William
Arrival
The day before Williams's afterlife changed, he was staring at paintings.
William strode through the manor, listening to the steady rain on the roof. The random pattern, oddly rhythmic, captivated him. Pulling him in like a bear to honey. He sighed. Not that there were many better things to do in this place.
The manor's halls were dusty, dark wood, arranged in vertical planks. If he watched closely, he could make out the dust in the air, swirling playfully as it settled onto the red rugs laid across the floor. Portraits lined the walls, pictures of various owners of the old mansion, or historical pieces of art. Their gold frames had long since faded, gold paint or leaf flaking off in big chunks. William stepped up to one; a smaller, new-ish painting of the manor's most recent owner. Grandma Davenshore.
Someone must have painted this a long time ago; With large, curious eyes and natural blonde hair, the lady looked nothing like the old gray-haired woman. He stared, feeling minutes pass as he reminisced on the past few years.
Grandma Davenshore. She had spent her last days in the manor, hooked up to various machines. A nurse had come by every once in a while to check on her, but other than that, she was the only one who had lived here for the past seven years.
William took one last glance and pulled himself away from the picture; reminding himself that she had passed on to the afterlife and would be here no more. He could not say the same about himself. That fact made him bitter.
He hurried his way through the manor's halls to his original destination, hoping he hadn't spent too long staring. Having nothing to do for years would do that to you; lead you to find even the most simple things to distract yourself from your unending predicament.
William remembered spending days upon days staring at different images on the walls, keeping himself entertained. Making up stories in his head about the world beyond and people's past. His personal favorite painting was one of an old galleon crossing the sea, in which he had made up an entire intricate story involving two lovers stranded by the sea.
When he reached the stairs, he took them two steps at a time, descending from the second floor and onto the first. The great lobby had a large crystal chandelier illuminating the space and a grand staircase. The staircase went up to the wall, and split to go both left and right up the far wall onto the next floor. Lining the upper perimeter of the room were the balconies of the second floor.
Decorative shrubs in ornate marble pots stood in the corners and before the stairs, along with benches along the left and right walls. Two doors lay to the left and right, leading to other wings of the magnificent building.
He walked forward to the closed front door. William braced himself, preparing for the familiar discomfort. Taking a deep breath, he stuck his hand out. It went through the solid surface, disappearing. He felt his arm and hand come apart slightly, like many millions of particles fitting through the tiny gaps in the door and reforming on the other side. Then he walked straight through the closed door.
He gasped as he walked through. While it wasn't quite painful, the feeling sure wasn't pleasant. However, he was still thankful he could pass through solid objects. It was uncomfortable, sure, but very convenient when you couldn't open doors.
Henry was already outside under the porch awning, watching the forest beyond.
"Anything?" William asked, sidling up beside Henry.
"Not yet. Where be the others?" Henry asked, turning towards him. William could not help but be amazed by Henry's height every time he stood next to him. Henry towered over William, and William was tall. He wore his red over jacket, black boots, and an array of flintlocks and cutlasses were strung across a sash. Seaweed, barnacles, and other underwater things adorned him as well, sticking out of pockets or stuck to his face. Overall, Henry was an intimidating figure. William smiled, knowing better than to be intimidated by Henry.
"I'm sure they'll arrive soon." William said.
Hesitantly, William did his usual experiment and reached his hand out into the rain. As normal, the fat raindrops fell through his hands and arms to the ground, not even soiling the sleeve of his navy blue suit as it went through. Small puffs of mist curled up from his hand as the rain fell through it, displacing his ghostly figure. Henry chuckled, reaching his own hand out into the rain.
Unlike William's hand, Henrys somehow bent the surrounding rain, creating a gap in the air where the rain didn't touch. Henry grunted, looking at his hand with a face of concentration, before sighing and putting it back down at his side.
"Lucky." William said, deflating a little.
"Ye will find yer's eventually, lad." An enormous grin spread across Henry's rugged and bearded face. William couldn't help but smile along with it.
He sure hoped Henry was right. William had wondered what his ability would be for a long time. According to Selket, each ghost got an ability based on how they died. William, being the newest ghost to arrive at the manor, hadn't figured his own ability out yet. It would sure help if he could remember how he died.
Williams' hand went to his head in an automatic response to the thought. He felt his face and found the large gash that took up about half of his forehead. It felt open and raw, though he didn't experience any pain. William still had no idea what it looked like himself, as they didn't show up in mirrors, but the other ghosts told him it looked quite brutal. It really made him wonder about his past life.
If only he could remember anything other than a name…
"How long did it take you to remember, again?" William asked.
"A few things showed up o'er the years, but I only 'ave a few fragments. Enough fer a good tale or two!"
"I hope I'll remember someday…" William muttered, mostly to himself.
