Stitch (3 page)

5. Encounter

Alessa climbed the steps to her house with 13 minutes to spare until the start of her lecture.  She hastily bounded to the second floor and tried to remember if she had anything edible in her minifridge.  She thought there might be a few string cheeses left and made a mental note to grab one as she swung around the doorway into her room.

Alessa stopped short.  Standing at the window not ten feet from her was a tall solitary figure, partially cast in shadow.  He was looking out the window, breathing gently, one slim lace up boot perched on the low windowsill, narrow suspenders pulled taut across a broad, flat back and fastened to the narrow waist of his trim brown slacks.  Lost in his own thoughts, he gazed pensively across the expanse of the lawn, his chin perched gently upon the knuckles of his left fist, white shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow.  She could see the muscles in his forearm flex as he clenched and unclenched his hand.

Alessa stifled the urge to scream as adrenaline rushed through her body.  Panic threatened to overtake her as blood throbbed through her temples, her muscles tensing for action.  But she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, so she just stood still, watching.

He was contemplative, as usual, gazing through the window but not focused on anything in particular.  He dropped his left arm and ruffled a hand through the short waves of his soft brown hair.  His skin was pale, but not the pallid color of sickness, more the luminous porcelain of mid-winter.

Alessa’s body refused to calm, her insides churning as she fought the mayhem stirring in her chest.  Terror mixed with agony, her heart sinking with each beat, overwhelmed with an aching sorrow she couldn’t explain.  But at the same time, she felt the firm tug of a powerful longing, the depths of which she’d never experienced before.  She couldn’t have torn her eyes from him if she’d tried.

His image glowed faintly, the lines of the windowpane just barely visible through his semi-translucent form.  For a moment, his head inclined in her direction and she could see the gleam of one sea blue eye above a strong, straight nose and thin pale rose lips.

Transfixed by his face, Alessa couldn’t get a grip on her emotions.  She was frightened and anxious, every impulse in her body telling her to run.  But at the same time she felt strangely drawn to him, and she knew she couldn’t have forced her feet to move even if she’d wanted to.  She was frozen in place, powerless to act, waves of anguish washing over her, drowning.  And on top of all this, that ever-present, searing longing that rooted her in place despite her best instincts towards self-preservation.  How did this strange apparition invoke such turmoil in her?

Alessa knew somewhere inside that she needed to connect with the ghost, needed to break through the barrier that separated them, but she didn’t know how.  The only thing she could think to do was speak, but what would she say?  How could she start?  And did he even know she was there?  How would he react to her intrusion?

Alessa was building the courage to try to communicate when the ghost began to fade.  It started with the hazy glow around him, which grew strong for a moment then rapidly drew inward, erasing his presence as it went.  Alessa thought she saw a small flicker and then the form was gone.

She gasped for air; she didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.  The entire encounter had only lasted a few seconds, maybe ten at the most, but she was overcome with exhaustion.  Her heart was still pounding and she was trembling from her fingertips to her toes.

Worse, her entire mental state was in shambles.  Alessa didn’t understand the tumultuous emotions that had hammered through her and she was still reeling from the experience.  Seeing the ghost was thrilling, but it was also alarming and strange, and it shook her straight to her core.  That was a normal enough reaction to this kind of situation, but there was something else, too, something specific to this ghost.

Her attraction to him was magnetic, and it went beyond her natural curiosity.  And yes, he was an incredibly appealing guy – the kind she would have pined over in high school – but it was more than that too.  It was like she
knew
him.  She just couldn’t explain it.

Whenever she was in his presence, she desperately wanted to reach out to him, to tell him he wasn’t alone.  He was forever gazing out over some landscape that Alessa was blind to, hard lines of melancholy scored into his face.  But she just couldn’t bring herself to interrupt his reverie, held hostage as she was by her body’s impulses.

The sound of footsteps approaching from down the hall brought Alessa back to reality.  She quickly closed the door behind her.  The last thing she wanted to do right now was exchange pleasantries with one of her housemates.

She leaned her back against the door, spreading her palms against the cool wood.  Alessa looked up at the ceiling, releasing a deep sigh.  These encounters always left her shaken and emotionally drained, and she didn’t have time to deal with it today.  She had to get to class.

She looked slowly around the room.  Everything was in its place – the oversized original fireplace mantle to her left, her twin bed and nightstand beyond it against the wall, then the double window and finally her desk and fridge across from the bed.  To her right was the large sliding door sealing off the double closet.  It was amazing how such a familiar place could for those few moments feel so foreign to her, like another world she didn’t belong in.

