Erin’s Memory

A collaboration of

Ashley-Anne Douglas

And

Emma Peachey

Prologue – The Beginning

Zachary Hanson looked at the house, in all its extreme supposed normal glory – and he seemed to remember his parents saying it was pretty normal when they’d arranged to vacation there – the house was more of a mansion, complete with three floors, an east and west wing, brownstone walls, and large white framed nine-panel-glass windows. Large white double doors opened up into a large hallway with terracotta walls, an oak banister, wine coloured carpeted stairs leading up to the first floor. The nearest rooms were the entry halls; a separate arched hallway led down to the grand hall, to the left the servants’ entry to the kitchen.

They’d been there two days, he still got lost…

He didn’t understand why his parents couldn’t have just shacked up in a hotel or a motel or a bungalow, why did it have to be this crummy place? Sure a lot of the rooms were modern, but above all, most of the major hallways, three of the bedrooms, the dining room, the pantry off the kitchen, the entrance hall, the privy and the hall chamber, hadn’t changed since the olden days, they were still terribly 19th century, the walls were red, the hallways all arched, there was antique mahogany Daido which crawled across the blood red walls in carved ivy patterns.

Zac hated this place. He yearned for simple minimalist comforts, plain bright walls, simple furniture, maybe a few more game consoles, stereos and homely comforts. But it was like being in a castle…as a visitor on a tour of a noble king’s grand home. He didn’t see how he could be expected to live two months in this antediluvian domicile. Certainly, it was a home fit for a king but Hanson weren’t exactly kings, and they didn’t need such a gaudy home – even just temporarily.

Zachary had just come from the back of the house after spending the last half-hour trying to fix his dirt bike. His attempts at basic mechanics had earned him a few cuts and scrapes but had got him no closer to actually being able to ride the bike any time soon. He'd ask Isaac for help later. He'd noticed that the car wasn't out front and assumed Isaac, being as bored as himself but with a licence to drive, had hightailed it and would be back in time for dinner.
Zac headed on into the house, the sounds of Jessica’s complaining to their mother about there being nothing to do around here seemed to carry from the west wing all the way down to the entry hall. He headed up the two flights of stairs to his room; he sauntered into the small chamber, which was one of the rooms that hadn’t changed much in the years this place had existed. The room consisted of a king-sized four-post bed, an old oak dresser, with a huge three-panel mirror settled on the counter. There was a wardrobe against the left wall, and to the right, there was a large window with white frames, nine panels, just like every other window in this mansion.

The first thing Zachary did as he entered his room was close the door and lock it. He had this fixation with locking doors the moment he entered a room, even at home he sometimes locked his brothers out of their own room without even thinking of it. He couldn’t help it he supposed, it was only natural, he’d been walked in on so many times by his parents and siblings in the midst of some particularly embarrassing moments, and thus ever since those experiences he’d always locked a door after himself, even if it wasn’t necessary. Better that way he decided.

He tossed his black leather jacket on the bed casually, he walked over to the CD player and he turned it on, shoving in one of his favourite CDs – The Goo Goo Dolls album ‘Dizzy Up The Girl’ and immediately set the track as ‘Bullet Proof’ – Track number six. With his favourite song playing, he headed for the bathroom en suite, thus, also, closing and locking the door behind himself, out of the same habit as before. He relieved himself, as was his need washed his hands and looked himself in the mirror, he smoothed down a few sections of unruly hair, and he unlocked the door and headed back into the room.

He was truly puzzled.

He could have sworn…

The CD must have had a scratch, must have somehow jumped a few tracks or something...

He’d had the player set on track six…

Now, track ten was playing, the song was known as ‘Acoustic #3’. Surely even with a hell of a big scratch on that CD, there could be no possible way the CD would jump four tracks.

Zac made a face, he never listened to this song, it was too slow for him, too…eerie in a way. The words from John Rzeznik’s voice almost seemed to echo in his head. He glanced at the door, he tried the handle, no, still locked, it was impossible for anyone to have unlocked it from the outside because it was a turn-latch, no one could have undid it from the other side. So it couldn’t have been someone playing a prank – the old ‘wait ‘til Zac leaves the room and then change the song on the CD player’ gag to make him think he was losing his mind. His brothers liked to play those kinds of gags frequently, but Zac realised this wasn’t any kind of prank.

The CD must have a scratch on it, he reasoned with himself. Zac stopped the CD swiftly and removed it from the player, he turned it over, held it up to the light and observed the silver side. No particularly significant scratches that could cause it to jump that way. Zac surmised it must have been the CD player and decided he would leave it at that. Why worry? It was just one of those mysteries in life that just didn’t matter.

 

Chapter One – The Vanishing Acts…

 

Zachary rushed downstairs that next morning, his golden locks were all tangled and sleep mussed. He headed through the entry hall, through the parlour, through the second hallway and down the steps into the kitchen, he stepped through the arched threshold, put his hands on his hips, looked at his family seated at the kitchen table, they were eating, chattering amongst themselves.

"Alright, who took my comb?" Zac demanded impatiently, their general chattering died down to a silence, and they all turned to look at Zac, seemed to have no clue what he was talking about.

"No one took your stupid comb," Taylor stated, he forced down a mouthful of eggs, he knew this routine all to well. Zac would say he’d lost something and accuse someone of taking it, then, miraculously, the item would turn up somewhere, most likely in the place Zac had last left it – but Zac would rather blame someone else for his own misplacing of it. Zac would always deny his carelessness with his belongings.

"Well someone must have! I left it on the dresser last night, now it’s gone," Zac pointed out stubbornly. Living with a large family he’d grown used to having them take his things without asking, but he wasn’t taking this crap. He needed his comb and he wanted it now.

"Zac," Isaac took the coffee cup away from his lips to speak, he spoke clearly and plainly in a placid tone, "You lock your room door, and it only locks one way, no one could have got into your room to take it," he explained, matter-of-factly.

Zac felt his frustration rising, what Isaac had said was indeed true. But still…the comb had been left on his dresser the night previous, he knew for sure that comb had been there, because he’d put his watch down directly next to it and his sleeve had caught the comb and sent it falling to the carpet. He remembered that much. He’d picked it up and placed it neatly back on the dresser.

Then just moments ago, he’d headed over to the dresser to retrieve the comb…and it wasn’t there.

I put it there last night, I know it, Zac thought, he was already vexed by this apparent prank.

"Maybe it’s lying on the floor, did you look?" Walker didn’t raise his eyes from his morning newspaper, he sipped his coffee, not completely involved with Zac’s dilemma.

"Yes I looked, and it wasn’t there," Zac responded, folding his arms, "And it isn’t under the dresser, either."

"Fine, go to my room, use my comb, I’m sure yours will turn up sooner or later," Taylor offered.

"Fine," Zac grumbled, he headed upstairs to comb his hair, still wondering how in the world the comb had managed to go walkies on its own.

* * * * *

The comb incident had been the first of many that week, Zac didn’t understand it, everything he seemed to put somewhere in his room seemed to go mysteriously missing.

Zac wasn’t imagining things, five CD’s had gone missing, he had searched every room in the house they could have possibly been. His sisters’ room, his parents room, his brothers rooms. He’d even checked his brothers cars, in case they had borrowed the CD’s to listen to whilst cruising.

His parents had made jokes about the missing belongings, ‘we’ll call out a search party’ and ‘call 911 and ask for the police department’ they had laughed.

He had smiled to himself when he envisioned phoning out the local police and their sniffer-dogs to track down his CD’s. The thought of Taylor’s face, as he discovered his favourite pair of shoes covered in dog drool, was just too for Zac. He had lain on the floor clutching his sides and laughing at the thought of that, before giving up his search. If it hadn’t been for the rare moment of the absurdity of the vision of that situation, Zac felt his mood would probably be somewhat darker than it had been since Monday.

Amongst some of the other things to go missing from Zachary’s room that week were; a pencil case, his address book, his journal, his cellular phone, and strange of all, the photographs he’d just had developed days earlier. He had searched the whole mansion top to bottom for his missing possessions, but there were no sign of any of them. There seemed to be a pattern to it though, Zac realised.

The items that went missing were always particularly small, always had been left in a rather obvious place – such as the floor or the counter. Another odd occurrence to note as patterned was that Zachary could always remember seeing the items the night before they went missing, he’d go to sleep, wake up and they would be gone. And as was always the case – because of his compulsion for privacy – the door had always been locked. As Isaac had pointed out that Monday, there was no way anyone could have entered the room in the first place.

And his family kept the same story going, no one had taken anything, they all had the same statement, no one had been in his room overnight. The door was locked, no one could have visited him in the night. Zac tried every which way of searching, and he was getting desperate for his cellular phone since it had a lot of the stored numbers on it that he had lost when his address book had gone missing. Zac had even tried calling his cellular from Taylor’s cellular phone to listen for the ringing of his own phone and try and trace where it was. But there had been no ringing, Zac surmised there were three possibilities he hadn’t heard any ringing, one; the phone could have been in place where it’s ringer would be muffled, two; the ringer could have been switched off – or in fact the phone could have been, and three; the battery could have died within these last few days, they didn’t tend to last very long.

And then there was the journal…Zac dreaded the thought that one of his family could have possibly stolen it from his room as a joke – possibly read it. Zac shuddered at the thought, a lot of his most private thoughts were in that journal, and for someone in his family to read it would be incredibly embarrassing, especially the entries he’d written about his crush back in Tulsa.

It really had Zachary perplexed. Where had his belongings disappeared to?

It was a Friday night, Zac had begun to give up all hope of his belongings ever showing up again. He and Isaac were carrying a portable TV and VCR up to Zac’s room which their parents had rented for Zac at his request.

"Cheer up, Zac, it’s not the end of the world," Isaac tried to console him, "they’ll turn up eventually."

"I guess, but I mean…Ike, my journal was one of the things that went missing, I mean, what if mom or dad finds it and reads it…or even Jessie?" Zac felt horrified at the thought, "I mean…there’s a lot of…personal stuff in there…"

"Like stuff about Celia?" Isaac questioned, he stepped carefully up the last step and turned right and headed down the first hallway towards Zac’s room.

"Yeah, I guess…"

"Zac, I think mom and dad have enough respect for you to keep out of your journal," Isaac admitted, he stood with his arms full with the television.

Zac reached over and pushed the door open, stepped into his room, VCR under one arm, "Jessie wouldn’t, she’d read the whole thing, make photocopies of the entries I wrote about me sneaking out at night and going to Celia’s house to spy on her getting undressed," Zachary gulped. "Then she’d blackmail me using them."

