“There it is again. Ron, go look. Somebody must be in the house.” Becca peered through darkness, but they turned off all the lights two hours ago when they went to bed. She couldn’t make out anything beyond the bedroom door.
“I looked twice already. No one’s in there and the front door is still securely bolted,” Ron mumbled back, half asleep.
“I can plainly hear the dining room chairs being dragged over the parquet floor. Go look.” Becca’s whisper grew louder.
“That’s what you said the other two times,” Ron said, but he sat up, reaching for his slippers. “Come in there with me. I’ll show,” he said, grabbing his wife’s hand. “Here’s your robe.”
Becca stayed behind Ron as they walked through the kitchen to the dining room. Just as he found twice before, all four chairs were neatly tucked in around the table with the floral Christmas centerpiece sitting squarely in the middle. None of the pictures on the walls hung crooked, and all the windows were closed and locked. “There’s no one here, Bec. Maybe it’s an outside noise that we just don’t recognize.”
“Oh, God.” Becca’s voice trembled, her hand shaking as she pointed down the hallway to the back three bedrooms.
Ron’s head shot up. He watched as woman in a blue dress moved slowly down the hallway. “Hey!” he yelled, and started walking rapidly towards her, only to see her vanish at the end of the hall. “Where did she go?” he yelled, looking in the first bedroom he came to. “Bec, did you see which room she went in? Becca?”
“She…she just disappeared. She didn’t go into any of the rooms. Ron, that was a ghost!”
“Don’t be silly. There are no ghosts here. Maybe a car drove by, creating shadows through the curtains.”
“Ron,” Becca said, “that wasn’t a car driving by. What did you see?”
Ron paused for a few second before answering. “I saw a lady, what looked like a lady, walking down the hallway. When it got to the end of the hall,” his voice grew more emphatic “where light from a passing car can’t shine, the…lady faded out. It was just a shadow from outside.”
“What did she wear?”
“What?” Ron asked.
Becca voice came out more forcefully. “What color clothes did she have on? And what was she wearing?”
“Well…it looked like an ankle-length, blue dress. Frilly collar. But I’m sure I saw that color from the car lights reflecting off of our blue wallpaper. Come on, Bec. It’s late. We have to get up early tomorrow to get to my mom’s house. There’s no one here.”
“What color was her hair? How did she style it?”
Ron rubbed his head. “I guess it was kinda dark brown. It looked like she wore it in a tight bun on the back of her head.”
“That’s exactly what I saw. If it were shadows, we’d imagine different things from them. Ron, we’ve been hearing the dining room furniture move around for a week now. And last night, I KNOW I closed and locked the front door. But when we got up this morning, it was standing wide open. Something’s going on.”
“You know, maybe when I went to my car to get my briefcase, it was after you locked the front door, and maybe I just forgot to lock it when I came back in.”
Becca stomped her foot. “That’s NOT what you said this morning.”
“I don’t know. But there’s no one in the house, the dining room chairs are exactly as they were when we went to bed, and the door...”
They both stared as the front door slowly opened. Wind blew in, causing the decorations on the tree to sway and tinkle. “Wait, see,” Ron said, “it’s just the wind, blowing the door open.”
“The wind is blowing in,” Becca said in a quiet voice. “The door opens out. Something, not wind, just unlocked our door and opened it.” Becca shivered. “Do you feel that? It was like a freezing cold breeze just blew by me. This is the warmest December we’ve had in years.”
Ron started towards the door to close it, but paused just as Becca commented on the cold breeze. “Yes, I did feel that. Did the AC just kick on?”
“I set it high so it won’t come on at night. That felt like twenty-five degrees.” Becca shivered again. “Can’t you feel how heavy the air has become? Ron, something’s in our house with us.” Becca opened the hall closet door, reach in and took down a box. “Let’s use the Ouija board to see if we can find out who the Lady in Blue is.”
“Come on, Bec, you know that’s a load of crap. Those things can’t tell us anything.”
