Mother of the Eyes

Legs brushing against each other sound like whispered laughter. Ray pulls me from the living room and the creaking floorboards even though I told him it wasn’t time for her to come out. “It’s still here,” he says, jogging up the winding staircase away from the tour of the now haunted house. “But it can’t be,” I reply breathless. “I cleared out all your stuff months ago.” It was still a bit of a dig for Ray. After weeks of him going back on promises I took matters into my own hands and left his stacks of cardboard boxes and trash bags on the sagging porch, wet from constant rainfall. “You never liked guns in the house, so I hid it.” Ray trips over his limp foot as we walked into the bedroom, stiffening away from my help. His car accident years ago still lingered, the scathing metal scratch turning into an inverted rainbow on his leg. The room is much cleaner without the lingering smell of must and weed, his piles of flannels and magazines scattered on the floor like a collage of college dorms. I couldn’t stand the mess because of the bugs. Mostly carpet beetles, ants, an occasional wingless cockroach. A million eyes watching our every move. The whole house still smells of citrus since none of them ever liked it. “I’m not even going to begin to unpack that.” I stop behind Ray as he looks at the dream catcher hanging adjacent to the still-made bed. I had gotten it from my grandma when she passed and kept it up even though its frayed webbing hadn’t caught anything in years. “I’m here to help you, Bev, remember?” “Well, it’s not like a gun is going to help the situation.” My hands start to shake as he dug through the closet and finally lifted a baseboard. Ray was still convinced it was some wackjob that was messing with me in the house rather than, well, something paranormal. “You need to be able to defend yourself if there is anyone else here.” Ray looks to my eyes but is focused on the purple lines set underneath. They used to be my favorite feature. As a shared family feature, they slanted down like a sideways teardrop. “You scared me, calling me crying like that.” “I know,” I say. Part of me still wonders if it is real. Her pale face peeking from door frames, the wet footprints in the living room carpet. But I could tell Ray had heard it too. As we sit stiffly in the plastic-covered loveseat when he first came in, the silences dragging further and further out, breathing settles in the walls, the doors creak in slow openings. Everything in this house rots, the

woodturning soft and supple when it used to hold everything together. I feared I was next. Women always feel older, our biological clocks always ticking. “Please, just stay the night.” My voice sounds more shrill than I intended. Because at night, bugs can also wander. If I stay up late enough, I can sometimes catch them by my feet like phantoms. They are always lurking, hard to see, and feed on you when given the chance. Their dirty bodies drag across you, some legs limp because there is already more than enough to get the job done. “If you stay, you’ll see it and if you won’t, then I won’t have to either.” “Have you been sleeping?” Ray asks. He runs his fingers over his grey patches of five-o’clock shadow. “Why?” “That can affect what you see.” “So that just made me see that lady?” She looked like my grandmother when she died—her body. I can’t get the image of her mouth open out of my head. An empty black hole. Her skin waxed and yellow. It settles in me like that itch when you put on a new sweater. I used to think that you could make peace with people being gone once they were actually gone. “Maybe,” he says. Ray agrees to sleep in the red lumpy chair in the corner, so his eyes are on the door, but until then, we sat on the bed talking, yawning, scattering our breath. I tell him about how I started to volunteer at the hospital but leave out one of the nurses telling me how to do CPR the right way. How the patient’s ribs will snap, their entire chest bruises, sternum bends. That you can fully feel their heart under stretched skin with just your palms. “Wait. I have something,” I say, reaching for the nightstand drawer. “Prosecco?” He asks. I nod. When we open it, it’s bubbly like champagne. “Don’t read too much into it. I always liked this kind of wine.” It was dry and brut but was still so sweet. “Well, it’s my favorite,” he says. “You didn’t even know what it was until I showed you.” I take a swig of the bottle and hand it to him. “At that Italian place by your mom’s?” “Yeah. It was one of our first dates.” I yawn. “You got the carbonara,” Ray says. “How did you remember that?” I ask, but he just shrugs. “Wait, be quiet for a second,” Ray whispers. “I hear something like that

breathing again.” “Let’s go look.” Jumping, we both go up to the door. Our feet plaster to the shaggy carpet, our mouths close. Wood creaks, pipes rattle, the house is loud with age. But there are indistinguishable steps that stop outside the doorway, the brush and scrape of flesh on tile. Ray grips his gun harder and takes a few steps. “Don’t go.” My arm goes right to the hollow part between his chest. I could feel a dull beat of his heart through his strong arches of uncracked bones. We both hold our breaths when the footsteps stop, but I couldn’t help but think of the skin under the thin veil of his sweater, the patches of now greying hair sprouting like tufts of grass in a desert. Ray walks to it anyway, holding the handle of the .45 tightly in his hands, peaking over the opening door. The first time I saw anything was a week after Ray left. My doorknob turned as if someone was trying to get in. It juggled faster and faster until it just stopped, and everything went quiet. Now every time I close my eyes, I see crawlers, squirmers, legs slithering, beady eyes. And her. A pale, towering dress, brown curls cascading down her shoulders like mine, some of her wet hair sticking to her forehead. Her eyes are closed, her black mouth hanging open in a perpetual ‘o.’ It was real, but it couldn’t be. Isn’t that exactly what a ghost is? “No one,” he breathes. But I know to wait. I know better than to stand with my back against the hall, unlike Ray. He smiles at me with his lips closed, holding the door handle like a parent who’s just said goodnight. The gold knob dulls to a light grey under his tight grip, not reflective enough to capture the outline behind him. Yet his smile wavers anyway, and he whips around to look for her. “Come in here and close the fucking door,” I say, though I know it’s no use. But after an interlude of silence, Ray sighs. “I don’t see anything.” “You,” I squint my eyes, “don’t?” “No,” he says, dragging out the vowel, like he isn’t entirely sure. “It must have been the wind.” He laughs. The wine had stained his teeth a slight yellow. Maybe it was the wind or the wood swelling from the damp fall. Or maybe whatever it is is like the bugs; crawling up from the drains or cracks—no particular reason to be here but to feed. I thought of how Ray haunted the same halls. I couldn’t scrub the bedroom walls to clear his uneven brush-

strokes or completely sand away the dents he made in the stairwell from the sharp toes of his boots. The dream catcher sways. Rain flows down the cracked walls like rolling sand, tiger stripes, a line of ripples. And she, it, will groan further up in the hall. Her muffled voice cracking and shifting through the rotting wood.