Isaac nodded, he agreed with that, yes, that sounded exactly like something Jessica would do to Zac.

Zac fell silent. Isaac glanced at Zachary curiously, wondering why he’d dropped the conversation all of a sudden.

"What is it?" Isaac asked.

Zac was gaping at the dresser. Isaac looked in the direction Zac was staring. On the dresser, piled very neatly, were Zac’s five CD’s, the pencil case, the cellular phone, his address book, the packet of photographs, the comb...and most importantly, Zac’s journal. All stacked perfectly, almost like a mini skyscraper, right there, on the mahogany counter.

"They’re back," Isaac said, a little impressed.

"Yeah…but…who…" Zac frowned in confusion, he put the VCR down on the bed and walked over to the dresser, picked up his journal and checked the pages, checking to see if there were any grease marks or smudgy fingerprints to suggest someone had been reading it. Everything seemed in order, apart from one detail…

"What the hell is this, it’s covered in dust…" Zac complained.

"Dust? Dust in this house? This place is absolutely spotless, let me see," Isaac took the book from Zac’s hands and he touched the powdery substance, it was very dust-like and very grey. Isaac sniffed at the book, if it was really dust he supposed it would smell like it.

"It’s not dust," Isaac realised, the powdery substance had the faint scent of burnt embers – the distinct smell of cinders. It was similar to slag from a fireplace. Isaac looked at his fingers, the powder wasn’t as fine as dust, it had tiny little black splinters that crumbled at his touch.

"It’s not?" Zac asked, he looked at his fingers, they were all smudged with the grey substance.

"It’s ash…" Isaac stated in an unruffled voice.

"Ash? How did ash get on my journal?" Zac demanded in confusion.

"I don’t know…but it’s over everything here…" Isaac picked up the cellular phone, the cover was caked in ash.

"This really is starting to piss me off, someone steals my stuff, then they get it covered in this shit…" Zac trailed off.

"It’s weird. I don’t understand how your stuff can just walk away on its own though while your room is locked, it just doesn’t make sense," Isaac stated.

"Tell me about it," Zac mumbled.

 

Chapter Two – Acoustic #3

Zac’s eyes fluttered open wearily, he glanced over at the travel clock, he reached over and pressed down on the button, which sent the dim light illuminating the LCD numbers.

03.16am.

Something had disturbed his slumber, although what he was quite unsure of what it had been, he sat up wearily, feeling something slide off his legs and quietly thud to the floor as he moved. He yawned wearily, at first, he thought it might have been the book that he had fallen asleep reading had maybe shifted while he was in deep slumber.

Something occurred to him just then. The light…he had fallen asleep with the light on, as usual it was something he did all too frequently. The light was off now.

Again, as had been the case all week, the door had been locked, it wasn’t like one of his family could have sauntered in and turned the light off since he was asleep. He’d even taken extra precaution and had put the wooden wedge under the door just in case the lock should fail because he had expected this phantom menace would again shift something in his room, so he’d been prepared.

So much for bracing himself for that.

Zac held his breath, the lightbulb maybe fused, or perhaps, maybe the amp in the plug is gone. It’s probably just an electrical error and the lamp broke.

Zac hoped this was the case, he leaned to his lamp, and flicked the switch. The lamp was indeed working. "Shit," Zac cursed angrily.

The room was lit, Zac blinked and rubbed at his eyes tiredly, he sat up straight, flicked his hair back from his eyes, and looked around the room. Everything seemed more or less in order. He turned to look at the pillow on the left side – he slept on the right side – of the bed. The J.R. Tolkien book he’d been reading before he’d dropped off to sleep was still there, lying flat out open on page one hundred and three.

So…what had that thing that had fallen off of his legs been?

He curiously looked beside his bed, the CD case for ‘Dizzy Up The Girl’ by the Goo Goo Dolls was lying there on the floor, front facing up. Zac hung over the side of the bed and picked it up. That certainly had NOT been there when he’d fallen asleep, it had been on the dresser, he hadn’t moved the CD since Sunday when he’d put the CD back in its case and left it there. He hadn’t even played the CD the rest of the week because he thought there was something wrong with it – because it had jumped some tracks.

He noted with some absurd fascination…there was that same ashy substance on the CD case, he opened up the case and inside, the ash was even thicker – The CD, however, was missing from the box. The ash…just like the other CDs, the journal and all his other belongings had been dusted with when he’d found them. But this CD wasn’t one of the five that had gone mysteriously missing and then had just miraculously reappeared out of nowhere.

As if to unsettle him even more than he was already shaken, the CD player sprang to life, the light springy click of the button as it went on was audible, and as if out of nowhere, track ten of the CD that belonged in the case Zac was holding blasted out.

John Rzeznik’s velvety flaccid brusque voice taking him through the song Zac couldn’t stand, the same song the track had skipped to on Sunday. The lucid acoustic guitar, the soft strings filling out the tune, the words gave Zac that uncanny sense of feeling as if someone were running icy fingers down his otherwise warm spine.

They painted up your secrets

With the lies they told to you

And the least they ever gave you

Was the most you ever knew

And you wonder where these dreams go

When the world gets in your way

What’s the point in all this screaming

No-one’s listening anyway

Zac hurried over to the CD player. Muttering a string of profanities under his breath, and he turned the stereo off. Suddenly feeling like a scared little kid, he jumped back onto his bed and under the covers, leaving the light on. Feeling far too exhausted to deal with any of the events, and not wanting to wake any of his family before sunrise, he decided to wait until a more reasonable hour to start his investigations

* * * * *

 

That morning, Zac hurried down the hallway to the nearest door, leading to Taylor’s chamber, he knocked sharply on the door three times, and waited impatiently, foot tapping anxiously.

"Come in," came Taylor’s yawning reply.

Zac opened the door and slipped into the bedroom, Taylor was already up and dressed, making his bed.

"I need to talk to you," Zac stated.

"Yeah, okay," Taylor said casually.

Zac sat down on the stool in front of the dresser, "have you…experienced anything…weird…going on? Stuff in your room?"

"Like what?" Taylor asked, he neatly smoothed down the bedspread.

"Uhm…problems with the electric stuff? CD players turning on by themselves…lights going on and off on their own…CD players skipping tracks when the CD playing is unscratched…"

"No."

"Anything gone missing from your room?"

"Nope."

"Things seem to move around on their own?"

"Nah. This stuff happen to you?" Taylor raised his head to glance at Zac through the bangs of his hair, his expression somewhat whimsical.

"Yeah…" Zac stammered irritably.

"Then you’d better call the Ghostbusters," Taylor joked.

"Tay, this isn’t funny! At three am this morning my light turned off by itself…then a CD case appears on my bed and there was no one to put it there…and then my CD player starts blasting a stupid song. And I fell asleep with the lights on, woke up this morning and the light was off again, I mean…this doesn’t make sense, no one could have gotten into my room to turn it off!!" Zac managed to say it all without even stopping for breath, at the end of his explanation, he was gasping. "And it’s not the first time weird stuff has happened, I mean all week you know my stuff has been going missing, yesterday it appeared back in my room again…and it’s all covered with this ashy shit…" he growled.

"Then…you must have a ghost," Taylor chuckled, he finished making his bed and he tidied up the dresser. It was meant as a joke. Taylor didn’t really believe in ghosts, just thought it was all psychological, being in a large mansion like this, a mansion with a history, Zac was sure to imagine some scary things. This was the kind of place that looked as if it would be haunted.

"This isn’t funny!!!" Zac fumed.

"Oh, Zac, relax. I’m sure there’s got to be a logical explanation to all that stuff," Taylor decided to ignore the thought of telling Zac his theory.

"Yeah, and that explanation is that someone is trying to fuck with my head!" Zac outburst, he’d had just about enough of all this inanity. It was just aggravating him, agitating him to the point of wanting to smash something up.

"Zac, No one in this house is trying to—" Taylor paused, trying to think of a more appropriate word "—Mess with your head," Taylor reasoned.

"Then what the fuck is going on."

"Zac, stop swearing so much, mom would go berserk, you know what she says about swearing…"

"It’s the language of the devil," Zac quoted their mother.

"And I’m sure the spawn of the devil," Taylor joked, "seriously though, just forget about that stuff, it’ll stop soon enough."

"Okay fine," Zac sighed.

 

Chapter Three – The Musical Ornament

 

For two days, nothing out of the ordinary happened, Zac had already begun to relax and forget his concern over the strange events that had occured within the last week. His brothers had gone into town to hire out videos for the night and his parents were at the back of the house. He wandered aimlessly around looking for something to do. Realising he hadn't fully explored the possibilities of hiding places and secret passages, he started pressing against the walls. When he reached the parlour, he went inside to find the light on and Jessica sitting on the rug.

Zac paused for a moment at the threshold, watching his sister in curiosity, she was sitting there, staring at the fire in some absurd fascination unknown to him. He broke the silence of the room, cleared his throat, and spoke her name softly, "Jessica?"

"Justin, you startled me," she said, turning round to face Zac.

Zac looked at Jessica for a moment.

"Who's Justin?" he asked, wandering around the room, still tapping randomly at the wall.

Jessica laughed softly. Zac couldn't remember ever hearing her laugh like that before. Like it was distant and barely audible.

"Jessie?" Zac asked loudly, "what are you laughing at?"

Jessica looked at him puzzled, she’d stopped laughing, she frowned, and her deep set eyes were almost hidden by her brows, "I was laughing?"

"Yes, you were, you were laughing," Zac mumbled.

"I must have been dreaming about something," Jessica replied. "Why are you tapping the wall?"

"‘Cause I'm looking for secret passages so I can maybe quit getting you lot in my room at night," Zac explained.

Jessica watched Zac and she smiled. "I think you're paranoid," she said before leaving him alone.

Zac had no luck in finding any secret passages, he'd half expected to find hidden doors within the wooden panels near the bookshelf. Centuries ago, servants would slip in and out of this room using another entrance. He reckoned there had to be some servants halls and passages hidden somewhere within this old domicile.

Feeling rather disappointed with his search, which hadn't lasted very long, he sat down on one of the white wicker seats. It was uncomfortable but he shifted a cushion and it helped a bit. He looked around at the various ornaments’ which were sitting on the shelves.

Pictures of past residents and their families stared back at him. China dolls and various stuffed animals looked at him, as if they knew something he didn't. His eyes rested on a small ornament just above his eye level. It looked old and he stood up to have a better look.

