Chapter 2 Henry focused on the house, on doing the repair work that fit his limited skill set and on researching tradespeople who were needed for everything else. He received weekly emails from a lawyer about his mother's money and his father's incarceration, and the status of neither of them changed. He texted with Eleanor almost daily albeit not on important topics. He didn't want to weigh her down with thoughts she could do nothing about. Repeated attempts at contact from his brother were ignored. A month passed and he'd almost convinced himself that he had wanted the ghost for company. It was terribly lonely in the cottage and while he wasn't about to answer his brother's calls, he couldn't stop himself from having imaginary conversations. The whole scenario would be less ridiculous if Henry thought he wasn't talking to just himself. The ghost, however, hadn't appeared again and anything else she might have done -- rearrange the silverware drawer, leave the toothpaste cap off -- could just as easily and more justifiably have been done by Henry himself. Still, he decided to call her Fanny -- short for ‘Phantom’ -- and routinely teased her for being a bad housemate. It made him feel less isolated. He slept in on the weekends as a treat, as if he needed to view the endless list of home improvement tasks as a regular job. It injected some variety into his schedule and helped mark the passage of time. Mornings and evenings were so dark in February, and his mind and body both needed the extra time. As he was laying in bed, not quite committed to getting up and yet too awake to go back to sleep, he heard a noise coming from the bathroom. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear that someone was taking a bath, sloshing water gently in the old claw foot tub. He continued to listen fully alert for a few minutes. The sounds only made his original hypothesis more likely. Someone was in his house. Someone was in his bathtub. They were humming something tuneless rather than haunting but Henry was creeped out just the same. Finally screwing up his courage, he got out of bed and padded silently to the bathroom door. As he gripped the door knob, the noise coming from the bathroom sounded only more real. Was it actually a ghost? What if he walked in on some stranger taking a bath? Why would anyone break into this cottage in the middle of nowhere at some godforsaken hour just to take a bath while he was sleeping in the next room? When he thought of it like that, it actually made sense to imagine a ghost in his tub. “Fanny, is that you?” he asked weakly. If it was a living, breathing intruder, maybe they'd decide he was barmy and quietly sneak out before having to deal directly with his madness. “Fanny!” he repeated with more force. “Quit using my shampoo!” He rattled the knob once in warning then threw open the door. The room was dark and empty and humid. The drain gurgled at him. .o8o. After that, Henry paid closer attention and decided that his ghost was an organizer who was set in her ways. She liked to move things around, not big things, but yes, she and Henry were in a mild tug of war about where a few things should be located and she'd reordered his spices a few times. He didn't understand why she had trouble with the toothpaste tube when she always managed to close his cereal boxes. She liked lavender if the scent that clung to the empty vase by the front door was any indication. She was a fiend for vanilla, and he went through vanilla-scented shampoo far quicker than someone with short hair ought. He started talking to her in earnest: long rambling monologues about his childhood; character studies of his former coworkers; criticisms of the plumbing videos he had watched; detailed retellings of therapy sessions. He knew he had crossed a line when he started imagining what Fanny would say in response but he also knew it wasn't real, not really. The ghost never replied, never stopped him to give him her real name, never called him out on his hyperbolic characterizations, never reminded him that both his siblings could bear to hear these things from him without judging him too harshly. He never heard her voice beyond that first scream in the kitchen when he had surprised her. At her worst, she swapped the cinnamon for the paprika and stole the hot water for his morning shower. Eventually, he told her about his mother and finding her body; it wasn't exactly therapy but in the middle of nowhere his choices were limited. In keeping with precedent, she did not speak to him to offer advice or commiseration. There was no warm gust of comforting air, no gurgling pipes to mimic soothing words. Henry was forced to do all his own thinking, and would occasionally, briefly admit that he was not at fault. He was not yet ready to share this breakthrough with Eleanor; he still had never replied to Frederick’s calls or texts. Maybe the ghost and Henry were each having their own separate conversations with each other, spilling all sorts of secrets and emotions, completely unaware of what the other was trying to say. Maybe while Henry was coming to terms with his mother's death, Fanny was making peace with her own afterlife. It should have felt more tragic than this. Henry snuck down to the kitchen one night for a glass of water and caught a blur of color in the sitting room. He stopped in his tracks and retraced his steps slowly and silently. Fanny was there, sort of. A vague shape that was probably her head was bent over a square on the table, a dim shadow that might have been her hand was hovering over it. Was his ghost playing a game? He must have made a sound -- gasped or something. Fanny looked at him and for a moment he could actually see her outline, maybe even the color of her hair. Before he could begin to register the details, she was gone. He found the old chessboard the next morning. Half the pawns were missing but there were enough checkers to patch the gap so he set up the board on Fanny’s table and made the first move. When he sat down after dinner, he could see that Fanny had joined him in the game. .o8o. Eleanor surprised him in March. Her car pulled onto the gravel just as he made his morning move on the chess board. He was outside to greet her before she got out of the car. He hugged her tightly and asked, "What are you doing here?” in such a joyful tone that she had to laugh and squeeze him back in response. His morning plans happily derailed, he invited her in and gave her the tour. Eleanor was perfectly attentive and if she couldn't