Not Flesh Nor Feathers

The vast majority of the hauntings Dana and her crew investigate for her TV shows fall into this camp, and I was afraid that Caroline did too. Maybe she’d only been seen more regularly because there were more people around.



It could be as simple as that.



Nick wouldn’t like it, though. It wouldn’t make much of a story. Oh well. Everything unexplained can’t be a fascinating narrative. At best, most of it is charmingly mundane. Only at worst is it sinister, and therefore interesting.



But I tried again anyway. “Caroline, is there something you want? Something you’re looking for here in the world of the living?”



She hovered there, not really looking at me. Scratching at her wrist.



“Do you even know you’re dead?”



Burned. All of them. Burned them up. Blamed the flu.



Dana had told me about keywords, and how it was sometimes the only way to get them to speak. You had to find the keywords—the things they remembered enough to recollect. She told me to try repeating the ghosts’ own phrases back to them, and to build on them gradually; so I gave that a shot.



“Burned? Who burned, Caroline?”



In the church.



“The church—not the hotel here? Then you’re not talking about the Read House?”



In the church, she nodded. The mistake.



Outside the room I heard Nick pacing back and forth, gently kicking his foot against the bottom of the door. “How’s it going in there?” he asked, impatient like a man waiting for his turn in the bathroom.



I ignored him. He might have another key, but I didn’t think he’d try to follow me inside.



I hear them. Coming.



“No one’s coming. That’s just Nick. He won’t come in, I asked him to stay out.”



She was flustered, though. Restless—like she’d been reminded of something unpleasant, and now she couldn’t forget it. I knew, though I didn’t know why, that she wasn’t talking about Nick. She didn’t care about him; she probably didn’t know about him.



Caroline looked directly at me, and she saw me this time instead of looking through me. Something about the nasty gleam in her eyes told me I’d have been better off otherwise.



You brought them here.



“Me? No. I didn’t bring anyone here.”



They’re coming. You brought them.



“Who? Caroline, who? Work with me here.” She came towards me, not slow, but not as fast as she could have. I backed away out of instinct or reflex. “Caroline, I didn’t bring anyone. Just Nick, and, and, I didn’t bring him. He brought me.”



The TV armoire stopped me. I leaned against it.



She came up close, and she was angry. It wasn’t me, it was you!



It was an accusation, now. Not a suspicious guess.



Out, she breathed. She pushed the word against me, wanting to push herself, too. But ghosts so rarely have anything more than breath, if that. I wondered what she thought she’d do to back up the order.



“I only want to help.”



Out!



She darted, flashed, and was gone. And the television beside me shattered.



My heart jumped; I moved too late. Gray glass sprayed across the room, grazing my cheek and scattering across the floor and the bed. The vanity mirror broke too—violently and with messy abandon, but into larger pieces than the TV screen. In the bathroom the shower curtain came toppling into the tub’s interior, and the toilet lid beat itself up and down.



I couldn’t see her, but she was everywhere. She tore the room with a whirlwind that shocked me; I’d never felt anything like it from the dead. At most, some of them would lift small things and leave small messages.



“Caroline!” I yelled, because the wind in the room was loud in my ears and it was only getting louder.



On the other side of the door I heard Nick again. He was knocking, beating. Wanting to know what was going on. Demanding that I let him in. Swearing. And if I heard right, there was someone else with him. I tugged at the door’s latch-like knob but it wouldn’t budge.



“Caroline, stop it!”



They are coming for me. They are coming for all of us.



“They who? Who’s coming for you?”



Into the wind she sucked up the big shards of mirrored glass, and the missing television remote scooted along the carpet. Pillows peeled themselves forward and twisted in the sheets on the bed. The chandelier lamp rocked back and forth, back and forth, and dropped. It bounced when it hit the bed, but rolled and fell and tinkled into pieces when it hit the floor.



I didn’t like the look of those shiny, long pieces of glass. I didn’t like the way they started to swirl, picking up momentum as if they were being wound up like a pitch, to be thrown.



It was a mistake! I heard her shriek, though I still couldn’t see her. It took away too much of her energy to manifest, and she had other uses for it. She would rather use it to terrorize me, and it was working.



When the first finger-wide slivers of mirror were flung, I ducked and they blasted themselves to dust on the wall behind me, and into the thick wood of the armoire.



