THE LANDLADY by Jay Jay.

Amber-Rose.

Amber-Rose buzzed around Audrey's room, very upset.

She adored the cats. The Ginger Ninja, Pixy, Eclipse and Spook. But now, Ninja and Pixy were here in the room in ghost form, mewing their confusion in that wailing way cats do at night when they fight. Audrey couldn't hear it, but it was driving Amber to dispair, and Eclipse and Spook were deeply unsettled. Audrey presumed the cats were missing their companions, but the real situation was anything but. The living cats wished their ghostly companions would move on into the after-life and give them some peace.

Amber had been enjoying the peace ever since Tom had shut up. She did not know where Tom had gone, but after twenty years of listening to him carry on like a big baby, it was a relief she hoped would last. So she didn't want the peace to be shattered by cats!

"SHUT UP!" she cried out for the umpteenth time. She caught one of the darting balls of light, held the small creature close to her. The cat was panicked, it remembered the violence that had ended it's life. It screeched in fear, struggled, broke away, rejoined the other cat in an endless futile dash for freedom in a room that would not let any of them go.

Amber sympathized. She remembered how hard it had been for her to adjust. She accepted her fate now, reluctantly, but she had no choice. The house was like a spider web, Mrs Jones the spider. No getting away.

There were layers and layers of time caught up in this house. There were older ghosts, trapped for so long that they had become pale, fuzzy at the edges. Old age seemed to affect a ghost as much as a living body. Amber hoped that this would not be her eventual fate too. Old and forgotten, never moving on. She did not know what awaited her beyond the walls of this bedroom, but surely it could not be as bad. After twenty years of confinement, even the horrors of the hell that she was taught about in Sunday School would at least not be as boring.

The cats were wailing again, it was more than she could stand.

She tried a new approach.

Gently, she approached the miserable orb wailing in the corner. "Puss, puss, come here. It's O.K."

This cat was Pixy, or what remained of her. She stopped wailing, let Amber come close. She accepted a ghostly stroke from Amber, but then Ninja began screeching again and Pixy lept away in fright. The two started their endless circling of the room once more.

Amber sighed.

All this screeching had woken up another resident of the room, an older ghost that Amber was aware of but hadn't actually met. The ghost hovered at ceiling level, shy and uncertain. Amber had tried to communicate to this ghost before, but it was as if there was a huge distance between them that could not be crossed.

It was time to try again. The old ghost had never looked or felt clearer than now.

Amber floated near. They stretched arms towards each other. Amber felt the ghostly grasp of hands on her arms. She pulled, and suddenly the other came free of whatever barrier had been separating them. 

It was a young woman, about her age. The woman had her hair braided into pigtails, and had a Victorian style long dress on. She had a look of shock on her face. For a moment Amber saw her in colour, saw her the way she had been when she died. Her blue dress was covered with red blood, her face disfigured, her limbs torn loose from her body. It was a brief view, and Amber knew that the young woman was seeing Amber in the same way. 

"I must look a sight as well," she murmured, trying to reassure the old ghost. "I am Amber-Rose, I'm a spirit too."

"Ahhh," the woman sighed. "Forgive my bad manners, it has been so long. So long, I was sure I was doomed to be alone forever."

"I am not sure this is where we are meant to be," Amber said. "I don't know what to do."

The cats started their wailing again, and unexpectantly it set the old ghost to screaming.

Amber fled to the far corner. This was worse than before.

"Sorry, sorry," the old ghost panted, hurrying down to Amber. "I thought the creatures were back."

"What is your name?" Amber asked.

"My name... my name is..." she paused, looked frightened.

"It's O.K. Take your time. We have plenty of time," Amber said with bitterness.

"Emily. My name is Emily Robinson," Emily said with growing confidence. "I lived at the farm next door to the estate. I should not even be here. It was... it was... I think it was murder that brought me here. It was... no, he wanted to murder me, I think... but it was something else that killed me, both of us, oh.... is he still here too? He used to be in the room, looking for me. That's why I had to hide, you see..." She stopped, confused. "I can't remember."

"It's O.K. It's just me, and the damn cats. SHUT UP!" she yelled at the wailing orbs.

"They are frightened. They woke me up. Poor little things, how can I help you?" Emily floated alongside one of the orbs, scooped it up into her arms. Suddenly the round light became a cat-shaped ghost. She did the same with the second orb, now two ghost cats looked around the room with curiosity. They had stopped the endless wailing and zooming around and around. Amber could identify them individually now, Ninja and Pixy.

"How are they in the room anyway? They died outside," she wondered.

"The house sucks spirits into itself," Emily said. "It feeds on our energy. It must be hungry, if it is pulling in animals. I can see all sorts of things, bugs and spiders, that means it's getting desperate again. How long have you been here?"

"I...I don't know. I overheard Audrey, she said twenty years. But I can't have been here that long, can I? It feels a long time, but it's all fresh in my memory too, yet it isn't..." she broke off, confused.

Emily put her face in her hands, suppressed a sob. "Fresh...yes, the memories are flooding back now. I feel...drained. Not physical energy, obvious we no longer feel anything like that, a sort of emotional deadness, a darkening of the light substance that we are made of now. Hard to explain, and I've been here sooo much longer than you."

"When did you die?" Amber asked gently.

"I'm struggling with the factual details," Emily said. "I remember the emotion, the fear, the hatred..."

"Yes, I get that too," Amber said. "The way it felt, when the creature came into the house, running and locking the door, hearing the smashing wood and the screams, hoping it wasn't me next..."

"But it came for you, even though you hid, relentless, hungry."

"Yes, that's how it was," Amber shuddered.

"Did you feel it? Just now, the house sucked a little of your emotion away. Just a little at a time, I didn't feel it at first. Now I see it, plain as day."

"No, I didn't feel anything," Amber said.

"Try and keep that emotion under control," Emily said. "Quentin was in here with me, raging like a mad bull. I think the house drained him completely, I cannot see a trace of him. He has gone into the wall, hopefully for good. The house is sticky, like a spider web. It wraps you up and eventually you give up struggling, you just exist. That's where I was, before the cats woke me up."

"What do we do now? Is there any way out of this? I feel like I should be journeying somewhere, but I'm stuck here, trapped. It's claustrophobic, can I at least get out of this room and into the rest of the house?"

"The cats may hold a clue," Emily said. "They died outside, you said. But they came in here, searching for things they knew in life. It may be that they are caught now with us, but... Of course, they are cats. They won't move till they want to. We must be patient."

"We have all the time in the world," Amber said again, without the bitterness this time. It was good to have someone to talk to. For the first time in a long time, she felt a little happyness.