fully appreciate all that Henry had already accomplished, she could certainly sound suitably impressed. Henry saved the second bedroom for last, opening the door with a flourish and offering it to her. He offered apologies as he still had a few projects to finish in that room but Eleanor was truly enraptured and wouldn't leave until she had inspected and delighted over every detail. Again, finally they settled in the sitting room and at last their excited chatter began to move from the subject of home improvement to other topics. “How long are you staying?” Henry asked. “Do you have time to stay for dinner? Do you want to eat here or go into the town?” Town was 30 minutes away by car and had three restaurants. “I need to be on the road by 10 tomorrow so I can stay if you'll let me sleep in my room tonight,” Eleanor said. “Of course you can stay! That's the whole reason why I moved here,” he told her. “I just wish you had given me a little warning and I would have hung the curtain rods this week.” But once he began to think of it, he worried how Fanny would treat Eleanor. It would probably be alright. Fanny had never acted out before. “What's wrong?” Eleanor asked, watching the concerns play across his face. “It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm just worried you're going to steal all my hot water,” he joked. Fanny was a well-behaved ghost, and he was sure that he had nothing to worry about. He made some ploughman's sandwiches for lunch and then they went to visit Aunt Grace, then came back to the cottage and Eleanor helped him with the curtain rods and a few other projects that went faster with a second pair of hands. When the sun began to sink they washed up and gathered again in the sitting room before getting back in the car to go to the best restaurant in town. “Frederick tells me that he's been reaching out to you,” Eleanor told him as they bounced along the road. Henry frowned. “He's been trying,” he said. Eleanor paused, trying to phrase this next bit correctly. “The way Dad played favorites -- the way he neglected you and me -- that was wrong. It hurt us both. But I know it hurt Frederick too.” “Eleanor,” Henry said coolly, “our father murdered our mother and Frederick is defending him.” “He's not,” Eleanor protested, “not really. He grew up brainwashed into thinking that Dad was the greatest man alive. He was desperate for recognition from the one person who would never give it. Did I tell you about how he wished that he had been named Henry Junior? He hated being named for our grandfather while you were named after Dad. It's really hard to overcome that kind of programming, but Frederick is trying. He just needs some support and encouragement from people who aren't Dad.” Henry grimaced but kept silent. He wasn't ready to forgive just yet. Eleanor knew better than to expect Henry would change his mind in an instant so she wisely changed the subject. “I noticed the chessboard. Do you have a game going with someone?” The new topic caught him off guard and Henry looked a little flustered as he answered, “Maybe.” Eleanor’s eyes widened as she instantly picked up on his reticence. She rapidly jumped to all sorts of conclusions. Henry had been practically colorless with depression since the initial shock of their mom's death had worn off. If he was now blushing at the thought of a chess game, Eleanor wanted to know why. “Have you made friends with a neighbor who comes over to play chess with you?” Eleanor asked. “Am I interrupting your game? Is she a girl? Are you dating someone?” “Dating someone?!” Henry yelped in alarm. “Absolutely not!” The idea was mad. Fanny was a ghost! “Then who is she?” Eleanor asked, feeling more confident in her choice of pronoun. “I'm trying something new,” he said, completely ignoring her direct question to answer something else. “I only move once per day. It encourages me to be mindful. I think it's improved my game.” “Who are you playing against?” she restated. “Someone I've never met, someone who doesn't live here,” said Henry, lying with the truth. “What's her name?” Eleanor persisted, convinced that this mystery person was a woman. “I don't really know,” he replied, growing exasperated with his sister's badgering. Before Eleanor could ask her next question, he supplied, “I call her Fanny.” Eleanor sputtered in indignation at the name. “Do I even want to know what kind of website you found her at?” Henry agonized for another breath before deciding to trust his sister with the truth as he knew it. “Fanny is short for Phantom. She's a ghost. She doesn't live here because she's, you know, dead,” Henry finally admitted. He stared intently at the empty road in front of them, waiting for Eleanor’s reaction. There was a blessed beat of silence before his sister was nearly shouting her questions at him. There was a ghost, an actual ghost? Who died? How long has this been going on? What exactly did the ghost do? When was he planning to mention that the cottage was haunted? He had to be pulling her leg, right? “I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to freak out,” he said matter of factly, lightly scolding her. “I don't know who she is, which is why I call her Fanny. I tried to mention it once to David but he didn't know what I was talking about, so I just shut up about it because I know how crazy it sounds. She's not evil or wicked or even tortured, I think. She likes to organize things and I've figured out she can play chess, albeit very slowly. Don't worry about her, Eleanor; she won't hurt you. You probably won't even notice her.” “Is it safe to sleep in the cottage?” Henry actually scoffed at that. “I've been there for a couple months and the worst that has happened that I can blame on Fanny is that she woke me up early because she was taking a bath.” The silent response to that tidbit was pointed and Henry ignored it.https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131603#msg-131603Tue, 26 May 2026 09:15:05 +0100 Phorum 5.2.22 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131609#msg-131609 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131609#msg-131609 NN S Derbyshire Writers' GuildSun, 20 Jul 2025 23:14:04 +0100 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131604#msg-131604 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131604#msg-131604 LisaY Derbyshire Writers' GuildSat, 19 Jul 2025 19:08:00 +0100 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131603#msg-131603 https://dwiggie.com/phorum/read.php?5,131603,131603#msg-131603Chapter 2

