Ghost of a Chance Book 1 in Above the Grave Trilogy (9 page)

Yet, other times she danced.
She held the man so
closely and he held her tight in return. It was almost as if they
were holding
each other
for
the
first
time, and
the last,
cherishing every minute, and not wanting to let go. They were
so close at times that they were like one, and in her dreams
they made love, something that Drew thought would never
happen, not in her lifetime, not to her. In her dreams it was
natural, it was meant to be, and his eyes held her and told her
everything she had ever needed to know.

The next few days flew by for Drew. The house was
exactly the way she wanted it.
The yard was getting there.
Drew had already decided on what flowers she was going to
plant outside next to the pool and around the cemetery. It was
going to take some time, but she would get there.

Her ghost hadn’t bothered her too much since their
confrontation at the staircase.
She supposed that they had
come to an understanding.
Drew felt him watch her every
move though. Sometimes it was annoying, sometimes a little
freaky, and sometimes when she couldn’t feel his presence, she
felt lonely.

The dreams that she had been having faded in and out
of reality for her. She thought she was dreaming when she
would see the man of her dreams out of the corner of her eye,
but would catch herself wide awake. She would have to shake
it off and go about her business.
Strangely though, time had
started to speed up, and one day ran into the next.
Drew
became a hermit. She was all alone (without another human)
and was beginning to lose track of the real world.

“Drew? Hello?” Liza hollered through the front door.
She had knocked several times, but there was no answer. She
heard classical music being played on a piano from inside the
house and it was obviously too loud for her to be heard. As
soon as she stepped in the music stopped.

“Is anyone home?” Liza said again.

Drew came out of the hallway with paint covered
everything. There was blue paint splattered in her hair along
with dots of yellow, smudges of black and brown on her cheek,
and a rainbow of colors on her jeans and shirt where she had
used them to wipe off or shape her brush.

“Why did you stop playing? I was really getting into
that one. Oh, Liza!” She said in surprise when she saw her
friend inside of the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, who were you talking to?” Liza said worried
about her friend. “Do you have company?”

 

“You could say that.” Drew said looking towards the
piano.

 

“Why haven’t you answered my calls, Drew? I’ve
been trying to call youfor a week and a half.”

 

“Oh, I lost my phone. Did you say a week and a half?”
Drew asked in surprise.

“Yes, I did, and when I called the gallery to see if I
could reach you there they said that you haven’t shown up to
work for a week and a half as well.
So, I thought that I would
try Boudreaux’s thinking that maybe you went back to work
there full time. They haven’t seen you since the first night that
you went back. What is going on Drew? Are you ok?” Liza
walked to her friend now. Drew could see that she was really
concerned.

“Of course I am ok. Don’t I look ok?” Drew shook
her head as if to say not to answer that. She realized that she
probably did look a mess. She didn’t grasp that she hadn’t left
the house all week. She couldn’t even remember the last time
that she had had a bath even.

“I’ve just been so busy, Liza, with the house. Doesn’t
it look great? I have been cleaning up the yard and I got rid of
all those old dust clothes.
I dusted the place from top to
bottom, well, the downstairs anyway; I washed all of the dishes
and threw out all of the…”

“Drew! You have shut yourself off from the world.
What is going on with you?”

“The cemetery looks great; did you stop by and see the
cemetery? I am going to have to buy you guys a new weed
eater and lawn mower I’ve gotten quite attached to yours; hey
how long do you think that canned goods stay good? I’ve got
some that are over a hundred and fifty years old…” Drew was
rambling as she had taken a cloth from her back pocket and
was vigorously wiping down tables and the piano.

“Drew, damn it, would you listen to yourself?” Liza
went to her friend now and shook her. She felt tears welling up
in her eyes. The dark rings and puffs around Drew’s eyes told
her that she hadn’t slept or probably eaten anything in a while.
She thought that Drew had finally lost her mind.

