Lisa closed the door as gently as she could, not wanting to make a single sound. Today, the sounds had never stopped. Soft sounds. Gentle speaking. Hushed tones. Careful footsteps over manicured grass and earth that pressed in with every step. It was all still too much. She never wanted to hear a sound again.
Her room was exactly as she had left it twenty years ago. Her mother had always threatened to turn it into a crafting room, her father an exercise room. They never had. Laziness? Or something more?
The twin bed wasn’t quite how she remembered it. Too hard. Hadn’t it been the dreamiest place in the whole world when she was a child? Maybe things get harder when you get older. Maybe she was misremembering. It was actually a positive, her back was still all messed up from tripping down the stairs five years ago. She’d set her Sleep Number bed to ninety-eight ever since. Her husband refused to have sex on her side of the bed. Said it was like fucking on roof.
Her husband. She should really call before going to sleep. But a glance at the little alarm clock – still ticking after all these years – told her he and the kids would probably already be asleep. And anyway, she didn’t have the strength for that. To hear another sound, even if it was the sound of her husband’s voice. She sent him a text – glad that’s over with, see you tomorrow, love you – and plugged her phone in before rolling over and trying to sleep.
Coming home for a funeral was pretty much the worst, but there were some unexpected comforts. The twin bed was a spit of blanket and pillow compared the king bed waiting at home – Don had probably adjusted her half to his usual thirty and was sleeping in the dead center of the bed spread eagle, lucky jerk – but there was still something oddly comforting about it. The smell. A little musty, but otherwise just as she had remembered. The softness of the comforter. Her mother had washed it. Or had been washing it. Either way, she hadn’t let it get stiff with age. The sounds of the room. Yes, she was pretty much done with the sounds, but these sounds were practically nothing. Welcome. The air rushing through the vents. Wind through the trees outside. Her father’s snoring, audible throughout the whole house. These were the sort of sounds she could take right now. The sort of sounds that could rock her to sleep.
“…lisa…”
She sat upright in bed. She had heard something. No, she hadn’t. Yes, she did. No, she didn’t. Where did it come from? Nowhere, that’s where, because she hadn’t heard anything at all. Except she knew where it came from, except she didn’t because there was nothing to hear go back to sleep.
As soon as her head hit the pillow again she heard a new sound. A creak.
Knowing what she would see, contemplating not bothering to look, she looked anyway.
The closet door was now ajar. She was sure it had been closed. It had been the first place her eyes had gone when she had come in.
“Lisa.”
She knew that voice. She had heard that voice her entire childhood. All the way through high school, until she’d finally left. It wasn’t supposed to be real. It wasn’t supposed to still be here. Boogeymen don’t follow you into adulthood.
“Lisa…Lisa!…I’mmm sssooo glad you’re hommmme, Lisssssssaaaaaaaa-”
“Oh, my God,” Lisa said.
“You cammmme back to plllayyyyyy.”
“Mr. Freckles.”
“Commmmme plllaaayyyyy, Llllliiiiissssaaaa.”
“Mr. Freckles!”
The hissing finally stopped. There was a sort of wounded air to the quality of the silence. She’d never yelled at Mr. Freckles before. Never spoken to him at all.
“I did not come back to play. I came back for my Nana’s funeral. Which was today. And not fun. So if you could please shut the fuck up I am trying to sleep off the world’s worst emotional hangover.”
Lisa laid back down without waiting for a reply, pulling the blankets over her head.
I always knew that fucker was real.
Is he real? Or is this, I don’t know, audio hallucinations brought on by exhaustion and grief.
“Lllllissssaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
Lisa sighed. He was real.
“Llllllissssaaaaaaaaa.”
“What?” Lisa barked, not bothering to get up.
“Plllllaaayyyyyyy?”
“No, Mr. Freckles. No play. Sleep. Go to sleep.”
“You’re not Lisa.”
“I am. I’m just not afraid of you anymore.”
“…why?”
With an eyeroll, Lisa sat up on the side of the bed, facing the still half-open closet door.
“I don’t know, man. I guess because I’m thirty-eight with three kids and a mortgage? I’m a grown woman. I have a tweaked back and a trick knee. I’m afraid that leaving for a week is going to hurt my chances for a promotion next month. I’m afraid the noises the water heater has been making are going to be expensive to fix. I’m…fuck, I’m afraid the planet is going to be all fucked up before my kids can even have their kids. I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on my plate. I can’t really be scared of a voice in my closet anymore, you know?”
A pause. She’d never spoken to Mr. Freckles like this. She’d never spoken to Mr. Freckles at all. Mostly she had cowered in fear, trying to decide if it was worse to face the closet or away, while Mr. Freckles whispered terrible, awful things. Had she angered him? Would he finally come out of there?
“…sssorrrry about Essstellllle.”
Lisa blinked. “You knew Nana?”
“…this room…was hersssss…”
Lisa had never once thought of that. This house had been in the family for generations. Others had slept here as children, people she knew. She’d never thought to ask anyone else about Mr. Freckles. You’re not supposed to talk about childhood monsters.
“…she…is dead?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“…you will die?”
Lisa snorted. “Yeah. I mean, hopefully for not another thirty or forty years, but yeah. Happens to all of us.”
“Not to…me…”
“Well, ain’t you lucky.”
“Come play…play with me…forever…”
It took Lisa a second to understand it wasn’t a threat. It was an offer. A promise.
She sighed again, and got back into bed.
“No, thank you, Mr. Freckles. I got too much on my plate to become a disembodied voice in a closet.”
“…you will die…”
“Them’s the breaks.”
A pause, long enough for Lisa to actually begin falling asleep.
“Lisa…”
“What!” she snorted out, jerking back awake.
“…can I come with you…lonely…”
“Mr. Freckles, you can do whatever you want as long as you shut up and let me sleep.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest move to tell an unknown entity living in the closet it could do whatever it wanted, but Lisa was exhausted and grieving and willing to say anything for some quiet. Which, at the very least, she got. Mr. Freckles stopped his talking, and Lisa fell into a deep, unsatisfying sleep.
It wasn’t until the next day, when she was on the plane, watching a very concerned six year old stare at one of the overhead storage bins, that it occurred to her she was going to have to explain to her husband why there was a voice in their closet.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 