Volume 2017 Issue 39 Article 22

7-15-2017

Haunting Christmas

Marina Favila

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Recommended Citation Favila, Marina (2017) "Haunting Christmas," The Mythic Circle: Vol. 2017 : Iss. 39 , Article 22. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol2017/iss39/22

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Haunting Christmas

By

Marina Favila

I

At first they were only irritated, the squeaked horribly; and the spirits, especially ghosts of Manorville Manor, seven souls the young ones, could play those stairs like a haunting the house they died in, or wandered violin. Ghostie-music, little Devin called it, by, in the process of dying, some restless, when he first squeaked out “The Water is some pining, as ghosts are wont to be, but Wide” in mid-July, when the boards were mostly content to call the manor home. And dry and weak. He’d learned the old song that makes sense. For who knows what right before catching a cold and dying of awaits us after death, the where or why or influenza in 1899; and his parents, two how of it? But here, in this beautiful old earnest do-gooders, who ran the Down on barn of a house, with its old-fashioned Your Luck Soup Kitchen for the town’s gabled roof and tall cathedral ceilings, its down on their luck, were so devastated by imposing stone fireplace and hanging the loss of their fat-cheeked Devvy, they chandelier, with the tiny frosted bulbs the packed up and moved away within weeks of shape of tiny frosted flames, and one large the little boy’s death, leaving him window, set at the top of a spiral staircase, inconsolable. Those wheezing, whining, where the ghosts could float up and turn wood-turned tunes, drawn out from the round and look out at the town they were manor’s creaking stairs, did much to distract born in, twinkling black and gold at night or the young spirit. washed pale grey at dawn—life could be So you see, up until then, the manor worse, they all knew. boasted a sterling reputation, for the living Then she moved in. and the dead. There’d even been talk of a Up until now they’d had a fine time, or a listing in the Northeast Haunted House good enough time, for they were dead, after Registry. Especially after Prof. Hautboy, the all, but before her, why, before her there’d eldest spirit in human years, had organized been plenty to do, and they’d done it all and the ghosts into performance sections: bumps they’d done it well. The house was a in the night, staircase interludes, whirlwinds veritable gold mine for ghosts. The attic and cold spots, and flashing lights—a wailed liked a banshee, drafty and cold, and specialty of the house on Halloween night, easy to manipulate. A quick turnabout by when Manorville Manor lit up like a Star one or two ghosts could create a mini- Wars laser show, shooting red and blue cyclone within seconds, rattling the attic across the sky. And those spritely inhabitants windows and shoving around old trunks of might have gone on forever, flashing their clothes and hatboxes and hat racks and lights and moving their trunks and moaning stacks of National Geographics, left long in the dark, had the girl moved into another ago by previous frightened owners. And the old house and not their lovely manor. stairs in the front and the stairs in the back But that girl, that girl, that slip of a girl, The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 12

