Welcome (back) to monthly ghost, an eclectic, multi-genre newsletter of ghost stories. An off the rails book review this month, some Lite Horror next month. For future projects from monthly ghost, you can subscribe here.
I write this in an old house full of produce that rots within hours of being placed into the fruit bowl. The satellite radio broadcasts stations of gibberish talk shows and low blaring tones over a snare beat. The lights most certainly flicker.
And yet I can’t shake the feeling of deja vu. I’m more annoyed than terrified, to be frank.
It’s a fixer upper, a project of a house, on the banks of the river just north of the city where I work. An Arts and Crafts with a low-pitched roof, exposed beams, utilitarian kitchen, built-in bookcases, and a wraparound porch. Those were the featured I’d admired in the walkthroughs, the real estate agent spouting original-this and historically accurate-that in the clear light of day. Cozy and full of potential. “Drenched in light.”
In truth, the house is a peeling, crumbling mess. Night draws out the decay: the stones missing in the fireplace, the dark damp stains crawling across each ceiling, the tears in the damask wallpaper, the gnawed wiring, the wrecked planks, the windows that stick themselves open and closed with abandon, shattering for no good reason.
I learn to love it. The quiet, the reading on the porch, many of the great books that have appeared in this publication in the last fifteen years resting on the recessed shelves. A house built for books as much as it’s built for me.
And then we met on the stairs.
I started wondering how much a person really owns any house they didn’t build themselves.
The ghost of my new old house belongs to a local teen, who’d drowned at the turn of the century. The ghost was a girl who loved dogs, her lace-up boots, and frying things to a crisp. In life, the ghost clipped comics, tied flies, sang in Sunday choir, and studied Latin. She had one Mother, one Papa, and three older siblings (all of whom could swim). By the time of her death, she had one real fight and one real kiss.
From the work I see on the premises, it’s clear she’s had only limited exposure in her genre. The ghost works with a limited tool kit, but there’s much to admire in the homegrown creativity.
Over time, the nonsense talk shows on my radio began to represent the patterns and voices of the public radio show on which I’d sporadically interview authors. One evening as I chopped carrots, I was startled to recognize my own voice on the air. My voice, but a Lorem Ipsum version of it— live on the radio, interviewing a husky male speaker and politely laughing.
There’s also the furniture on the move the moment I step out of a room, the perpetual scraping of wooden legs on floor. There’s the constant de-renovation process, with every little task I complete undone and then some. These efforts are admirable, solid—well-suited to the scenery and circumstance at hand. Some of the work is objectively tired and cliche: the phone calls, the flickering lights, the empty weight sitting at the edge of my bed. My dog barks at nothing, anticipating a stranger, an earthquake. Much of this feels like lazy stylings of the recent Wooster Sawmill Ghost or the Grey Lady of the Belmont Estate—real hack jobs. Some absolute man-behind-the-curtain situations. The people know (and deserve) far better.
But what catches my eye, in this particular haunting? The appearance of blank pages in my newly assigned books. Or better yet, the re-arranged text of said books. My ghost finds syntax more challenging than furniture, but I follow her lead and read her story whenever I stumble upon those ransom-note arrangements midway through a big name’s new spy thriller or a wunderkind talent’s sophomore novel. These books, teeming with post-its, play medium. Her messages go on about the anger, on about the drowning, but never arriving at any clear directive or point. I clock this, but don’t dwell. I’m a critic, not a child psychologist. I certainly may be out of my depth.
But it’s clear that she wants attention. In every iteration of her story, she changes her name and the body of water in question. Pamela, Genevieve, Lucy, Violetta, Rebecca, Alexandria. River Thames, Indian Ocean, Snake River, Dead Sea, Lake Erie, Lake Titicaca, Sargasso Sea, Bermuda Triangle, Bay of Bengal, Nantucket Sound. It’s like she’s daring me to research and write back.
You know and I know it’s the river visible beyond the kitchen window. Its blue-brown currents, the micro-islands, the rippled Palisades on the opposite shore. When I inhale too much of my new old home’s mold one day, I head out for a nature walk with my whippet. We find a gravestone with one of the names I’d seen in the rewritten pages of an important new translation of a classic and a surname I recognized from historical documents tied to the home. The stone is terribly worn, like the cliff-sides, and I feel archeological, kneeling to trace the letters. I try to feel something, but ultimately know there’s no body buried in the clay loam of the hill beneath my shins.
The haunted individual is never a casual observer. In my life as a critic, I spent much time in my heart and mind journeying through stories. I used to joke on first dates that I travelled almost daily for work. But the longer I’ve spent with this ghost, the more keenly aware I’ve become that we can close a book. Rest it on the rickety bedside table. Walk to the next room, free from the characters and their plights.
Now I’m never alone. I used to take pride in my flexibility. My serenity in the face of divorce and hurricane and department-wide scandal and familial rifts. But in the spirit of transparency, I’ll admit that some of the happenings in this house have been trying. A low-grade panic sometimes settles in, when, in the middle of the night, my bed frame with me in it is tipping over itself onto the stairs. Or when the Lorem Ipsum version of my radio interview devolves into the shush of a sharpening knife, and. Well. I’ve now recognized the sound of my own screams.
Ultimately—and even in the cool light of morning—this is an impressive debut. Though she leans on convention, there are glimpses of true brilliance and crackling creative potential. The ghost, when no one is looking, is pure electricity and shadow.
Hopefully the letters of these words stay strung together long enough for you to read. She has not yet met the internet.
Image: NYPL Digital Collections