Tree of Life, Part Two

8 December 2006

It was a few more days before Rick and Mandy could come down. They probably would have come faster, but I didn’t want to sound crazy over the phone and decided to hold back on explaining the situation until they got here. They were excited to see the new house, and we had arranged for them to stay the night with movies and snacks like when we were teens, before she moved north. I had expressed some interest in meeting Rick’s girlfriend, who Mandy said was a witch, but she wasn’t available.

I gave them the tour of the house when they arrived, since they hadn’t seen it yet, and we talked about the layout and the beautiful tub upstairs and the railing on the stairs. I explained that it had been built sometime early in the 1900s, on the site of a previous house that had been torn down or something. The records were kind of murky once we were looking that far back. I had ordered delivery, and when it arrived we all gathered around the living room and caught up on what’s been new with them and how school was going, and it was a really nice time that I wasn’t sure whether or not to interrupt. But I knew Rick liked talking about this stuff, so I slipped in a question about whether or not he had seen anything weird lately. He turned off most of the lights and told some extravagant story about a place called The Devil’s Church where he insisted he and a couple of his friends nearly died. Mandy rolled her eyes every time he said that, which made me laugh, which made him insist that we had no idea how lucky we really were to have him still around.

“Well,” I said once he was done, “what’s it like being such a fearless expert of the unknown?” Mandy shoved me and laughed, but he took a heroic pose.

“It’s all part of the job, ladies.” We threw fries at him until he sat down.

“Okay, okay, so tell me honestly. If there was a ghost here, for instance, how would you find out?”

“Ah, well, about that—”

“He wouldn’t!” Mandy cried out. “Don’t let my cousin fool you, he’s just along for the ride. It’s that Matteson that’s supposed to see ghosts.”

“Oh, really?” I asked. “You never mentioned that!”

“Well, I did say he was there, you know,” Rick offered.

“There, he says. It was Matteson’s idea. Well, that night, anyway, Tony convinced us to try going before,” Mandy said.

“Us? Did you go to this Devil’s Church?” I asked, turning to her.

“Well of course I did. I was with Matteson when Rick called to invite him.” Rick cleared his throat and Mandy rolled her eyes again. “Rick doesn’t like me talking about that. But we went to the Devil’s Church, and someone freaked out, and we left. Nothing happened. Maybe nothing happened when they went back, either, who knows?”

“I know,” Rick said, “and it definitely was not that nothing happened.”

“So why haven’t I heard more about this guy in your stories?” I needled, reaching over to poke at Rick’s stomach. He swatted me away with a laugh.

“He doesn’t like not being the center of the story,” Mandy said, “you know how he is. But oh! You should meet Matteson. I think you two would get along great, he’s a bookworm like you. But he’s in my band, too.”

“At any rate, I’m always excited to meet your friends, even if it does sound like you just made him up based on the town I moved into.”

“His name’s John,” Rick explained, “his ex started calling him Matteson, that’s his last name, because it set him apart from the other Johns in town, and I guess it just stuck.”

“Why are you asking so much about ghost stories anyway, Alice?” Mandy leaned forward, staring into my eyes. “You don’t normally ask about ghost stories.”

“Oh, no,” I waved the question off, “no reason, really.”

“Is it this old house?” She gasped in mock drama. “Are there ghosts in this old house?”

“Now, Mandy, come on, I just—” She jumped up and walked into the hall between the living room and the stairs, calling for the ghosts. I started to shake, and Rick must have noticed because he sidled over and rested his hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, Alice, you alright?” he asked. I nodded and gave him a fake smile, and then we heard that scream again. It was like a man in agony, echoing from somewhere far away, but loud. Loud like it was inside the house. Mandy screamed, too, and ran back into the living room. We all huddled on the couch, peeking over the back of it for something to follow her into the room, but the sound ended and nothing new happened.

“Shit,” Mandy whispered. “There are ghosts in this old house.”

​“I’ll get you Matteson’s number.” I nodded, and we all resumed watching for a little while, before they started asking me about it. I confessed that there was no evidence I was in actual danger, but I certainly wasn’t comfortable with this going on, and we decided to turn some comedies to calm down.

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