“Why don’t you pack a bag and come and stay with
Tim and I for the weekend? It’s my last weekend before
school starts and I could really use your help getting everything
ready forour Labor Day crab boil. Where is your room? Let’s
get you some things together ok?” Liza turned Drew around in
the direction of the hall where she had come from earlier.

With a laugh Drew said, “Liza, I am fine! Really! I’ve
just been so caught up in my new house, and the last couple of
days I have started painting again and I can’t seem to stop.”

“That’s nice honey. I’m so glad that you have found
your passion. Now where is that bedroom?” Liza saw the light
from the back sitting room and pushed Drew in that direction,
passing her bedroom.
When she saw the paintings hanging
from wall to wall in the sitting room her breath caught. Drew
wasn’t just passionate, she had become obsessed.

“Drew? Who is the man in all of the paintings,
sweetie?” The paintings that hung everywhere were absolutely
gorgeous. She always knew that Drew was talented but this
went beyond anything she had ever seen before.
Such fine
detail in some of them and others where blurry like that was
exactly the way that Drew had seen it. Every one of them had
a face in it, and each face was the same only with different
expressions or back grounds.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Isn’t he gorgeous though? I dream
about him every night. We have danced in the ballroom and
we have sat on the couch and had many conversations only I
don’t really remember what we talked about or what his voice
sounds like.” She blushed then. “He has even brushed my hair
in one of my dreams. It sounds crazy… I think I am in love
with him and I don’t even know his name.”

The light in the room seemed to fade for a moment
then, almost like it blushed along with her.

“Hey! You promised that you wouldn’t come in here!
I said I would leave the upstairs alone and you said that you
would stay out of this room! Get out now!” Drew yelled at the
air. “Well, he didn’t really say that but it was kind of an
unspoken promise.” Drew said then to Liza as a matter of fact.

Liza’s voice shook with fear, “Drew? Who are you
talking to? Is there someone else here that I don’t know
about?”

“Oh, that’s just Brendan. At least I think that is his
name. We haven’t been formally introduced, you see. He is a
pain in the ass though. He doesn’t keep very good company.”
She said a little louder as if to make sure that he heard her loud
and clear. “He is very testy and territorial. He plays the piano
beautifully though.”

Drew picked up her paint brush that she had sat down
on the easel.
She studied the blank canvas as if she was
imagining her next project. Liza turned her around to face her
then.

“Ok, you are getting the hell out of this house, Drew.
Do you know that ghosts can speak to you through your
dreams?
Do you realize that demons can alter your thoughts
and make you do crazy things?
You are coming with me and
that is final. You can wear my clothes let’s just go.” Liza
shoved Drew towards the hallway again. Drew stopped though
and turned to face her friend.

“Liza, I am not going anywhere, I love it here. It is so
peaceful and I have so much to do. I promise you I am not
going crazy, and there are no demons warping my mind. I am
fine. Besides, I am taller than you and well, sorry to say but a
little more blessed. I don’t think that your clothes would do me
justice.”

“Drew, you have either made up imaginary friends or
this place is haunted, and you are in love, correction, you are
obsessed with someone that you are having dreams about. That
is not normal.”

“Look,” Drew said as she sat down in one of the
antique rocking chairs that sat near the patio doors, “I haven’t
made up imaginary friends. There is a ghost in my house, his
name is Brendan O’Keefe. I have never seen him and he has
only spoken to me once but he is very much to the point. I
promise he is harmless. As for the man in my dreams, it’s only
a dream, right?
No worries my friend!
I will go to town
tomorrow and get a new phone and I will call you every single
day. Ok?”

Liza looked at her friend very suspiciously, “Will you
please take a bath and get some sleep? When is the last time
that you slept, Drew?”

Drew had to think about that. She really wasn’t sure.
She hadn’t even realized that it had been a week and a half
since she had talked to Liza. Time seemed not to exist in the
last few days.

“I’m not sure, a couple of day’s maybe. I promise.
Ok?”

