CHAPTER TWO: TREMORS IN THE AIR

“Lydia, where are you?”

I was wandering around my home, looking for Lydia when I heard Florence, her mother, calling for her. Immediately I followed Florence’s voice into the drawing room and sat down on a desk to wait for her.

After the mother and her daughters moved in they set out to change everything in the manor. The drawing room was converted into Lydia and Chloe’s art studio. Florence was true to her word and painted the walls a crisp white and removed all of my ancestor’s paintings. The last time I saw them they were languishing in the cellar. There are easels set up in various locations around the room and a futon in the centre of the room beneath the chandelier is piled high with boxes of craft paper. The Persian rugs are gone and the bare hardwood floors shine with fresh varnish.

I hate what they’ve done to my drawing room. Chloe doesn’t use this room much but Lydia is usually in here working. Whenever I get the opportunity I spill the boxes of paper all over the floor and I knock over the easels sometimes. Lydia still puzzles me. In the past two months I’ve discovered she has a surprising tolerance for fright. I’ve killed her tropical fish by putting soap in the water. I’ve switched on her computer in the dead of night when she’s working on a painting. I set fire to the curtains and blown out her scented candles. But she never does anything in retaliation, she just laughs it off and makes snide comments to no one in particular.

For the past two months I’ve been watching this little family. I’ve learned that the girls’ father died in a plane crash in the Caribbean. Florence is almost never home when the girls are awake except for rare times like these. Lydia is the primary caretaker of Tracie and Chloe is the one who cooks basic food dishes for everyone. All of them are a lot stronger than I thought they were at the beginning. I still can not stand their presence in my home, especially Lydia who still acts as though she can just hear me.

“LYDIA. WHERE ARE YOU?” Florence was starting to get aggravated.

I was wondering the same thing. I haven’t seen her around the manor all day today so I couldn’t examine her. Tracie was playing in the kitchen with Chloe who was making spaghetti for dinner. Florence had taken the day off from work so she was still home.

“You called me?”

A red-faced Lydia hurried into the studio, a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a shopping back in her hand. I swear I saw her eyes flicker to the desk where I was sitting before she turned to her mother. Recently I’ve gotten used to this treatment. It’s as though her instincts are telling her all about me but she won’t believe it.

“Where were you honey?” Florence sighed. “I was wondering if you can take time off from school tomorrow to take care of Tracie. She has the flu.”

Lydia dropped her bag off on the futon and unwrapped the shawl. “I ran into town to buy a book. It’s cold outside!”

Florence waited as I watched. “Can you tomorrow?”

Lydia turned around to face her mum and I noticed a sad look in her eyes before she smiled. “Sure! I wouldn’t mind taking care of Tracie.”

Florence hugged her daughter gingerly as though Lydia were a fragile thing. I was itching to study Lydia more closely but I watched as Florence left. Florence looked sad too. Maybe today is a bad day for everyone. It’s been a grey October day and the sky looks overcast as though it might rain quite soon.

I haven’t had much time to study Florence who is constantly at work or sleeping at home in her bed after a few shots of vodka. Chloe is just a child and Tracie is very boring. I don’t know much about Chloe, who is interested in cooking and talking with her friends on the computer. When I try to frighten her with one of the antics I usually pull on her older sister she doesn’t pay any attention to me at all. It’s as though I’m really invisible to her. And Tracie is too young for me to frighten. I’ve succeeded on a few occasions with her, but she usually runs to Lydia who comforts her fears about me. It really defeats the purpose of frightening her.

So I sat on the desk watching Lydia clean up the room. She glanced at me again. I’ve gotten used to this behaviour from her and my dead heart doesn’t go pounding anymore. I watched as she walked over to her desk and took out a folder filled with lined paper. She bent over and scrawled something before walking over to one of her easels, leaving me to glance at the note.

I was brought back to that first day when I really met Lydia. She was an intriguing character then and she still is today. I wanted to hide. The note read:

I can see you.

“Can you really see me?” I turned to look at her.

She stopped mixing her paint and looked at me. Our eyes met and I was uncomforted with the thought that she could now see whatever I did. Then I wondered how long she’s been able to see me. Can she hear me too?

“Can you hear me?”

I watched as she walked over here and wrote on the paper again. What are you saying? I can see your mouth moving but I don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you write it out instead?

I shook my head and I could feel myself shrinking beneath her stare. I decided to hide from her.

I was in my comfortable room in the attic. There are bookshelves with grimy old books lined against the wall and a musty old carpet covers the floor. Stacks of ancient books gather dust atop a wooden table in the middle of the room, in front of a fireplace. Sunlight is heavily filtered in this room when there is sun outside. There’s a trundle bed in the corner where I remember I used to sleep whenever I was studying up here. Surprisingly there are sheets still on the bed but even I wouldn’t trust them to be usable.

I feel safe in this room. It’s my haven whenever families in the past used to come live in my manor. None of them ever gathered enough courage to climb up to the attic. None of them ever set living eyes upon my wonderful sanctuary…

“You’re here.”

I looked up from the book I was reading and saw Lydia standing at the threshold of the attic. I wanted to push her down the stairs. She didn’t belong here. I didn’t want her here. But she continued closer towards me, deeper into my room.

“Is this where you go to hide out from everyone?”

Cautiously I watched her regard my room. “Get out of here.”

She obviously didn’t hear me and walked around and softly touched the bookshelves. She brushed a cobweb off a wall sconce. Her eyes searched for the source of the dim light in the high windows. She looked down at the carpet and stepped around it. She looked up at the painting hanging over the mantelpiece and gasped.

I forgot that painting was there.

“That’s you.”

It’s been so long I forget what I looked like. I looked at the painting too. It was a young man who looked like he was in his late teens or early twenties. He was golden-haired with a fiery gaze coming out of his blue eyes. His clothes were from a Victorian era, a dark suit with a top hat in his arms. He had white gloves on. I shuddered and watched as she went up to the painting and brushed dust off the frame.

“Your name was Damien LaGrange. You’re the one who fell down the staircase.”

“Yes, that was my name. That’s not how I died though. How did I really die?” I asked, wondering why I was asking this girl named Lydia.

“LYDIA!” Florence was calling her again. “Are you eating dinner? Chloe made spaghetti.”

Lydia gave me a wide-eyed stare before she stepped over the furniture and ran downstairs towards her mother, leaving me alone to stare at the painting that I had stopped seeing decades ago.