As he stood, the floor creaked under his step, he slowly made his way across to the mantel, something about the ornament seemed vaguely out of place. It was almost as if it didn't belong in this room, it didn't have the characteristics or colours of any of the other trinkets in the room. He reached out to touch the ornament when a voice at his back startled him. "What are you doing?" Jessica demanded from the doorway.

"Jess, don't sneak up on me!" Zac said, clutching dramatically at his chest to indicate his, less than severe, shock.

"I asked what you are doing," Jessica stated again, her voice was different...

Jessica seemed somewhat mad but forgiving and Zac moved away from the mantle.

"I was looking at the ornament, is that a crime?" he demanded a little apprehensively.

"The ornament, oh. No, I just thought..."

Before Zac had time to ask what she was going on about Jessica disappeared off down the hall. Zac shook his head, glanced quickly at the ornament, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Just then he heard Taylor and Isaac return from the video store, they were walking down the hall holding two Blockbuster videos.

"We got Barney for the kids and Scream 2 for the rest of us," Taylor announced, his blue eyes lit up, "seeing as how we're in a scary mansion we may as well watch scary movies. Zac, maybe you should watch Barney!"

Zac glared at Taylor before following him along the hall.

Zac slowed down a little, his foot caught the old red carpet and he stopped to flatten the bump down - he didn't want his parents yelling at any of them for ruining the carpets in the hallway, the carpets were indoubtably older than Zac's grandfather. Zac flattened the bump using the toe of his boot, he was just about to carry down the hall, when he realised he couldn't even hear Isaac and Taylor's voices. He frowned a little; he'd have some catching up to do. Before he could move, he felt a frightening gale of freezing cold wind hit him, he heard the sound of the wind bouncing off the wall, he heard the doors near him rattle, he saw the drapes fluttering. It passed, just as sudden as it had occurred. Zac spun around looking about him trying to determine where that gale of wind could have originated.

"Tay, did you guys leave a door open?" Zac yelled. He was answered by silence. Quickly, he walked back down the hall towards the parlour, checking the doors; which were all securely closed. He re-entered the parlour and looked around. Again, he was drawn to the ornament.

"Zac, you're gonna miss the film," Isaac said, he had realised that Zac wasn't with them in the hall and he had gone back to get him.

"God, Ike, I thought it was Jess again!" Zac replied.

"And the thought of your sister coming to get you scares you, why?" Isaac asked with an amused smirk.

Zac realised how stupid his comment had sounded and he laughed, uneasily.

Zac decided, it was a little understandable why he would be uneasy about Jessica today...she had this look in her eyes - cold...and she was talking different, she sounded older, almost like a different person. Her casual childlike tone had changed into a well-spoken young lady's.

"Ike, do you know a guy called Justin? Jess called me it today when I walked in here." Zac said.

"Umm, If it's one of Jessie’s many crushes then I can only assume it's that guy from N'Sync!" Isaac replied. He cringed at the thought of Jessica liking a member of a boy band.

That would explain the name, Zac thought, but what's with her attitude to the ornament?

"Come on, they'll start without us," Isaac said, and playfully dragged Zac up the hall.

* * * * *

Zac headed downstairs later that night, it was late, and there was nothing left to do apart from sit up and read - unfortunately he'd left his current reading material lying in the parlour down on the first floor. He went down the back stairs, which lead down to the entry hall. The entry hall – unlike main hall – was white, the same mahogany Daido decorated the plain walls and separated the lower section of the wall which was painted dark green. There was a very old fashioned telephone on a half round table which was propped against the wall. He hall was quiet, most activity in the house could be heard from the entry hall, it was quiet, seemed like everyone was in bed.

Zac headed down the second hallway towards the parlour, he remembered that sudden chill that had hit him earlier that day, he couldn't explain the eerie sensations that crawled up his spine as he approached the doorway of the parlour...

With shaky hands Zachary reached out and opened the large heavy double doors, his breath caught at what was before him.

Jessica was in the parlour, twirling around the furniture gracefully, she was wearing a long white lacy night gown which seemed to billow with every movement, her hair seemed to flow like liquid gold. Her eyes were closed as if in concentration, her rose petal lips curled into a smile, there was something…eerie about that smile. Her cheeks gave a pale pink blush, she swayed and stepped and pirouetted gracefully. Zac had known Jessica was a good dancer, but…this wasn’t the way she normally danced.

Then he noticed the music…

There was a strange music coming from what sounded to be a music box…it was a classical piece, the name was on the tip of his tongue…

Zac was frozen in fascination, the music was coming from the ornament, the figurine on the ornament was twirling.

And Jessica danced…

The music soon stopped and Jessica slowed down to a stop, she opened her eyes and looked at him with a distant smile, as if realising he were there for the first time, "Justin, I’m so glad you came," she smiled, her voice had accumulated into that proper ladylike almost English accent she had been speaking in earlier that evening.

Zac didn’t understand why she kept calling him Justin, or why in fact, she’d adopted this new way of speaking.

"I knew you’d come," Jessica walked over to him, took both of his large bronze hands in her tiny slim white ones, her eyes seethed into his like hot pokers, there was something anomalous about her expression, it didn’t belong on the face of an eleven-year-old girl.

"Did you?" Zac cleared his throat nervously, he had begun to ponder upon his eleven year old sisters sanity. Jessica had always been very intelligent and sharp, but what if – when push came to shove – everything had become too much for her and she’d lost it?

"Yes, you always keep your promise," Jessica slipped her arms around Zac’s waist as if he were a lover, Zac tensed up, he’d been hugged by his sister – but never like this

"Ah-hem," Zac faked a cough, he pulled his sister’s arms away from his waist, he took her by the shoulders, looking at her firmly, "What promise was this?" He questioned, he certainly didn’t remember any promises to her.

"That we’d watch the stars tonight…"

"It’s late, you should be in bed," Zac stated in that tone that spoke his authority over her, since we was older.

"But you promised…" she trailed off, looking incredibly hurt.

"Okay, okay…" Zac had to give in. Zac knew he had made no such promise, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

Jessica’s smile tugged at her lips, she took his hand, twining her fingers with his, and she hauled him to the glass doors that lead out to the balcony, turned the key and unlocked them, and pulled him outside.

Zac couldn’t get over the way Jessica was behaving, the way she had her fingers twined with his as if they were in a romantic relationship rather than siblings. Zac made up phoney names for constellations, just to keep her entertained. He’d feel her thumb brushing against the top of his hand in an almost suggestive way and he felt shivers up his spine. This wasn’t right…

There was a sudden burst of Jessica’s voice – her normal childlike tone, she broke her hand away from his, "Zac, why are we down here?" Jessica asked.

Zac stopped looking at the stars and turned to her in amazement. "What do you mean? You were here when I came in, dancing to that wind up ornament," he replied. He was puzzled by Jessica's surprise at being downstairs and it showed on his face.

"But Zac, mom warned us not to touch the ornaments in case we broke them. I
haven't been near it." Jessica’s eyes were wide with curiosity and hurt that Zac thought she would be lying to him. She was also perplexed why she’d just woken up and yet, she was here with Zac, had been holding his hand the way only a lover would hold another lovers hand, and they were watching stars – it seemed like a romantic situation that should never have happened.

"But...oh, never mind, it's late. Go upstairs and get to sleep," Zac commanded, he shoved her a little, trying to be playful, trying to ease her thoughts, he was totally perplexed at her actions, now she seemed quite suspicious of him.

But I haven’t done anything wrong…

Jessica wandered away from Zac, she was humming the tune – Zac had finally identified it as Beethoven’s Fur Elise. He felt that same quivery sensation up his spine as she said goodnight to him, she stood at the bottom of the stairs, gave this voluptuous smile that Zac would have never thought possible on an eleven-year-olds lips. "Night," she murmured in a voice like velvet, then she slowly headed up the stairs, never looking back.

Zac shuddered, he tried to ignore the feeling something else was going on, he headed back down the second hallway and entered into the parlour. He locked the glass doors, grabbed his book and turned off the light.

He glanced at the figurine on the ornament, noticing one of the porcelain legs were missing, not that it was far too noticeable, apart from the fact she was a one legged ballerina. closed the doors carefully trying to avoid them slamming and making noise. With that, he headed upstairs, uneasy, he couldn’t explain the cold feeling that stayed with him the rest of that night.

CHAPTER FOUR – JUSTIN PHILLIP SHAW

 

The next morning, Jessica didn’t seem to remember anything at all, and she seemed perfectly fine. Zac had spoken with her at breakfast, he’d quietly asked her, out of earshot of the rest of the family, if she remembered the night before when she’d been dancing in the parlour. She’d laughed said she had no idea what Zac had been talking about, she seemed innocent enough, Zac had decided she must have been sleepwalking or something similar.

He’d let it drop for now.

* * * * *

"Count to ten, and I’ll run and hide," Avery Hanson commanded of Mackenzie, the two were playing hide and seek on the first floor.

Mackenzie scrunched up his face, "You always get to hide! I wanna hide this time!" he objected, his coffee coloured eyes twinkled.

Avery pouted her nine year old pout at her seven year old brother, "I wanna hide."

"You can hide second," Mackenzie suggested.

"Okay," Avery agreed with a nod.

"But you count to twenty."

"Do not, I count to ten."

"Ten isn’t long enough," Mackenzie turned his sister towards the window in the entry hall, "now count and I’ll hide."

"Fine," Avery folded her arms stubbornly, "One, two, three—"

Mackenzie ran quickly, fast as his little legs would carry him. He dashed into the second hall, turned around the corner, and used the door leading from the parlour to slip into the third hallway. The third hallway was the hallway that no one in the family had really been using, it only led to a closed off morning room, and a small library. Mackenzie ran into the library but found there was no where for him to claim sanctuary from his older sisters search. He could already hear her yelling his name, saying she was going to get him.

Mackenzie ran back into the hall, tripped over a bump in the old worn red carpet and went flying into the door in front of him, his body fell against it, it propped him, his hands were against the wood, then…he heard a strange cracking sound, soft and muffled, and suddenly the door flew open and he toppled onto a dusty dark blue carpet with a soft thud.

He mumbled an ouch, and stood up. He dusted himself off, and looked to his left, the wooden door frame had rotted away – this had been homing the latch the lock would slide into to secure the door, the wood had come away completely in a big chunk. Mackenzie suddenly realised he was in a lot of trouble, he looked to the floor for the rest of the wood, and he picked up the large splintering lump of wood and he pressed into the place it should have been, but it didn’t want to stay.

