The Other Side of Life
Chapter 8
Surprise!

The women looked like they were related. Both had dark blond hair and the glares they were giving me were identical. Neither was wearing a red dress. That's a score for me. The tallest of the pair was wearing a green dress. The other women wore a blue one.

"Who are you and what do you want?" the woman in the green dress demanded.

I swallowed nervously trying to come up with a decent explanation. Why did things like this always happen to me? Wrong place at the wrong time. Always!

"I, uh, I'm, uh, looking for someone. That's it." I grinned at them.

They gave me a skeptical look back.

"So you just barge into our house like you own the place?" the green dressed woman retorted.

"Yeah, basically." I frowned. "But what else was I supposed to do? Ring the door bell?"

"She has a point." The girl in the blue dress told the other.

"Humph." The woman in green said.

The girl in the blue dress turned to me. "I'm Anita Wells." She said politely. "This is my cousin Susan Wells. And you are?"

"Abigail Walker." I answered.

"Who are you looking for?" Susan asked coolly. I could tell by her tone she still didn't like the idea of me being around.

"Jonathon Wells."

"He's in the kitchen." She replied, waving a hand in its direction. "But what do you want with a living person? He can't see you."

I shook my head and decided not to let the cousins in on the fact that he could see me.

"Actually I'm not looking for him. He's the way I got here. I followed him."

This seemed to annoy Susan even more than the fact I was here. I made a mental not to try not to make her any more irritated. Ghosts tended to get violent when angry. Yes, myself included.

"Then who are you looking for?" Susan exclaimed.

"When you two were alive," I began carefully. "Did you know a young man by the name of Mathew Wells?"

Anita's gaze became hard. Susan's became outright furious.

"Out!" she half screamed. "I will have nothing to do with anyone who has anything to do with anyone from that awful family!"

I blinked in surprise.

"So he isn't part of this family?" Little by little my questions were being answered.

"No!" Susan exclaimed. "Get out!"

The mirror in the foyer began to rattle a bit. It sure didn't take much to set Susan off. I took a step towards the door. I'm dead so there's no way that she could have killed me. Unfortunately, being dead doesn't mean you can't feel pain. And believe me, I am not a fan of pain.

"You must have mistook him for being part of our family because of our last names." Anita said. "But I see your clothes. You lived around our time. You know about how there were two Wells families. Mathew Wells is from the other family. Please excuse Susan. She's very high strung."

"Thank you for that." I said nodding towards Anita and Susan. "That was a great help."

"No problem at all." Anita replied with a shy smile. She glanced at her cousin and then the mirror that was shaking harder than ever. "I think it would be best if you went now."

I nodded in agreement.

"Yes. Thank you."

I left, walking back through the door and making my way through the streets, headed towards the bed and breakfast. For the few sentences I had gotten out of Susan and Anita, I had received a lot of information. Well as much as I was looking for. Mathew and Jonathon were from the two different Wells families.

Speaking of Mathew, he was waiting for me outside of the bed and breakfast. With a flower. How sweet. As I walked up to him and took the flower, I wondered if the living saw the flower. Did it just float?

"I went up to your room, but you weren't there so I assumed you were out." Mathew told me.

"And I was." I replied. "Thank you for the flower."

"It matches your beautiful features." He said grinning.

I blushed a bit. It's not like I have a crush on the guy, it's just, what girl doesn't blush when a guy tells her that?

"You flatter me." I retorted.

"And what if I do?" Mathew countered. He would have never said that when we first met. The years in the present time had changed his approach of trying to win me over. I suppose it had changed my ways of being won over as well.

I couldn't answer his last question so I just smiled and smelled the flower. A response as dated as I was.

"Would you care to take a walk with me?" Mathew asked, offering me his arm.

"Where to?"

"The board walk I suppose."

That was our favorite place to go. Really, the boardwalk was amazing to see with all its rides, and games, and stores. We had seen it when it was just as it sounded, a boardwalk. People went to it to take walks and gaze out at the sea. There hadn't been any stores or amusements on it. Well, that wasn't true. There were a few street vendors selling refreshments. And I believe there was a carousal very near to the boardwalk, although not on it.

I took Mathew's arm and we began to walk towards the boardwalk. Mathew was careful to avoid the living people on the sidewalk. When I had first met him he had found entertainment in seeing people's reactions when he walked through them. I had protested loudly to the rude behavior the first time I had gone walking with him. From then on he hadn't walked through a single person. Well, at least not with me around. I don't know what he does when I'm not with him.