Becca pulled two chairs out from the dining room table. “Sit down, Ron. Oh, humor your wife just this once.” Ron sat down in the chair opposite Becca. “Place your first two fingers from each hand on the planchette,” Becca instructed.
“The what?”
“This pointer piece that slides around on the board to tell us what letters spell out the words,” Becca said. “No, lightly, just barely touch it. You are not supposed to move it; it uses your energy to move itself to where it needs to go.”
“This is ridiculous,” Ron said, but kept his finger on the device.
“Remember, don’t force it. Let it move however it wants to,” Becca said, giving last-minute instructions to her husband. Looking around the house, she said, “Is there anyone in else in the house with us tonight?”
Nothing happened. “See? Ron said. Then, the planchette began moving slowly. “Come, on, Bec, you told ME not to move it.”
“Quiet!” Becca said. “I’m not moving it. This is what the Ouija board does.”
The planchette slowly moved towards the image of the sun, but it stopped over the word YES. “There’s someone here with us. What is your name?” Becca asked, looking around the room.
The planchette moved slowly from YES towards the center of the board, stopping with E in the window. “E,” called out Becca. It hovered for a few seconds, across the board, then stopped again. “V.” The planchette retraced its movement. “E,” said Becca. The planchette stayed there. After several seconds, Becca said “Is your name Eve?”
Ron sat up straighter as the pointer moved again towards the word YES. “Eve,” he said, “why are you here?”
Both people watched the Ouija board intently as it spelled out M-Y-H-O-U-S-E then ceased its slow movement. Ron lifted his hands up. “Bec, you’re moving that, aren’t you?”
“It moves itself. The spirit talking moves it. Ron, that woman we saw, her name is Eve. She used to live in this house.” Becca looked down the hallway, her eyes flitting quickly from door to door. “Wait,” she said suddenly, standing. “Remember when we first moved in here. You were going to put in built-in set of shelves at the end of the hall. But when you removed the sheetrock, you said that it looked as if there used to be a door there that someone had removed. Ron, Eve just went through a door that used to be in her house!”
Ron rubbed his hand on his head. “OK, sit down. Let’s do this some more.” Both of them touched the pointer. “Eve, when did you last live in this house?” He watched the pointer meticulously pointed to D-E-C-2-4-1-9-5-8.
‘Eve,” Becca said, ‘You moved out on the day before Christmas?” The planchette moved to the word NO. “I’m confused,” she turned to her husband. “That’s when she said she last lived...”
Ron cut his wife off. “Eve, when did you die?” The planchette spelled out the same date. “She died on Christmas Eve. That’s why it was her last day in this house,” Ron said. “Eve, were you sick? How did you die?”
The couple watched as the pointer moved successively to B-E-A-T-E-N then stopped. “Oh, God,” Becca put her hands up to her mouth, tears forming in her eyes. She was beaten to death on the day before Christmas. That’s horrible.”
“Put you hands back on it, Bec. Who did it, Eve? Who beat you?” The planchette moved more quickly this time: H-U-S-B-A-N-D. A loud bang seemed to emanate from the front door. Both of them jumped “Eve,” Ron said quickly. “Who was your husband?”
A-R-N-O, then the planchette shot out both of their hands to the word NO.
“Arno?” asked Becca.
“Arnold,” said Ron. “That bang must have been Arnold coming back home. What time is it?”
Becca looked at the wall clock. “It’s 12:37. December 24. This is when Eve died. Arnold came back to silence her once more.” Tears poured uncontrollably down her face now.
“Bec, you know I’ve never believed in this stuff, but I can’t deny what I just experienced. What is it they say to do in a situation like this on those ghost hunting shows you watch?”
“We have to talk to her, let her know she’s not trapped here. Eve,” Becca raised her voice, looking around the room. “Arnold can no longer threaten you. You are free to go where you need to go. He has no power over you other than your fear.” The heaviness in the air dropped almost instantly. Becca took a deep breath. “Feel that? It’s different in here, lighter.”
“So is it over?” Ron asked.
They both looked as a bell hanging from the Christmas tree tinkled. “Yes,” Becca said “Eve has gone home.”