5-Oct-2000

Gomen, I meant to have this out earlier, but I had a bit of a crisis. My grandfather owns several horses and we had to put one of them down. ::sniff:: I'd known the mare my entire life, so I've been a bit out of it. So I've decided to dedicate this fic to her memory. (I loved that horse and she reminded me of Duo in a horsey way.)

Author: Tigress Pern
Archive: GW Addiction (thanks Tyr!)
Warnings: Alternate Universe
Disclaimer: GW isn't mine...WAH!

Haunted Life by Tigress Pern

Chapter 2

"I should have Saturday and Sunday off." Catherine said over the phone. She'd called from work saying she would be home late. They were swamped and needed the extra help. "We can do some real cleaning and organization then."

"Hai, ane-san."

"Listen, I'm sorry I won't be home until at least nine. It wasn't my idea. Une went home sick."

"I understand."

"Trowa..."

"I'll save dinner for you." He was about to say more, but he could hear Catherine's manager instructing her that they had customers that needed attending. "Good night."

"Trowa." But he hung up before she could say any more. He leaned against the wall next to where the phone hung and tried to keep himself together. This was the second night in a row she'd worked late. Last night she'd covered for Noin, tonight she was covering for Une. It seemed everyone wanted Catherine's time, which meant there was no time for him. He was last on the list, again. Everyone had places they had to be. Quatre had his music lessons, Wufei had Meiran, Catherine had her job, but Trowa, all Trowa had was the house.

Sighing deeply, as he was prone to do now, he slid down the wall and sat on the floor. The phone's cord dangled and he batted it absentmindedly. He missed his parents terribly. Even when she was sick, his mother had always had time to hold him and make him feel better. His father would take him on walks or they'd just sit and talk. Their deaths hung heavy in his memory, weighing him down with the loss and turmoil that had followed. I just want someone to talk to, that's all God. Isn't there something you can do?

Pulling his knees up to his chest, Trowa leaned forward and buried his head in his arms. He felt small and scared. Not knowing how to make that feeling go away, he rocked back and forth praying that if God was merciful, then it would send someone to his rescue. A phone call, a door bell buzz, even a cockroach scurrying across the floor, anything to pull him out of the pit of despair.

A floorboard creaked. Trowa was too wrapped up in himself to notice. A second creak sounded in front of him. The room grew cold and a light eeze blew past Trowa's face. His heart stopped dead. All the hair on the back of his neck prickled like they were porcupine quills. Slowly, Trowa lifted his head, so that only his eyes peeked above his fold arms. A shadow moved. Trowa scrambled to his feet only to find nothing was there. The kitchen was completely empty.

"Okay, Trowa. Get a grip on yourself." He whispered reassuringly. "It's just your imagination." Trowa saw a flicker out of the corner of his eye. Spinning wildly, his gaze fell upon the table. On it was a familiar silver book. All the color drained from Trowa's face. He ran out of the kitchen and stampeded into his room, slamming the door behind him.

"God, the house IS haunted."

Trowa cursed under his eath. It wasn't fair. Catherine was supposed to have the day off so she and he could get finish unpacking. Why had that boss of hers called her in? Frustrated and angered at the lack of progress he and his sister were making on the house, he nearly hurled a box of eakable ornamental figurines across the room. It was Saturday, their day, he and Catherine's. It was a day to catch up and talk, but it was ruined by work. He understood that they needed to steady income. If they didn't have it, then their parent's money would be gone in a flash. They were trying to keep as much of it as possible for the restoration and conversion of the house. Catherine's income paid for the electricity, water, and phone. Not to mention the day to day stuff.

Carefully unwrapping his mother's circus figurines, he placed them in the glass hutch. It had been their grandmother's. When she had died, she'd left it to their mother and their mother had in turn left it to them. It was more Catherine's than his, but as Trowa unwrapped a small clown figurine, he remembered that he had contributed to the collection. Holding the clown up to the light, he stared at its face. It had own hair like his and green eyes. At least he assumed both eyes were green, for he could only see one. Half of the clown's face was covered by a mask and a sweeping of bangs. Placing it in between the lion and the knife thrower, he smiled sadly at all the memories the figurines ought up.

As he began unwrapping the ringmaster, Trowa heard something. It sounded like footsteps on the staircase. He listened to the steady creaking as if someone was walking down the stairs. Shaken, he rose and walked out of the room and came face to face with the landing of the large staircase that dominated the center of the house. The creaking had stopped, but Trowa saw no one.

"Calm yourself Trowa." He told himself. "It's just the house settling." But a house doesn't settle in a series of steady creaks a small paranoid voice inside him said. Shivering, Trowa turned back around and went back to unpacking. He would not listen to the tiny paranoid voice that echoed the rumors of the town. He wouldn't. To eak up the eerie silence of the house, Trowa decided that music was in order.