with her college sweatshirt and skinny blue so oblivious to their presence? That’s what jeans. She’d arrived last spring on a warm rattled the ghosts. For no matter how hard afternoon, unloading a trunk full of antique they rapped or knocked or thumped or mirrors and faux fur rugs. She’d not even flickered the lights, she never gave them the bothered to check out the attic before time of day, not a backward glance or a signing the lease. Even the realtor seemed second look or a shiver or shock or a shocked that the girl knew nothing of the nervous tick—nothing. house’s legendary past. Or perhaps she “Youse think we didn’t exist!” Mrs. didn’t care. Her smile was as wide as the Spartini exclaimed, after the first few days. Mississippi, and her pearl-pink cheeks She was particularly perturbed, for the house flushed English rose at the thought she could was originally hers, built by a doting banker be so lucky to live here, in this castle-like for his Ten Cents a Dance bride. He’d stolen home, with its bad heat and faulty wires and Mabeleen from “The Orange Peel” creaky floor and leaky roof and that terribly speakeasy, just before midnight on New romantic staircase, with its wrought iron Year’s Eve, and the former dancehall hostess railing twirling round and round and up and took pride in reminding the ghosts that she out, to the large picture window set so high was the original mistress of the manor, and you could see the whole town and the river still ordered them about to knock on the beyond, its dark waters lit by sun and by door with a menacing rap or streak the old star, or just slow-moving under slate-grey walls with their skeletal hands. “I’se been clouds. She knew life could be worse. So doin’ this for over a century,” she huffed, she signed on the dotted line. Alone, she “and I don’t take kindly to being ignored in signed, no mother or father beside her, not me own home!” even a great aunt Lil or Uncle Joe. And the “There, there,” Prof. Hautboy soothed realtor placed the key in her hand, and her. He was by far the most educated of the rushed out the door, leaving the ghosts ghosts, with a PhD in musicology. “She’s amazed at her presumption. young. I saw it in many of my students,” Not much past twenty, maybe not that— and they all nodded, if ghosts can nod, that tall and thin, with the gangly stance of a is. Even the Farmer Boy twins shimmered in newborn foal, all knees and elbows in agreement, two oafish white shadows, constant motion. Hanging her curtains, blustery and pale, with a touch of stocking her fridge, pirouetting in the hall in aquamarine swirling around. They’d never front of the mirror, her honey-blonde hair said a word, nor left each other’s side, these gave a melodic bounce around her heart- past forty years. shaped face. Something there, too, in her “Yes, yes,” the professor continued, eyes, an open edge, a rawness that perplexed “she’s inattentive, with her iPod and the ghosts. For every so often she’d abruptly smartphone glued to her ear. But she’ll come stop whatever she was doing, cooking or around.” singing or banister-hopping, and stare into And they promised each other to give space for minutes on end. her a month, and took bets that such But still, to think the house would youthful self-centeredness would wear thin welcome her and her knick-knacks and her after two or three weeks. Give her time to multiple cans of turquoise paint— lug in her Goodwill sofa and flea market preposterous! And for someone so alert to lamps, and that god-awful basket of every detail of the house, how could she be marbleized eggs to clutter the fireplace The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 13

mantel. They’d even endured her initial children’s children, who held her hand and cleaning. The fumes alone should have patted her cheek, though they’d already sold driven them out, but they knew, they just everything in the house, save the bed where knew, once she settled down, they would she lay dying. have her attention, then send her packing to “I hid her keys in the refrigerator—my some sterile apartment in the suburbs! refrigerator, under the moldy lettuce in the But that was nearly nine months ago. vegetable bin.” Petunia fingered She’d arrived in April, a gorgeous yellowy remembered pearls, with the air of a duchess month, which turned bright green in early who’d suddenly found the maid in her May and emerald-green the next. But those brocade gown. “She looked for them alright, glorious colors faded fast to sage and gold but when she found them in the fridge she by summer’s end, then golded themselves to merely laughed—laughed! As if I’d done it a ruby fall and fell to the ground with a wrong!” silent crunch, quilting the earth in cranberry, “She’s a mess,” Prof. Hautboy sighed. copper, marigold, mustard, and rust. Three “A terrible housekeeper and unobservant to weeks later, all was ice, the air wet-weighted the max. How can we compete with that? with the promise of snow. But by Christmas Even the old chairs-on-the-table trick, just Eve the ghosts were no closer to making administered last month, which took quite a their presence known. Huddled together for bit of energy (“and coordination,” Ravensby warmth in the attic, they took stock of their added)—a fiasco!” For when the girl came situation. home that night (“too late for a young lady,” Professor Hautboy called the meeting to Petunia sneered) she slammed the door in a order. “Quiet down, quiet down,” he started, fury, blasted her stereo, and jumped round as he always did, with the only joke he the room till the chairs came crashing down. knew: “We don’t want to wake the dead!” Then she wove her way to the bedroom, And he laughed to himself, as he always did, without a backward glance at the dining alone. room wreckage. “But it’s ridiculous,” rushed in “She just can’t hear us,” Devvy said Ravensby, a tattooed punk, triple-pierced quietly, “but I might could like her if she and pacing, who’d been hit by a speeding could.” Ravensby rustled himself closer to car outside the house two years passing. Still the forlorn little spirit, by far his favorite in relatively new to the manor, he was young the house. and feisty, though death had admittedly “A terrible problem,” Hautboy slowed him down. “We’ve tried it all. Just concluded. And he slid the finger that didn’t last week I knocked down every single one exist up the nose that didn’t exist to push up of her piles of clean laundry—towels, wash the memory of thick glasses falling down his cloths, two sets of sheets, eight pairs of long face. “We must find a way to athletic socks, all piled high on her four- communicate with our, ahem, guest.” poster bed and not a second glance at the mess I’d made!” II “Me, too,” piped Petunia Sweeney, who turned ninety-nine this month, if you From the balustrade Devin watched the counted the years from her birth not her young girl decorate for Christmas. He had death. She was the last one to die in the been sent by the other ghosts to guard the house, surrounded by her children and new mistress of the house, as if the spirit The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 14

