We all have something that we feel a little arrogant about. That one thing that we are certain we can do, not only well, but just a touch better than other people. Or maybe that’s just me. I have always been overly confident in my ability to get a job done. I mean, with writing tack on an eventually, but I am a doer. A worker bee. I procrastinate on a lot of things, but never a job that takes physical effort. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to get a task done well, in and out, leaving everything a little better than it was before I got there. As with all things, I’m sure I have blind spots, anyone who knows me is certainly thinking of several examples of my delusion in this area, but whatever. I can think of, like, a bunch of examples where it is totally accurate.
Which is why, being proven wrong is a hard pill to swallow. I’ve moved this family, I mean we do hire movers, but I’ve packed up and unpacked and arranged and rearranged and decorated and redecorated five houses. Two of which I did pre and post back surgery and yet, it’s this sixth one that’s humbled me. I’m dehydrated. I think I’ve injured my shoulder. The shin splints that stopped me from running a handful of years ago are back. My neck feels funny. I’m exhausted. I had to lay down in between trips to the new house. It’s all getting done, but if me from five years ago were to see me now, slow and steady carrying one lamp at a time from the car to the house, I would have ripped that lamp from my hands and told myself to go grab us a cup of coffee. “I’ve got this,” I would have told myself, power walking past me with two boxes and the lamp.
It’s got to be age. A move at 45 being a touch more exhausting than one at 35. Or maybe it’s because the sense of urgency is gone. This house is for us, it’s not for an imagined future buyer. I’m decorating this house to be exactly how I like it, I mean, I always arrange things to be comfortable for our family, but I’m not obsessing over getting every last thing done quickly so that we can at least have a second to enjoy it before we put the house back on the market. No.
Don’t quote me on any of that, actually. A new house is intoxicating. The possibility. The tiny tweaks that can be made to make it more appealing, easier to live in… Walking into an open house and just knowing we’ve found it, the one that needs the perfect amount of updating. Paint, floors, fixtures, maybe a touch of new tile. Arranging for the work, anticipating the results, learning from the mistakes, on to the next. The problem with the last house we lived in was that it was too… done. We thought we’d like that after all these years, but no. Aside from decorating it, nothing needed fixing or doing really. Boring.
So we found ourselves a cute Cape that could stand a few little tweaks, and if we get antsy, it can handle a major facelift. This is it. Sixth time’s a charm. We are settling in. Putting down roots. So I’m not compelled to rush around, I’m happy to take it slow, and honestly, I don’t think I could do it any other way at this point.
Did I check for ghosts before we bought this not-quite-forever-home-but-longer-term-home? I did. But things have changed since we first moved to Wellesley. The market here is fucking insane. SO for this new house, we took a loop around during the broker open, peeked in the backyard and put in our offer all in about two hours time. There’s no time for hemming and hawing, no room for inspections. Zero negotiating. Just here’s what we’ll pay you and here’s when we’ll close. And you get a yes or a no. You either guess what they want – and the listing price is really just a “we will not accept this low of a price” number. I’ve lost count of how many offers we’ve had rejected. It is a fucking miracle that we got this place.
So, you know, it’s a little bit overwhelming to go to an open house and clock all the things, tallying up the costs of possible updates, trying to gauge Chris’s reaction to the home, whether he is interested or not, and if there is any reason at all for me to place furniture and replace tile in my mind, chatting with real estate agents we know and meeting new ones, asking questions of the listing broker, trying to figure out what exactly we need to do to win the place. It’s a little overstimulating to begin with, and I maybe might have missed some things, but I can’t just go into a new house wide open.
