My Sweet Annie

24

After I had been through Tim's room, I took Porkie outside for a little while and watched her poke around in the grass. It was a pretty day, but I couldn't hide the truth from myself: I just didn't want to be inside the house all on my own.

How was I going to manage preparing for an estate sale if I couldn't spend a day on my own in Gran's house? What was going on?

I didn't actually believe in ghosts.

But I didn't disbelieve in ghosts. I wasn't sure I'd ever realized that until now.

"I don't disbelieve in psychotic breaks, either," I murmured to myself. Porkie paused in her exploration of a large mushroom and looked up at me, her ears perked. "Sorry, sorry. Don't let me interrupt."

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I sat on the steps of the porch, angled so that I could see both the front door and the yard to watch Porkie. I watched the windows on either side of the door for a moment, but they looked completely normal and innocent: just tall, skinny windows veiled by gathered sheer curtain panels, framing a completely ordinary door.

I unlocked my phone and typed into Google: How do you know if your house is haunted?

I scrolled through the results until I saw an article from a familiar website and tapped into it to read.

You sense that you're not alone.

You hear unexplained sounds.

You feel unexplained cold spots or sensations.

Objects move on their own.

There are unidentified odors.

You see things, like shadows, pale figures, or reflections.

"Jesus," I whispered. The back of my neck prickled with a chill of foreboding. This couldn't be happening...could it?

"Gran..." I looked up again at the doors and those tall, skinny windows, half-expecting to see a shadow there, watching me, but there was nothing. I folded my arms around myself, overcome with sorrow at the thought that my grandmother, my sweet gran, could be haunting this place, a ghost lingering in the world of the living.

Didn't it normally happen when somebody had unfinished business? Had Gran died with something undone? Maybe something in a personal relationship had gone unresolved, or maybe she had died before she could finish a painting she'd been working on.

But there was another reason I'd heard that might cause a spirit to remain in the world after death: if the person died in a tragic or traumatic way.

Edith had said that Gran had died in her sleep, the way everybody wants to go. But she had been out here all on her own. I didn't know how long she had been there before she'd been found. Could that be a reason for her soul, or her spirit, or whatever, to linger on?

Strangely, having half of an answer as to what was happening comforted me. I still couldn't fully believe that Gran's house was haunted. It was too much to accept. I could, however, wrap my mind around the possibility as one explanation for what I'd experienced there.

It was the notion that Gran was still there that troubled me now, and not because I was afraid. It would be impossible to be afraid of Gran.

It was because she should be at peace.

Unsettled, I sat with my thoughts for a few minutes. I wasn't looking forward to going back inside with all of this knowledge fresh in my mind. That's when I remembered one way to get out of the house for a little while: I could call Uncle Royal and take him up on an offer of a visit. That would allow me a few hours' break from everything that had been happening here.