Lost Ghost

Child Ghost

England, 2013.

Dusk was spreading thick and black across the dipping, swelling hills of the countryside, inky enough to quickly dim the sunlight still feebly pressing up from the uneven horizon line. Light was present, though weak, and Mateo paused in that vainly persisting glow to look almost skeptically at the spotlessly clean and white-washed house before her. The windows on both floors were dark save for a solemn trio of candles in the one nearest the door; the impressive sheer white of the house itself served as light enough, nestled as it was in the spurred shadows of a small copse of trees, and pale as though to shine.

Stepping onto the carefully painted stone path leading the ten feet from dusty road to ghostly house, she crossed easily to the door.

She lifted her left hand, rapping as gently as she could against the door. The sky continued to slowly descend into new-moon darkness.

"Aw, jeez," she muttered as a minute finished its passing. "I know I'm in the right place." Another minute slipped resolutely by and she shifted. "Miss Allister? Are you home? I'm the Investigator." She knocked again, and listened sharply for any quick footsteps or voices raised in response. "Miss Allister," she tried a second time.

At this, now, came the hurried sound of light feet crossing a polished floor, and a faint, "Do wait! I'm nearly there. Oh, I'm nearly at the door right now, so please just wait another moment." The footsteps ceased at the door, as, too, did the voice.

"Miss Allister?" She suggested faintly. "Could you open the door, ma'am?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, voice distant on the other side of the thick wood. "Only it's that I must remember what order to open the locks." A beat of flustered silence, and then a tiny triumphant click, followed by a distinctly relieved assurance of, "I've got it now, though; it'll be one more moment, if you don't find it a bother."

"No bother at all, ma'am," Mateo answered, per the unspoken rules of civility. No sense in being impatient with a girl frightened enough to forgot how to unlock her own front door.

"Ah," she sighed, again in relief, and twisted a final lock with a satisfied click. "That's all there is to it." The doorknob shifted, and turned, the door itself swinging in smoothly in silent, dreadful welcome. "I do wish you had shown while it was still daylight outside," she began, worried. "The nights are the worst, and I couldn't bear imagining what should happen if I opened my house to the nighttime and let in a-oh."

She took a step back, out of a nervous shock that was clear on her sallow face, and a slender body. She looked at Mateo in shock. Miss Allister was a petite woman, small-set and young though her shoulders were carried slumped with a bit of uneasiness. Equally small brown eyes stared, wide and blank, at Mateo.

"Oh," she said again. "You aren't exactly," she hesitated, letting the sentence hang awkwardly - Too young,Male,or Unpredictable. Instead, she finished, wavering only once, "You aren't exactly what I had expected."

Mateo smiled thinly, humorlessly but not in an offended manner. "Nothing to worry about," she said, placing her left hand on the doorframe. "I get that a lot. Mateo Martinez,Paranormal Investigator at your service. - you got a haunting that needs to be dealt with?"

Miss Allister looked away from her, still appearing shaken, and perhaps a bit wary. "Yes," she answered. "And it comes at night."

She stepped into the house. She glanced to the side as Miss Allister silently, methodically, began fixing the locks back into place at the door; she stepped forward with a soft creaking underfoot, to give her room enough to easily finished her mechanical chore and, too, to allow her a moment to calm her startled and wary nerves.