Anyhow, Claire came with us and she did mention that Woodlawn Cemetery was less than half a mile away and she was about to say something when we took that quick look in the backyard, but I got pulled into a conversation and… I was distracted. And, if I’m being honest, I was committed to ignoring any faults that could be found with the place because I knew it was what we’d been looking for and I knew Chris thought so too. And the yard was huge! And it would be perfect for the girls and the dogs. And Joey really wanted a tree swing, which didn’t look possible, but there was plenty of room for a classic swing set, and the kitchen was adorable and there was a room on the first floor that would make the perfect office for me and a room on the second that would make the perfect office for Chris and the windows were new and the roof was newish, and yes the driveway was a little tight but that was fine because the girls would each have their own rooms and there was a real working fireplace.
I should have paid closer attention, but you know what? Even if I had, the result would have been the same. We needed a house. This was it. And, as a bonus, it sits on a little hill. As I may have mentioned here a few times, I’ve become increasingly concerned with water and whatever problems we might find living there, flooding most likely won’t be one of them.
All of that rambling to say, well, to admit really, that I missed something. It’s not in the house, I mean, it’s not in the house now. It was in the house. Waiting for me. Luckily, we had some work done to the house before we moved in so I was able to get the thing out. To push it past the property line at least. It was that duplicate thing. The one that sought out Eric, the one tied to Hillview Academy and his uncle. And the thing is sticky. It won’t leave.
It’s left Judith alone since we returned from Connecticut, though she had to go through a cleansing ritual because she had definitely been under some sort of haze from being in such close contact with that property. Eric, too. But, the thing is, that demon sought me out before we even went down there.
“They like you for some reason,” Judith said, by way of explanation. “They like that you can see them, listen to them.”
“You can do the same thing,” I pointed out.
“Not exactly, despite everything you’ve experienced you’re still,” she paused searching for the right words, “slow on the uptake.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean, you still treat every situation with the paranormal like it’s your first.”
“Again, thanks,” I said sarcastically.
“I’m not trying to insult you. You don’t let yourself get jaded. You’re still curious. Somehow naive despite what you know. They probably want to see if they can influence you.”
“‘Somehow naive despite what you know,’ is a really nice way of saying I am incapable of learning from my mistakes.”
“Maybe. All that matters is making sure you can get rid of these creeps when they take an interest and it seems this one might be your biggest fan.”
The day trip to Connecticut had been freaky and disturbing, but I fell into moving mode and got distracted. I’m sure that sounds absurd, but when weird things are happening all the time and life is still swirling, you kind of have to compartmentalize.
I spent a couple of days going back and forth between the old house and new, moving breakables and trinkets and other odds and ends I didn’t want to formally pack for the movers. I overdid it.
I was spraying down the insides of the kitchen cabinets and drawers preparing them for our glasses and plates when I heard the footsteps overhead.
An empty house contains very distinct sounds. Contains? Emits? I don’t know, I just know ‘em when I hear ‘em. The noise is hollow. No soft rugs or long curtains to absorb the sound. Footsteps creak and thud. When a door closes its clap reverberates throughout the house as if it had been slammed. In the empty quiet, even the click and whir of the heating turning on can be noisy.
I usually love this liminal moment when the old family has moved out and we are preparing to move in. When I have the chance to really get a good look at the place, to find unexpected quirks. I’m so often alone during these with the kids at school, Chris on calls or tours.
I had a podcast on low, just for the background noise. A new empty house and all its promise is great and all but it’s also a little creepy to be there alone. So when I noticed the first creak overhead, I took a minute to listen, but assumed it was just the house. A noise I wasn’t yet familiar with.
A couple minutes later the sound of footsteps were unmistakable. I froze, windex in hand then called out, “Chris?” Knowing it couldn’t be him, he’d gone to Rhode Island for the day, but hoping that somehow it was. Of course, no one answered. I grabbed my phone to pause the podcast.
I could have simply left out the back door but like an idiot I’d left my keys on the stairs so that I wouldn’t misplace them while I was cleaning. Claire wasn’t there. She hadn’t been around much lately. I’d had a feeling that she was drifting away, that her tie to the world was loosening. It made me sad, but I also carry guilt for her entire situation. Ugh. Okay, that’s a whole other story. I was in the kitchen, heard footsteps upstairs and had to go to the damn stairs to get my keys.