“Caroline, this isn’t funny. Let me out. I’m not here to—”



Another round of missiles went sweeping my way. One stuck in my hair, and another cut a slice in my sweater. “All right, you want me out. I’m leaving. I’m leaving right now, but you’ve got to let me go—”



Next she chose the remote. It hit me in the head.



I dug the card key out of my back pocket. “Okay lady, you’re pissing me off. Knock it off, and I’ll get out of your hair!”



But Caroline didn’t care if I stayed or left, so long as she could hurt me.



A large painted picture was bolted to the wall above the bed, but it started to rock and I heard the brittle tearing sound of screws working their way free from plaster. The picture must have weighed fifty pounds, but what Caroline wanted, Caroline got. She rocked it free and when it crashed onto the bed it bounced immediately to the floor, and then to the window—which crunched under the weight of the frame.



“Don’t—don’t do that. Caroline, don’t. Look. I’m leaving. I’m leaving.”



I had the card key in my hand and I was retreating what few inches I could. Nick’s recorder was still on the floor; I reached towards it with the toe of my boot and dragged it to my hand. As I bent to pick it up, something too heavy to be the TV remote clocked me on the head.



Stars like static blurred my vision, but I had the recorder in one hand and the card key was still in the other. I stumbled backwards, into the miniature hall in front of the door—beside the coat closet with the mirrored door.



But Caroline liked the mirrors.



As my eyesight fought to return, I saw the bottom half of a lamp beside me and I knew what she must have thrown. It rose again and I tripped over myself to move away from it.



“Nick!” I called out, not knowing how much he could hear, but wishing to God that he’d open the door. “Nick!”



He replied, but whatever he said, I couldn’t make it out.



I only wanted her to stay. But it was my mistake.



“Who? Jesus H. Christ, Caroline—stop being so goddamned vague!”



Damned, she echoed. All of us, burned up—-just like him. Just like her.



She lifted the lamp base again and, God, it was made of terra cotta or painted plaster—something heavy and hurtful. She cast it forward into me. I was too close for it to bruise, but it knocked the wind out of me and it pushed me into that mirrored closet door.



I went through it, not cleanly. I pitched and fell, and the glass tinkled around me, dusting me with shining powder and pretty slivers that I’d pick out of my clothes for days.



I felt my skin tear with a dozen little carvings, on my arms and on my neck. Through a soft spot on my belly something pierced, and I shrieked. It didn’t hurt as much as it looked like it should, but it hurt plenty bad. It went in clean, with a burning puncture like a big needle. When I pulled it out it was as long as my hand, and my hand was bleeding too. It was so horrifying I couldn’t feel it properly; I couldn’t think about it rationally. I could only drop the shard and stupidly shake my hand as if it were on fire.



I reached up to pull myself out of the closet and nearly grabbed more glass at the edge of the closet frame, or what remained of it. I pushed myself out instead, one hand against the back wall.



The door was right there, but the card key was slippery in my hand and Caroline was excited by the blood. She threw more glass and other objects—a soap dish, a complimentary bottle of lotion, and a roll of toilet paper—which weren’t bad at all by comparison.



Back on the floor, on hands and knees that were collecting splinters, I pushed the card key underneath the door. Within a couple of seconds, I heard the whooshing click of the electronic lock. The door opened into the room and caught me on the shoulder, but at least it was open.



And the moment it opened, the wild microcosm of paranormal misery calmed. Completely ceased, even as arms reached inside and dragged me out into the corridor.



Another man and a woman were there with Nick. Both of them were wearing uniforms that implied they worked at the hotel, and both of them gazed down at me as if they couldn’t decide whether to help me out or smack me.



I didn’t care. I was thrilled silly to see them, and I told them so.



Nick didn’t squeal like a little girl, but he looked like he wanted to. I was a mess, and I knew it.



“That room is off limits for a reason,” the man in uniform griped.



Nick ignored him and started barking orders. “Shut the fuck up and call a doctor, or a nurse, or somebody—you’ve got to have somebody on staff here, right? Get somebody, she’s a mess!”



I sat against the wall and tried to wave him quiet. “This isn’t a school, Nick. And don’t—please, whoever you are. Don’t. I’m all right. It looks worse than it is.”



“Eden, you’re bleeding all over the place.”



“Not so much, exactly.” I didn’t even have to check. I knew, because I could feel it. I knew the scrapes were mending, and the cuts both large and small were knitting themselves into smooth skin. But I hugged my sweater close across my stomach and chest. I didn’t want him to see the one really bad wound, the one that was probably still leaking.