Liza
still wasn’t convinced but she knew that she
wasn’t going to get her friend to leave without force and she
knew that she wasn’t capable of forcing her on her own. Her
Nana’s plan wasn’t exactly what Liza had hoped for. She didn’t
want to see Drew lose her mind. She knew it was going to be
hard, maybe even dangerous, but how was she supposed to
control something that she couldn’t even see?

“Will you eat as well?”

“Yes, now that you mention it I am starving!” Drew
laughed. She got up and gave her friend a hug. “Let me walk
you to the front door then I will go make myself a sandwich,
draw myself a bath, and take a nap. I promise.”

Liza believed that she would do exactly that.
She
thought that her little visit may have woken Drew up a little bit
at least. As if Drew had read her mind she watched her eyes
become aware of their surroundings.

“Wow! Did I paint all of these? He is beautiful isn’t
he?
I wish I knew who he was and why I keep dreaming of
him.”

“The whole thing is freaking me out, Drew.”
“Yeah, maybe I did go overboard just a little bit. Want
to help me take them down?” Drew asked as she started to
grab one of the paintings she had taped to a wall.

“Yes, yes, I do.” Liza said with a sigh of relief.

As they made their way around the room, one of the
pictures that Liza pulled from its sticky grasp really caught her
attention.

“Drew, this picture is really creepy. Who are the girls
in this one?”

Drew looked down at one of her drawings that Liza
was holding in her hand. She had sketched it with charcoal. It
was a man; the same man in her other works, and a woman
holding hands walking through a woodsy area. There was a
young woman watching them from behind a tree with a snotty
little look upon her face. The man looked very happy, almost
glowing. The woman that he was holding hands with looked as
if she could reach out of the picture and scratch your eyes out.
It was very disturbing.

“I don’t know.” Drew said as she grabbed the paper
from her friend’s hands and wadded it up in a ball. “I don’t
remember drawing that one.”

“Drew, let’s go into the kitchen and get you a
sandwich, ok?” Liza had started feeling a little better about
leaving her friend until seeing that picture. It was scary as hell
and Drew didn’t even remember drawing it. Something was
going on in that house. She had heard the piano playing as
Drew had described and Drew had been nowhere near it. A
harmless ghost was one thing; a crazy obsessed and maybe
even possessed friend was another.

Drew ate her sandwich and they talked about what had
been going on in Liza’s world in the last week. Drew told Liza
about the librarian and the cemetery and her encounter with
Brendan the ghost.
She assured her that she was not going
insane and that she had just had a lot on her mind the last few
days. She wasn’t planning on going back to work either. She
wanted to make a living with her own drawings instead of
staring at everyone else’s all day. She had discovered that that
was her dream and she had enough cushion in her savings now
that she could do it for a little while.

“Plus, I’ve got a few paintings in storage that I think
could sell, mostly of the French Quarter.
Tourists love that
shit.” Drew had said with a mouth full of ham and cheese
sandwich when Liza looked a bit skeptical.

She assured her that she would be fine. They were just
making their way to the front door to say their good-byes when
Drew’s phone rang in her back pocket.

“I thought that you said that you lost your phone,
Drew.” Liza said newly aggravated.

 

“Oh, I thought that I did.” Drew said sincerely.

“Hello? Oh, hey, mom.” Drew said rolling her eyes.
“Yes, I know I haven’t called you in a while, I’m fine.” She
paused to half listen to the other end of the line and continued
to sigh and roll her eyes.

“Yes, mother, I did cash out my life insurance policy…
No, mother, I’m not doing drugs.”

Liza couldn’t help but laugh a little. She knew that
Drew couldn’t stand her mother and she understood more why
after what Drew had told her about her childhood misfortune.

“Mom, I have to go my stove is on fire. Bye.” And
she hung up.

“That woman waits eight months to call me just to
bitch at me.” Drew said and shoved the phone back in her
pocket.

“Call me tomorrow, Drew. Go take a shower, you
stink, and then get some sleep, and don’t forget in two weeks
you are coming over for Labor Day.” Liza shut the door
behind her and immediately heard the piano playing again. She
felt chills from head to toe.