As I moved as quietly as I could to the front hallway I wondered whether someone might have broken into the house. Which was worse? A ghost or a person. A person, hands down. So I needed that keychain, it held my taser.
I moved along the wall opposite the stairs then darted forward when I was close enough and snatched up the keys. As I did, a door on the second floor slammed shut. I looked up and standing there at the top of the stairs staring down at me, was, me.
In the same baseball hat and jeans. In Chris’s old high school football sweatshirt. I was so stunned that I held up my hand and waved. Which made no sense. It was like I’d crossed over to a different level of fear, post fear, I was simply dumbfounded. And then I, or it rather, waved back at me.
“I have to go,” I whispered, backing my way down the hall and out the back door. I could have just gone out the front, but again, dumbfounded. I drove back to the old house and texted Judith and Biddy and made a plan to clear out the new house and shore up the perimeter, and I kept it to myself that night while Chris and I discussed the day.
I could fix it. Everything would be fine.
***
“What’s with the coconut water?”
“I don’t know, I’m hooked,” I admitted. “I tried it at the Whole Foods a couple weeks ago and I can’t stop chugging it.”
“I don’t know if you’re supposed to chug coconut water,” Biddy offered.
I shrugged. “There are worse things. I’m more concerned about my Advil PM addiction.”
“Take melatonin.”
I shook my head. “Bad dreams.”
We were at Quebrada, catching up on everything both weird and mundane in our lives. I was in the middle of telling her about this terrifying electrician who’d come to the house to give me a quote on replacing a few light fixtures but instead told me we needed the entire house rewired and it would run us about $40,000 (I got a second opinion , of course, the second electrician simply saying it would be no problem to replace the fixtures), when behind me I heard a familiar voice say, “Oh my God it’s Nancy Drew and George!”
Biddy laughed, looking up at someone over my shoulder. I turned and saw Callie Smith standing there, a huge smile on her face, her hands filled with two large bags of pastry boxes. She smiled down at me.
“How’s Alice?” She asked Biddy. “Are you looking at colleges?”
“God no, next year. How’s your crew? Katelyn’s at Salve Regina, right?”
“Yup, she’s fine. I never have to worry about that one. She used to babysit for little Alice,” Callie explained to me. “Jonathan’s in Boston, working for one of Dex’s friends. The real world has been a bit of a slap in the face for him, but he’s doing just fine. Has a little girlfriend whose parents have a compound on Nantucket. These kids do not live in reality.”
“Andrew said he saw Dex at pickle ball a couple weeks ago,” said Biddy, eyebrows raised.
“I’m telling you, that fucking man,” Callie muttered. “He’s going to give himself a heart attack. Over fucking pickle ball! He put in a court in the backyard last summer. I hear tink… tink… tink… in my nightmares.
Turning to me, Callie asked, “I’ve been reading the blog, and so has everyone else I know for that matter. Are you moving again? Where?” I told her. “I like that Street. It’s a good side of town.”
She lifted the bags of pastries. “I have to run, I’m hosting a parent coffee this morning, Daisy is at Dana Hall now. It’s a much better fit for her.” Her gaze fell on me. “It’s so weird, I was going to get pastries at Tatte this morning, but I changed my mind last minute and turned around to come here. This is absolutely meant to be.”
“Uh oh,” I laughed.
“It’s not that bad, but then again… it’s in your wheelhouse, so it’s not that great, either. So weird though… I was literally just thinking of you. She put down the bags and pulled out her phone and tapped her fingers rapidly across the screen before holding it up to show us her notes app and a little note to herself that read ‘text Liz’ without meaning to my eyes traveled down the next two bullet points. “Ask Julie what to do for curtain rod finials (nothing basic),” followed by “Rip those ugly goddamn evergreen bushes out and ask the landscapers what won’t look so fucking anemic.”