could effect much of anything at his young ladder swayed as the girl jumped in surprise. age—a ghostly glimmer, perhaps, aided by Without thinking, the little ghost rushed to moonlight, or a lukewarm coolness, for cold steady the ladder. Pushing himself hard into was not in his nature. But he liked her, and the wood, till the white oak pinched his very they knew it, and thought it best for him not essence, Devvy steadied the ladder, while to be in their war room as they set their the girl traipsed down the steps with a lilting plans in motion. laugh at her luck and agility. Thank Devvy was just as glad. The girl was goodness the other ghosts were still in the particularly happy tonight, and he liked to attic, else there’d be hell to pay. watch her then, for her eyes glistened when The open door let in gusts of wet she was joyful, and she hummed under her darkness, but it was swallowed up by the breath and sometimes burst into song at the warmth of the candlelit house and the top of her lungs. Tonight was something greater warmth of its beaming mistress. The special to see. She was decorating the house girl’s voice hit a high-pitched squeal. There for the holidays, in multi-colored garlands before her, a dowdy woman in a dark blue and shimmering icicles. A fire burned in the coat, a peek of nurse’s scrubs beneath, and at fireplace, and the mantelpiece was dressed her side, a small thing, with a heart-shaped with a delicate crèche: jewel-type stones set face and honey-brown hair, cramped in a in the camel’s saddle, and the three kings’ tiny wheelchair. When the girl stepped back, crowns were painted in gold. Cutout stars Devvy gasped, for he thought he saw wrapped in shiny foil dangled from a coat himself, such a wasted creature there, mostly rack, and a huge fir wreath hung on the skin and bones, and hollowed out eyes, dining room wall with a large red satiny darkly and deeply creased. The boy looked bow. The table was decorated with clips of nine, maybe ten, and . . . ghost-like, Devvy holly and giant pinecones dusted with glitter. thought, for his skin was near translucent, And everywhere—candles! Fifty, more, in and his eyes glazed over like he wasn’t wine bottles, jelly jars, tiny votive cups, and there. The spirit shivered in response, until one large brass candelabrum, just tarnished he saw the boy look up from his chair. enough to look expensive. Seeing the girl towering above him, he But Devvy’s favorite was the Christmas smiled the same wide-as-a-river smile as her tree, a tall blue spruce set up by the window own. and dressed up fine with red glass balls and With a deep bow, which made the boy candy canes, and a treasure trove of giggle, the girl ushered in her visitors, miniature antique toys: rocking horses, pogo closing the door with a definitive push, as if sticks, dollies with golden hair and tiny shutting out all that is bad or indecent in the blinkable eyes. Strands and strands of warm world. She took over the woman’s duties, yellow lights seemingly floated on prickly wheeling her charge to a sofa covered with branches. There must be hundreds, he pillows and a large knitted quilt, kelly green, thought, blinking on and off to the music white, and tangerine, a zigzag pattern with box tunes of “Greensleeves” and “O scraggly tassels and many a snag in the yarn. Christmas Tree.” When the girl and the woman pushed the Devvy was entranced as he watched the couch closer to the fireplace, the light and girl climb a rickety ladder to place a five- the heat brought a healthy flush to the young point star at the top of the tree. When a boy’s face. knock on the door startled them both, the Then all was a flurry in the house. And The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 15

