The Ghost In Your Room
The empty halls of his grandmother’s childhood home felt like they were leaking grief. The awful seventies wallpaper was peeling and water-stained and everything smelt damp and the floorboards creaked. He had barely visited, with Gran. She hadn’t liked it here, had relocated to Scotland for a reason, and now he was in a house she had hated, without her. He thought of her childhood here, running up and down the stairs with her brother, when the house had been home to a family.
Now it was dark and empty. Just like him.
He started in the kitchen, cleaning out the dust from the archaic fridge and plugging it in, hearing it hum into life, a weak light emanating from the inside. In it went a dented pint of skimmed milk, some bruised apples, and half a loaf of bread beginning to grow fur.
“Fuck.” Remus muttered as he slid six of the cheapest cans of lager lidl had to offer on the bottom shelf before slamming the fridge door shut with more force than the poor thing could likely bear. The kitchen was done up in beige and brown, like the rest of the house, and it glowed in the sickly yellow striplights that did nothing to battle the growing darkness as evening descended. Remus left the kitchen, tripping over the piles of boxes lining the entryway, before he took a deep breath and ascended the stairs. Clouds of dust rose up at each footfall, and Remus coughed and spluttered as he emerged onto the first floor landing. The closed doors rose ominously above him.
Fuck. he didn’t want to be here.
He opened the door to the bathroom first. The enamel of the lone toilet was cracked and yellowing, like everything else in the godforsaken house. The inside of the toilet bowl was full of dirtied water and when Remus gave it an experimental flush, he felt the pipes make the floor beneath his feet shudder. The new water ran clear though, which was a positive, and the taps worked too.
He left the bathroom and glanced at the other shut doors, knowing he should really make a start. He turned and went back downstairs.
*
Remus was on his sixth can of lager when someone started pounding on the door. He was curled up in his great-grandfather’s armchair, the only usable piece of furniture left in the downstairs sitting room. When he stood, the room tilted and his vision swam. As he struggled to walk straight to the front door he remembered that he had not eaten that day, but it was too late to try and counter the effects of the alcohol.
He opened the door to see a small child- maybe six or seven years of age, stood on the doorstep, bouncing on his tippy-toes, clutching a battered looking tupperware. He was dressed in a primary school uniform, and a long curly fringe fell over thick-rimmed glasses.
“Uh, Hello?”
“Hello! My names Harry but some people call me Haz and I live right next door to you and did you know this house is haunted and I made biscuits and I brought you some and I came to tell you be careful of the ghosts!” The boy barely took a breath between words and Remus struggled to focus on his face, much less understand a word he was saying. The boy thrust the tupperware at Remus, grinning widely, showing a mouth full of missing milk teeth.
“Thanking you, Harry.” Remus opened the tupperware to see several slightly misshapen chocolate chip cookies. “These look wonderful, you’re verra kind. And thanking you for the warning. I will be very careful tonight. Do you, uh- need any help getting home?”
Remus noticed Harry was completely alone, and panicked suddenly that he was going to have to try and get this child back to his house whilst clinging to the doorjamb to keep himself upright.
“That's okay! I can see Dadfoot waiting for me in the window, look, there!”
Remus stepped further out and turned to see where the child was pointing. Sure enough, the next house over had the upstairs curtains in one of the windows drawn, and a man was standing there, waving at his son. Remus waves back awkwardly, squinting and unable to see the man’s face properly at all.
“Right then. You best get home. Thank you for the biscuits, wee man.” Remus stepped back into the darkness of his open doorway and responded as best he could to the over-excitable wave the boy sent his way before he skipped down the steps, and ran up the adjacent set, yanking the door open and closing it with a slam that made Remus wince.
He returned to the armchair and ate the whole tub of cookies in one sitting. They really were very good.
The child had been right, Remus thought to himself as he began to fall asleep in the armchair. The house was full of ghosts. Everywhere he looked, the spectres of his past were lurking, ready to haunt.