"GOTCHA!!!" Avery leapt out from the hall, grabbing a hold of his arm.

"Avie! I broke the door!!!" Mackenzie wasn’t bothered about losing hide and seek.

"Ooooh, mom and dad are gonna be real mad," Avery stated.

Mackenzie looked at her, "go get someone!!"

"You get someone…"

"I asked you!"

"Fine!" Avery said, and with that, she stomped off.

Mackenzie remained in the old morning room, he looked around, the room had been shut off for years, the furniture was protected with dustsheets, the mantelpiece was caked with dust, a dustsheet was hanging by a thread on an old portrait just above the mantel. Mackenzie could only see half of the picture. With only a child’s curiosity, he made his way over to the mantel, stood on his tiptoes and grabbed the end of the dustsheet and pulled it down to reveal the painting.

Mackenzie stared at the painting in absolute awe.

It was of a figure dressed in fine clothes, probably from two hundred years ago, Mackenzie didn’t know much about history but he knew those clothes dated back to a very long time ago. Mackenzie couldn’t believe it. The figure was a young man, with long blonde hair which was hanging freely around his shoulders, he had a dashing appearance, soft brown eyes, and bronze skin, a knowing smile, although a painting, it appeared almost as if it were a photograph, Mackenzie recognised the young man in the picture.

Taylor broke Mackenzie’s string of thoughts. "Mackie, what did you do…"

"Tay…Tay…" Mackenzie turned to Taylor, "look!"

Taylor stared at the portrait, what was staring him in the face, was an uncanny resemblance to his younger brother Zac, the soft mahogany eyes, the burnished gold hair, the smug smile, he clear tan skin. "Holy shit!" Taylor outburst.

"Who’s Holy Shit?" Mackenzie asked in wonder, he wasn’t used to hearing swear words in person, being so protected by such a Christian family.

"Did I hear swearing?" Diana Hanson stepped into the room, she didn’t sound too happy, "What happened to the doorframe?!" she demanded.

Mackenzie spun around, "It broke…I didn’t mean to, mommy…" he promised.

Taylor ran over to his mother and took her by the arm, "Mom, look at this, he pulled over to the fireplace and turned her towards the portrait.

"Oh my god…" Diana’s blue eyes widened to their extent.

"It’s Zac…" Mackenzie said.

"Looks like, Zac," Taylor corrected, "This guy is…" Taylor leaned closer to the painting to look at the small golden engraved panel on the frame. "Justin Phillip Shaw, the date is. 1816. But I mean, that is the most incredible likeness to Zac I have ever seen in my life, I mean…you’d swear it was…"

Diana’s hand was to her mouth, "I don’t believe it," she whispered.

 

* * * * *

Zac couldn’t believe it. Earlier that day Taylor and his mother had shown him the portrait in the morning room. He was stunned…it was like looking in a mirror. It was a spooky resemblance. And the name…

Justin Phillip Shaw

Was it just a coincidence that Jessica had been calling him by the same name? Or did she know about this infamous young handsome man on the portrait above the fireplace. How could she have known if the morning room had been locked up until that day? Did she have a key?

He couldn’t sleep that night, he lay in bed, deep in thought, looking at the white ceiling, there were small carvings of cherubs lining the edge of the ceiling as the wall joined to it. He had pulled on his CD discman to listen to an Aerosmith album, and Steven Tyler was crooning out ‘Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’ right into Zac’s ears.

Zac tried to force the thoughts of everything out of his mind, the disappearing objects in his room, things turning on by themselves, Jessica’s definite odd behaviour and the painting that looked like him. He couldn’t help but think it all added up, and the thoughts seemed reluctant to leave his brain.

He was just starting to drift off to sleep when something distracted him and he shot straight up and listened closely to his CD. He could hear a voice on the disc that was definitely not Steven Tyler. It was familiar...it was the same voice Jessica had used when she called him Justin and when they had been looking at the stars the previous night. The words were somewhat muffled against the music, Zachary turned up the volume to hear her words.

"...And you said we'd always be together but you left me alone. Now you're back, I

don't want to lose you again, we can be together..."

Zac pulled off his headphones and fumbled with the lock on his door as he tried to get out. He cursed his obsession with locking doors as it gave way and the door swung open.

Taylor was sitting on the edge of his bed as Isaac patiently showed him a new chord for the guitar.

"Put your first finger there...second one there...and third there..." Isaac was saying. Just as Taylor was about to run the pick down the strings, Zac came bursting through the door.
"Good job I don't lock it or we'd have two busted doors!" Taylor joked.

Zac ignored his brother and thrust the CD player into Isaac's hands. "Listen to it," he commanded, "you gotta hear this," he gasped, his hands were shaking and his eyes were wide with terror. Isaac cautiously put the headphones on his ears. Zac pressed the buttons to start the track and Isaac listened.

"Zac, I've heard this track before, I admit it's good but you don’t have to come running in here to let me hear it," he shouted, not able to hear his own voice.

"Keep listening, don't you hear it? The voice, the girls' voice!?"

Isaac listened to the whole track before taking off the headphones and
shaking his head. "All I heard was the song. And you really should turn down the volume, it's probably affecting your hearing."
Zac then suspiciously looked at his brothers, "did you record over the CD with Jessie’s voice just to freak me out?" He demanded.

"Zac…how the hell could we do that?" Taylor demanded, he gave a half-laugh in his brothers absurdity. "You can’t record over a music CD – they’re a read only format, you can’t record over a music CD at all."

"You can with a CD-ROM writer," Zac pointed out, thinking he was right.

"No, you’re wrong. You can only record over a CD that’s specifically for writing on a CD-ROM writer – and even then, neither me or Ike own a CD-ROM writer – and even if we did, that’s not a re-recordable CD."

"Fuck," Zac put a hand to his head, "I’d like to know what the fuck is going on…"

"You say you heard Jessica’s voice on the CD?"

"Yes, I most definitely did. She’s been talking funny lately, haven’t you noticed?"

"I’ve noticed nothing. Maybe you should just go get a good night’s sleep…"

"Every time I try to get a good sleep something weird happens," Zac sighed, but without a word, he crept back to his room. When he arrived there, he was greeted with an unexpected surprise.

Jessica was sitting on his bed, curled gracefully with an arm around the left post at the foot of the bed, her cheek against it looking at him with her sparkly azure eyes, her lips curled into a tender smile.

"Jessie, its one in the morning, you should be sleeping," Zac commented.

Jessica only looked at him, an expression he wasn’t used to seeing in his sister, it was…something different, she looked so much older, as if her eyes had seen so much more than her age would have allowed.

"Jessie, stop looking at me like that," Zac walked over to the bed, he got behind her and began dragging her off the bed almost forcefully.

"God, Justin, your arms are so big and strong," she breathed in a voice filled with cupidity, Zac was so stunned he instantly let go of her, she spun around to look at him, as if she didn’t know what she had done wrong.

"Jessica…go to your room," Zac dictated to her, he frowned.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Jessica questioned of him, she took a step closer, Zac took a step backwards, his rear was pressed against the cabinet near his bed. "That’s your name…"

"My name is Erin," Jessica pouted prettily.

Zac was getting sick of this game. "JESSICA!!" he yelled at her, "Go to your room!!!"

Jessica stood before him, inches away from him, standing on her tiptoes, she wasn’t very tall. She grabbed him by the front of his tanktop and raised herself a little, looking him right in the eye. Zac felt utter confusion, what was she doing?

He took her by the shoulders, would not allow a little girl – especially not his sister – intimidate him. He spun her around and marched her down the hall to her room, Avery was fast asleep, Zac was quiet as to not disturb her. "Goodnight," he muttered.

"Aren’t you going to kiss me?" Jessica asked in that strange voice that was giving Zac the creeps.

Zac frowned, but to shut her up he leaned over and bumped his lips against her forehead, "Night," he said and with that he quickly left the room, closing the door behind him, he would hear no more about it.

Chapter Five – Erin

Zac headed downstairs that morning for breakfast feeling like what he would describe as ‘shit run over and smeared into the road’. He hadn’t slept decently in nights, and now he was far to concerned over his eleven year old sisters behaviour to sleep decent at night. He sat at the kitchen table, Jessica walked in slowly, she looked a little tired, it seemed she’d not even bothered to comb her hair before coming down.

She sat at the table, grabbed the box of cereal and poured without so much as uttering a sorry to Zac for last night’s disturbance.

"Are you alright?" Zac asked of her suddenly.

Jessica turned to look at him, "Yeah."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Uh huh," Jessica gave a nod, she grabbed the carton of milk and poured into her cereal.

"Who’s Erin?"

"Erin?" Jessica turned and looked at him, raised a thin blonde eyebrow, she looked at him as if he were insane.

"Yeah…only last night you wandered into my room calling yourself Erin," Zac explained.

Jessica frowned, "No I didn’t," she objected, she shovelled a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

Zac just didn’t get it, he could see by the look on her face this was news to her. She denied everything no matter how much he tried to get her to admit it.

After breakfast, Zachary headed outside to talk to Isaac and Taylor, Isaac was attempting to get Zac’s bike up and running. Isaac had already manages to get the bright white T-shirt he’d put on that morning filthy already, the knees of his jeans were already dusty. Taylor on the other hand, was just sitting on the wall nearby, topless, getting some sun.

"Hey, guys," Zac dropped to his knees to help Isaac.

"Hey," Isaac replied distractedly, "what’s up?" he asked casually.

"A lot," Zac answered with a tone of foreboding, "Jess came to my room last night…" Zac trailed off worriedly.

"So?" Taylor asked, he raised his sunglasses, looking at his brother with confusion.

"She never does that, she’s usually busy playing with Avie or listening to music or doing whatever girls do…"

"So many she felt like talking to her big brother, you’re the closest to Jessie’s age, you’re like the one she looks up to," Isaac explained, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, which, in turn only smeared more dirt onto his head.

"Something else is up…" Zac sighed.

"What?"
"Okay so…like…I didn’t wanna say anything ‘cause I thought she was just sleepwalking or something. But I guess it’s something more serious, she’s wide awake when these things are happening…"

"What things are happening?" Isaac glanced at his younger brother curiously.

"I think Jessica might have multiple personalities or something…" Zac trailed off.
"Are you serious?" Taylor almost laughed.

"Yeah," Zac sighed, "I mean, she’s been calling me Justin…now she’s calling herself Erin, and to top it all off, she’s actin’ like she’s got the hots for me."

"Don’t be a moron. She’s your sister. She thinks you’re ‘icky’, she doesn’t have the hots for you," Isaac laughed.