the flurry was the girl. Like a humming bird, old roughhouse ways. here, there at once, she leapt and twirled “We’ll take care of the window,” Mrs. around the room: stoking the fire; plumping Spartini interjected, for she wanted to make the pillows; wheeling in an old-time tray, sure that everyone knew she was really in with mix-matched teacups of cocoa and charge. “A frosty peel! Inside, of course, for cream; passing around a platter of cookies, the window’s been rusty-eyed shut for years. shortbread Santas and chocolate reindeers, But if we steam the inside, we can write one with a raspberry nose. How wonderful to some dastardly message for hers to read. be here, Devvy thought to himself, for he Petunia, dear, what might be fearful for you? felt he too was part of the eating and sipping “Anything!” Even at ninety-nine, the and singing and pillow-plumping and belly- ghost’s voice went up in a girlish lilt, at the laughing, for everything seemed funny, now, sheer pleasure of being asked. “Something to the three living inhabitants of Manorville about the night, I suppose, for I was always Manor. Even the woman had begun to afraid of the dark. I . . .” unwind, as she dipped a second Santa into “And the twins?” Ravensby rushed in, her cocoa. Devin hoped the ghosts in the worried they’d never escape Petunia’s attic would take a long time with their lengthy riff on the dark. evening preparations. “Lights!” Hautboy responded. “Multi- colored!” The whitish shadows glowed in III response, for they loved shooting red and blue across the room, whether they had an “Settled!” Hautboy concluded. “We’ll audience or not. wait until the clock strikes twelve, or rather, “And if that doesn’t work?” Petunia till I make that clock chime twelve booming whined. clangs, and that in itself should get her Even in death, Prof. Hautboy was a attention, for the grandfather clock is a teacher and a good one, and he responded hundred years old and hasn’t chimed for with authority: “It will work. Never fear, fifty. Petunia! And if it doesn’t--we’ll wrap that “Then I’ll sweep in,” said Ravensby, horrid afghan so tight about her tiny frame slicking back the air where his hair used to that when we finally let her go, she’ll run be, “and do my cyclone thing, picking up from the house and never return to anything I can in my wake: cups, saucers, Manorville Manor!” And the ghosts all tinkling spoons, knick-knacks—books! shimmered in approval. She’s always leaving them scattered about. But as they floated out to take their The fluttering pages in my little whirlwind places, at the hearth, by the tree, hovering will make a fine rat-a-tat-tat, adding to the near the window, they paused, for the girl confusion. If I move fast enough, perhaps I was reading now, to a young boy on the can even raise a chair!” couch, while the older woman faded in and “Now, now,” Prof. Hautboy advised, out of sleep in an overstuffed chair. And the “we don’t want to kill her.” And he tried to girl was reading with enthusiasm and look stern, though his transparent expression dramatic gestures, about some ghost of conveyed very little. Still, he wanted his Christmas past and a singing child on tone forbidding, for he worried about the crutches. Hautboy signaled the spirits to Farmer twins, hearts of gold, those boys, and wait. They wouldn’t have started even if he silent as the grave, but easily stirred to their hadn’t, for they knew, as he knew, what was The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 16

