Page 31 of I'll Be Waiting

I shake my head. The voice in the dumbwaiter was just me remembering Anton’s story about his brother spooking him. The rattling door was the wind—I proved that.

And the attic?

The steps pace back and forth. Then, with a scuffling sound, they stop right over my head, and I swear I hear a soft sob.

Someone is crying in the attic.

Someone is trapped—

Goddamn it.That was the story Cirillo told tonight. Ghost in the attic, moving around, crying.

I rub my face.

Coming here was a bad idea. A phenomenally bad idea.

Sure, let’s hold a séance in Anton’s grandmother’s old lake house, with its creepy dolls and empty dumbwaiter and locked basement and a million creaks and groans to prey on my fractured mind.

As soon as I think the word “fractured,” everything in me rebels. Fractured? Damaged? Me? Of course not. I’m grieving, yes, but otherwise…

Otherwise I’m fine? Fuck no. Otherwise I’m a goddamn train wreck, plowing through my days, pretending nothing is wrong.Unable to sleep without drugs. Unable to function without therapy and exercise and endless stern self-talk. I’m gliding across thin ice with a smile plastered on my face as I pretend I’m dancing over a slab three feet thick.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I clench my fists, glare up at the ceiling, and say through gritted teeth, “You’re not there.”

The footsteps continue. I press my hands to my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. Not there, not there, not—

The steps stop above me again, and I hold my breath, heart racing. Then they resume.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I’m not imagining it. I definitely hear footsteps—

Because there’s a door to the attic. It’d been locked when I’d been here with Anton, but he’d told me all about it. It was a walk-up attic where he’d once had a play fort. The last time we’d been here, he’d been talking to the owner, who said it was a mess but she was hoping to renovate it into a children’s suite. I hadn’t thought to see whether it was open and finished.

I hear footsteps in the attic? Yes, because someone else can’t sleep and has gone exploring.

I roll out of bed and grab my wrapper. Cinching it around me, I head into the hall.

There’s enough moonlight coming from a window that I can leave the lights off. I make my way toward the attic door, hands out to feel along the walls. I reach it and—

It’s still padlocked.

I try the lock and the door itself. Both are firmly shut.

I turn, putting my back to the door and tilting my head to listen.

Nothing.

I stay there a few minutes. When no sound comes, I slowly make my way back to the bedroom, slip inside, and stare up at the ceiling.Still silent. I climb onto the bed and carefully balance as I stand, shut my eyes, and focus on listening.

It’s so quiet I can hear the ticking of the cheap alarm clock.

Because I imagined the footsteps. I’d been dreaming and thought I woke up, but I might not have.

I exhale. Of course. Earlier, Cirillo told that story about the ghost in the attic, and then I fell into memories of Patrice and Heather, only to be woken by my door slamming and rattling in the wind. My brain was chock-full of ghost stories, and so what did I imagine, in my state of half-sleep? Footsteps and crying from the attic.

I had a hypnagogic hallucination.

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