"Jess says I’m icky. ‘Erin’ says ‘Justin, your arms are so big and strong’ and ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’…" Zac trailed off, "I mean, that’s just not Jessica."

"Maybe she’s just…fucking with your head," Isaac suggested, he wiped the perspiration away from above his lips, smearing more dirt there accidentally.

"Why would she do that?" Zac questioned.

"Because of all the times you’ve done it to her?" Isaac shrugged, "remember the time you hid her diary. You stole every CD out of her room and hid it, I mean…look at the facts, you journal went missing, your CD’s went missing…"

"So you’re saying Jessica can get into my room when the door is locked and she can take my stuff without me knowing," Zac suggested.

"I don’t know," Isaac shrugged nonchalantly.

Zac got up, dusted his knees off, "I’m going back in."

"I think your bike might be up and running today," Isaac admitted.

"Cool," Zac grinned, but even to smile was such an effort, he headed inside and took a wander around the house, looking for something to do. He found himself drawn to the morning room, to look at the portrait of Justin. He looked so much like himself.

Who were Justin and Erin? Justin obviously lived in the house, obviously he was of some importance, but who was this Erin person? Obviously she had to be someone who loved Justin. Was Erin a ghost? Was Erin a spirit who had possessed his younger sister because she thought Justin Phillip Shaw was back in the Mansion? It seemed like a asinine conclusion. Zac was ready to dismiss it. But…

It did make sense.

But he didn’t believe in ghosts. Ghosts were just psychological, like Taylor had always said. There were no such things as these scary apparitions, it was all in the mind.

Zac felt a chill up his spine, that painting seemed to look at him, seemed to say to him… ‘this is real…and you know it, Zac’.

Zac ignored his thoughts, it’s in your head, it’s in your head, he told himself in thought.

* * * * *

She was watching him, there he was, standing looking at that portrait of himself above the fireplace in the morning room, he looked at it with wonder, standing insecurely, she felt her soul ache to be there with him, not being protected and safe in his arms as she had been two centuries ago. Where had he been? Why had it taken so long for him to return?

He couldn’t see her, didn’t seem to notice her presence when she was around him. She had to go through the small blonde girl to get his attention. It hurt her that he didn’t remember her name – didn’t remember how he had loved her so long ago.

She’d spent almost two centuries in the emptiness of the house, watching people come and go, she’d been waiting for him, waiting for his return.

Here he was.

Justin was just as handsome as ever, that same bulky masculine shape of his body, the long burnished hair, the intelligent dark eyes, that same noble smile. He was almost childlike, he did look younger, but there could be no mistake about it.

Justin was home.

She needed more time to overtake the small girl’s body completely, she needed time and patience. It didn’t matter that Jessica didn’t look anything like she herself had. A new body was necessary to be with her love. If it mean swallowing Jessica Hanson’s soul and taking over her body then so be it. It would be worth it.

She fondly looked back upon the times they had spent together. They’d been so madly in love…

Erin Smith watched as her love, Justin was approached in the morning room by a member of the household, she didn’t quite understand they were his family, she didn’t understand that Justin was in fact, dead, and this was another young man standing before her. All she understood was that it seemed to be Justin and that was enough for her to believe.

* * * * *

"Zac," Taylor clamped a hand on Zac’s shoulder, startling him, Zac had been mesmerised by the painting he’d been lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard anyone come up behind him.

"Tay…geez, what…"

"Just wondering what you were up to, was all…" Taylor glanced up at the painting, he was still amazed at the likeness of Zac, amazed that it could have been his brother, but indeed, was someone who had lived two hundred years ago.

"I’m just chilling…" Zac shrugged.

"Yeah…you’re not joking," Taylor shivered, hugging himself against the cold, "It’s freezing here."

Zac had only just noticed the unexplainable temperature change in the room as well, when he’d been walked in, it had been reasonably warm for July, but now…there was this…frigidity about the room, Zac could see his breath!

"Christ, this isn’t normal," Zac shivered.

"Tell me about it, it’s like winter in this room," Taylor chattered, "Ike has your bike running."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

"Man, I gotta test it!" Zac hurried off, forgetting his worries for the moment.

 

Chapter Six – The Hidden Affair

Zac sat under the shade of the large oak tree in the garden while he wrote in his journal. It had been two days since Jessica had mentioned Erin.

I really don’t know what’s happening around here. We came here for a relaxing holiday, instead Jessica is acting schitzo and I’m scared to be alone with her! She never seems to remember anything when I ask her. I know who the Justin guy is now. We found a painting in an old morning room (after Mackie demolished the door!) of Justin Phillip Shaw. He looks exactly like me, only a few years older. I thought I was going to throw up when I saw it, I was shaking and couldn’t stop looking at it. I keep going back into the room to make sure I haven’t imagined it.

I went into town yesterday to find a library, to see if I could get some info on Justin and Erin (if there is any). I would have gone two days ago but mom and dad decided we should spend some "quality time as a family" – Tay and Ike have spent their time cruising in town or just disappearing off for the whole day, mom and dad were kinda pissed about that.

The Previous Day

"Ike, I need a lift into town. It’s too far to walk and mom’s busy," Zac said, pulling on his jacket and lifting a backpack. Isaac looked up from his book and stared at Zac for a few moments.

"Why? We’re going into town tomorrow anyway as part of our ‘quality family time’" Isaac replied, using his fingers as quotation marks.

"I want to see if I can find anything out about this Justin dude…it’s bugging me."

Zac waited, for a moment, it seemed as if Isaac were just going to sit and ignore him, when Isaac got engrossed in any Stephen King book it was usually hard to get his attention from it. But Zac knew if he stood there long enough, Isaac would crack like an egg.

Isaac put down his book with a sigh of defeat and pulled on his shoes. "I’ll drop you in town but don’t expect me to wait on you. You’ve got a phone, use it."

 

* * * * *

 

Zac browsed the shelves of the local library. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for, it wasn’t like a book was just going to jump of the shelf and announce its presence to him.

"Excuse me, do you need any help?" the librarian asked, suddenly, causing Zac to spin round eyes wide.

"Uhh maybe, I’m living in the big mansion just out of town. I was trying to find out about the Shaw family who used to live there."

"Which generation? The house belonged to the Shaws for three hundred years."

Zac thought back to the painting, "Whoever was living there in 1816. Justin Phillip Shaw and his family, please"

The librarian thought for a moment before leading Zac to a shelf, the shelf was marked with the banner ‘Local History’, and every book there was older than Zac was, and seemed a little bit dusty.

"You should find something among these books here, she made a sweeping motion with her arm to indicate the shelf and then she walked off. It had narrowed his search down to what looked like over fifty books.

"Thanks a lot," he muttered, sarcastically. He began scanning the names on the book spines and was about to give up completely when he noticed one book which seemed to have been partly pulled off the shelf. The book was so old, the edging of the spine was frayed, the title was ‘The History of Shaw Mansion’.

Zac hauled the large thick book out of the shelf and he opened it, looking up the index, he wasn’t sure where to look, he took a seat down at a table and began flicking through it. Finally, he found the name he was looking for, under a chapter called ‘The Hidden Affair’.

"…it is unknown how long the affair between Master Justin and the housemaid continued for…it is assumed the romance began not long after Erin was employed in 1814…"

"Two years before the painting," Zac mumbled to himself. "But why did it end?" he demanded in wonder, he was whispering to himself in bewilderment.

He flicked through a couple of pages, seeing prints of portraits of Justin every so often. It was giving him the creeps. It was like looking at a mirror.

There were no pictures of Erin

"Of course not, who’d want to paint a picture of a serva—"

He stopped when he turned the page. The cover of his Goo Goo Dolls CD was slipped in the pages of the book. It fell out on to the table and he found himself jumping, the chair fell at his back, he stood, in complete and utter shock. Surely…that couldn’t be his CD cover. He’d never been here before today.

He came back to reality, the Librarian was at the counter, she glanced at him curiously, not very happy he’d knocked over the chair, he feigned a smile, "I thought I saw a spider…" he lied, he picked up the chair and put it up the right way, he sat back down.

He instinctively began to pull his CD player out his bag along with the CD box. Sure enough, the cover had been removed from the box.

"I’d like to borrow this book please," he said to the librarian. She looked at him, disapprovingly.

"You can only borrow a book if you are a member of the library."

"I’m a member of MY library and, besides, when was the last time this book was borrowed?" He held up his book and opened the cover. "It’s been taken out of here…three times and not within the last 15 years!"

The librarian continued to stare at him over the rim of her glasses.

"I’m in the big house, the Shaw mansion. If I don’t return it within a week you can send round the local armed mob to get it back, okay. I need to borrow this book."

"Okay, just this once. Make sure its back within the next week."

Zac smiled sweetly and put the book in his bag. He winked and saluted flippantly at the woman as he walked out the door.

 

* * * * *

 

Jessica and Avery were running round the garden while Taylor lay stretched out on a sun-lounger. Isaac rejoined his sisters in their game of tag while Zac headed up to his room. His laptop was sitting on the dresser and he decided to check his emails before finishing the book.

"Junk, junk, club mail, oh Celia" he said, a smile playing on his lips. Even though they were good friends Zac had always liked her as more. He read through the email:

Dear Zac,

It’s been so long since you’ve been in contact, I was wondering what you were up to lately? Things in Tulsa are fine, James and Billy say hi. I wish you could have spent your vacation in Tulsa instead of out in the country, but then again, a lot of fans have been hanging around your house so I guess you’re better off where no one knows where you are. People have been asking around where you are, but I won’t tell, I promise. I really miss you, please email me back soon and let me know how you are,

Love

Celia.

Zac smiled to himself, wow…it says ‘LOVE Celia’.

He sat for a good ten minutes writing a long email, being the perfectionist that Zac often was, he decided to check it over in case he’d spelt something wrong or made any mistakes.

"What the…" he mumbled as he reread the email. Huge chunks of it had been rewritten. Some of it even deleted, in the place of his paragraph about what had been going on at the Mansion, all the spooky occurences and Jessica’s strange behaviour.

He continued reading, almost all of the email had been changed.

Trying again, he typed it out, keeping a careful eye on the text. Once the email started to disappear off the screen he quickly scrolled back to the top. The words, ‘how dare you betray me’ were scrawled in bold text.

"Justin, why are you staring at that when I’m here?" Jessica asked. Zac swivelled his chair round and stared at Jessica.