Henry grunted in response, turning back to the landscape. The pirate had been here far longer than he had and had probably lost that hope long ago. Honestly, William didn't know how his hope had not just up and died already.
They waited a few more minutes in silence until Selket appeared at the door to join them. She had a gracefulness to the way she walked, a confidence in how she held herself. The ancient Egyptian robes she wore, inlaid with gold and hieroglyphics, gave off a slight glow. If William looked closely, he could make out the twin holes in her hand. The remains of the snake bite that had ended her life.
"Where is Coyote?" She asked, looking at Henry and William calmly.
As if on cue, Coyote sauntered out from the shadows inside the house. His steps clinked with every footfall, because of the shiny silver spurs clipped onto his leather boots. He wore a large brown duster, a red bandana around his neck, and a western hat.
As usual, he distanced himself from the group and put his head down. The brim of the hat obscured his face, casting a shadow. In all his time here, William had never seen the man's face or heard him talk, despite his attempts. Coyote was just a nickname, as they couldn't pry the real name from his throat.
They all stood and watched out into the rain's endless torrent. Waiting, watching. The mighty lodgepole trees creaked and groaned in the whistling wind, joining with the patter of rain. It created a beautiful, yet chaotic symphony of sound, added to by the clapping and sudden sound of thunder in the background.
William got bored from watching the rain, and his mind wandered. Despite him missing the old and bitter Grandma Davenshore, the prospect of new people was exciting. The good thing about having the old owner of the manor pass on was that it meant new owners, and new owners meant less boredom for a little while.
Finally, a stark yellow light appeared on the horizon. It cut through the storm like a knife, illuminating the pathway in front of it.
"At last." Selket said, motioning towards the light.
A white truck creeped its way along the road, approaching the manor. It rounded the old fountain, which had grown over with algae and plants. Other vines had also worked their way up the fountain, growing into its cracks and ridges. There was practically no water left inside, other than the newly fallen rainwater.
The truck rolled to a stop a short way from the entrance. A middle-aged man stepped out from the driver's seat, and a woman about the same age stepped out of the passenger seat. The man turned towards the house and frowned, crossing his arms, clearly unhappy. William thought that was terribly unfair.
The woman from the other side of the vehicle opened the doors to the second row of seats and said something to someone inside. Another door popped open, and a young girl came out.
She had jet black hair dangling free to her shoulders. Her skin was pale, and slim black glasses lay perched on her nose. She was wearing a simple, drab gray shirt and jeans. After she got out, she stopped and stared at the mansion, clearly intimidated by its grandeur.
"Full family. Been a while since we had a little kid here." William said, thinking. There was something about the girl that seemed vaguely familiar.
"She's not that little, William." Selket replied, her stony gaze landing upon William. Something about those eyes and her posture reminded him of a snake waiting to lunge at its prey. Ironic, considering how Selket had died.
"Aye, Miss. I'd guess sixteen," Henry said. They all turned back to the newcomers. The woman walked by and swiftly looked at her daughter.
"Stop staring, Jackie. Let's unload the stuff and drop it by the door." The mother said, dashing by the girl…Jackie…without a second glance.
"Yes, mom." Jackie said. Her voice was void of emotion as she turned away from the manor and walked to the back of the truck dutifully. She pulled down the tailgate of the truck and hauled out suitcases and labeled boxes, setting them on the ground. As she did this, the mother and father walked up to the entrance. The father fidgeted with a handful of keys, before stepping up to the door…and right through William.
William doubled over in pain, his body dissipating and swirling around like fog broken by a strong wind. His vision blacked out, and his hearing deafened to almost nothing. The only thing he felt was the pain. Sharp stabs of pain that came from all directions, like a million ants or bees stinging him all at once.
Slowly, sluggishly, the particles formed back together; the pain fading with every reconnected particle. Eventually, he came to with the pain mostly gone and his senses returned to him. The first thing he heard was Henry's booming laughter.
"Ah, ye scabby sea bass!" He was leaning over laughing, and even the level-headed Selket had a small smile.
"I hate when they do that." William sputtered, heaving himself up off the ground. He felt like his heart should be racing from the experience, but it had been a long time since he had felt a heartbeat thrum through his body. It was still an alien experience to not feel it. Instead, he tried to dust off his pants, which also proved pointless. There wasn't a visible speck of dirt or dust on the nice dress pants. It was more a habit than anything else.
Naturally, the father had not reacted or felt Williams' presence as he had passed through. They never did. William sighed. He hoped a little each time the people would at least shiver or react somehow, no matter how small that reaction was.
The father stood by the door, inserting many keys into the lock, trying to find the right one. Gold keys, copper keys, brass keys, silver keys, and every other kind you could think of. Genuinely, where had the man gotten so many keys?
