The Man in Black: A Ghost Story Read Free Page B

boots, my legs shaking.
    First it was Him, and now I had someone else watching me? What was she doing out there, solitary in the snow?
    I closed the curtains fast. I ran to the kitchen and locked the back door, too. I stumbled around the stove and managed to light it. My hands trembled for all they could. There was something going on, but I didn’t know what.
    I walked back into the sitting room and got my clothes off. The curtains stared down at me. Shadows from outside crept up through the gaps in the fabric, piercing the walls. I felt her there. I felt her outside, standing, waiting for me to look out from between the nets.
    I heard someone outside, close.
    Snow shuffled from under the front door and a shadow passed the window, elongated and thin. It stopped in front of me. I kneeled down by the door, my hand tight around the doorknob. It stared.
    It was her.
              I closed shut my eyes as tight as I could. My voice wanted to speak out, to scream. Being alone in a place of such depravity is frightening enough. What if she wanted to get in? What if this was her house? Had I wronged her?
    I opened my eyes. The shadow was gone. The curtains let in the hue from the streetlight outside, but that was it. I jumped up and threw open the curtains, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists. She was gone, a trail of bootprints left behind atop the cobbles. Small feet.
    Now, that was enough. I checked the doors and the windows once more, then slept.

THE BOOTPRINTS

    I worked late the following day, not getting home until around seven. William had to open late because of the snow out in the country road; it had piled up deep, and his car had gotten stuck. His thinking was to keep the butchers open a little later. We got a few in, but not many. I was left to shut up shop and make sure everything was done for Wednesday. William mentioned my missing shift when he finally made it through. He said he’d take it off me and that there were plenty of others desperate for my position. That was true, there was, and I’d never forgotten how lucky I was to work so close to home in a place so desperate. But I slept through straight, and that I couldn’t help. He gave me a warning of sorts, but seemed to brush over it before he left, promising me some good meat come Friday.
    The face at the window still pestered in the back of my mind. The woman in the snow, watching, lingered like some distinct memory. The evening was chilly that night, but not too cold. It was a warm sort of chill.
    I rarely used the bathtub under the stairs. The last tenants had left it black and filthy. One day, during the first week I moved in, I scrubbed it clean and bathed for a whole hour. The water was always hot despite the freezing temperatures outside. The pipes were inside, and so they never froze over. I’d decided to use it again after my shift. I filled it up with boiling water from the pot on the stove first then filled the rest with water from the tap. I wriggled out of my work clothes and slipped straight into the bath, the hot water numbing my feet.
    My mam had always said I had the body of a child, even after I grew up into young adulthood. She said I was pale like a workingman’s housewife. On the Rotten Row, I suppose I could be, but she had a point. My body was curvy, pure white and thick at the thighs. My mam was thin and bony and bronze, even in the winter. I followed after my dad, most likely. I had his crooked eyebrows.
    I never did like my feet, or my hands; they were too chubby. My hair was probably my only good feature. Long and black, hazel eyes. I didn’t mind that at all. I had a boy back in school. His name was Jack Hunter, and he would always comment on my hair and my eyes. It made me confident about them ever since.
    I always loved the feeling of a hot bath, when your fingers would wrinkle and your skin would blossom red as if it were about to peel off. I washed with soap and a sponge and used a cheap shampoo from the corner