👻 The Gift; Written By Me, 👻

 👻 The Gift; 

Written By Me, 👻

BLURB

I’ve been told I possess a gift. I call it more of a curse. I am the anchor. The anchor between the world of the living, and that of the dead. I see dead people. My life is full of death. I’m sixteen. I’m in my final year of school, and I should be out there, spending time with my friends, and living my life, but instead I am tormented by those who pass. I feel their pain as they pass from this world, into the afterlife. They don’t always just pass through though. Some linger; some stay with me. They visit me. They want me to help them. But I don’t always know how. I didn’t choose this life. This life chose me. I have no choice, but to just go with it.

CHAPTER ONE

Predictions,

There’s a distant trilling. It’s far off, but getting louder, and getting nearer. I can feel the dream world slipping away as light threatens to infiltrate my eyelids. I realize it’s my alarm blaring repetitively from my phone’s handset on the bedside table, and the sunlight is flooding the room through an open crack in the curtains. I groan outwardly as I turn over in bed, still too comfortable to want to move; wanting to hold on to my sound and safe slumber just a little longer, but I know that I really must move. Today is the first day of a new term, back at school. The summer holidays may be over, but that sunny summer feeling is very much still there. It’s the first day of my final year, and I’m enthusiastic, ready to get back into things, excited to see my friends and catch up with them over their summer adventures, and generally, ready to go. It’s with this feeling and enthusiasm that I leap out of bed, pull back my curtains, then whizz around my room, getting dressed, my things up together, and ready for my day ahead. Once I’m ready, I take a moment to pause in front of my full-length mirror, to examine my reflection, staring back at me. I smile at myself. I know I’m not perfect. I don’t think of myself as anything special, but I’m happy within my own skin. My straightened long black hair hangs loose and sleek down past my waist. There’s a hint of a rosy blush to my cheeks, and my piercing blue eyes have a sparkle-like glint to them, in the light. Feeling content with how I look, I tuck one side of my hair behind my ear, take a step back from the mirror, and grab my satchel. It’s going to be a good day; I can feel it; like an inner warmth within me.

 CHAPTER TWO

The Accident,

When I enter the kitchen, my mum is already bustling about in the kitchen, over at the stove, cooking breakfast. There’s the smell of greasy bacon fat in the air, mixed with something sweet. That’s when I see the pancakes already laid out on the table, looking delicious, and I can’t wait to tuck in. 

“Hey honey”. Mum greets me as she sees me enter, glancing up from the pan where she’s frying bacon, with the bread already buttered, sat next to her on the kitchen counter. She's perky this morning. She seems happier than I’ve seen her in months; her been tied up in a long-winded divorce process with my dad and her legal team. I assume something good must have happened, maybe it’s over with now? Maybe this is my mum getting herself back on track. She’s been so depressed and really not herself for such a long while, it’s refreshing to see this change in her. It makes me happy to see her so happy again. 

“Hey mom”. I reply, dumping my satchel down onto the floor by my feet, whilst sliding onto a chair at the table. 

“You’re up early”, I say, whilst reaching for my fork to tuck into my pancakes. It’s more of a question than a statement. 

“Yeh, big day, thought I'd mark the occasion with how I mean to go on”, She breezes, flipping the bacon in the pan.

“Oh, how so?”, I ask.

“Well, the divorce is finally over. There’s some news I have to tell you actually about your dad. Oh, you’re already sitting, so I suppose I should just go on and tell you. There was an accident last night, honey. Your dad. He was in a car accident. He didn’t survive. He’d probably been drinking; knowing him, he ran his car right off the road into a tree, apparently. The car was a write-off. He was pronounced dead at the scene”. She absentmindedly takes the pan off the heat, using a spatula to load the bacon onto the bread, before turning to me with a bacon sandwich proffered on a plate.

My fork clattered to the half empty plate beneath me. I was lost for words. In that moment, I didn’t know how I felt, let alone what to say. It was clear my mum was happy, and why shouldn’t she be? She’d taken my dad’s verbal abuse for years. He was a drinker, an alcoholic; a loser, my mum would always say, - but he was still my dad. The same dad who used to read me bedtime stories and tucked me in at night. The same dad who used to pick me up and spin me around in circles until both he and I would get so giddy. The same dad who, regardless of his and Mom’s problems, would often phone me just to check in with me, to ask if I was doing ok. And now he was gone. Just like that.

