The Ghost Light

 

       Lamps are beautiful in suburbia. At night, all the lights go out in the buildings, and the only illumination available is from small, isolated sources. Human beings have copied the natural versions of these light sources, and the result is the street light. Tall, solitary, and compassionate, they act as beacons, refuges, and companions to a lonely suburban wanderer on a lonely suburban night.

       It is for this reason that Claire was hugging the post of a street light late one Sunday night on Fairview Ave, not too far from the Stop ‘n’ Shop, one of the primary hubs for post-midnight activity in Brisk Woods. Sundays are the loneliest days, and Sunday nights are the loneliest parts of Sunday, and Claire was the loneliest girl, so it is not hard to understand this, really.

Way up at the Stop ‘n’ Shop, two girls were walking out of the building and across the parking lot, and one of them could see Claire pushed tightly against the lamppost, embracing it like a boyfriend leaving for the military. And, bless the distant spectator, she thought it was beautiful.

       Her partner, however, did not. “That’s really sad,” she said.

       “Everything is always sad with you,” the first girl said irritably. “Your whole damn outlook is sad. It’s boring as… straight up boring as hell. You should try being interested in something.”

       “Interest is a scam,” said her partner, walking along the white line of a parking space. “It implies that you need to make a conscious effort to see anything. In reality, all the people who see anything for what it really is do so by intuition. They just naturally look at stuff that way. They don’t pick things apart. There’s no interest. Just comprehension.”

       “Nobody can do that. Nobody just knows stuff. Everyone has to learn.”

       “Wrong.” The girl of no interest, pushing her blue hair out of her eyes, pointed upward, towards a street light. Surprisingly, there was a barn owl roosting atop it. “Look at him,” she said. “He’s not interested in one goddamn thing on this street. All he’s doing is waiting for prey.”

       “Then wouldn’t you say he’s interested in the prey he’s looking for?”

       “You don’t understand. There’s no interest there. It’s all instinct.”

 

       Claire finished hugging the street light and, as she turned around, she was shocked to see a barn owl flying overhead, disturbingly close to her. She cried out in alarm and ducked, throwing her hands overtop of her head and shutting her eyes tightly. She quickly realized, however, that she was not the owl’s prey and stood up again.

       “That was funny,” said Min.

       Claire let out yet another cry of alarm, similar to the one she’d emitted for the owl, and whirled around.

       “God, you’re jumpy,” said Min. She was dressed in a school uniform, which, though Claire did not know it, was really the only outfit she ever wore, even—like now—during the summer.

       “You scared me,” said Claire.

       “I liked that you were hugging the street light,” said Min. “Might I ask what brought you to such an act?”

       “Oh, uh… I don’t know,” Claire stammered. “I didn’t know you could see that.”

       “I saw you from afar,” Min said delightedly. “I was utterly fascinated.”

       “Oh,” said Claire.

       “What’s a pretty little girl like you doing out all alone at night, anyway?” asked Min. “It’s a bit dangerous.”

       “Sorry,” said Claire.

       Min chuckled slightly and the corner of her mouth twisted up around her cheek. “How old are you, sweetheart?” she asked.

       “Fifteen,” said Claire. “Why?”

       “You shouldn’t be out here all alone. How far do you live?”

       “Weston Street.”

       “That’s not far. Come on, I’ll escort you home.”

       “It’s alright,” said Claire. “I’m fine on my own. Really.”

       Min nodded. “Very well then,” she said. “It was lovely to meet you. What’s your name, dear?”

       “Claire,” said Claire. “What’s yours?”

“Most people call me Min. Sometimes they affectionately call me Min Min.”

“Do you go to Chapel Hill?”

       Min nodded. “You recognize the uniform, I suppose,” she said. “And I assume you go to Brisk Woods?”

       “Yes,” said Claire.

       “Well, good luck to you, Claire. Have a pleasant walk home. Say hello to any more street lights you encounter for me, yes? I’m pretty fond of them myself.”

       “Okay,” said Claire. “Bye.”

 

       As Claire started walking home, Min quickly flew from her mind. Instead she thought about Chris, who she had not seen in several days and had not responded to her Facebook comment. She did not want to think he was obligated to communicate with her, but she was understandably vexed about the sudden shift in dynamic between them, particularly since she was fairly sure she knew its cause.