"So where were you?" Mathew asked.

I was pulled out of my daydreams. "What?"

"Where were you when I came?" he repeated carefully.

"Finding out something." I replied casually.

"Like what?"

"Well I was wondering if Jonathon, that's that man who's staying in my room at the moment, was part of your family. You see, he's got the same last name as you. He mentioned that his family had lived here for a long time and I heard that there had been two Wells families living in this town around yours and my time."

Mathew's carefree expression took once of tense attention. "Is he part of my family then?"

I shook my head. "No, he's part of the other family."

Mathew stopped abruptly and turned to me, taking my hands in his. "Listen." He said seriously. "Don't talk to this Jonathon guy. I don't want you to have anything to do with that family, do you understand me? They're dirty rotten cheats who got their reputation by illegitimate ways. They're bad news."

The Victorian lady in my wanted to say 'okay' and leave it at that, but I had spent far too much time in the present. Women had the right to stand up for themselves and make their own decisions. So I made mine.

"Jonathon is nice. I see nothing wrong with him. I'll talk to who I like."

There's no doubt about it. I thoroughly surprised Mathew with that one. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, although nothing came out of it. I pulled my hands out of his grasp politely and continued to walk towards the boardwalk. Mathew finally figured out I was walking away and hurried to catch up with me.

"What did you just say?" he asked, still sounding surprised.

"I'll talk to who I like." I said slowly.

"But- but-" Mathew stuttered. I think he was having an 1800's moment. When a woman would never dare say what I just said to him. Really, he had to get back to the present.

"But what?" I asked.

"I told you not to!" Mathew insisted.

"And you have no control over me." I replied. "I'll talk who I want to."

I guess he was still stuck in the 1800's because I found myself being stopped by him again, this time he was frowning.

"Do as I say Abby."

That made me angry. I would not do as he said just because he wanted it like that. "No."

With that simple word I disappeared, back to my room, leaving a, once again, surprised Mathew alone.

When I reappeared at my chosen destination, Jonathon was just walking into the room. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw me appear. I was surprising a lot of people today.

"Can't you walk into a room like a normal person?" Jonathon grumbled. "That scares me when you appear out of no where."

"Well I'm not a normal person anymore." I replied cheerfully. "But I suppose I could walk through a wall if you'd like. I'd use a door, but they're so tiresome and besides, if you didn't know I haunted this room and couldn't see me, would you be scared if you saw me open the door?"

"Yes…" he admitted.

"So I'm going to stay away from the door or just walk through it."

Jonathon rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything else.

"Did you know your family's house is haunted?"

He looked back at me. "What?"

"Your family's house is haunted."

"How do you know that?" Jonathon asked carefully.

"I followed you there."

"What?" It looked like I had surprised him again.

"I followed you to your family's house." I repeated. I seemed to repeating a lot of stuff too.

Now Jonathon looked annoyed. "Why?"

"I wanted to find out if you were related to a ghost I know." I explained. "You said you weren't into genealogy, so I decided it wasn't worth asking you. You wouldn't know."

I guess that suited his curiosity, because Jonathon went onto the next part of our little conversation. "You said the house was haunted?"

"Yes. By two women, Anita and Susan Wells. Their picture was on the wall. Do you know them?"

Jonathon nodded. "They were cousins a few generations back. They're dead."

"Well I guessed that." I retorted. "I mean, they dressed like me and they just happened to be ghosts. If they weren't dead, they wouldn't be ghosts, now would they?"

"Yes, but, gah! Don't twist my words."

I laughed. "Sure, whatever."

We were silent for a while. Jonathon walked over to the bed where he had left his laptop and turned it on. I went to my window seat and stared out at the street. No one was walking or driving by at the moment.

The scene outside my window lost my attention and I turned to look around the room just in time to see a little black furry body with a long, ragged tail slip into a hole in the molding on the wall next to the floor. I screeched.

Jonathon looked up in alarm.

"What is it?"

"M-mouse." I stuttered, staring at the hole it had run into.

He laughed. He laughed long and hard and I glared at him the whole time. So I was scared of mice. So what? That was nothing to laugh about.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

Jonathon answered when his laughing was under control. "It's just that you're a ghost." He had to stop to laugh again. "And you're scared of a little mouse."

"And you point is?" I prompted.

He shook his head and got up, walking over to the hole where the mouse had run into and prodding the molding next to it. It went back with his foot and there was a click. The wall behind the little table, in front of Jonathon, opened.