Page 17 of Remain (one-of-a-kind)

Strangely, I could have sworn she looked frightened.

· · ·

After dinner, I unpacked the items I’d purchased from the drugstore.

My low-tech plan was simple: I tore off a strip of tape and applied it to one of the kitchen windows.

Then, using the scissors, I cut the tape nearly all the way through, leaving only a shred intact.

I tested it, making sure that if the window opened, the tape would be broken, leaving evidence behind.

I repeated the process on every window and door on the main floor.

Then I propped the dining room chairs beneath the knobs of the cellar, pantry, and front doors.

On my way upstairs, I cut a length of brown thread, securing it with tape on either side of the first step at about knee height, so Paulie wouldn’t disturb it.

I confirmed that even a gentle touch was enough to make the thread fall.

I repeated this at three more locations on the stairs, thinking that once I turned out the lights, the thread would be nearly invisible.

I taped every spare bedroom door on the upper floor, the hallway bathroom door, and the windows in my room, but left my bedroom door open. It took some time to unwind after all of that, but I eventually fell asleep with my phone at the ready.

· · ·

Again, I woke in the middle of the night. I listened hard, hearing nothing, but turned on the flashlight on my phone. Starting the video recorder as well, I crept from the bed. At my doorway, I shined the flashlight into the darkened hallway, relieved to see that all the doors were still closed.

Suddenly—straining credulity—I heard the latch click on the bathroom door and aimed the light and camera toward it.

I heard the squeaking hinges and the sign tapping against the wood as the door swung fully open; then, I heard the unmistakable sound of water splashing into the sink echoing in the hall as the pipes began to squeal.

Fighting a rising tide of fear, I approached the open door, keeping my phone raised.

Strangely, the glow from the flashlight diminished with every step, as though black gauze was slowly being layered over the light; by the time I reached the bathroom, there was barely enough light to see the water gushing out of the faucet into the sink.

I began panning the room and jumped at the sight of a figure silhouetted in shadow in the corner.

It was then that I heard what sounded like a rhythmic whisper.

I strained to confirm what I was seeing and hearing. In the dim light, I was finally able to make out the figure of a woman wrapped in a towel with her back toward me, her hunched shoulders heaving as though she was hyperventilating.

“Wren?” I asked. “Is that you?”

The rhythmic whispers coincided with every heave of her shoulders and rush of her breath. Though she didn’t seem to hear me, they began to grow louder, and I could finally understand the words.

“Help…me…help…me…help…me…help me…”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She slowly spun around to face me, her long hair obscuring her features; in the next instant, however, the movement too fast to register, she was kneeling in the bathtub, with her back to the faucet.

After slowly bending forward at the waist, she whipped her body backward, the back of her head smashing into the faucet with a sharp, sickening crunch.

Like a horrific scene on repeat, it happened over and over, one crunch after another in blinding succession, the sound like a pumpkin exploding on asphalt after being dropped from the roof.

Horrified, I lunged for the switch, turning on the lights, and all at once, she was gone. The sounds ceased, without even an echo remaining. No Wren, no slamming head, no water gushing from the faucet.

With a shaking hand, I aimed the camera at the sink, filming while it drained.

· · ·

Freaked-out—I could hear my inner voice screaming, What the hell!

—I stopped the video and steadied myself enough to take three photos of the sink before staggering back to my room with shaking hands.

I tossed on my dirty clothes and turned on every light in the room.

Frantically, I checked every window and confirmed that none had been opened.

Next, I hurried down the now quiet hallway, terrified by the idea of another appearance, but all was quiet.

At the far end, I turned on the lights, and then, one by one, examined the doors that led to the other rooms, finding no broken tape.

Descending the stairs, I clutched the rail as I stepped over the threads, all of which remained undisturbed.

I checked the windows and doors on the main floor next, already knowing that I’d find them all unopened.

With a lurching feeling of dread, I sat down at the dining room table.

I opened the photos app on my phone, and there, at the bottom, was the video I had taken, along with the three photos. The video was thirty-two seconds long.

Terrified to see what had or hadn’t been captured on film, I opened the photos first. Using my fingers to expand each image, I saw drops of water in the sink and felt myself exhale, unaware I’d even been holding my breath. It was the same in the next two photos: the faucet had been turned on.

But had I done it myself? With my stomach in knots, I wondered whether I’d sleepwalked or entered some sort of fugue state and didn’t remember my own actions; I wondered, too, whether that was better or worse than hallucinations.

Uncertain, I started the video, immediately feeling a keen sense of déjà vu as the scene unfolded.

The recording began in the bedroom, then moved into the hallway, illuminated only by the light on my phone.

I turned up the volume, and a few beats later, I heard the latch click and the tapping of the sign as the bathroom door slowly opened.

I heard the faucet turn along with squealing pipes.

The camera shook slightly as I approached, and again—just as I remembered—the light grew dimmer.

Finally, in the bathroom, I saw water rushing into the sink.

The camera panned, coming to a stop in front of the bathtub.

Over the next few seconds, I heard my own voice questioning someone.

There was, however, no figure wrapped in a towel, nor could I hear the rhythmic, whispered pleas for help.

I felt a surge of disappointment, but when the camera panned to the bathtub, I jumped in my seat at the sound of a sickening crunch immediately followed by more, exactly as I remembered.

Then the light turned on and the bathroom was empty.

There was a final shaky pan of the camera, the video zooming in on water slowly draining from the sink.

When it ended, I sat back in my seat, my mind racing.

No one had entered the house, and it hadn’t been a hallucination.

Yet it couldn’t be a ghost because ghosts didn’t exist.

Except, of course, maybe they did.

· · ·

I stayed up the rest of the night, repeatedly reviewing the video.

I downloaded it to my computer and then, just to be sure, emailed the video and the photos to both my business and personal email accounts.

I couldn’t make sense of why the video had captured the sounds but not what I’d seen, but the whole idea of making sense was obviously moot.

I spent a few hours on the internet, reading accounts of other people’s encounters with spirits, concluding that most of them were either outright fables, hoaxes, or frauds, or were easily explained by natural phenomena.

There were a handful of testimonies by what appeared to be honest, relatively normal people, but they mostly mentioned fleeting images, nothing even close to what I’d experienced.

When dawn broke, flooding the house with pale light, I found myself parsing each encounter with Wren, unable to shake the feeling that she’d come to me for a reason.

Help me…help me…

Desperate to speak with someone about it, I texted Oscar, asking him to meet me in two hours at the site and promising to pick up food and coffee on the way.

Luckily Oscar was an early riser and responded with a thumbs-up emoji within seconds.

I planned to examine the hallway bathroom sink and the door before I met up with Oscar when I suddenly remembered what Wren had said to me the day before.

Moving to the parlor, I searched the bookshelves for the book she’d referenced regarding my relationship with my sister and quickly found Endymion. The first few lines were highlighted.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness

The words made my throat tighten. In the margin an adult’s handwriting spelled out the words You meant the world to me, and I’ll never forget our times together.

I closed my eyes as a wave of bittersweet longing washed over me, amazed that Wren had known just the words to help ease my loss.