Flash Fiction: A Haunted House

She used to say this house was haunted. She insisted there were two of them, a couple, a man and a woman, often hand in hand roaming the house and gardens. 1

I never saw them for myself. She used to tell me this was because I didn’t believe. She never specified what it was I didn’t believe in.2

Looking back now, with time, and the distance it creates I can only pick out a few distinct memories relating to that house and those spectres. These recollections are like little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately the pieces of this jigsaw are old and worn and many of them are missing, as such I can bring reason or meaning to it. 3

She would tell me she could hear footsteps on the floorboards and doors opening and closing. She could hear them whispering and laughing moving from room to room. She told me their lovers chatter was like birdsong to her, she could sit for hours and listen to it, particularly at night, it would fill her up and help her face the day. 4

She would sneak around the house and gardens, following them she said. She would appear in rooms soundlessly and stare off into space. At least she would be smiling, basking in the glow of their newfound happiness she said. She wouldn’t say a word she would only turn the room cold with her presence. 5

At times she would become angry with me, claiming I was intruding on the couples happiness. She would sit in the darkened dinning room, watching them she said, the woman aglow, basking in the presence of her lover, the couples fingers entwined, toes touching, glazing at longingly. I would come and disturb this happy scene with my noise, she said, forcing the couple to awaken from their lovers’ trance. 6

I tried to get her out of the house, she started to chase around the house saying she was looking for something, that the happy couple had left something for which she had to find, she would run up and down the stairs opening and closing doors with loud bangs which thundered through the house.7

I still attempted to get her out of the house, but even then she would still see the lovers. In our picturesque, chocolate box garden, she would follow them. She would pace the blank canvas of green grass and trace its boarders lined with oaks. The woman was running from the man, she told me, and he was catching her up in his arms like a child, gazing up from my paper I soundlessly watched her. 8

One day, near the end, when her behaviour had become obsessive, I remember her stood in front of the bedroom mirror. In desperation she told me to look in the mirror to see the woman. I saw only her; a little pale, a little tired and a looking a lot like a lost little girl. She became agitated; telling me to look harder she pointed to a chair where she said the man was admiring the woman. Looking over my shoulder I saw only myself.9

Eventually it all began too much for me, after a number of attempts to exorcise the house, both literally and figuratively, she and I parted. When she left she told me the couple had held her attention for one reason, they had brought the Technicolor of love into our black and white world. Now I am the ghost, which haunts this house. 10