“I was meant to run into you this morning,” she enthused. “So, basically, I found myself in the middle of another fucking shit show. Could you come over for coffee? Like, tomorrow?”
“What kind of shitshow?” Biddy cut in before I could respond.
“I bought a couple of rose medallion ginger jars at an estate sale. I spent way too much fucking money on them. And as it turns out, they were actually urns and-”
“Callie!” I admonished.
“I know, so dumb, right? But they’re haunted, not in, like a bad way, really? But still. Look, I have to run, but I’m going to text you and you’re going to come over and you’re going to diagnose the problem and you’re going to fix it. K?”
“I have to run. Bye. Love you. I’m texting you right now to confirm tomorrow morning!” She called over her shoulder.
We sat in stunned silence for a time and then Biddy, after taking a careful sip of her cappuccino asked, “Which one of us is George?”
***
Callie Smith isn’t the kind of woman you can say no to, so I found myself walking up to her Cliff Estates mansion the following morning.
“Come on in!” She instructed, leading me through to the kitchen. “Coffee? Yes? And how about a Pellegrino? I already brought out a little tray of goodies.”
I grabbed my drinks and followed her out to the patio. The morning was cold and gray, I attempted to hide my hesitation to sit outside, but she caught my mood immediately.
“We aren’t sitting out here, we’re going to the guest house.”
“Oh!” I replied, gazing out at the small building set far back on the property. We traveled down a brick pathway beside the wooden pool fence. The large hydrangea bushes along it just beginning to bud. I scanned the lawn, curious about the pickle ball court, but didn’t see one. They must have tucked it in a far corner. Ahead of us sat the guest house, a small Cape style cottage. It was like a mini, much nicer, updated and perfected version of my new house. Grey painted shingles, black shutters, black front door, full holly bushes lining the foundation. If I were to dream up my own Stephen King style no-one-but-me-is-allowed-inside-there-writing-house, that would be it.
“Goddamnit, Callie,” I sighed. “This is adorable.”
“I know, right? It used to just be for house guests, but during Covid I converted it to my own personal she-shed so I could get away from everyone.”
Inside was just as beautiful as out. The one-story cottage consisted of three rooms, a bathroom and bedroom to our left, and to the right lay an open, sitting area with pitched roof, an oversized black lantern overhead. A kitchenette took up the far back wall, with a picture window over a farmhouse sink, the low cabinets painted a soft gray, all of it topped off by a powder blue Smeg refrigerator.
The furniture, a green linen (like, not kelly green or forest green, I guess I would say, moss green, just really pretty) upholstered couch, two arm chairs in a block print floral pattern in indigo and cream, all faced a floor to ceiling fieldstone hearth. Set out on the wicker coffee table was a tray with a plate of blueberry scones, a bowl of blueberries and fresh cut strawberries, and smaller bowls with what looked like whipped cream and strawberry preserves.
“You live in a Nancy Meyers novel,” I told her, taking it all in.
“Eh, I think I overdid the aesthetic, but I’m too lazy to change anything,” Callie replied, flopping down onto the couch.
I chose one of the arm chairs and promptly filled one of the appetizer sized Juliska plates with a healthy portion of snacks. Once settled, I asked, “So, what’s happening? Please tell me it’s not that doll again.” [Refer back to Ghost Story #32 The Doll for that situation]
Callie gave an exaggerated shiver. “Fuck no, thank God. No. See those things?” She pointed towards two jars sitting on the mantle. “They’re haunted.”
I laughed, eyeing the colorful pieces flanking an ornately framed landscape painting that was probably painted by some artist I’d learned about in college during Art History 101. “They’re very pretty. I have a couple of Rose Medallion bowls, dupes of course. I assume those are the real deal?”
“They are,” she acknowledged, “I scooped them up at an estate sale in Concord. Early 19th Century Chinese Rose Medallion Porcelain Jars.”