coming. them, tucked it in tight, on the left and the right, so snug they might have been bound IV together. And she plodded on, reading aloud, but Devin could tell, as anyone could, that At first Devvy kept his distance, hidden all her attention was on the boy. For even in the branches of the spruced-up spruce. when she raised her voice or pointed to the But it had been so many years since air when a new ghost appeared, her other someone had read to him, and before long hand felt for the young boy’s neck and he was pressed up next to the fireplace, then brushed back the hair from his hot flushed folded around the ottoman, close to the sofa face. with the ugly quilt, not so close to touch the And she read for an hour, maybe two, of humans, though he could feel their warmth. Ebenezer’s life and his love and his money, And with the cookie crumbs lavishly dotting and though each new ghost prompted Devin the floor, and the teacups emptied of cocoa to shiver, the boy lay still, so still, in fact, he and cream, he saw the girl reach beneath an seemed asleep. And it was then Devin embroidered cushion to retrieve an old blue noticed they were not alone, but joined by book. the ghosts, around the room, still and staring It was dusty, cracked, bound in leather, at the boy in the girl’s arms. For the ghosts with pages edged in gold. She presented it to could see, though she could not, the outlines the boy like some precious treasure befitting of the boy beginning to blur, like the edges the Magi, and pointed at the illustrations and of a photo no longer in focus or the fresh the lavish scrolled print. Then she jumped white smear of a dab of paint, titanium white from the couch and began to read. Both boy on a dark oil canvas. and ghost were transported as she skipped And the girl read faster, flipping through around the room and motioned with her pages with furious intent, playing each part hands and acted all the parts. With the with commitment and verve, but the boy lighted tree sparkling behind her like the was no longer listening. He’s . . . rising, backdrop of some Christmas play, the girl trying to shake his body loose. Impatient, his became Scrooge, counting his money, and movement, like a pupa shedding its skin, he timid Bob Cratchet, cowering before him, pushes himself away from himself and from and Tiny Tim, leaning on crutches, but his sister too, oblivious to who she is, even singing in a high sweet voice. Even the to her loving attention as she turns each page joyful nephew with his blasted “Merry and adjusts the blanket that holds them Christmas” brought a tear to the woman’s together. He is no longer who he was, nor eye, before she fell back to sleep. And does he care for her. He thinks only of though Devin was a ghost himself, he ridding himself of this great weight. And trembled when Marley arrived, with a raspy though the ghosts have taken this journey voice like a rusty nail, floating in air on the themselves, they are transfixed by his living room stairs and clanging his ascent, for he does not see them. He does voluminous chains. not acknowledge they even exist. He simply But then the boy began to cough, then rises, past the lighted tree and the fireplace cough in earnest, great sobbing, hacking and the spiral staircase, learning how to coughs, and the girl swept down from her swim in that great sea of air. staircase perch and cuddled him up on the And a light seems to grow inside him, sofa. She pulled the raggedy afghan round and now he is all titanium white, brilliant The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 17

and bright-edged. And the ghosts can see boy out the window as well. right through him; and the lights from the Red and blue lights sweep through the candles and the lights from the tree flicker house. Not as bright as the dazzle the behind him, and it looks for a moment as if Farmer Boys planned, but a whirling pattern the Milky Way has descended into the room around the room. A high-pitched wail and revolves around them. And the boy’s shaking the walls deafens the calls for Devin form is some low constellation or gossamer to follow. And all is a flurry: rushing and angel descended to earth—but an angel that moaning, doors that are opening, closing, feels nothing human, and so he is both like and slamming, a table with wheels wheeling the ghosts and nothing like the ghosts, for round the room, and strangers in uniform they have always felt human, and they have shaking their heads. Coats and boots always felt tied to this world. grabbed, gloves by the door, in minutes it’s A huge gust of wind opens the window dark, and the whole house is empty of all of that hasn’t been open for years and years, the living and all of the dying. Crowding and the boy, looking now like a shiny piece the window, three shadows remain. of foil, acts like a magnet to the other V ghosts, who also feel the need to rise. And When the girl returns, it is late, and she they rise: Petunia and Ravensby, into the air, enters the house alone. She walks like she’s like helium balloons let loose in the wind. been sleeping. Her face holds no expression. And Mrs. Spartini, waving to the house, like She shrugs off her coat in the middle of the some grand dame in a local parade. And the room, letting it drop to the floor. Then she Farmer Boy twins, still hand in hand, like a climbs the spiral staircase in a slow, pale green fog, frosting the window inside measured gait. And she pays no mind to the out. Even Prof. Hautboy joins in, waving an snow on the steps, blown in from the open imaginary conductor’s baton, as if he is window. Nor does she notice the ice on the leading an orchestra again, pointing to each railing; her hands are just as cold. ghost to play their part. “Two notes up. She reaches the top of the stairs without Now jump the octave! Jump!” He laughs to stopping. She leans out the window and himself, alone. waits. The clock strikes one and the clock But Devvy sees none of this, for all his strikes two, and the air grows cold and attention is on the girl. And she is crying, colder. And every minute of every hour cradling the boy in her arms, while the older she’s searching the town below, from house woman talks on the phone. From high above to house, and street to street, all lit by the Devin can hear Ravensby calling, calling muted glow of streetlamps covered deep in him now, and Prof. Hautboy taps the air and snow. Then she raises her face to the sky. motions for him to follow. When Devvy She searches its depth with a long, long looks up, he sees Mrs. Spartini floating out look, as if she might seriously count the the window, in a great twisty movement stars or the snowflakes falling around her. reminiscent of her Orange Peel days; and And she seems to be listening to something Petunia joins her, no longer afraid of the or nothing. Even the wind is silent. dark, but sparkling like a slow-shooting star Then she leans out further and extends in the heavens, or a snowflake welcomed by her hands, into the night and into the snow, a sky full of glitter. And that sky full of her palms face up, her forehead wrinkled, as glitter is suddenly covered by a gauzy white she squints into the darkness. cloud with aqua-green swirls, following the And now she’s on tiptoe, leaning The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 18

