Free Emily's Ghost by Antoinette Stockenberg

--heaven?" Heaven. Here I am, asking a ghost if he's been hanging out in
heaven .
    "No, not in heaven," he
answered wearily. He stood up and rubbed the back of his neck,
which made Emily wonder if he felt chronic pain there. He seemed to
read her thoughts and drew his hand away instantly. Annoyed, he
added, "And not in hell, either. Not anywhere. And frankly, by now
I don't much care where I go, as long as it's
somewhere."
    "You can't mean that! No
one wants to spend an eternity in hell."
    "No one wants to spend it
nowhere, either."
    "Are there others in this
... limbo, with you? Did you ever meet anyone named Jimmy
Hoffa?"
    He waved her question away
and fell into a room-long pace. That intrigued Emily; obviously he
could've marched through the walls if he'd wanted to. She was
becoming a little used to him. He didn't seem quite as terrifying
as he had at first.
    Maybe the nightmare is
winding down, she thought. Maybe it's almost morning and the alarm is
getting ready to go off.
    He stopped mid-pace and
turned to her. "Have ye ever tried to understand nothingness? To
imagine yourself not
being ? No; why should ye? Ye're too busy
living. I was the same when I was alive ... always thinking about
the next job, always planning the break, the entry--"
    "Then you are a criminal!" she
blurted.
    "A thief, not a murderer,
ye dimwit. There's a difference."
    "I know that," she
answered, offended. "And I wish you would address me with some
civility. We don't treat women like servants any more," she lied.
"In any case, I thought you said you were innocent."
    "Not of all the charges. I
admitted to the court that I broke into the place. I admitted I
stole the silver -- excellent pieces, mostly by Paul Revere but
some Viennese stuff of real value. By the by, the candlesticks in
yer parlor ain't worth a hell of a lot. Plate, and not very heavy
at that."
    "They have sentimental
value, thank you," Emily said crisply.
    "But I never touched the
girl, never even bothered with the bedrooms, because I knew they
kept their jewelry in a safe. It was the silver I was after; the
old man was a keen collector before he passed on. Trouble was, the
son had no interest in it; he was startin' to sell it off. I had no
choice."
    O'Malley was sitting on --
above -- the bed now, looking rueful. "'Twas me own fault, rushin'
the job. I was sloppy. Someone saw me. They nabbed me before I had
a chance to unload any of the goods." He clenched his fists. "But I
did not strangle her."
    "Who was she?" Emily asked
in a cautious way.
    He shrugged. "The mill
owner's daughter. She was a flighty, silly thing, I'd always heard;
her head was full of cotton wool. But she was real kind, others
said, and generous. Loved animals, loved children. There was talk
of a spurned suitor, but no one bothered to prove it. There was
talk of a secret affair, but no one would believe it. They were in
too much of an all-fired hurry to get someone, and the someone they
got was me. Oh, they all hated me, all right. Her brother come at
me a couple of times during the trial, screaming I'd murdered his
sister and I'd burn in hell for it."
    He made a wry face and
stood up. "I guess I showed him."
    Emily had been listening
to his story with quiet fascination. "Have you -- you know -- kept
track of all these people where you are?"
    "Christ, woman, I told ye:
I don't see no one, I don't hear no one, I don't know nothing . I don't know
who's been made President, or if we're at war, or if the British
are running the country again. All I know is what I just read in
your privy: that there are ten traits a Cosmo woman should run from in a
man, and that some kind of savings and loan crisis ye're having is
going to last into the next century."
    She allowed herself the
luxury of a broad grin. The ghost continued to look baffled and she
thought, If I have to die, let it be now,
in a moment of non-terror, my first of the night.
    Still, when the ghost
began to scowl again Emily quickly wiped the grin from her face.