Whispers - Chapter 1.3

 WHISPERS - CHAPTER 1.3

The girl is still here this morning, sitting with her sad sweet face on the couch watching as I wash at the kitchen sink. The water is tinged pink with rust, but I brush my teeth with it anyways.

“Gross,” she says. I shrug in response. It’s not as if I have a better option.

If it was safe to talk, I’d love to ask why she’s still hanging around. Is she trapped in this apartment? The building must have been a beautiful house a hundred years ago. Was this her home? Did her soul get stuck in it? I shake my head; how can a ghost get stuck inside of a building?

The bedroom door swings open, and I pat the water off my face in a hurry.

“Are you ready to do the Good work today?” Driscoll asks. His lanky body sidles up next to me at the sink.

“Yes sir,” I answer as I refold my towel.

“Look at me.” Driscoll cups his hands around the side of my face, holding it inches away from his own. I do my best to hold still and meet his eyes. “I know what you’ll see today will frighten you. You should be afraid. New Orleans is a city of tremendous evil. You were probably too young when I saved you to have many memories of it. What can you remember?”

“Nothing,” I answer. It’s a lie. I was ten when Mother and Driscoll came and took me to the Good Farm after Grandma’s funeral. I remember New Orleans. I remember the trees shading the streets, glasses of tea with friends on the patio, parades and laughter. I don’t remember evil.

“You must remember something,” Driscoll says. His fingers tighten on my cheeks as he waits for my response.

“Trees and Grandma?” I say. Driscoll’s fingers relax a little.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Your grandmother made it seem like fun, didn’t she?” His hands drop from my face, and I look down at the floor. “The truth is, it’s a city so evil only a few people would hear me when I tried to tell them about the Good.”

I reach for my folded towel and tooth brush on the counter and clutch them to me, making a damp patch in the stomach of my dress.

“Lucky for you, your mother was one of those few,” he continues. “Beth, no matter how horrible it is out there, you don’t have to worry, you and your mother are always safe with me.”

“Always Beth,” my mother echoes from where she’s now standing in the bedroom doorway. She looks older and faded today in her simple cotton dress. As if the blond streaks in her hair are really gray instead, and her eyes are sunken instead of tired. Was she kept awake by the scraping sounds last night too?

“Beth?” the girl says with a snort from her perch on the couch. I don’t look at her. “Beth?” she says again, when I put my towel back in my milk crate and fish my sandals out from under the couch. “But, your name is Eliza.”

I don’t know how the dead always know my true name. Are our names tattooed on our foreheads in ink only ghosts can see? I can’t imagine why they’d care. For what it’s worth, the ghost girl is only half right. My name is Elizabeth. In my head, it’s Eliza. Like Audrey Hepburn’s character in My Fair Lady, my grandma’s favorite movie.

I ignore her, and slip my sandals on. Then take the piece of toast Mother is holding out for me by the door.

“Time to do the Good work,” she smiles and places a kiss on my forehead.