       The rate at which the sidewalk passed below her seemed to increase as she lost herself more and more deeply in her thoughts. It rolled underneath her feet like a conveyer belt. On the few occasions when cars drove by, she would momentarily look up to examine them, smile briefly at their passing, and then go back to watching the cracks in the sidewalk slide beneath her feet, each one a silent check mark. Soon they gave way to the curb, which seemed a perilous cliff—one she had almost walked right off of.  The intersection with Weston Street had arrived startlingly fast.

       Looking up, she was surprised to see what at first glance seemed to be the glow of a new street light; she did not recall ever having seen it there before, and she knew this street very well. It was shorter than a street light ought to have been, and the lamp atop it radiated in all directions rather than just downward. In fact, after gazing at it for a few moments, Claire realized it wasn’t a street light at all, but it was actually the Weston Street road sign, and there was something glowing on top of it. The glow was strong enough that the sign could not even be read.

       “What the heck?” she asked herself. Almost as if spurred into action by her question, the light on top of the sign suddenly jolted into the air. It arched upward and then swung back around, flickering occasionally as though something were passing over it for a second. Claire stood transfixed, watching its movements, until it began to sail away down Weston Street opposite the direction of her house. As it went, it unleashed a shrill, spine-tingling shriek that seemed to pass over Claire in a wave. The shriek must have taken the thing’s last energy, as the light promptly disappeared altogether after emitting it.

       Clenching her teeth, Claire turned and bolted down the street in the direction of home, hardly breathing or even watching where she was going.

 

       Houses can be imposing in a very human-like way. Often they appear to be a giant face, with a door for a long, open mouth and two windows for eyes. They are particularly so when one does not know their interior well.

       This was the case for Claire as she approached Brian Bose’s house. She was afraid the house would swallow her and not let her out. To some extent, however, she felt swallowed anyway, so she gathered her breath and knocked.

       The door was opened by an elderly woman in a blue button-up dress. The dress had little yellow flowers arranged in a pattern across it. Her hair was tied in a bun behind her head, with stray, stringy bits sticking out in every direction.

       “Hello,” said Claire. “Is Brian home?”

       “Yes,” said the elderly woman. “Have you come to ask him about the stars?”

       “Well, no,” said Claire. “But I did come to ask him a question.”

       “Come on in,” the woman said, and she turned around and started walking into the house without waiting. Claire followed, carefully shutting the door behind her. “I always welcome Brian’s visitors,” the woman went on. “You seem like a nice one. Some of them are worse. Not really mean, just sort of awkward and without basic human adequacy.”

       Claire followed the woman through a hallway and into a large living room with a staircase in the far right corner. “Just head up the stairs and take a right,” the old lady instructed her. “Brian’s room is the one at the very end of the hall. You should run right into it. It’s the door with stars on it. You can’t miss it.”

       “Thank you,” said Claire. Feeling that she ought to say something else, but without a clue as to what it should be, she uncomfortably proceeded to the staircase as the woman watched her.

       Once up the stairs she was confronted with hallways to both her right and left, and each of them contained several evenly spaced doors on either side. She followed the directions she was given and soon reached the end of the hallway, where she was faced, as described, with a door covered in stars. They were actually stickers, which seemed to have been arranged haphazardly across its surface. She searched briefly for constellations, but found none, and so gave up and knocked.

       “Come in,” said Brian, so she did.

       The room was uncomfortably muggy. Brian did not keep the window open and spent a great deal of time there with the door closed, and so it smelled slightly of body odor and the air was thick. Books were piled high in the corners and filled the shelves along the wall, and there was a desk opposite the door which Brian was sitting at, playing some kind of strategy game on his computer. Without turning around, he greeted her. “Thanks for stopping by,” he said. “I thought about saying, ‘it’s open,’ instead of, ‘come in,’ but it really wouldn’t make sense. People often say that when they mean the door is unlocked but shut, and you can open it.”

       “That’s true,” said Claire.

       “Have a seat,” said Brian.