“It’s ok honey. It’s understandable that you’re going to be upset. There would never have been a right time to tell you, so I figured I’d just get it over with. New beginnings for us both, and maybe we can support each other in moving on from him”.

I still didn’t know what to say. I think I just sat there, trying to process all of what she had just told me. Trying to wrap my head around the fact that dad was gone, and yet this is the happiest I’d seen my mum in a long time. The two didn’t seem to correlate inside my head. 

“Will there be a funeral?”, Was all I could think to ask. My voice didn’t sound like my own; it sounded far away. It came out more like a mutter.

“Of course there will be a funeral, honey. People who knew him will want to pay their respects, and of course, we both have our own reasons for wanting some closure; after everything. I’ll arrange it. You don’t have to go to school today. You can take some time off; however long you need. But you’ll be having a day off for his funeral, and I know he was still your dad; though no father of the year, that’s for sure, but I really don’t want this holding you back. He wouldn’t want that for you either, you know that, right?”.

I nodded solemnly. Tears pricked my eyes. All I knew for certain was that I needed to be strong; for mum, and for dad, too, - he’d have wanted that. 

“I’m Ok”. I managed to exclaim.

“I mean, I’ll be ok”. I assured, more surely than I felt.

I cleared my throat and rubbed my hands over my eyes to dry the tears that I had not allowed to fall. Mum came beside me and wrapped her arms around me, smothering me in a tight hug. I would be ok. I had to be.

CHAPTER THREE

The Day Of The Funeral;

3 Weeks Later,

The wind whipped around me as I let go of the blue rose, dropping it down onto the coffin. I could feel all eyes on me as I just stood there, staring down into the grave. The leaves in the trees whispered around me. I just stood there; staring. When did my focus become blurred? Unshed tears pooled in my eyes, and I realized, in that moment, that it was ok to let them fall. And so, I did. I let the tears fall. Tears leaked down my cheeks, dripping messily off of my chin. I gasped a sob. For all the tears I’d held in since the accident. Since knowing dad was gone. And now, here it was, pouring out of me in one big release. 

At that moment I felt a strong arm snake around my shoulders, steadying me. I turned my head into my mums' shoulder and let my tears soak into the cashmere of her sweater. It felt good to let it all out. How I’ve been feeling since knowing dad was gone, that he was never coming back. I’d tried to stay strong, mainly for mum, but it was understandable that today had got the better of me and had broken that so held-together image I had tried to portray. It felt like I was coming undone, but it also felt like a huge relief. All that bottled up emotion had to come out at some point I guess, and today, at his funeral, was that day. I raked in a deep breath and wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. 

“I’m sorry mum”, I sputtered

“Shush honey, it’s ok”, mum whispered back at me, as I took a step away from her.

I felt like in this moment of grief, I needed to be alone.

“I just need to be alone for a bit”, I told her, before setting off, over to a big oak tree, where I could be alone, and away from all eyes on me. 

I managed to take a deep but shaky breath, then as I turned away, that’s when I saw him. Dad. 

I had to be imagining this. It wasn’t possible. Dad was gone. He’d just been buried. It was my mind playing tricks on me. Conjuring him up, when he couldn’t possibly be here. Except, he was. 

“You have to help me Cassie”, he pleaded.

“It wasn’t an accident. I was murdered”. 

I stood there in silent disbelief. Was this my mind playing tricks on me? What else could it be? They say grief affects everyone differently, and here I was, seeing my dad. It was as though I had desperately wanted him to be here, and here he was.

I looked around, checking no one had come up behind me, but no one had. I was alone. I could still see the congregation over at the grave, but no one was close. No one else, I realized, could be seeing this. Was I going mad?

“But Dad...”, I started to protest. This was ridiculous. Dad looked as real as mum, or any other person at the funeral, except he didn’t look like himself. He was battered and severely bruised. His usual stubble was now overgrown, and it looked like he had been crying, his cheeks were still wet.

“How can you be...?”, I tried again.

‘Here?’ was what I'd wanted to ask.

“Please Cassie, help me.”, Dad pleaded, again. 

“You’re not real. You can’t be.” I told him.

“Yet you can see me”, he replied.

I looked around me again, then back at Dad.

“You’re not real. You’re not real!” I started wailing. 

