clean?”
“Addiction don’t make sense to nobody, least of all to the addict.”
Eloise wiped away her tears. She took a bite of the pie. “This is good.”
“Glad you like it. Where you stayin’ in town?”
“At my old house, down the street. My therapist thought I should try to get some closure.”
“Closure?”
“I have nightmares sometimes. She said visiting my old home and old city might help me close the door.”
“Therapists do say some interestin’ things. You be careful in that house.”
Eloise’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. She lowered the utensil. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a strange house. Always has been. It holds onto memory, you know.” Ms. Harmony eyed her. “You been seein’ things, haven’t you?”
Eloise took a sip of sweet tea. She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I think so. I’m not sure.”
“When I looked out the window, I swear, I thought I saw someone with you. For a brief second, I thought…”
“You thought you saw a little girl?”
Ms. Harmony drummed her fingers on the table. “Yeah.”
“I feel like I’m reliving parts of my childhood.”
“Maybe you should stay the night here. When you goin’ back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I have a guest room. Won’t be no trouble.”
“No.” Eloise shook her head. “I have to see it through.”
Ms. Harmony’s face softened. “Well. You know I’m here, if you need me. Just like when you were little.”
She nodded. “Why didn’t Mama leave him?”
“She tried. More than once. But leaving can be scary. She didn’t have no family. And I think she kept hoping that the man she married would come back.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No, he did not.”
Eloise almost changed her mind on the steps of Ms. Harmony’s house. The night felt more like autumn than the day had, and Ms. Harmony’s house was warm. Maybe it was Eloise’s imagination, but it felt as if the old house waited for her.
She gave Ms. Harmony another hug and promised to drop by the next day to say goodbye.
It wasn’t until Eloise reached the front walk that she realized something was wrong.
The lights were on.
Not just one or two, but all of them. All of the windows glowed.
Eloise hesitated and then took a deep breath, letting the night air chill her chest.
When she reached the front door, it swung open.
She swallowed and went inside, closing the door behind her.
Nothing seemed out of place. She didn’t hear anything except the hum of the refrigerator. She took another step into the room.
The air shifted. Laminate became brown carpet.
A younger Ms. Harmony cried on the couch, holding Ellie, who kept asking for Mama.
The door of the house stood open. Through it, Eloise could see an ambulance parked outside. Late evening instead of dark night.
“I want Green Lady,” wailed Ellie.
Ms. Harmony shushed and rocked her.
A police officer was talking to another woman in a blue pantsuit.
Ms. Carol.
An old white pick-up truck screeched to a halt. Daddy spilled out of the driver’s seat. He stumbled up to the waiting policeman and Ms. Carol.
Eloise couldn’t hear what was said, but he saw the officer’s mouth moving. Daddy’s legs gave out from under him. He covered his face with a cry.
Ms. Carol said something to him. She was holding a thick file folder under one arm.
Whatever she said changed Daddy’s grief to rage. He rose to his feet. Swung a fist at her. The police officer intervened. He had to wrestle Daddy to the ground.
Eloise looked over at the couch. Ellie stood on it, looking out the window.
Eloise backed away toward the kitchen. She knew what was going to happen next. There had been reports filed of her father’s violence. And he just tried to attack not the cop but the social worker.
Of course, they would put Ellie into another home, if only temporarily. That was right. It was supposed to have only been temporary. Except it hadn’t been.
Eloise watched Ms. Carol carry a screaming Ellie to the door, Ms. Harmony pleading that they let her take Ellie.
Ellie’s eyes rose and met Eloise’s.
“It’s going to be okay,” Eloise said. “Be brave.”
Ms. Carol walked out of the house. The door closed. Brown carpet turned to grey laminate again. Warm brown furniture shifted to soulless black.
Eloise sank to the floor and cried.
When she sobbed all she could, Eloise went to the bathroom to clean up. She thought about running a hot bath for a soak but couldn’t bring herself to do so. It would require too much energy.
Quiet crying slipped from her parents’ old bedroom.
Exhaustion laid too heavily on Eloise’s shoulders to let her be horrified when she noticed the green wall paint and change of flooring.
The door was ajar. She pushed it open the rest of the way.
Her father sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. His shoulders shook with the force of his weeping.
Eloise stared at this man, with no feeling in her heart. She felt as if she’d been scooped clean. She was all hollow. If the wind blew, it would race right through her.
“Gary.”
He jerked his head up, looking toward the door. But it wasn’t Eloise he saw. She looked over her shoulder and stumbled into the room, a scream stuck in her throat.
Her mother stood there. But not the sweet one of her memory. This woman’s pale face was tight with anger.
“Julie?” Daddy stood. “Julie, you— They said you were dead. Baby, they took Ellie away. We got—we got to get her back.”
“Why?” Julie slid into the room. “So, you can scream at her? So, she can clean up your puke?” Her hair blew backward, eyes wild. “You don’t deserve to be a father!”
Her words boomed through the house, voice deepening to a demonic shriek.
Screaming, Daddy scrambled away from her, out the door and down the hall. Julie made chase, following hard on his heels as he careened through the house and out the front door.
Eloise followed, her heart pounding. She came to a halt on the front porch just as a car horn shattered the night. A black sedan slammed into her father, throwing him several feet down the street.