       Claire looked around the room. There were no chairs aside from the one Brian was sitting in, so she sat on the floor, keeping as near to the open door as possible in an attempt to breath fresher air. “I was hoping I could ask you about something that happened to me last night,” she said.

       Brian swiveled around to face her on his chair. His hair looked like it had not been washed for several days, and he wore thick glasses. “Have you slept?” he asked.

       “Not much,” said Claire. “Not really, no.”

       “Good. What happened?”

       “Well, I was out for a walk last night, and as I was walking home, I saw a really strange light,” she began.

       “Where were you?”

       “Weston and Fairview.”

       “Not a normal place to see a ghost light,” said Brian. “I assume the light was flying around in some fashion?”

       “Yes,” said Claire. “At first it looked like it was on top of the street sign for Weston Avenue. Then it took off and flew away down the street, and it screamed.”

       “What kind of scream?”

       “Well, like it was screeching. It was kind of shrill.”

       “Very interesting,” said Brian. He turned his chair around to face his computer again, minimized his game window, and began to open an internet browser. “This is a classic will o’ the wisp sighting,” he said.

       “What’s a will o’ the wisp?”

       “It’s a very old phenomenon. People see floating lights in the middle of the night and can’t explain them. They are traditionally thought to be ghosts of some kind, and most of the time people assume they either have bad intentions or are a sign of bad things to come. They typically float around, arc up and down sometimes, and appear to be alive. They run away if followed or sometimes follow someone who runs away. And there are occasionally reports of shrieks like the one you heard, although that’s a lot less common.”

       “So do you think it really was a ghost?” asked Claire.

       “No,” said Brian. He was busily scrolling through some kind of web site that Claire couldn’t see. “The will o’ the wisp is definitely a real phenomenon, but it’s also definitely not a ghost. Ghosts don’t behave anything like this, and they don’t come in little balls of light. I believe there is something much less supernatural, though perhaps even more amazing going on here.”

       He turned around again and slid his chair to the side so that Claire could see the web site he’d reached. “Come take a look,” he said.

       Forgetting the mugginess of the room, Claire stood up and approached the desk. The web site appeared to be an article on the possible existence of bioluminescent barn owls, and proposing that they explain will o’ the wisp sightings.

       “Oh,” she said. “I saw an owl just before that. It flew right over my head, actually.”

       “You what?” Brian took on an entirely different tone and manner as he uttered these words, and he stared at her intently. “You actually encountered a barn owl and then had a will o’ the wisp sighting?”

       “Yeah,” said Claire. “Doesn’t that make sense if it was a glowing owl that I saw?”

       “It would,” said Brian. “Except that it’s all a bit too coincidental. Seeing a barn owl in the suburbs is weird enough already. The fact that you would encounter it twice in the same night is a bit too much. I’m really going to have to think about this one.”

       “It does seem pretty strange, I guess,” said Claire. “But it could just be a coincidence.”

       “Please leave me for a time,” said Brian. “Contact me again in two days.”

       “But maybe I could help figure it out.”

       “No. I appreciate the anecdote, but you’re not going to be of any further use to me for the time being.”

       “Well, so does that mean I don’t have ghosts following me or anything? Like, I don’t have to be worried, do I?”

       “No,” said Brian. He was now paying most of his attention to his computer, though.

       “Well, thank you, then,” said Claire. “I guess I’ll go. Thanks again for all your help.” She turned around to leave, looking back at Brian as she did so, who remained unconcerned with her presence. She shut the door behind her and started back down the hall, trying to decide why an owl might want to follow her.

 

       The woman who had answered the door was nowhere in sight when Claire got downstairs, so, thinking it might be rude to stay without being asked to, she decided she would quietly let herself out.

       Upon opening the door, however, she was shocked to see the uniform-clad frame of a beautiful young girl in front of her.

       “Hello,” said Min.

       “Oh,” said Claire.

       “I’ve been hunting everywhere for you. I wanted to talk to you some more about that street light. I really can’t get it out of my mind.”

       “How did you know I was here?” asked Claire.

       “I have incredible vision,” said Min. “And besides, when I take an interest in someone, it drives me as though I’m guided by a higher force than myself.”

       She smiled, and looked pretty doing it. Claire could only ask, “Have you been following me?”

       “Yes,” said Min.