Henry focused on the house, on doing the repair work that fit his limited skill set and on researching tradespeople who were needed for everything else. He received weekly emails from a lawyer about his mother's money and his father's incarceration, and the status of neither of them changed. He texted with Eleanor almost daily albeit not on important topics. He didn't want to weigh her down with thoughts she could do nothing about. Repeated attempts at contact from his brother were ignored.

A month passed and he'd almost convinced himself that he had wanted the ghost for company. It was terribly lonely in the cottage and while he wasn't about to answer his brother's calls, he couldn't stop himself from having imaginary conversations. The whole scenario would be less ridiculous if Henry thought he wasn't talking to just himself. The ghost, however, hadn't appeared again and anything else she might have done -- rearrange the silverware drawer, leave the toothpaste cap off -- could just as easily and more justifiably have been done by Henry himself. Still, he decided to call her Fanny -- short for ‘Phantom’ -- and routinely teased her for being a bad housemate. It made him feel less isolated.

He slept in on the weekends as a treat, as if he needed to view the endless list of home improvement tasks as a regular job. It injected some variety into his schedule and helped mark the passage of time. Mornings and evenings were so dark in February, and his mind and body both needed the extra time. As he was laying in bed, not quite committed to getting up and yet too awake to go back to sleep, he heard a noise coming from the bathroom. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear that someone was taking a bath, sloshing water gently in the old claw foot tub.

He continued to listen fully alert for a few minutes. The sounds only made his original hypothesis more likely. Someone was in his house. Someone was in his bathtub. They were humming something tuneless rather than haunting but Henry was creeped out just the same.

Finally screwing up his courage, he got out of bed and padded silently to the bathroom door. As he gripped the door knob, the noise coming from the bathroom sounded only more real. Was it actually a ghost? What if he walked in on some stranger taking a bath? Why would anyone break into this cottage in the middle of nowhere at some godforsaken hour just to take a bath while he was sleeping in the next room? When he thought of it like that, it actually made sense to imagine a ghost in his tub.

