Author’s note: Dedicated to John Ritchie
Gran’s house was a pretty cottage on the edge of town, surrounded by greenery and cows, practically in the countryside. It always smelled of baking bread and carbolic soap. I spent a lot of happy times there in school holidays when my mother was away working—all of August, most years. And it was one August that I first saw the ghost lady.
There was one corner of the cottage that always felt cold. A heavy curtain separated it from the rest of the room. Behind that curtain there was a little window high up in the wall and a deep windowsill of rough stones, whitewashed. Gran kept a rosary and a little statue of the Virgin Mary there and never moved them—not even to dust. The statue was about eight inches high with nut-brown hair and a robe of cornflower blue and white.
That morning Gran was outside talking to the postman when she heard me scream and they both came running in.
“Dear God, child! What is it? What’s wrong?” and I told them both about the ghost lady.
“It began with a flowery smell, a jangly sound like music but not what I’d call real music and a bright light. Then the lady appeared and rose up through the room and she went right through the ceiling. Her mouth was wide open as if the music came from her but I don’t think it did because it wasn’t singing.”
“What did she look like, this lady?”
I pointed at the little Virgin because she looked a bit like the lady.
“Saints preserve us,” said Gran. “It is a gift,” and she crossed herself.
Well, it didn’t feel like a gift, and I never could adequately express my terror or my deep sense of foreboding. I saw the lady a few more times, always at the same time of year, always mid-morning in broad daylight and I was stuck to the spot, too frightened to move, unable to cry out, as if the breath was being squeezed out of me. And then she’d be gone up through the ceiling. But I didn’t like the way Gran fussed and told people so I used to keep it to myself and I never told another soul about it. People can be funny about ghosts. Anyway, the cottage is long since demolished, but I still think of the happy times there and Gran on a lovely day like this. It’s all factory units and high-rise offices now like the one I work in, though the industrial estate is still surrounded by countryside. Hard to pinpoint anymore where exactly Gran’s house used to be. It was somewhere round here; I can tell by the trees on the hill.
It seems a shame to be going into work on such a beautiful August morning as this, especially on a Saturday which is most people’s day off and more especially since I hate my boss—he’s a creep and he’s always telling lewd jokes—but he’s my boss.
I tap in my security code and the main door opens with a swish and closes behind me. I press the arrow to go up. The lift arrives and I step in.
“Which floor, please?” asks the mechanical voice.
“Thirteen.”
I check myself in the mirrored inside of the doors to straighten my hair. I am wearing my cornflower-blue dress and white silk scarf.
“Going up.”
The music starts—elevator music—nonsensical and banal—high and jangly. I’m looking at myself in the shiny doors, in the unnatural bright light, and a heightening sense of unease overtakes me and I realize. It’s her. She’s me. I am the levitating lady. Going up.
My boss gets in on the second floor.
“Cynthia. You look particularly alluring this morning. That color suits you.” He has me cornered. “Nice scarf.” He has hold of it.
The doors swish shut. It’s cold in here. I open my mouth to scream but no sound comes.
