Dream House (21 page)

I look at the clock next to the fridge.

11:39 p.m.

I have to leave
now
.

I snatch up everything I can find—my jacket, my shoes, the necklace, the key, some of those pictures—and I'm ready to go.

I reach for the front door handle, turn it, and pull open the door, letting in a cold gust of wind.

I pause there for a moment on the doorstep and look back at the interior of the beautiful house that I've loved so much.

And then I'm ready to say my goodbyes.

T
AKING A
deep breath, I walk one final time down the pretty stone path that leads to the front gate.

I lift the latch and pull the gate open, but when I raise my foot to place it over the threshold I feel something stopping me, resisting my efforts—something like a soft, invisible wall, holding me hostage.

I keep pushing for a second, until the memory of what happened when I tried to get over into Avery's garden returns and I realise something.

I'm
the one who's stuck.

In my mind, I replay my last meeting with that elderly lady—the time when she grabbed hold of my wrist. Her warning that I would rot here forever if I didn't follow her suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.

With my heart feeling like it's about to burst inside my chest, I start kicking at the solid air, trying to break my way through the invisible obstacle that's keeping me prisoner inside the grounds of the house.

Yet despite the wild flailing of my arms and legs, I somehow manage to stay lucid enough to rationally consider what my options are. When I'm underground, I can touch Avery, and I can walk to the church. Is the tunnel a symbolic passage? Will the tunnel free me from this place?

But the hopeful excitement that starts to grow inside of me for a brief second quickly fades at the realisation that there might well be a reason for my being able to get outside and to connect to spirits belonging to other areas: the tunnel, as well as the church, currently belongs to this house and is shared with Avery's family.

That's probably why I've been able to do what I've done without coming up against the barrier—it's all part of the same property.

Exhausted and unable to come up with any other plan, I give up my attack on the invisible barrier and walk resignedly back into the house that just a few brief minutes before I'd said my farewells to.

Once inside, I turn on all the lights, sit myself down on the sofa, and dedicate myself to thinking seriously about my situation.

Hours pass.

I watch the sun rise and then eventually disappear behind the fields. And I go over everything in my mind once again: the Blooms, the house, Avery, Akiko. Amethyst. Alfred—

Alfred.

The first ghost I'd ever met—but not the last, as it turned out.

No one else could see him, but he looked like a perfectly normal person to me. I could talk to him, and I could touch him, even though he had no physical body. He could work, and he could pick things up. He could do all of these things, just like a real person.

The author of
Spiritual Relief
, Miss Bisset, explained that spirits who have spent a long time in the world of the living can develop the power to interact with objects, and the same is true of the kind of ghosts who are not aware of their condition—the ones still clueless about their own death.

Shivering at the dark turn my thoughts have taken, I walk over to the kitchen counter and stretch up to reach distractedly for a glass from the shelf.

It must be right at the back, because I can't find it anywhere.

Standing on tiptoes, I see it there, and close my hand around it.

But my fingers pass right through it.

I can't pick it up.

I can't even feel it.

It's like it's not there at all.

My mouth hanging open in an expression of pure fear, I back off until I'm standing in front of the shiny fridge, where I usually check out my reflection.

But
I'm
not there.

My hands go automatically up to my mouth, and my jaw drops even farther at the thought—

the
terrible
thought—

that I might actually be dead.

It would all make sense. All of the weird things that have been happening, my ability to talk to spirits, my dreams, my memory loss.

Everything would be explained.

But it's not the kind of explanation that I can accept.

No, I know what's happening, I really do—there's only one possible explanation. This must be a nightmare.

A nightmare!

I repeat the word to myself as I walk down the hall towards my bedroom, trying to force myself to believe it, and I'm still repeating it as I turn off the lights and curl up in my bed as though everything were perfectly normal, wrapping the blankets around me and hoping to wake up from this terrible dream.

A
DELICIOUS AROMA
of warm pumpkin pie in my nostrils wakes me up.

A new day will fix everything, I tell myself—all I need to do is just somehow to find the strength to get out of bed and face all of the things I need to deal with. I can't lie here and avoid them for the rest of my life.

I put my wrinkly clothes on and look at myself in the mirror, relieved to find that my reflection has returned and that I'm able to touch things again.

Maybe that really
was
all it was—a nightmare, nothing more.

But as I start coming out of my stupor I gradually notice that, even though
I
seem to have gone back to normal, something else has changed. The room where I find myself, the lovely shabby-chic bedroom where I've spent so much time over the last month, now looks exactly the way it did that time in my dream, with cherrywood furniture replacing the creamy shades.

Am I still dreaming? I stand in front of the wooden heart hanging on the wall, the only thing that remains unaltered, with the awful feeling that everything I'd started to believe is suddenly being thrown into doubt. Again.

I lift my finger and run it over the thick, dry paint on the bottom of the little heart: this, all of it, must be real.

I'm not dreaming, I'm sure of it.

Despite my sleepiness, I rush out of the door and down the darkened corridor that will take me to the main section of the house, and as I get closer, the powerful perfume of baking pumpkin gets stronger and stronger and voices can be heard.

“Sit down, sit down—she's coming,” a woman's voice says quietly, followed by the noise of a chair scraping along the floor.

When I walk through the doorway into my favourite part of the house, I can hardly believe my eyes. Amabel is standing there in the kitchen wearing a striped apron and cooking lunch, while Marvin is sitting at the dining table with a book in his hands. Both of them have strained, forced smiles on their faces, which makes the atmosphere feel very much like it did the first—and last—time I saw them.