“Fanny, is that you?” he asked weakly. If it was a living, breathing intruder, maybe they'd decide he was barmy and quietly sneak out before having to deal directly with his madness.

“Fanny!” he repeated with more force. “Quit using my shampoo!” He rattled the knob once in warning then threw open the door. The room was dark and empty and humid.

The drain gurgled at him.

.o8o.

After that, Henry paid closer attention and decided that his ghost was an organizer who was set in her ways. She liked to move things around, not big things, but yes, she and Henry were in a mild tug of war about where a few things should be located and she'd reordered his spices a few times. He didn't understand why she had trouble with the toothpaste tube when she always managed to close his cereal boxes. She liked lavender if the scent that clung to the empty vase by the front door was any indication. She was a fiend for vanilla, and he went through vanilla-scented shampoo far quicker than someone with short hair ought.

He started talking to her in earnest: long rambling monologues about his childhood; character studies of his former coworkers; criticisms of the plumbing videos he had watched; detailed retellings of therapy sessions. He knew he had crossed a line when he started imagining what Fanny would say in response but he also knew it wasn't real, not really.

The ghost never replied, never stopped him to give him her real name, never called him out on his hyperbolic characterizations, never reminded him that both his siblings could bear to hear these things from him without judging him too harshly. He never heard her voice beyond that first scream in the kitchen when he had surprised her. At her worst, she swapped the cinnamon for the paprika and stole the hot water for his morning shower.

Eventually, he told her about his mother and finding her body; it wasn't exactly therapy but in the middle of nowhere his choices were limited. In keeping with precedent, she did not speak to him to offer advice or commiseration. There was no warm gust of comforting air, no gurgling pipes to mimic soothing words. Henry was forced to do all his own thinking, and would occasionally, briefly admit that he was not at fault. He was not yet ready to share this breakthrough with Eleanor; he still had never replied to Frederick’s calls or texts.

Maybe the ghost and Henry were each having their own separate conversations with each other, spilling all sorts of secrets and emotions, completely unaware of what the other was trying to say. Maybe while Henry was coming to terms with his mother's death, Fanny was making peace with her own afterlife. It should have felt more tragic than this.

Henry snuck down to the kitchen one night for a glass of water and caught a blur of color in the sitting room. He stopped in his tracks and retraced his steps slowly and silently. Fanny was there, sort of. A vague shape that was probably her head was bent over a square on the table, a dim shadow that might have been her hand was hovering over it.

Was his ghost playing a game?

He must have made a sound -- gasped or something. Fanny looked at him and for a moment he could actually see her outline, maybe even the color of her hair. Before he could begin to register the details, she was gone.

He found the old chessboard the next morning. Half the pawns were missing but there were enough checkers to patch the gap so he set up the board on Fanny’s table and made the first move. When he sat down after dinner, he could see that Fanny had joined him in the game.

.o8o.

Eleanor surprised him in March. Her car pulled onto the gravel just as he made his morning move on the chess board. He was outside to greet her before she got out of the car. He hugged her tightly and asked, "What are you doing here?” in such a joyful tone that she had to laugh and squeeze him back in response.

His morning plans happily derailed, he invited her in and gave her the tour. Eleanor was perfectly attentive and if she couldn't fully appreciate all that Henry had already accomplished, she could certainly sound suitably impressed. Henry saved the second bedroom for last, opening the door with a flourish and offering it to her. He offered apologies as he still had a few projects to finish in that room but Eleanor was truly enraptured and wouldn't leave until she had inspected and delighted over every detail.

Again, finally they settled in the sitting room and at last their excited chatter began to move from the subject of home improvement to other topics.

“How long are you staying?” Henry asked. “Do you have time to stay for dinner? Do you want to eat here or go into the town?” Town was 30 minutes away by car and had three restaurants.

“I need to be on the road by 10 tomorrow so I can stay if you'll let me sleep in my room tonight,” Eleanor said.

“Of course you can stay! That's the whole reason why I moved here,” he told her. “I just wish you had given me a little warning and I would have hung the curtain rods this week.” But once he began to think of it, he worried how Fanny would treat Eleanor.