She crossed the room and snapped the lid of her laptop shut, unplugging the power cord from the back of the machine as she awkwardly attempted to scoop it up with the other hand.  She regretted once again that she hadn’t splurged on a higher-end model constructed of lighter materials as she exchanged the heavy textbook in her backpack for the heavier computer in her hand and closed the zipper.  Looking at her bedside clock, she noted that she had 10 minutes to make it back across campus.

Alessa turned towards the door and then she remembered the string cheese.  The scene inside her refrigerator was dismal.  The shelves were lined with half-rotted fruit and takeout leftovers from who knows when.  On the door she found a few cans of diet soda.  Checking the bottom drawer, she hit upon the package of string cheese with three individually wrapped sticks remaining.  She grabbed one and accidentally slammed the fridge door as she headed out, the adrenaline still ringing through her body.

Springing down the stairs of the house, Alessa set a quick pace down the cobblestone path that led back to the quad.  She peeled the plastic back from the string cheese as she went, anxiously swallowing bites as she strode past ambling students.  Janie would throw a fit if she could see; she viewed not peeling string cheese into strings as virtually sacrilegious.

A couple frat boys were tossing a frisbee across the quad while some freshman girls stood huddled under a tree, stealing glances at the guys and giggling to each other.  Alessa watched a comic looking professor in a classic tweed blazer replete with elbow patches hustle a stack of papers a foot tall towards the faculty offices.  On the far side of the quad, a team of facility workers were blowing fallen leaves into a pile and raking them into bags.  Taking in the ordinary college scene around her, Alessa began to feel almost normal again.

It’d been a couple weeks since she’d last seen the ghost, and she had forgotten how unsettling it was.  It was as though for a few moments her whole world turned upside-down.  Ghosts weren’t supposed to exist.  She shouldn’t be wandering into her room in the middle of the day to find a strange man standing there, only to watch him disappear into thin air seconds later.  It was true that much of her life in the past year didn’t make sense to her, but at least it was still firmly grounded in reality, on a planet with clear laws of nature that no one could break.

This ghost thing turned all of that on its head.  She was sure that what she was seeing was real, despite Janie’s half-joking hints to the contrary, and that knowledge made her wonder what else she had mistakenly taken for granted.

There had been her family’s stability for one.  She'd always counted on her parents to be there for her, to be a guiding voice and a security blanket whenever she needed them.  In spite of the constant fighting in recent years, Alessa needed her parents.  And one moment in the wrong place at the wrong time had taken them from her, forever.

Then, of course, there was her own infallibility.  Alessa had been so wrapped up in her dreams for the future that she had failed to prepare for reality.  Yes, her parents’ death was a curveball she hadn’t anticipated, and her reaction – depression, withdrawal, breakdown – had been pretty understandable.  But even if they had survived the accident and things had gone back to normal, Alessa had a sneaking suspicion that she might still be in the same boat.

She had thought she was invincible, but in the end she was just deluded.  Yes, she was a talented student and a good leader with a strong resume, but there were thousands of others just like her.  She didn’t know what had ever made her think that she was entitled to admission to only the best schools in the country.  She should have known that getting accepted to any of the schools on her list was a shot in the dark, and she should have put more time into evaluating other more realistic options that might actually have been a good match for her.

She’d always preferred to be a big fish in a small pond, and she could have had her pick of decent colleges, even after all the devastation of the accident.  Instead, she’d squandered her opportunity and had to settle for this massive university where she was nothing but a number.

Arriving at the door to the lecture hall, Alessa felt more lost than she ever had.  She didn’t know what to believe in anymore.  Certainly not her own judgment, certainly not her parents’ permanence, and certainly not the laws of science.  In the past year, if there was one thing Alessa had learned, it was not to trust herself, not even down to the most basic truths. Like that ghosts were only stories.  She knew now that there was much more to this world than it had seemed.

6. Dissection

Janie had saved a seat for Alessa towards the back of the huge auditorium.  “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” she jibed with a mischievous smirk.

Alessa was unfailingly punctual.  She knew that Janie – who was always running ten minutes behind – must take a small amount of pleasure in seeing their roles reversed for once.  Usually it was a frazzled Janie plopping down into her seat, frantically pulling out her notes seconds before the beginning of class.  Today it was Alessa’s turn.

Alessa looked at Janie.  She didn’t know where to start.

Janie’s expression shifted into concern.  “You look like you’ve seen…”

“A ghost, yes,” Alessa said under her breath.

Janie’s eyes popped.  “Just now?” she whispered urgently.

Alessa noticed that Professor Liu was stepping up to the podium.  “Yes,” she whispered back, “in my room.”

“What happened?” Janie breathed.

The professor had started speaking, something about being pleased with the results of this morning’s exam.

Alessa lowered her voice to give Janie the summary.  “The same thing as always: he was just standing there and then he disappeared.”

“Kind of anticlimactic.”

“No kidding.”