“Dare I ask?”
“What?”
“How much you paid for them.”
“Oh, sure, forty-five.”
“Dollars? That is ridiculous they have to be worth at least-”
“No,” Callie giggled, “Forty-five hundred.”
“Good Lord.”
“I know, but they’re really pretty and this room needed color.”
“You bought forty-five hundred dollar jars?”
“Crazy, right?” She said before sucking a breath in through her teeth and rubbing the side of her neck.
“What just happened?” I demanded.
“Oh, no nothing. Muscle spasm, I think I overdid it at Orange Theory.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She tilted her head to the side, stretching her neck. “Anyway, those things are super haunted.”
“Sell them.”
“But they’re so pretty.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You don’t believe me!”
“No, I believe you, but, what are the chances of you stumbling upon another haunted object?” Just after I said it, there was a quick low swishing noise that drew my gaze to the window at the front of the cottage. It had slid open apparently by itself. I looked back at Callie who was smiling.
“That window was locked,” she informed me. “But wait, I thought you could see ghosts now.”
I shrugged. “I shut it down for the most part. It can be a little overstimulating.”
“But don’t you have a spirit guide person that tells you things?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure where she is at the moment.”
“Okay, but could you turn on your creepy little abilities so we can find out what they look like?”
“Tell me what’s been going on first,” I said, feeling incredibly uneasy.
“Fine.” She pulled her legs beneath her on the couch, settling in, “So I always troll the estate sales around here, I can’t tell you how many Hermes scarves I’ve snagged for a song, and the odds and ends,” she motioned to the hearth, “are always so unique, and just more interesting. Fuck Homegoods, right?”
I shrugged. She was right in one regard, you wouldn’t find trinkets in that price range there.
“Anyway, I went to a sale at this massive compound in Concord on a whim. I subscribe to a newsletter that lists the sales every week and I had a good feeling about this one. Have you ever been?”
“To estate sales? Hell yes, I love them.”
“Right? This was one of those turn-the-house-upside-down-and-anything-and-everything-that-shakes-free-is-for-sale deals. I even saw a woman buy an open box of K-Cups and a package of paper towels. I did a quick sweep through the first floor, very grandma and grandpa, you know? Probably redecorated in the early nineties and never addressed again. Lots of maroon and goldenrod. Gold accents, curtain tassels. You get it.”
I acknowledged that I did.
“So I looped the first floor, nothing interesting, hit the second floor for the closets when I spotted those beauties shoved to the back of a high shelf in the linen closet. I knew they were the real deal the second I saw them.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something flit past the bathroom door. Something with long hair.
I asked, “Have you looked up the homeowners?”
“I did! Judith and Henry MacNamara. Owned the house for thirty three years, he croaked in 2018. Cancer. She passed last year. ‘Natural causes.’ The daughter inherited the house, she’s the one who held the sale. I talked to her about the jars. She played the whole hesitant to sell thing, then threw out a ridiculous number. Eventually I was able to get her to come down a little in price. ”
“What did she want for them originally?”
“‘Priceless’ was her first quote,” Callie rolled her eyes. “Then she asked for ten thousand. Yada, yada, she was super stressed. You don’t usually see people running their own estate sale, they always have a vendor do it, so that was weird. But we came to an agreement and I Venmo’d her.”
“You can Venmo that much money?”
“Well, yeah,” Callie replied, seemingly confused that I was confused. She reached up and rubbed at her neck and shoulder. “Anyway, that’s how I got the thing.”
“When did you first start to think it was haunted?”
“After the first couple of times that I came down here to chill and found all the windows and doors open. But, like, it started before then with a couple little things that I didn’t think anything of at the time, but once things got going, I realized that was the beginning.”
“Such as,” I prompted.
“On the ride home from Concord the rear door on the G-Class popped open. By itself.”
