Free Ghostlight by Sonia Gensler Page B

passed by an empty room and a sad little powder room—more mildew stink and rust stains in the sink—and then made our way back to the parlor.
    This room was different. I could feel something shift inside me when we walked through the wide doorway. Maybe it was the huge brick fireplace or the yellowed curtains that still had some prettiness to them, but this room lifted my spirits. Like it was haunted by the ghost of happiness.
    Which made no sense at all. Why would a happy person stick around after death?
    I went to the fireplace and touched the wood mantel. Dusty cobwebs stretched beneath it, but above it was a framed photograph of an old house with white wood siding and a two-level porch that stretched all the way across. I’d seen a small version of this photo in Grandpa’s album.
    “This was the first house on the farm,” I said to Lily. “The one that burned down.”
    “Did anyone die in the fire?”
    “Grandma didn’t know.”
    Lily frowned. “There could be ghosts here from the old house.” She walked to the window opposite the fireplace. “Was this where the light was shining?”
    Julian was still filming, so I answered Lily with a nod. We all stood quiet for a moment, and a nervous twinge started up in my belly. The two of them seemed to be waiting for something exciting to happen, as if the old kerosene lamp on the table would suddenly light itself. A part of me
wanted
that to happen because Julian would be impressed.
    Another part of me knew I would pee my pants if that lamp decided to light itself right before our eyes.
    Lily yawned. “This room is boring. Let’s go upstairs.”
    Julian let the camera run a moment longer and then lowered it. “I want to film you two walking up the staircase, but first let me make sure the stairs are safe.”
    After testing the steps, he made us walk up the staircase slowly, saying it’d be more dramatic that way. I swear the temperature rose a couple degrees with each step, and by the time we got to the top I felt a little dizzy and a lot sweaty. There were two doors at our left and three at the right. The nearest door opened to a small bathroom with a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a dirty tub.
    Lily turned the knob at the sink. After some creepy glugging noises, a glop of brown water spurted out. We both jumped at that. After more sputtering, the water flowed stronger and mostly clear.
    Julian lowered his camera. “You’d think the water would be turned off since no one lives here.”
    “Grandma must have told the water company to turn it on since she’s selling the house,” I said. “We may not have much time to film. She already got someone to trim the weeds outside, so she’ll probably be sending someone here to clean any day now.”
    Julian fiddled with the tub faucet. Again, there was a spell of glugging before the water spurted out.
    “Interesting,” he said. “Once your grandma gets in here and cleans up, the house won’t look right for the film. We really can’t waste any time.”
    Taking this to heart, Lily marched toward the first bedroom on our right, and I followed her lead. This bedroom, and the next, and the one after that, had peeling floral wallpaper and dusty braided rugs on the floor. Each contained some part of a bed—a headboard or frame—but no mattresses. In one room, the old bed frame stood near a fireplace and was draped with a quilt. The binding was frayed and torn, and the quilt needed a good washing, but it was still pretty. Lily shook her head at the old bed and marched right out of the room, but Julian stayed in the doorway filming.
    I leaned over the quilt to get a closer look. The quilter had stitched initials in a corner block —S.F.— but I couldn’t match those letters to anyone in our family. The entire thing was handmade, just like the ones at Grandma’s house, and probably made from the scraps of old clothes. The one on my bed in Grandma’s attic still had all its stitches and was softer than any blanket