My Ghost

fifteen

I enter my father's mansion, my eyes drowsy as I check the clock on the wall. It's seven in the morning, I had been in the cemetery that long? My body still trembles as I walk down the empty hall, calling my father's name to see if he's home.

"Ray?" I hear him ask. I turn around as I watch him descend the main staircase. I run to him, throwing myself in his arms and burying my face into his neck.

"Ray, is everything alright? I thought you were coming here last night. I called you and-"

"I'm sorry," I mutter, my voice shaking as I speak. "I tried to. I did."

He takes a step back and holds me at arms length. "Jesus, you look like you've been through Hell. What happened to your head?" His fingers gently touch the wound from Roman's gun and I wince slightly.

I nod. "I fell and hit my head, I'm really sick," I lie.

"Go upstairs and rest then," he suggests, smiling sadly at me. "I have work to do but I'll be home tonight to help take care of you. I can make you some soup if you'd like me to."

I give him a small smile, nodding. "That would be nice."

My father leans forward, pressing his lips to the side of my forehead that is uninjured before smiling at me and walking out the door.

I head up the stairs. I turn left and head down the first hall, passing my room and heading towards my father's. I needed some answers.

I grab the handle and twist it, the door clicking softly as it opens. As I get my first glimpse inside the room, I regret it. The room has been torn apart, and it looks as though my father had just started putting it back together. Glass shards and wood chips lay in a pile in the corner of the room where they had been swept aside. Clothes scatter the floor and the dresser against the far wall is crooked. As I step further inside, I see a hole in the closet door from it being punched. 

I swallow my anxiety and walk towards the crooked dresser, keeping my eye out for any more shards that may still litter the floor. When I finally reach it, I go directly to the locked drawer. I crouch in front of it, pulling a hair clip out of my pocket that I kept there in case of emergency. I insert it into the key hole, beginning to move it about, jiggling the lock. After about thirty seconds the lock makes a loud pop and the drawer pops open slightly.

I knew Dad kept my mother's stuff in this drawer, but I had never asked to see it except once. Right after her funeral, I had asked him if I could see them. I wanted to find something with her scent.

"No, you never want to go into that drawer," he had told me sternly. "It'll just be painful."

So I had taken his word for it, until today. I cautiously slide the drawer open. I expect to find letters, pictures, a clothing item or two and maybe some small trinkets. No, instead I find one thing: a mask. It looks like a cat mask, something to cover one's eyes and nose but not their mouth. I lift it out of the drawer carefully, inspecting it. As I turn the mask over, I find an inscription on the bottom of it, carefully written in beautiful cursive. I bring the mask closer to my face, squinting slightly.

Lynx.

Lynx? What did that mean? Was my mother truly a villain all this time?

If so, how did she speak to me through Scarecrow's serum? It's not like the concoction had supernatural abilities, and I hadn't known before.

I had to have inherited my fighting skills from somewhere though, right? What if my mother was a villain? But what if she was a hero? The serum did reveal my worst fears, and that would definitely be one of them.

I grab the mask and close the drawer again, making sure its locked before exiting my father's room and closing the door behind me. I rush down the hall and into my own room, closing the door quietly behind me. I walk directly to my photo album that sits on my bedside table and open it, flipping through the pages, searching for the picture.

I finally find it. Halloween, the year I turned eight. I wanted to go as a black cat, so my mother had dressed up along with me. I look at the photo, I stand between my parents, a smile on my face as I hold my bag full of candy in front of me. My mother crouches beside me, a smile on her lips but the rest of her face covered by an elaborate cat mask, eerily similar to the one in my hands. Her long black hair is pulled into a ponytail and drapes over her shoulder. My father is on my right side, he didn't dress up that year but went trick-or-treating with us upon my request.

I compare the masks. They had obvious differences, but they were more similar than anything. What did it mean? What was she hiding?

My cell phone given to me by Roman rings in my pocket. I slowly set down the photo album and grab my phone, answering it.

"Hello?"

"Tonight," Roman states.

"Why so soon?" I ask.

"We have to act now before he strikes again," Roman commands, his voice rough.

"I can get there whenever you need me."

"You better be able to. I'd hate to have to show you what happens to those who mess with me again," Roman threatens.

I shake with anger and fear as I hang up the phone, turning and throwing it across the room into the wall. I let out a scream, and my bed shakes lightly as I tremble.

Could I kill Jason? Would I kill Jason?

Could I stop myself?