They seem to be waiting for my reaction, so I take a chance and ask, “Are you real?”

Marvin rises to his feet, and they both stare at me in bewilderment while I turn my gaze from the face of one to the face of the other and back again. And then, suddenly certain that they are actually,
really
there in front of me, I throw myself at Marvin, who is nearest to me. He instantly puts his arms around me, enfolding me in a protective, reassuring hug which Amabel rushes over to join.

There are so many questions in my mind, but I know that I need to make sure I get the things I've been holding inside for a month out properly.

“I'm so glad you're back—it was so nice of you to invite me in.”

Amabel smiles and then gestures at the couch, saying, “I think you should probably sit down, dear.”

Not unduly alarmed about whatever it is she wants to tell me, I do as she says and make myself comfortable, overcome with relief at finally seeing them again and happy to know that they're both well.

Marvin speaks first.

“Do you have any ideas about why you are here?” he asks, his face totally serious.

“Well, I . . . I just wanted to thank you both for your hospitality,” I say, realizing as I say them how silly the words sound.

“Yes, dear,” interjects Amabel, taking over, “but—why are you here,
now
?”

“I don't understand,” I say bluntly.

Marvin takes out a picture from his pocket and slides it across the table to me.

I pick it up—it's the one I've already seen, the one where I'm standing smiling in the middle, with them on either side.

“I've already seen this,” I say as I slide it back, confused as to why they want to show it to me.

“Do you know why we have it?” insists Marvin.

I think for a second, but, unable to come up with a plausible reason, I shake my head.

“Do you know who
you
are?” he continues.

“What kind of question is that?” I exclaim, beginning to feel as though I'm being interrogated.

“You should probably turn that picture over, sweetie,” Amabel says with a concerned expression.

So I do, lifting my thumb from it to reveal the words
Marvin, Amabel & Akiko—2010
.

Akiko.

I look up at them, incredulous and speechless.

“Do you remember now?” Marvin asks.

“My name is Amethyst,” I remind them.

“Yes, dear, I know,” Amabel says, adding softly, “but that's only your
nickname
.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“You never liked the name Akiko, dear—you thought that it connected you to your natural parents, and you didn't want that.”

“I have no idea what you people are talking about,” I snap, my jangled nerves making my voice sound rude. Confused and upset, I get to my feet, and I'm on the verge of walking out when Marvin reaches over and takes my hand.

“Please, Akiko,” he says, “Hear us out—we just want to help you.”

“Help me with what?” I shout. “My
name
is
Amethyst
!”

“We want you to remember,” offers Amabel sweetly.

And that's when it happens.

That's when I understand that no matter how far I go, all the answers I need are in one place: here.

I sit back down on the sofa and start painfully putting the pieces together. Amabel and Marvin watch me in worried silence, until I've finished slotting all the parts into place, and it's only then that I ask them the one question I desperately need an answer to.

“Why am I here?”

“That's what we've been trying to figure out,” Marvin explains. “We've been watching you, but it's hard to tell for sure.”

“Your father heard a noise . . . that day. And that's when we saw you, standing out there by the gate in the rain, looking so scared,” Amabel continues.

Her words bring back memories, as freshly as if they were of things that had just happened.

“And then we saw the car, one side of it all smashed up . . . and your body lying there on the ground. Lifeless,” she says, as though scared to carry on.

“Wait,” I interrupt her. “Are you saying that I'm dead? Because if that's what you think, I can prove you're wrong!”

I jump up and grab a book off the shelf.

“Look!” I exclaim. “I can hold things, I can talk to you two. How would that be possible if I wasn't alive?” Frantically, I look from one to the other.

“Amethyst, dear—please sit down,” Marvin says gently.

I do as he asks.

“We were both . . .
surprised
to see you standing there,” he starts explaining.

“Of course,” I break in. “Who wouldn't be surprised to see a dead person? That's what you're trying to tell me. I get it. You think I'm dead.”

“No. That's not what I meant.” He breathes out loudly and then continues. “When you showed up at our door, we weren't expecting to see you.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because you'd gone away. Almost two years before,” says Amabel.

“On your eighteenth birthday, Akiko. You wanted to find your natural parents,” Marvin adds softly.

I wait in silence for them to explain what it is they're telling me.

“So we decided to let you go,” Marvin goes on, “a few days before your birthday. That's when we took this picture.”

I try to remember a single one of the events they're describing, but my mind is completely blank.

“We couldn't do anything to help you except for giving you your parents' full names, because they never provided us with any other information. They never sent us a contact address or a phone number or
anything
after they left you with us.”

“They were so young—they just couldn't take care of you properly, you see? And we could,” Amabel explains.

“
Why
couldn't they?” I ask, picturing in my mind the sad faces of the couple in the framed picture on top of the wooden chest.

“They didn't explain—they were in trouble, and we were in a position to offer them some help, and so we did, without asking them anything. And it always bothered you.”

“Not knowing
why
 . . .” I whisper.

Marvin nods and takes up the story.

“So the day we found you standing outside the house, we knew straightaway something was wrong. And right after we saw you, we saw the car behind you, and we realised that you'd been on your way home to us right before the . . . accident. But you'd never made it.”

“But if I was searching for my parents, why would I be here? Shouldn't I be halfway around the world or something?” I wonder, still not quite believing their story.

“Well, yes—that's exactly why we were so surprised to see you,” Amabel explains.