At that moment he put his finger up to his lips and made a ‘shushing’ noise, then he was gone. Then my mum was at my side.

“Honey, it’s ok”. Mum reached out and put her hand on the top of my arm.

“But Dad, he was...”. The word ‘here’ didn’t come. I knew I would sound mad. That she wouldn't believe me. I realized that no one would. It was my imagination. It must have been. Dad couldn’t have been here. He couldn’t have. There was no way. 

“Come on honey, lets get you home”, mum gently led me away from the tree and back towards the congregation of people. I felt like I was going mad. How could I have seen Dad? How could he have just told me what he did?

“Was it an accident?”, I managed to gasp to mum, on our way back.

“Of course it was an accident, honey. Like I told you, your dad had been drinking; he probably lost control of the car. I’m so sorry, honey”. 

“Why are you sorry?” I asked

“Because it came as a shock to you, and I know how deeply upset you are over losing him, and for all of what I went through, I'm sorry I don’t feel the same way, but I can imagine the pain you are feeling and going through, and hey, I’m your Mum, I'm here to support you, with whatever you are going through. I’m here, ok?” 

I nodded while sniffing. My tears had mostly dried now. “Thanks, Mom”. I muttered.

*********

When we get back to the house, I trudge up the stairs to my room with what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders. Today has been a day. I can hear mum pottering about downstairs in the kitchen, no doubt pouring herself a glass of wine to take the edge off of today. There are so many mixed emotions between me and my mum, all surrounding my dad, and I don’t know what to make of any of them. I know that mum’s there for me, but she doesn’t feel the same way that I do at the loss of my dad. She has every reason to want to leave him behind and move on with her life, and I can’t deny her of that; nor her wanting that, but I can’t help but feel lost within grief for him. It feels like a weight weighing heavily within me. And what was that strange occurrence in the graveyard? When I thought I saw my dad? Was he actually speaking to me? Asking me for help? I collapse in a heap onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling. I think I’m going mad. I’ve been trying so hard to keep myself together that I think I’m now starting to lose my shit. That’s the only possible explanation I can come up with, and yet it seemed so real. Like he was actually standing there, pleading with me to help him. But it was a freak accident. That’s what the police had said, that’s what mum has assured me. So why would he say that he was murdered?

“Because it’s true, Cassie”. 

My eyes go wide. Where did that voice just come from? I sit bolt upright on my bed, and then I see him, again, in the corner of my room. He looks just the same as he did before, back at the graveyard; battered and bruised, and his eyes are shrouded in dark smudged circles around and beneath them. Looking worse for wear is an understatement. 

“Dad... how?”, I start but don’t finish.

“How can you be here? I mean, how can I see you?” I ask, all at once.

“You’re the anchor sweetie. You link this world to the next. You’re special”.

“This cannot be real. I’m not special. You cannot even be here. You’re not even real!” I cannot get my head around this. This is crazy. He can’t actually be real right? I realize that I'm holding my breath, and then I'm almost hyperventilating, trying to gulp deep lungs full of air.

“It’s ok, sweetie. Cassie, you are ok. I know it’s a lot to take in, but it’s true. I’m here. I need your help. I was murdered”.

“Dad, you were not murdered!” I counter. “You lost control of the car, mum said you’d been drinking, and your car left the road and went into a tree. It was an accident!” 

“And how did she know that, huh? That I’d been drinking?”

“The police told her, I assume” I state, then I question myself, how did mum know dad had been drinking? Had she just assumed he had?

“And what’s with all this ‘anchor’ stuff?”

“It’s true Cassie, you, and you alone, are the anchor, tying this world to the afterlife. You are the veil to the other side. You’re special, sweetie, and that’s ok, but I really need your help. For me to move on, to find any semblance of peace, I need to find out what really happened that night, why my car suddenly lost control and left the road. It all happened so fast, but I know that it wasn’t me. You have to believe me”. He raised his hand towards me and I flinched backwards from him. I flinched from my own dad. Why? Because this wasn’t my dad, this was his ghost. Could ghosts even make physical contact with humans? I didn’t know, but in that moment, I wanted to find out. I rushed towards him to hug him, but collided with the wardrobe door. I choked back a sob and turned around. That’s when I came face to face with him. He was that close, yet untouchable. How could this be happening? And why was this happening to me?