forward, her bare arms raised to a cloud- a hard-air push. It’s almost warm. Wedged in laced sky. And she waits and she waits, as tight it holds her steady, just for a moment, the clock strikes three, and she listens. She’s on the edge of the sill, where she sees—she listening. swears, still swears to this day—that she She’ll fall if she’s not careful, Devin sees the old quilt with its zigzag design and thinks from far below. “She’ll fall if she’s gnarly strings, rising in earnest and not careful,” he repeats into the air. billowing out like a tall ship’s sail that sails “We must grab her attention!” Hautboy on high, through the air and into her arms. commands. Ravensby, Devin, begin! It wraps her up twice and pulls her in The chandelier creaks as it slowly turns, fast, and she slides down the railing, around and the frosted bulbs charge a ruby red, and and around, down to the floor where she’s the lights on the tree blink faster now, its dropped on the sofa in one magnificent plop. music box tempo increasing as well. And far And be it fatigue or the ice-edged cold or the in the corner, the grandfather clock begins to wet night air or the warmth of the quilt, or chime with a booming clang, as a whirlwind the whirling images of a house come alive rises in the middle of the room, filled with that she can’t take in and she can’t deny, the objects of the evening’s bliss: teacups, girl falls asleep as soon as her head hits the saucers, silver spoons, a platter dotted with plumped up pillow of her Goodwill couch, cookie crumbs; cut-out stars covered in foil, wrapped up tight in a ragtag throw, with a each one boasting a flickering train of multi- ghost pressed up to her heart. colored candle flames; marbleized eggs and clips of holly and pine cones dusted with VI silver glitter; and books, books, a vortex of books, flying like starlings around the room, On Christmas Day, the gabled roof of their pages a clattering, thunderous flutter. Manorville Manor is sagging, from the snow Even the ottoman knocks on the floor, as if and the cold and the wind and the rain and trying to jump to the whirlwind above. the decades it’s been standing. But a girl can And the girl whips around, amazed at the be seen at the window there, on the second sight. The house is alive and dances before floor, or so it seems, enveloped in an afghan her. She gasps as a tea cup twirls within quilt of green and white and tangerine, with reach, then a trio of spoons tap together like a delicate teacup in her hand, from which bells; and with so many candles and jelly jar she slowly sips. And the sun through the lights, it looks like the Milky Way now has window must feel warm, for a lovely glow returned, made up of objects from daily life. surrounds her there, the softest cloud of And the girl starts to laugh. She laughs in peach and gold, almost a mist that clings and surprise. Doubles over and laughs. She swirls as she stands by the window, one laughs so hard that tears overflow her pearl- hand up, as if to touch the sun. Some trick, pink cheeks and heart-shaped face. too, of the afternoon light casts three Laughing so hard she loses control; and shadows against the wall, making her look shaking with laughter, she feels herself slip both small and bright and strangely not on the snow-laden stairs. Slipping and alone. She looks out the window at the town falling, backwards she’s reeling, with only she was born in, washed pearl-white by the the night and the wide-open window to glittering snow. And she stares at the river as catch her as she falls. it circles her home, slow-moving and slate- And then such a rush rushing inside her, gray. The Mythic Circle #39, pg. 19