"Shit Jess, don’t creep up on me like that!" he hissed, he looked at his younger sister in dismay. "How did you get in my room?" he demanded, then a second later added, "The door was locked."

"You never used to lock your door…but I have the key anyway," Jessica used that adult tone again.

"Give me the key Jessica. I knew it was you coming in here to steal my stuff," Zac’s voice was raised and he slammed his hand onto the table.

Jessica looked ready to burst into tears, her bottom lip quivering. Zac’s first instinct was to comfort her like a big brother and he put his arm round her shoulder. She slipped her small arms round his waist and cried onto his chest.

"I thought you’d gone away for ever…you just left me there…" she sobbed almost brokenheartedly.

"I only went into the town to get a book, why would you think I left?" Zac questioned, he rubbed her shoulders the way their mother would when one of the girls cried.

Jessica shook her head, "You just left me out in the woods…just left me there…" She was about to continue when Taylor knocked on the door. She leapt away from Zac and wiped her face. She looked confused and ran out the room as Taylor was just coming in.

"Jeez man, what did you say to her?" Taylor asked, watching Jessica run up the hall. Zac stared in amazement.

"She was doing that freaky voice again. What do you want?"

"I’ve been sent up to tell you that dinner is just getting put out, so get your ass downstairs."

 

Chapter Seven – Dreams & Possession

Zac’s Journal

I had this weird dream, I dreamt I was in my room, only all my stuff was missing, the room looked so dimly lit, as if electricity hadn’t ever been invited, and when I looked for my dad, I couldn’t find him. I looked for my brothers and my sisters and my mother…no one seemed to be home, apart from a few strange women who passed freely through the rooms in dull coloured dresses, hair in headrags, carrying bowls, brooms, clothes and jars.

And then I saw her.

She was standing at the bottom of the hallway, near the morning room, there’s two entrances to the morning room, the third hallway from the back, or the hallway leading from the parlour. She was in the third hallway, which is long and dark, but there could be no mistaking how strikingly familiar she looked to me. I didn’t understand.

She had these eyes that just felt like they were burning right through me, her face was so white, like snow, she had black hair that was jutting out of a grey headrag, she was small and petite, clad in a grey linen dress, her hands clasped in front of her, she stood very professionally. I felt my heart beat a thousand times. I thought I was awake, I really did.

"Erin," I heard my own voice pass my lips, but I didn’t say anything, at least I didn’t want to say anything, but it was as if I weren’t in control of my own body anymore. She smiled at me, a ghost of a smile, she walked over slowly, gave a swift nod, and then she passed by and walked out of sight.

Then I woke up. And I knew she was Erin, I remembered it so vividly.

* * * * *

Zac was awake at three in the morning, writing in his journal, he knew he probably should have been trying to get back to sleep but he wanted to right about the dream now, while it was still significant, while he still remembered it. It might mean something. He heard a knock at his door, tonight, he’d forced himself to leave it unlocked, he wasn’t sure why, maybe because Jessica’s having the key had left locking the door pointless.

"Come in," Zac commanded.

Jessica stumbled in on bare feet, wearing white chines style pyjamas, she looked at him, "Zac…" she whimpered, her lip was trembling.

Zac immediately got out of bed, something was wrong, he could see it in her eyes, she was scared, "What is it?"

Jessica had tears in her eyes, "There’s voices in my room…" she ran over to him and jumped onto him, grabbing onto him as tight as she could, shaking violently.

"Voices?"
"Yes!!!" Jessica shivered.

"Wait here," Zac said, he made Jessica sit on his bed, he promised that he would be back, and he left the room, the hallway was lit but very dimly, he headed along down the corridor, and he headed up the stairs, Jessica’s room was up on the third floor, at first she’d been sharing a room with Avery but later had insisted she was too old to be sharing a room and had asked for her own, and thus her parents gave in.

The door to Jessica’s chamber was open, Zac sauntered in, the room was unbelievably cold, it felt like walking outside in winter, even the floorboards under his bare feet felt icy cold.

Zac made his way over to the bed, stood there, hand on the post, looking around, the lights were on, he couldn’t hear any voices, maybe it was just the wind Jessica had been hearing?

Zac went over to the window and felt around the frames to see if there were any drafts, pretty sure there were none, he pulled the velvet drapes shut securely, he didn’t like open windows at night, he wasn’t sure why. He’d seen a vampire movie when he was a child and a blood thirsty monster had been floating at an open window waiting to be invited in.

"No invitations here," He stated to himself.

He felt a sudden rush, it felt like gale force wind against him, his hair actually blew away from his face where it had been hanging, he could feel it flapping about at the nape of his neck, all the little hairs on his body stood on end, his skin grew icy cold, he felt the wind soaring around him, he let out a cry of fright and he ran for the door, the door slammed shut before he could reach it. He grabbed for the handle and tugged and pulled but no avail, it would not open. He screamed, "HELP!!!! HELP!!!"

He felt icy fingers all over his body, as if a thousand demons were running their hands all over him. "HELP!!" He screamed, his voice getting higher and higher, he was terrified, there were no other exits in the room. He looked around helplessly, the drapes flew open, and the window slid open then closed, then open, then closed, the lock catch doing and undoing itself as if unseen hands were flicking it open and closed.

Zac began slamming his fists violently on the door, "LET ME OUT!!!" he screamed, "LET ME OUT!!!"

Then…just as sudden as the horrific incident had occurred, it suddenly stopped. Zac felt the temperature in the room become increasingly warmer, but his body remained cold, the feel of those icy fingers…

He shivered and tried the handle, the door opened and he tumbled into the hallway in exhaustion, he got up, holding onto the banister, shakily, he glanced into the room behind him, he felt giddy, his vision blurred, he felt himself reeling and he wasn’t able to control it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor with a loud thud.

* * * * *

"Ike, I swear, I heard screaming," Taylor and Isaac were running up the staircase to the third floor hastily. Taylor was running steadily, flashlight in hand to beat the dim hallway light, the light from the flashlight was dancing to and fro across the staircase.

"I didn’t hear anything…" Isaac yawned, he wasn’t running as slowly as Taylor had been.

Taylor’s room had been directly under Jessica’s room, he’d heard the slam of the door, what sounded to be like Zac’s voice screaming "let me go" and "Help" in panic.

As they reached the top of the stairs they could see Zac lying near the end of the hall, on the floor, face down, Taylor cried out his name and ran and fell to his side, and turned him over, "Zac! Zac!" he cried, he shook his brother, trying to stir him from unconciousness.

Zac took some time to come to, when he did, the first thing to pass his lips was…

"Erin?!!" he blurted it out he shot up, "where is she?!"

"Calm down, Zac…" Taylor put his hand on Zac’s shoulder.

"Remove your hand from me, servant," Zac pulled away, he spun around, "why is she back!?! Where did she go?!?!?"

"What are you talking about?!" Isaac demanded, he tried to shake some sense into Zachary forcefully.

"She’s dead!! Why is she here?!!"

Zac’s accent had changed completely, from that cool suave voice, to a well-spoken haughty young gentleman, with almost a hint of English accent mixed upon American. Zac frowned at Taylor, "Saddle my horse!!! I’m going out there…"

"Going where?! What the HELL are you talking about?! We don’t have a horse!!"

"Out of my way!!" Zac shoved Taylor aside and ran down the staircase, through the main entry hall and he unlatched the door, turned the snib lock, pulled the second latch undone and turned the key and he pulled it open with a loud frightening creak. He headed outside and began running.

"Where does he think he’s going at three thirty in the frickin’ morning?!" Taylor demanded. He dashed down the stairs, holding the flashlight steadily in his hand, Isaac followed, Isaac ran up in front, Isaac being the more athletic. As they got outside they could see Zac running around the corner of the house, Isaac kept up a pace but Zachary seemed far too fast to catch up with. Upon getting around the corner they watched Zac running into the wooded area to the back of the mansion.

"Where is he going?!" Taylor demanded, not being able to see Zac at all after a moment.

"He’s in the woods, god," Isaac stopped for a second to catch his breath, the air felt undeniably chilly and it had started to rain, it was dark as hell and the only light seemed to be from the moon and Taylor’s flashlight.

Taylor stopped, looking at Isaac, "think it’s safe in there?"

"Go get mom or dad," Isaac grabbed the flashlight from Taylor, and headed off into the woods to follow Zachary. He could hardly breathe, it was as if the thick damp air outside was choking him. He darted across the woods, tripping over branches, rocks, scuffing his knees and elbows, his arms clawed at by sharp twigs and jagged nettles and bushes, but he forced himself on, and then he just stopped, the flashlight fell upon Zac.

Zac was standing there, turned and looked at Isaac in complete shock, his brown eyes reminded Isaac of the look of a deer caught in the headlights of a car. "Ike?!" Zac was panicking, breathing rapidly.

"You okay?" Isaac stopped, hunched over trying to catch his breath.

"Where are we…"

"Zac you—" Isaac glanced up at Zac, it was clear Zac had absolutely NO clue about what had just happened. "You have no idea do you?"

"No…" Zac was gasping for breath.

Isaac wasn’t sure what to tell Zachary, and he was about to try and suggest they come back to the house, but before he could, he noticed something caught in the light of his flashlight, something vaguely…hand shaped…

Only it wasn’t a hand…it was…very, very grey bone…protruding out of moist leaves and earth near the roots of a tree.

"Oh my god…" Isaac caught his breath sharply, he straightened up.

"What?" Zac stared at Isaac confused.

Isaac pointed with a shaking hand to the skeletal hand jutting out of the ground.

Zac looked and he instantly started screaming.

 

Chapter Eight – The Body

Isaac’s Journal

I cannot begin to explain how frightening last night’s events were. I’ve been attacked by girls, I’ve been sent death threats, seen every horror movie known to man – but none of it could have prepared me for this. At three am this morning, we found Zac out cold in the hallway right outside Jessica’s bedroom door, and the door was opened. When he woke up…he was talking like someone else, someone else not of this century, with an eccentric accent and acting as if Taylor were some kind of servant or stableboy. Zac ran into the woods and I followed him, and when I got to the woods he couldn’t remember how he got there, that was when I saw it.

There was a hand sticking out of the mud, not a hand of flesh but one of bone, it’d apparently been there for years. So I dragged Zac – who was screaming like a maniac – out of the woods, Dad and Taylor were just arriving there with flashlights, we staggered out, Zac crying, "There’s a body out there!! There’s a body!!"