Julie’s specter laughed, slowly fading from view.
Thankfully, Ms. Harmony was a night owl, and the guest room was as warm and inviting as the rest of the house.
That morning, over French toast and coffee, Eloise told Ms. Harmony what she hadn’t been able to get out last night.
“She drove Daddy out into the street that night,” Eloise said.
Ms. Harmony shook her head. “I can’t pretend to understand any of the goings-on of the spirit world. But I don’t disbelieve you for one second, child.”
“Me being taken away was only supposed to be temporary, right?”
“Yes.”
“But then Daddy died, so—”
“Died? No, Ellie. Your father is alive.”
Eloise rocked back in her chair. “But—I saw—the car accident—”
“He was injured pretty badly. Had to spend a long while in the hospital. And while he was there, he signed his rights away. Said he had no right to be your Daddy. Said he didn’t deserve to be one. I tried to tell him that he just needed to get sober and stay that way and everything would be all right, but he wouldn’ listen.” Ms. Harmony sighed. “Guess I know why now.”
Eloise stared down at her coffee. “What—what’s he like now? Do you talk to him?”
“Haven’t talked to him for a long while. He never went back to that house. Lots of folks thought he died, I think.”
“That’s what the neighbor said. He’s the one who told me.”
“Ol’ Mr. Charlie sure does love t’ gossip. Anyhow, Gary went to go live with friends and sold that house. I think someone else went in there to clear stuff out. I haven’t spoken to him since he got out of the hospital.” Ms. Harmony patted Eloise on the arm. “You’re better off without him. I dunno if he ever got sober. An’ he might be dead by now after all. You go on home. Be an architect and marry a good man and live your life.” She gave her arm a squeeze. “And visit me from time to time.”
Eloise smiled at her, laying her hand over hers. “I’ll do that.”
She tried to do that. She went back home to her apartment, her job, and her dog. She talked to Charlene, leaving out the ghostly encounters but keeping her conversations with Ms. Harmony. She said she had stopped having nightmares. Her therapist congratulated Eloise on her breakthrough.
But it wouldn’t leave her alone: her father was alive. Maybe.
Eloise could not let it go. Late night social media searches and one private investigator later, and she had an address. In her city, of all places.
She drove out there one Friday night. It was deeper into October now. Bright leaves were scattered across the street. Halloween decorations festooned almost every yard.
Her GPS took her to a two-story house on the corner. On the dying grass, fake skeletons danced in a fake cemetery. By the driveway was a staked sign reading, “Witch Parking. All Others Will be Toad.” Thick gauze, mimicking spiderwebs, laced the front porch.
Eloise parked by the sidewalk and got out slowly.
Kids on bicycles whirred past. She watched them ride into the distance before slowly approaching the house.
Beside the front door, propped in a chair, was a sign that read, “Enter if You Dare.” She pressed the doorbell.
A minute later, the door opened, and a tall woman with wispy blond hair smiled at her. She pushed open the storm door.
“Can I help you?” asked the woman.
Eloise swallowed. “Does Gary Harris live here?”
“He does.”
She took another breath. “I’m-I’m Eloise Barker. But, I used to be Eloise Harris. Um. I—”
“Oh my God.” The woman’s mouth dropped open. “You’re Gary’s daughter?”
“Y-yes.”
She shook his head. “I always wondered… Come on in.” She stepped back. “My name’s Caitlin. I’m his wife.”
Eloise felt disjointed from reality as she walked into the front hall. The house smelled like pumpkin spice and apples. The roaring crash of applause spilled into the room, followed by a commentator’s voice crowing over a touchdown. Pictures of smiling children and adults hung on the walls. Every free surface bristled with Halloween and autumn decorations.
There was one photo on a table that arrested her attention. It was Eloise at around five years old, grinning. There was chocolate all over her face and she gripped a plastic spatula in her hand.
“This way,” Caitlin said, leading the way into a living room.
An old man with a pot belly sat in a recliner, watching a football game. A glass of sweet tea sweated on a coaster on the table beside him.
More photos hung on the walls. There was one, above his head, that made Eloise’s shoulders tighten. It was her mother, smiling and happy. It looked out of place in this home, filled with pictures of other children and with a new wife.
A part of her realized that she had half-siblings now. How could she possibly have half-siblings?
“Gary?” Caitlin said.
“Hm?” He raised his brows.
“You’ve got a visitor, sweetie.”
He picked up the remote and muted it. His eyes raised and locked on Eloise. His green eyes.
All the breath left her in a rush. A roaring sound filled her ears. Eloise could only stare at the old man who should have been dead. The old man who, apparently, had sobered up. Had moved on. Had made a new family. Had left her behind.
She blinked. The sound in her ears faded.
“Miss, are you all right?” he asked, lowering his feet in the recliner. Slowly, he stood.
Eloise licked her lips. “I’m Ellie.”
I saw this was going to be a half hour read … I dithered but I am so glad I read this! The pain of seeing her dad at the end though. 😭😭
I loved the blend of apparitions and time travel! I also appreciate how the ending seems like a "happy ending," while also facing the jarring fact that the man who ruined your childhood got a second chance.