The mother walked up to the father, rolled her eyes, and pointed to one key in his fist. A small, gold key that matched the shade of gold of the door handle. He nodded and inserted the right key this time into the lock, and the door swung open.
The parents entered, leaving Jackie to unpack the stuff. She hauled the boxes up to the door, one by one, each box wet with rain. William turned back to watch the parents as they eagerly explored the house and left Jackie to unload their stuff. That…rubbed him the wrong way.
"I don't know about you," William said, "but I vote to follow the girl." he thumbed over in Jackie's direction.
"Agreed." Selket said, with a hint of finality. Where Selket went, so went the others. When Jackie finished unloading the truck, she grabbed a stack of boxes out of the pile and entered the house.
"Second floor, third door on the left." Her father said, walking past her to collect his stuff.
"Yes, Father." Jackie said dully, making her way up the stairs.
So mechanical, William thought. She acts without emotion.
Her footfalls echoed around the room as she climbed the stairs. The ghost's footsteps joined her own, reverberating against the walls. Selkets light step, Henry's heavy stomp, Jeremiah's clinks, and William's own soft footfalls. Despite the extra sound, Jackie didn't notice. The first rule of being a ghost: no communication with the living. William remembered being taught that lesson the hard way.
Eventually, Jackie reached her room and went inside. The ghosts stepped in after her, examining the room even though they had probably been in here a thousand times. The small room had a thick coat of dust everywhere, obscuring the paint on the walls. A window with darkly colored drapes lay set into the wall, with a desk and chair looking out over the woodlands beyond pushed up against it. There was a small closet to the right pushed up to the right wall, and a bed pushed up against the left wall. The room, overall, was small but cozy.
Jackie stepped up to the wall and ran her fingers across it, creating streaks where the top layer of dust rubbed off. William tried to rub his hand across the wall much like Jackie had done before, but it instead sunk into the wall. William deflated a little, and his heart sank. However, no amount of feelings or empathy would free them from this house. They had already tried.
The ghosts watched keenly as Jackie put the three small boxes, labeled Art, Clothing, and Other, on the bed and went to fetch a wet rag. With the rag, she rubbed away the dust from the desk, revealing an antique, worn color. Next, she moved on to the walls. She scrubbed a minute before gasping, revealing the painting underneath.
William smiled, glad someone was cleaning this room out of all the other rooms. Once, or so he had been told by Henry and Selket, a young boy lived here who loved the forest. He spent days painting a mural on his wall, one of an extraordinary forest. Sadly, the family had moved away, unable to pay for the cost of the manor.
Jackie scrubbed excitedly at the wall, uncovering large trees and vibrant songbirds. A deer sprung through the forest over here, and a burrow of rabbits lay in the grass, chewing. William quickly realized that Jackie wasn't emotionless after all. She was grinning ear to ear as she finished cleaning the wall. With the full painting revealed and every surface clean of dust, Jackie started unloading the boxes.
"Lass doesn' hav' much." Henry noted. Indeed, the three already small boxes were barely half full. She hung only a few outfits in the closet, enough for about a week, plus nightwear.
"It's likely she has more downstairs." Selket said, though William doubted it. They had not unloaded very many boxes and suitcases from the truck.
The next box unloaded came full of art supplies. Jackie set up three cups full of colored pencils, markers, and crayons in the corners of the desk. She set a small stack of sketchbooks in the center of the desk, organized neatly. Finally, she took a lamp out of the box, plugged it in, and set it up in the corner of the desk.
William watched as Jackie touched the art supplies fondly, running her fingertips across the smooth surface of the sketchbook. Her entire demeanor had changed, from the way she walked to the way she acted altogether. It was like she had become a new person.
"She seems nice. I like the new residents so far!" William said. Henry chuckled, a boastful smile spreading across his face.
"Ye better! Ye will be spendin' the next lifetime wit' her."
"Not what I meant and you know it," William replied.
Henry just chuckled, and William returned the smile to him. It was hard to dislike Henry, as most of what he said was with good intentions.
While they were talking, the girl sat down. She reached over to the sketchbooks, pulled out a pencil, and flipped open to a blank page. Sketching lightly with a pencil, the trees and landscape outside the window took form. After the simple sketch, she added layers of colored pencils on top of each other. Random lines came together into trunks, then into trees, and then finally, into a forest. Every leaf, every blade of grass had its own personality and shading and texture.
William became engrossed in the art process, watching the layers of color build up on the page. Every stroke of movement was one of purpose and emotion, and he gaped at the amazing work. How old did Henry think she was? Sixteen? That was a lot of skill for a girl sixteen years old. If William himself had found a way to draw all these years, he still wouldn't have a skill level akin to what Jackie did. Jackie had not just the skill, but the passion to go along with it. He could see it in the intense focus of her blue eyes.