There WAS a body. We didn’t touch it, but it was a skeleton’s hand, and when we got back inside my dad called the police to report the discovery of the corpse in the woods on the estate. The police did arrive and they dug the body up. I didn’t get to see any of this, neither did Zac, my mom made Zac go to bed but he couldn’t sleep. She spent all night up with him.

But I watched from my room window as the police removed a black bag from the woods, obviously containing the corpse. My dad asked to keep updated but the police refused to give us any information because we don’t own the estate, we’re only renting it for vacation.

I’m not sure why, but I wonder if maybe what happened to Zac last night had anything to do with that body? For a moment or so he was ‘possessed’…what if it were something to do with the body being there?

God, I don’t know, I’m going to get some sleep now.

* * * * *

Zac got out of bed at five thirty p.m. Feeling exhausted, sick, and scared of his own shadow. He couldn’t forget the events of the night ahead, couldn’t forget the scary events in Jessica’s room, or seeing that hand jutting out of the ground. He couldn’t explain the frames of time that had passed in between the two – one moment he had been in the hallway, feeling faint…the next he was standing in the woods. He couldn’t have been put there, because he’d felt like he’d came to standing up, that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have been knocked out and placed there without remembering waking up and getting up from the ground.

Zac was just plain terrified. What if it happened again and he woke up standing in the middle of a road just in time to be run over?

Sighing he huddled back into his bed, picking up the book on the nightstand near the bed, the History of Shaw Mansion.

Zac flicked through it, he’d neglected the book since getting it, he hadn’t read past the part where Justin and Erin had some sort of affair. He read on past that this time, his eyes glued to the pages.

 

The Hidden Affair

1814, Justin Phillip Shaw, then just sixteen years old, returned home from England after having spent ten years schooling under one of England’s finest tutors, upon his return, he came into contact with Erin Smith, a beautiful young servant who was aged thirteen and was wise beyond her years. Justin was instantly attracted to her, and they had a secretive affair – both fearing Justin’s family would find out and condemn them. If Justin’s father had found out his son had been courting a servant girl he would have had the girl killed or banished Justin. It is unknown how long the affair between Master Justin and the housemaid continued for…it is assumed the romance began not long after Erin was employed in 1814.

In 1816, Justin was betrothed to marry a neighbouring lady of quality three years older than himself, the family was in need of money and Lady Elizabeth Blackstone’s dowry was incredibly rich, as indeed, were her family. Justin’s father, Richard Charles Shaw, delivered the news of Justin’s engagement to him and Justin, seduced by greed, was enthralled to be marrying into a family of such riches.

News of the engagement passed amongst the servants, and Erin Smith soon found out, a year passed, Justin courted Elizabeth, constantly promising Erin that he was saving up and he and Erin would elope when he had enough money, until then he was obligated to court Elizabeth or his father would not support him, and with no financial backing eloping was out of the question.

Finally, at the end of July in 1817, the wedding date was set and Justin would marry in the last week of August. Erin was still outraged that Justin was courting Elizabeth, and she threatened to tell Justin’s father of Justin’s betrayal to Lady Elizabeth, their conversation was heard by two servants. Days later, Erin’s older sister, Victoria, came to Sir Richard with news that Erin had been missing for three days, Sir Richard was not interested, and sent Victoria off, simply hiring another servant to replace Erin rather than search for her. Victoria also confronted Justin but he stated he knew nothing upon Erin’s disappearance.

Justin married Lady Elizabeth, and died three years later in a fire at Blackstone Hall. Victoria continued her search for Erin, swearing that Justin had murdered Erin to get her out of the way of the marriage to Elizabeth but no evidence was found. Erin was never seen again.

Zac could only see that skeletal hand sticking out of the moist ground. He leapt to his feet, pulled on some clothes and headed into the hallway where Taylor was scrubbing a muddy patch he’d accidentally gotten on the carpet.

"Tay…can you drive me to the police department?"

"Why?"

"I need to see about the body…" Zac responded.

Taylor gaped, "Are you crazy! We don’t have nothing to do with that body…"

"I need to know something, c’mon," Zac hauled Taylor up.

Taylor had no choice but to comply with Zac and drive him to the police department in the small town of Blackstone, Zac got out of the car upon Taylor’s parking outside and he rushed up the steps and into the building, arrived at the front desk breathing heavy, "I need some information," he said.

A lanky cop with a bad comb-over looked at him, "are you reporting a crime?"

"No…I’m here about the body," Zac stated, he felt Taylor’s hand touch his shoulder and his soft tone telling him to calm down.

"The body?" the lanky cop asked.

"The body found in the Shaw woods last night, we reported it…" Zac explained.

"I’m sorry, we don’t have any information about the body here, I’m afraid…" the lanky cop explained.
"Fine, where can I get information."

"You could try forensics but…"

"Where’s that?" Zac asked quickly.

"That’s at the mortuary on the other side of town but you don’t have any authoris—"

Zac didn’t need to listen, he grabbed Taylor by the sleeve and pulled him out, "c’mon…"

"Zac…we’re not going to find anything out," Taylor shook his head in disbelief.

"Yes we are…" Zac headed towards the car.

After asking six people directions whilst driving around town they finally found the mortuary, they headed inside, the place smelt very clean and disinfected, everything was white, there was a woman with brown hair at the front wearing a white coat. "Can I help?" She asked.

"Yeah," Zac smiled charmingly, hoping he could convince her for information, "I’m Zac Hanson, this is my brother Taylor," Zac introduced. "We’re staying at the Shaw Mansion…last night me and my brother discovered a body, we were told the body might be here?"

"You’re talking about the skeleton?"

"Yeah," Zac nodded, "We need to know about it…"

"I’m sorry but I really can’t give you any information," The woman explained.

"Is that because I’m not authorised or because you don’t know anything…" Zac demanded.

"You don’t have any authorisation…" the girl stated firmly.

"Okay, fine, but just tell me one thing…"

The woman looked at him expectantly.

Zac drew his breath, "Is the skeleton about…say… one-hundred-and-eighty-three years old?" he asked hopefully.

The woman paused, looked in a room at the back to check she was alone, and she motioned for Zac and Taylor to come into the back room, there was a table and a lot of papers.

"I’m Gillian Mitchell, forensic researcher…" she introduced herself.

"I was right, wasn’t I?" Zac asked.

Ms. Mitchell sat down on a clear spot of the table, "Yes, the body is approximately that old…"

"Can you tell me about it, it is SO important that I know," Zac pleaded.

"The corpse was a female, around the age of sixteen perhaps. She died from a severe break to the neck…" Ms. Mitchell explained, she tucked the stray strands of hair that had come out of her bun safely behind her ears.

Zac looked at the woman, "It’s her," he assured, "It’s the girl…y’know from the history in the Shaw place? Erin Smith…"

Ms. Mitchell nodded, "it could be possible, this girl died around the time Erin Smith went missing, but it is possible the girl could have been assumed of witchcraft, hung and then buried.

Taylor stood, arms folded insecurely, "What else do you know about the body?"

"She was wearing a grey dress, the dress had rotted away and been eaten at by insects, but the fabric is definitely grey, and clutched in her closed fist in her left hand…was a small piece of china…

Zac perked up, "What was it like?"
"It’s…I can let you see it if you like…" Ms. Mitchell said, she left the room for a moment and returned with a plastic bag, holding a piece of porcelain within it. Zac took the bag from her and looked into it.

"Oh fuck!"

"Excuse me," Ms. Mitchell demanded.

"It WAS Erin Smith…look," Zac held the bag up to Taylor. "You know the music box in the parlour?"

"Yeah…"
"This is the missing leg."

 

Chapter Nine – Erin’s Dance

Zac had so many things to piece up, the leg from the ballerina on the musical ornament, Jessica had been linked up with that musical ornament, she was taking on the persona of Erin – Erin must have had an obsession with the musical ornament. That didn’t explain how the ornament had gotten broken, or how Erin had died though. Zac was curious about both circumstances had occurred.

That night he sat in the parlour, deep in thought, Ms. Mitchell had given him the porcelain leg, having said no one knew about it, and that maybe he could return it to the ornament and maybe mend it – since the ornament was old it could be worth quite a bit.

Zac twirled the leg in his fingers, looking at it, thinking of how Jessica had danced that night, twirling gracefully across the room, dancing to the eerie music. "Maybe this is all one big dream," Zac said miserably, Taylor was sitting next to him on the couch.

"Perhaps," Taylor shrugged, "Life is but a dream."

Isaac stepped into the room, "Hey, Zac…" he greeted, "I found the superglue you wanted…"

"Great," Zac got up, taking the glue from Isaac’s hand, "Lets see if I can fix this thing, he said, he took the ornament from the fireplace, and he sat down with it upon his knees, he opened the glue and applied it to the ornament and attached the leg, holding it firmly in place for a minute.

"I read the book you were talking about…it’s hard to believe that the skeleton was that Erin girl…and that she had that porcelain leg in her hand when she died…"

"Hard to believe but true…but I want to know how she died," Zac explained, he looked at the musical ornament, he wound it up carefully and put the ornament on the fireplace, watched the figurine twirling on the ornament as the eerie music played softly and hauntingly.

Taylor and Isaac both froze up for a moment, Zac was unsure why, Zac looked at them then to the figurine, and he froze in absolute shock…

There was a transparent figure dancing across the area between the couch and the fireplace, long silky black hair flowing out behind her, her eyes closed, pale white face in peace as she swayed and spun gracefully. It was Erin.

Zac gaped, he could not believe he was actually seeing an apparition right in front of himself. And Taylor and Isaac could clearly see it too.

"Hey guys…what’s going on…" Jessica entered the room and then stopped, as if frozen with terror.

The ghost opened her eyes – crystal blue and almost seeming to glow - and glanced at Jessica, gave a sweet smile and ran as if to dash into her arms, she ran into Jessica not really colliding, but Jessica jerked and thrust forward, gasping, no sign of Erin’s ghost.

She was inside Jessica.

The three brothers gasped in shock.

Jessica began twirling around the room, stepping carefully, almost rhythmically.

And her eyes were open, staring at space, and then…

Then another apparition began to appear…

With long blonde hair and bronze skin and dark eyes, he gave a somewhat amused smile and turned to Zac.

Zac froze, the ghost of Justin Phillip Shaw walked over to him and stepped into him.

Taylor and Isaac watched as Zachary thrust forward as if he were punched from behind, he twisted for a moment, then he looked over at Jessica.

Jessica stopped, "Justin," she stated in a displeased voice, "Where have you been!? I’ve been waiting for an hour or more!!"

"I was…detained."

"Liar. You were with HER," she accused.