“The door?” Whatever she’d just mentioned sounded like a type of plane to me and given her lifestyle, I wouldn’t put it out of the range of possibilities.
“Of the car, yeah. It’s one of those ones that swings open, not up. I brought the jars inside and had them on the kitchen counter for a couple of days before I took them out here and the morning after I brought them home, I came downstairs and Babs shot right past me on the stairs and when I came into the kitchen the slider was open. She ran right out.”
“Creepy.”
“It was. I thought maybe one of the kids had left it open. But, Jonathan is in the city and Katelyn’s at school. Only Daisy’s here and she wouldn’t leave the door open. She’s been skittery ever since that whole doll thing. Dex is always the last one up at night and he shuts everything down. But, regardless of all of that. The alarm was set. The door should have triggered it, and it didn’t.”
“Huh. I wonder why the ghost, or whatever is attached to the jars wants everything open?”
Callie shrugged, then reached for neck.
“Are you okay?” I asked, she seemed like she was really in pain.
“My doctor called in muscle relaxers. I just have to pick them up. Anyhow… the car door, the slider, oh, right, the gate. The pool gate. We keep it locked but I found it open the next afternoon. No one goes back there but us and it was winter, so it’s not like it could have been the landscapers or pool guys.
“So I moved the jars out here and next day came out and the door was wide open. That’s when I put two and two or I guess, at that point, four and four together.”
“So why didn’t you just get rid of them?”
“They’re very rare,” she argued. “And they’re pretty.”
I eyed the jars. “I guess so.”
“Come on, turn on your spidey senses or whatever. I want to see if they are really both here.”
“Who?”
“That couple. The ones that owned the house. These are their urns.”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?”
“There’s dust inside of them.”
“Oh my God, Callie. You have to return them.”
“She doesn’t want them back. I tried.”
“That woman sold you her parents’ ashes?”
“She must’ve really needed the cash.”
“Did she say they were their ashes or are you just assuming because of what’s in the jars?”
“I don’t know, really. She barely let me get a word in edgewise.”
“You’re going to have to do something with them, you can’t just have some random couples remains in your she-shed.”
“Oh, but it’s kind of fun. Like a conversation piece. Watch this.” She stood and went to the hearth, reaching behind one of the jars she pulled out a device that looked like a TV remote. She handed it to me then sat in the chair opposite.
“What’s this?” I asked before I realized what I was holding. Instead of buttons, the rectangular gray controller had colored lights across the top ranging from green to red. I sighed before answering my own question. “An EMF detector?”
“Yes!”
“Are you kidding me?”
She leaned forward and took the thing out of my hands. “Just watch,” she instructed, flipping a switch and turning it on. “Hi! I have my friend Liz here. Are you with us too? Green for yes and yellow for no, please.”
And wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing lit up green.
This was not the same Callie I’d met years before. That Callie reacted to a haunted doll by getting it out of her house and away from her family the moment she knew it was a problem. This Callie was treating her new haunted belonging like some sort of parlor trick.
“Callie,” I warned, “you don’t know who you’re talking to, it could be any-”
“Mr. and Mrs. MacNamara, is that you?”
The green light glowed menacingly.
“See,” Callie enthused, “it’s them.”
I looked at the ginger jars and then back to Callie. “You need to bring those back to that house and just leave them there.”
“I’m not going to just give them back and not get a refund.”
I drew in a deep breath and forced myself to open up a bit to the space. The vibes were atrocious. “Did the woman tell you anything about the jars you were negotiating?”
Callie furrowed her brow, obviously thinking back to the conversation. “Well… first she called them priceless, and I told her they dated to the late nineteenth century, they were valuable but nowhere near priceless.”
“How did you know that?”
“I know my antiques,” Callie replied. “She rambled a bit about them being of extreme value to her family, I wasn’t really listening.”
“She didn’t say anything about them being urns?”