Janie thought for a moment.  “Did you find anything at the library?”

Professor Liu raised his voice, “Ladies in the back, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Alessa flushed.  She hated being reprimanded.  She shrunk back into her chair and mouthed a sheepish, “Sorry.”

The professor returned to his lesson plan, but as had been the case of late, Alessa just couldn’t focus on what he was saying.  She unfolded the little desktop from its storage space under her armrest and took out her laptop.  Opening a blank document, she angled the screen toward Janie, intending to write a short note explaining what she’d learned at the library.  Luckily, there was no one sitting directly behind them, so she didn’t have to worry about anyone reading over their shoulders.

“I found the librarian from that article – she pointed me towards some old books of property records and I was able to find the house in there.”

Feigning attention to the lecture as she scribbled in her notebook, Janie quickly shifted her eyes to Alessa and raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to continue.

Alessa cleared what she had written and started a fresh sentence.  “There was a Mason family who built the house in the 1870s, and they had two sons, Albert & William.  Then Albert took ownership of the house about 30 years later and had a son named Isaac.  I think it might be one of those three.”

Janie nodded and wrote something in her notebook.  She slid it quietly towards Alessa.  Alessa saw something scrawled in the margin in Janie’s signature tiny capital letters.  She leaned closer for a better look.  “
ALBERT?  SEXY.
”  Janie had underlined the last word for emphasis.  It was amazing how Janie’s voice rang clear in Alessa’s head, even just from her writing.  Alessa could hear the sarcasm dripping from those two syllables.

Alessa rolled her eyes playfully.  She turned back to the keyboard and typed, “Isaac?”

“
DEFINITELY BETTER.
”

Alessa laughed silently and shook her head at Janie’s antics.  Albert, William, Isaac… She didn’t care what the ghost’s name was, only
who
he was.

She was opening the file with her physics notes as Janie pushed her notebook in Alessa’s direction once again.  “
SO WHAT’S THE PLAN?
”

Alessa looked at Janie and shrugged.  She typed, “Going to see if I can find death records for these people.  Beyond that, not sure.”

Janie acknowledged the response with a nod and went back to her notes.  Alessa did the same.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Professor Liu was reminding the class to check the syllabus for the reading due next session.  Alessa was surprised at how much she had absorbed once she started paying attention.  With what she picked up in class today she thought she should be able to skim through the reading, which might give her enough time to continue her research about the ghost between now and Thursday’s class.

Janie turned to Alessa as she was packing her notebook into her messenger bag.  “Did you eat lunch yet?”

Alessa was surprised to find that she actually had an appetite for once.  “Nope.  Did you want to grab something?  I’ve got a half hour until my next class.”

“Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

Alessa nodded her assent.

Janie led the way down from the back of the lecture hall, following the tide of students to the door.  As they passed the front podium, Alessa was startled to hear someone other than Janie call her name.

“Ms. Khole?”  Alessa and Janie stopped in their tracks and turned around.  Professor Liu was looking directly at Alessa.

“Yes, Professor?”

“Yours was one of the few exams I had time to grade before class today.”  Alessa felt a twang of trepidation; this couldn’t be good news.  She braced herself.

The professor continued.  “I was quite impressed with your performance.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Alessa stammered.  That was not what she was expecting.  She reminded herself to smile.

“I haven’t finished the curve yet, but I think you can expect at least an A-minus.  Keep up the good work.”

Alessa perked up.  “Thanks, Professor.”  She turned towards the door and caught a surprised look on Janie’s face.

As they exited into the hallway, Janie said, “He knows your
name
?”

Alessa was just as puzzled.  Besides his brief chiding in the beginning of class, Alessa had never had any direct interaction with her physics professor.  “I guess so…  He probably looked up my photo in the student directory or something.”

“You must have really done well on that test.”

Alessa thought she had done okay.  She must have gotten more right on those last few questions than she expected.  “I didn’t think I did
that
good.”  After a second, she added, “Guess we have to be more careful not to get caught talking from now on.”

Janie chuckled.  “Guess
you
need to be more careful.  He still has no idea who
I
am.”

Alessa laughed. “True.”

After a short walk, they arrived at the cafeteria.  As it was almost 1:00, most of the lunch rush had died down and there were only a few stragglers remaining inside.  This was always the best time to come.  With 20,000 hungry students and only one main dining hall, the ESU cafeteria was not Alessa’s preferred dining venue between noon and one o’clock.  If she ate lunch, she usually grabbed something quick from one of the smaller vendors elsewhere on campus, like the Van Husen café.

The dining hall was one of the few modern buildings on campus.  With that many mouths to feed every day, the original cafeteria – which was built back in the 40s to accommodate one tenth the number of students – just wasn’t going to cut it.  A few years ago the university had used a large grant to build the enormous structure, with a huge kitchen and serving area on the main floor and three floors of seating above.