"I was not with Elizabeth, I assure you."

"You lie, I heard all about the wedding, do you think I’m stupid?!" she demanded, she turned her back from Zac.

"Erin, I love you…" Zac assured, his voice was cold and Taylor and Isaac felt a chill run up their spines.

"You liar!" Jessica spun around to face him, tears in her eyes, Taylor and Isaac wanted to run to her and try to shake her out of this but they were in too much shock to know what to do. "You say it with no feeling, with no passion!! You’ve grown cold!! Your only love is for money!!" she lashed out to hit him.

Zac instinctively twisted out of her way, and her fist hit the Musical Ornament, swatting it off of the fireplace and onto the floor. The Ornament seemed unharmed, apart from the broken leg.

"Now look what you’ve done!!" she hissed, she knelt down to pick the broken leg from the floor.

Zac picked up a poker from beside the fire, gripping it firmly in his hand and raising it to crash down any moment.

"ZAC!!!!" Taylor gasped, he grabbed Zac’s wrist before the poker could crash down on Jessica, Erin’s apparition jerked out of Jessica’s body and she stood, Jessica was out cold on the floor, apparently unaffected.

Zac jerked into convulsions and Justin left his body, dissolving into a faint white mist and disappearing.

Erin stood looking at Zac.

Zac looked right back at her, very much conscious, gaping, he’d felt Justin inside him, felt the anger, felt the force to murder his love.

Erin looked right at Zac, she spoke, her words seemed to echo over each other as if there were more than one person talking, "you stopped him…"

Zac looked at him, "I…I didn’t…Taylor did…"

Erin looked right into Zac, "You need to put him to rest…"

"How do we get rid of him?" Isaac asked.

Erin kept her eyes on Zac, "You have to bury his Ashes in hallowed ground."

"Then all of this will stop?"

Erin gave a soft nod. "Only when he’s gone…can I rest. Or History will keep repeating itself…" she sobbed. "He’ll keep killing me for eternity."

Zac drew his breath, could not believe e was speaking to a ghost, "Where are his Ashes?"

"In the attic in a box," Erin sighed.

"I…have…to know…was it you…making the CD player play that song all the time?" Zac shuddered thinking of it.

Erin gave a solemn nod.

"Why that song…"

"No one was listening to me, I needed to get that out…"

Zac thought of the lyrics. What’s the point in all this screaming? No one’s listening anyway.

Zac looked at her, "Alright…first thing tomorrow morning…we’ll seek out his ashes and we’ll get them on hallowed ground."

Erin gave a nod, and with that, she simply dissolved into thin air.

Zac sighed, "this is…one…big dream."

"God I wanna wake up," Isaac whined.

 

Chapter Ten – Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

In the morning, Zachary, Taylor and Isaac went into the attic and searched out the Ashes of Justin Phillip Shaw. Jessica remained aware of nothing. The brothers decided not to tell her of the events, it would only scare her – or make her think they were crazy. But they knew the truth, this was a horrid truth.

"So…I don’t get it, I mean, she was using the Goo Goo Dolls to contact you?" Taylor was confused.

"There’s this song…the lyrics are ‘they painted all their secrets with the lies they told to you’—"

Isaac nodded, "that line represents the lies Justin told to Erin…"

Zac nodded and rehearsed the next lines, "and the least they ever gave you was the most you ever knew’—"

"She knew Justin would never marry her even though he gave her his promise he would," Taylor understood.

Zac rehearsed the last part, "and I wonder where these dreams go, when the world gets in your way…what’s the point in all this screaming, no one’s listening anyway…’"

"You had a dream about Erin, and Jessica heard voices in her room, and no one was listening to her when she needed help," Isaac concluded. "Erin’s a clever ghost."

"Know what else?" Zac asked, he dug through a box.

"What?" Taylor asked.

Zac pulled a few things out of a box, "I was looking at the CD sleeve for ‘Dizzy Up The Girl’ and Erin looks REALLY like the girl on that CD cover…it’s the scariest resemblance I have ever seen in my life…"

Taylor searched through a box, "weird."

"When I came to the house, Erin thought Justin was alive…and I think she was living in the past at times because she thought Justin was me, and she was thinking as she was before she died…and then at times she was trying to send a message to me…" Zac explained, "And when Justin took over my body that night when I got spooked in Jessica’s room, he knew Erin was back ‘cause he felt her, but he knew he’d killed her so he ran into the woods where he’d buried her body…and that was where he had to go to check the body was there…"

Taylor glanced at Zac.

"The weird thing is…the body was in the place Jessica had told me it would be, she told me once I’d left her in the woods…I should have thought right then to look…"

"It’s really weird, but its all kinda logic when you think of it, apart from ghosts being really illogical," Isaac shrugged.

"I think this is them…" Zac said, he pulled out a ceramic urn and looked in, a disgusting amount of grey and black ashes were in there, "ew!" he said, "this smells gross."

"Don’t smell it," Taylor took it from him, "let me hold it, you’ll end up dropping it. And keep the lid on, we don’t need Justin seeping out and attacking us," he muttered.

The brothers headed down into the car, leaving their mother with a promise they were only going into town to pick up some things. Taylor sat holding the urn, Isaac drove.

"I’ll be glad when this is all over," Zac sighed, "I’ve been through hell with this and NONE of you believed me!!" he leaned back against the seat, looking out the window, running a hand through his hair, he couldn’t wait to rest without being afraid something would happen.

"Well, duh, I mean you were telling us Jessica was claiming to be someone else but she only ever acted that way when she was alone with you – I mean it sounded like a lot of bullshit, I mean wouldn’t it have sounded that way to you?" Taylor asked.

"Besides, if we had come to you and said we were sure the place was haunted, would you have believed us?"

"Probably not – but only ‘cause you’re a pair of liars anyway," Zac smirked, he looked out of the window, feeling strangely at ease knowing this was all soon to be over with. It certainly had been something of an adventure, but he wouldn’t want to repeat it over again. It hadn’t been THAT much fun.

"Okay, here’s a cemetary…" Isaac parked outside the gates and got out, "gates open too, lets go."

"Don’t we need a priest?" Taylor asked cautiously.

"I don’t think so, Erin would have mentioned if we needed a holy man to be included in the burial," Zac explained, "did you bring that trowel?" he asked of Isaac.

"Yeah, right here, god we could get arrested for damage of holy ground for this unofficial burial…" Isaac stated.

They stood at the gates for a moment and looked into the cemetery. This was it, the final step to getting rid of their ghosts. They felt safer as they stepped into the cemetery, the bright flowers eased their feelings, the birds chirping and the flash of a squirrel running across a grave reminded them there was so much life here, no scary ghosts hanging around, no ghostly music, just the song of the birds and the bright colours of flowers and the green of the grass.

They walked until they met upon a spacious corner near a bush, "okay, over here," he said, he knelt down and began digging at the ground, "How deep?"

"Just a foot or so…I guess, I’m not sure, I’ve never had to bury ashes. Do we need to put the Urn in too?" Zac asked.

"I think we need to empty them into the grave…otherwise it defeats the purpose…"

"What if someone digs him up?"

"I doubt they would," Zac said, "Not in this corner, now dig…"

Isaac dug as deep a hole as the trowel would allow, and he looked at Taylor, "Okay… go for it."

"I think Zac should do it," Taylor handed the urn to Zac, "since…it is Zac who Justin was possessing…"

"True," Isaac nodded.

"Okay…" Zac trailed off, he opened the top of the urn, and he looked down into the shallow grave, "Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust, I hereby toss you, Justin Phillip Shaw into this shallow grave in hallowed ground where you will remain for the rest of your days, may you rest in pieces," Zac tipped the urn out into the ground until it was empty, spat on the ash in the hole, and then kicked the dirt onto the ash. "Go to hell," He muttered,

Taylor looked down into the grave, "we hope you suffer from what you did to Erin. You didn’t deserve her love, you didn’t deserve anything."

Isaac looked down into the grave, feeling he should say something, "stay there," he muttered, and then began to fill the hole up and pat down the dirt until the grave was as flat as it could get.

"Think he will go to hell?" Taylor asked, shoving his hands in his pockets casually.

"We committed murder, he deserves to," Zac stated.

"How did Erin die anyway, I mean, she died of a broken neck and You were gonna hit Jessica on the head…didn’t seem right…"

Zac looked at Taylor, "Jessica was near the fireplace, if I’d hit her on the head, she’d have more than likely fell to the side and slammed her head against the fireplace and the impact probably would have broke her neck, I’m not sure, but I could see that was kinda what would have happened. I guess the only one who’ll know for sure is Erin, huh?"

"Yeah," Taylor nodded.

"Okay, guys, lets go back to our newly non-haunted mansion," Zac smirked.

 

Epilogue – The Ending

Zac’s Journal

Everything has become surprisingly normal, this last week has been bliss. Jessica acts like Jessica, no CD’s and Phones and things going missing…its nice.

We fixed the ornament again and it’s now on the mantelpiece…it doesn’t play anymore though, when Jessica knocked it over when she went to hit me, it hit the floor and one of the cobs to make it work must have jammed or something, the key won’t even turn anymore. Oh well…I guess that’s good news anyway, that music was so eerie! I’m glad to be rid of it.

The Goo Goo Dolls CD doesn’t jump anymore either, I’m glad to say.

And as for Celia, well, when I told her my story and explained the part about how when I was trying to email her the email kept deleting and something typed itself about me betraying Erin to Celia, Celia asked if I was interested in her – just because I’d mentioned the betrayal thing, and I said maybe, and I asked her and she said maybe and so we decided when I get back to Tulsa, we’re gonna go on a date just to see how it goes. As if I’d give up a date with Celia – she always wears these cute little tight tops and stuff and she has the sexiest body alive! But anyway, enough about that.

I guess alls well that ends well.

* * * * *

Zac closed his journal and yawned, he was leaning against a tree in the garden, watching Jessica and Avery playing with water guns. He smiled at the mundane aspect of life, he felt rested and happy for the first time he had in a very long time. He looked beyond the garden grounds and at the edge of the woods he saw a grey dressed figure standing there, smiling distantly at him.

Zac recognised Erin’s ghost and made no sudden movements, not really scared anymore. He simply blew a kiss and waved goodbye, she returned by blowing a kiss, and Zac felt a cold gust of wind up on his cheek, and the touch of a rosepetal kiss from unseen lips, then Erin disappeared into the woods.

He never saw her again.

 

The end,

A collaboration by Ashley-Anne Douglas & Emma Peachey

 

 

 

 

 

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