It would probably be alright.

Fanny had never acted out before.

“What's wrong?” Eleanor asked, watching the concerns play across his face.

“It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm just worried you're going to steal all my hot water,” he joked. Fanny was a well-behaved ghost, and he was sure that he had nothing to worry about.

He made some ploughman's sandwiches for lunch and then they went to visit Aunt Grace, then came back to the cottage and Eleanor helped him with the curtain rods and a few other projects that went faster with a second pair of hands. When the sun began to sink they washed up and gathered again in the sitting room before getting back in the car to go to the best restaurant in town.

“Frederick tells me that he's been reaching out to you,” Eleanor told him as they bounced along the road.

Henry frowned. “He's been trying,” he said.

Eleanor paused, trying to phrase this next bit correctly. “The way Dad played favorites -- the way he neglected you and me -- that was wrong. It hurt us both. But I know it hurt Frederick too.”

“Eleanor,” Henry said coolly, “our father murdered our mother and Frederick is defending him.”

“He's not,” Eleanor protested, “not really. He grew up brainwashed into thinking that Dad was the greatest man alive. He was desperate for recognition from the one person who would never give it. Did I tell you about how he wished that he had been named Henry Junior? He hated being named for our grandfather while you were named after Dad. It's really hard to overcome that kind of programming, but Frederick is trying. He just needs some support and encouragement from people who aren't Dad.”

Henry grimaced but kept silent. He wasn't ready to forgive just yet.

Eleanor knew better than to expect Henry would change his mind in an instant so she wisely changed the subject. “I noticed the chessboard. Do you have a game going with someone?”

The new topic caught him off guard and Henry looked a little flustered as he answered, “Maybe.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened as she instantly picked up on his reticence. She rapidly jumped to all sorts of conclusions. Henry had been practically colorless with depression since the initial shock of their mom's death had worn off. If he was now blushing at the thought of a chess game, Eleanor wanted to know why.

“Have you made friends with a neighbor who comes over to play chess with you?” Eleanor asked. “Am I interrupting your game? Is she a girl? Are you dating someone?”

“Dating someone?!” Henry yelped in alarm. “Absolutely not!” The idea was mad. Fanny was a ghost!

“Then who is she?” Eleanor asked, feeling more confident in her choice of pronoun.

“I'm trying something new,” he said, completely ignoring her direct question to answer something else. “I only move once per day. It encourages me to be mindful. I think it's improved my game.”

“Who are you playing against?” she restated.

“Someone I've never met, someone who doesn't live here,” said Henry, lying with the truth.

“What's her name?” Eleanor persisted, convinced that this mystery person was a woman.

“I don't really know,” he replied, growing exasperated with his sister's badgering. Before Eleanor could ask her next question, he supplied, “I call her Fanny.”

Eleanor sputtered in indignation at the name. “Do I even want to know what kind of website you found her at?”

Henry agonized for another breath before deciding to trust his sister with the truth as he knew it. “Fanny is short for Phantom. She's a ghost. She doesn't live here because she's, you know, dead,” Henry finally admitted. He stared intently at the empty road in front of them, waiting for Eleanor’s reaction.

There was a blessed beat of silence before his sister was nearly shouting her questions at him. There was a ghost, an actual ghost? Who died? How long has this been going on? What exactly did the ghost do? When was he planning to mention that the cottage was haunted? He had to be pulling her leg, right?

“I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to freak out,” he said matter of factly, lightly scolding her. “I don't know who she is, which is why I call her Fanny. I tried to mention it once to David but he didn't know what I was talking about, so I just shut up about it because I know how crazy it sounds. She's not evil or wicked or even tortured, I think. She likes to organize things and I've figured out she can play chess, albeit very slowly. Don't worry about her, Eleanor; she won't hurt you. You probably won't even notice her.”

“Is it safe to sleep in the cottage?”

Henry actually scoffed at that. “I've been there for a couple months and the worst that has happened that I can blame on Fanny is that she woke me up early because she was taking a bath.”

The silent response to that tidbit was pointed and Henry ignored it.]]> NN S Derbyshire Writers' GuildThu, 17 Jul 2025 12:21:17 +0100