“Not then, no. But when I called her about giving them back she said that I knew damn well what they were when I bought them. I swear I don’t remember her saying anything about it, but you know, it was busy and this woman behind me kept cutting into our conversation to ask about this god awful Chippendale secretary, so the convo was rushed. It may have been a miscommunication on my part.”
I snorted. “Again, you need to bring them back. Refund or no refund.”
“And just flush $4500 down the toilet?”
“You’re nuts,” I replied.
“I’m telling you, it’s just a couple of old people. I’ve asked them a bunch of questions and they’re just pissed that their daughter would sell them like that. Turn on your little ghost abilities, you’ll see.”
“Fine.” Closing my eyes, I concentrated on simply being present and opened up completely to the space around me. Opening my eyes I looked around the room and saw, nothing.
“What do they look like?” Callie asked excitedly.
I shook my head. “I don’t see anything,” I admitted.
There was a tapping noise that sounded like it came from behind the couch. Callie didn’t appear to hear it. Reluctantly I stood, intending to go see what was making the noise when a skinny, long-fingered hand snaked up from behind the couch and gripped Callie shoulder. She winced.
“Oh shit,” I whispered. “I know why your shoulder hurts.”
The creature that belonged to the skinny hand was utterly disgusting. Round around the middle with extra long thin arms and legs it stood about six feet tall behind Callie, gripping her shoulder possessively.
“Is it just you or is there another one?” I asked it in a shaky voice.
With its free hand it held up two long needle-like fingers. Its skin held a greenish tint. Its matted hair was a dull brown, all pressed against its tiny head. I desperately wanted to look away from the thing and wash my eyeballs, but couldn’t.
“Why did you think it was an old couple haunting you?” I asked Callie.
“They told me.”
“With your little EMF game?”
“Yeah.”
I watched as an identical creature stood up, revealing itself from behind the couch. The twin monsters stared at me. Thin lips pressed together, huge eyes unblinking.
“What the fuck are you?”
They just stared.
“Where did you come from?”
The first creep held up his hand and pointed down. The second smiled. A horrible, gummy smile.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Why don’t you get up from the couch and we’ll talk outside,” I suggested. I meant to sound calm, but it came out shaky and panicked.
Callie went to push herself off the couch, but gasped and grabbed for her shoulder. The same one the creature had in a death grip.
“Let her go,” I said as forcefully as I could.
The two beings shook their heads in unison. It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“I can’t get up!” Callie screeched. “Mr. and Mrs. MacNamara! Cut it out!”
I shushed her.
“The two of you should be grateful! You’re daughter had you shoved into the back of a linen closet before I found you!”
“Callie, shut up!” I yelled. Before the things could react, I turned and grabbed one of the jars and carried it straight towards the kitchenette. I yanked off the top then dumped its contents into the sink and turned the faucet on full blast, slamming the jar down into the sink, smashing it apart. I turned as the creatures let out a soft cry. The first one let go of Callie and they began moving slowly towards me.
Callie got up. She grabbed the other jar and brought it over to the sink, mimicking my actions. I watched the creatures, faces filled with rage, fade away as Callie flipped on the insinkerator.
We stood silent, slightly breathless for a moment.
“Fucking boomers,” Callie said finally, making me burst out laughing.
“It wasn’t the MacNamaras,” I said, after catching my breath.
“Then who was it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it before. They were, awful, like something out of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.”
I helped Callie bring the half empty trays of treats up to the main house. She swore she wouldn’t step one foot in there until she had her priest out to bless the place.
“Sorry about the jars,” I offered, as she walked me to her front door. “I can’t afford to replace the one I smashed.”
“Are you kidding,” she scoffed. “I’m never buying another antique. Homegoods, here I come. Thanks for coming over,” she offered. “Sorry about all of that.”
I waved her apology away. “No big deal, I’ve seen worse,” I said, before saying goodbye.
But the thing was, those creatures were far worse, far stranger, far more sinister than a lot of what I’d seen. What in the hell was going on?