Alessa and Janie swiped their meal cards then diverged to opposite ends of the cafeteria.  Janie, as usual, went to the salad bar.  Alessa scanned the hot food entrees.  It was a chilly day and after her earlier incident with the ghost, she could use some comfort food.

Bingo.  Macaroni and cheese, her favorite.  Alessa scooped herself a modestly sized portion, then added a spoonful of steamed broccoli to her plate as well.  She didn’t want to hear Janie’s nagging to eat her vegetables.

Sure enough, the moment they sat down across from one another, Janie eyed Alessa’s plate.  “You really shouldn’t eat that junk.”  Janie’s plate was piled literally eight inches high with fresh raw vegetables and nuts.  For someone who was so health-conscious, she had a voracious appetite.

“I got some broccoli,” Alessa offered.  She watched as Janie dug a fork into her mound of produce and shoveled it towards her mouth.  “I really don’t know where you put all of that.”

Janie swallowed.  “It’s low calorie and healthy fats.”

“No, I mean, physically.  How can you fit that much volume in your stomach?”

Through a mouthful of food, Janie replied, “Practice.”

Alessa smiled and started in on her own plate.  The mac and cheese was definitely hitting the spot.  It reminded her of her mom’s homemade recipe, creamy and buttery with a thick layer of crisp breadcrumbs across the top.  Heaven.  It felt like forever since she’d eaten something so rich.

Janie looked up from her tray and took a deep chug from her glass of milk.  “So, how are you feeling?  You look better than when you walked into class.”

Alessa definitely felt better.  “Yeah, I’m okay now.  Thanks for asking.”  She took a sip of water.  “I forgot how –” she searched for the right word, “–
distressing
it is to see the ghost.  I mean, beyond the expected scared-out-of-my-mind reaction, for some reason he stirs up all these other emotions in me.  I know I’ve told you that I can see that he’s distraught, but it’s more than just empathy.  I
feel
it.  It’s like a whole bucket of emotions are dumped on me in the span of a few seconds, and it just leaves me feeling like a wreck.”

“Is that normal for ghosts?”

“Is what normal?”

“Making you feel things, like maybe what
they’re
feeling.”

Alessa hadn’t thought of that.  She certainly couldn’t explain how she felt in his presence, and at least some of it did seem to match his expression.  “You know, I’m not sure.  It kind of makes sense, and it would help to explain why these encounters keep affecting me like they do.”

Janie thought for a moment.  “Was it always like that?  I don’t remember you being such a mess at first.”

Alessa reflected back over her history with the ghost.  At first the encounters were much briefer, lasting only a second or two.  In fact, she may even have had incidents that were shorter.  In the beginning of the school year, sometimes she would see something out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked nothing was there.  So she wasn’t even sure at first that anything had happened.

Then one night, she’d woken up at three in the morning feeling that eerie sixth sense that she wasn’t alone.  When she’d opened her eyes, she’d seen the silhouette of a man standing at the foot of her bed, near the fireplace.  She had frozen out of fear and pretended she was still asleep, squinting in the darkness to try to figure out if what she was seeing was real.  She could only faintly make out his shape and thought it might have been a trick of the light coupled with her sleepy eyes, but she just had that feeling that she wasn’t the only person in the room.  Then all of a sudden the feeling had passed, and when she’d reached out to her nightstand to switch on the lamp, there was nothing there.

When she finally did see the ghost for certain for the first time, she’d flown from the room.  She’d been alone in the bathroom one evening brushing her teeth when she looked up from the sink and saw the ghost lurking behind her in the mirror.  He didn’t seem to have noticed her, but Alessa hadn’t stayed long enough to look closely.  She’d sprinted from the bathroom toothbrush in hand and locked herself behind her own door until she’d calmed down enough to go tell Janie what had happened.

So she supposed in those early incidents it wasn’t quite the same.  Today, she had been transfixed.  She couldn’t seem to summon the will to flee, even as every instinct screamed at her to go.  But those first few times, she had been able to take action.

Alessa confirmed Janie’s suspicions.  “You’re right.  It didn’t used to be like this.  I think the encounters are lasting longer and longer, and they’re getting more intense.”

“That’s a little scary.”

Alessa agreed.  “I’ll look into it when I get home tonight.  I’m sure there are plenty of ghost stories on the internet – I’ll see if I can find reports of anything similar.”

“Good idea.”

Alessa savored the last bite of her mac and cheese and put down her fork.  “Okay, I think it’s time for me to head to my ethics seminar.”

Janie still had a sizable pile of veggies in front of her.  “Okay.  I’m going to stay and finish up.  See you back at the house tonight?”

“Absolutely.”