When Jackie finally finished and signed the bottom corner with a small J, William looked up to see it was dark. He sat there for a moment, dumbfounded. How long had he been watching Jackie draw? All day? It had been forever since William had been entertained like this.
"I do not believe I have been occupied for this long before." Selket said, unnerved. She was staring out the window into the inky night.
"Ha! Me neither, miss," Henry said, plastering his face with a genuine smile. Jackie, too, had stood up and started staring through the window, realizing the time. After staring a moment, she rushed over to the "Other" box and pulled out the stuff to get ready for bed, then ran off down the hall, leaving the ghosts behind. William shook his head.
"There's something off. See how she acts around her parents?"
"Aye. Somethin's not right." Henry said.
They returned to silence, staring out the window and at the wonderful piece of art. William sighed as he looked at it, tracing the intricate lines with his eyes. He wanted to be creative again. He wanted to draw, to write, or…even to play the piano. That was one of the few two things he could remember; His name, and his passion for the piano.
"I wish, just for one day, or even only a few minutes, to be seen." He said. The others looked at him sorrowfully.
"Aye." Henry said, scratching at a barnacle absentmindedly.
"Or to leave the manor grounds." William said, taking a longing look at the forest outside. The ghosts could walk around outside a bit, but a large invisible barrier blocked them from leaving the property.
"William, stop," Selket said with a pained expression. "Talking about this does nothing for us."
Selket, being here longer than any of them, hated to talk about leaving. She had supposedly tried every avenue of escape, but had not figured anything out in the thousands of years she had been here. William often wondered how she hadn't gone insane from the time. She had been here so long. Much longer than the manor had even existed.
"You're right." William said grudgingly. He didn't want to give up, not yet.
How long, he wondered, will it take for me to decide there's no escape? How long till I have to stop, lest it break me?
William didn't know the answers. The answers to so many of these questions. He supposed if he knew, then he wouldn't be here anymore and things would be too easy, and, skies above, things could never be easy.
Jackie returned a few minutes later. Her day clothes were now changed into a fresh set of gray star pajamas. She sat, pulled out one sketchbook, and flipped through the art with a bored expression.
The only source of light in the room was the lamp, dimly lighting the room with an eerie glow. It made the forest mural appear dark and endless, swallowing the room in a cage of branches.
A little while later, she crawled into the bed, flicking the light off.
"Hmm. I was hoping for someone to put up a calendar." Selket said.
"Wha' fer? Time don' matter, much when yer dead," Henry teased. Selket crossed her arms.
"It does, indeed, matter. I was wondering what the time was, that's all." She said, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "Even if it does not matter to you."
"Come now, yet actin' like it'll bring ye back to livin.'"
"Time, structure, and order matters, Henry. Without it, we would all be like you," Selket teased.
"Like me, eh? Some o' us would like to see ye crack a smile every once in a while, love."
"Some of us prefer to maintain our dignity."
"Some o' us like to hav' fun!" Henry said joyously, clearly enjoying the conversation.
William chuckled at the friendly banter. Henry was likely the only reason William was still sane. Henry, whether he realized it or not, had a way of brightening up a situation, and his joy was infectious.
"Not even a day in, and those two are bickering again." William said slyly, pretending to talk to Jackie behind Henry's back.
"Oi! I'm standin' righ' here!" Henry said, exasperated.
They all laughed together, filling the room with a warm noise silent to living ears. After it had died down, Selket gave a little wave and left to find sleep. As the hours crept slowly toward midnight, Henry left as well. Even Coyote, who William had forgotten about, left after Henry.
That left William alone, to ponder his thoughts in the darkness. Jackie seemed like a very interesting company, considering all the facts. Though he still couldn't shake the odd feeling he got from her. Nobody had given him that feeling of familiarity before.
Watching people was more like watching a show or reading a book. It had felt fake, distant. Made-up. An unreachable world, so close yet so far. However, Jackie just felt so…genuine to him.
He shook his head and got up, ready to find his own sleep through the night. He shouldn't convince himself of these things. It was just a desperate attempt from his mind to keep himself sane.
Though, as he walked to the door, he paused, something gnawing at him. He felt like he should say something, but what? It wasn't going to be heard, anyway. Still, the feeling grew, and he turned back to say something. It just felt right.
"Jackie…I know you can't hear me, but…I was wondering if you would like to be friends?" He said. Jackie adjusted in her sleep slightly. William smiled.
"I'll take that as a yes." In a hurry, he turned and went through the closed door, embarrassed. Embarrassed for what, he'll never know. He was basically talking to himself, anyway.
With a sigh, he made way down the hall to his quarters.