He turned on the radio in the kitchen. It blared an oldies rock station. Trowa quickly turned it down and changed the channel. Finding a nice rock station playing the latest from one of his favorite groups, he left the kitchen.

"I don't think that I can take another empty moment,
I don't think that I can fake another
Hallow smile
It's not enough just to be sorry
Don't think that I could take
Another talk about it."
He sang as the sad melody carried him back to his work.

Trowa suddenly stopped. He could hear the radio jump to the oldies station. The volume increased until it blared the doo whap song that was currently playing, throughout the house. "Turn it back!" Trowa snapped. The volume decreased. "You heard me! Turn it back this instant!" The station leapt back to the ending of Trowa's song. "Thank you." He called to the thin air. It took him a moment to realize what he'd just done. He'd actually asserted himself against a ghost.

A ghost, that wasn't supposed to exist. Closing the hutch's glass door, he picked up the empty box and marched back to the kitchen. Setting the box on the table he scanned the room. There wasn't any evidence of mischief and the radio was now playing a more upbeat song, but it was still on the same station.

"If you want to change the channel, ask me. Don't just randomly do it. We all have to live here together and we might as well attempt to get along." I'm talking to thin air, he repeated over and over. Yeah, but I really don't care any more. It's something or someone to talk to even if it doesn't talk back, Trowa reasoned.

For the rest of the morning Trowa talked to nothing. He told it about his parent's death, school, and his friends. Occasionally he would start singing along with the music on the radio. By lunchtime he actually was in a fairly good mood. He couldn't remember when the last time he'd actually been cheerful. Yes, cheerful was the right term, he decided as he made his lunch. For some odd reason it didn't bother him that there apparently was a ghost in the house. It helped him to identify the phenomenon that turned radio stations or made the stairs creak. Even if the ghost wasn't tangible, just knowing there was something non-threatening about eased his mind. He wasn't alone.

Trowa finished his lunch and placed the dishes in the sink. Now that he had most everything unpacked and in its proper spot, it was time for some serious cleaning. With mop and bucket in hand, Trowa began cleaning all the hard wood surfaces in the house. It was a long grueling day. Everything was covered in dust and grime. He had to empty his bucket five times alone for the ground floor. By three fifty, he was tired and dirty. Deciding it was time for a eak, he dumped the last of the water out, then headed for his room. Searching out his book, Trowa flopped down on his bed with the suspense novel. He wanted to finish it. As he removed the bookmark he noticed that the bent page had moved from behind his bookmark to ahead of it.

"Been reading my book haven't you?" asked Trowa. The temperature in the room dropped as if telling him yes. "It's okay. I don't mind." He felt a slight eeze as if someone was walking around the bed. "When I get to your marker, I'll start reading aloud. Can you be patient until then?" Again the eeze shifted. Trowa smiled. "All right then."

School seemed boring after that weekend. Catherine had been forced to substitute on Sunday as well, so Trowa had spent a second day talking to the ghost. He found he actually liked having his own personal haunted house. He wasn't sure why, except that it reminded him of all the invisible friends he'd had when he was little. Although none of them could make the temperature in the room drop or change a radio station. Catherine had looked a bit worried when she'd come home and Trowa was reading aloud from his novel.

"How are you holding up in the haunted house?" Wufei asked at lunch.

"It's not too bad." Trowa told him. "I'm getting used to it."

"Nothing strange has happened?"

"Plenty." Trowa confessed before he realized what he was saying. Both Wufei and Quatre leaned forward.

"Really?" Quatre sounded almost excited. "What sort of things?"

"The radio turning on, my book going missing, the stairs creaking, and other little stuff like that. The ghost doesn't seem to want to scare anyone away."

"So you agree there is a ghost there?" Wufei inquired. Trowa nodded. "Cool. I mean it's cool that you aren't afraid of it."

"I know!" Quatre interjected. "Let's go do some research in the liary. I bet they have old news articles about the first family there. There son died I heard." Shoving all his lunch back into its bag, Quatre grabbed Trowa's arm and hauled him out of his seat. Wufei scarfed the last of his sandwich, then followed quickly. They made a stampede rush towards the school library and nearly ran into the librarian. She gave them odd looks, but the boys didn't pay any attention to her. They crowded the periodicals searching for anything on the mansion.

"Look, here it is." Quatre whispered excitedly. Trowa and Wufei squished next to him so they could read too. The headline on the old newspaper read, Local Family Dealt Death-Blow. Underneath was the picture of a picture of Trowa's house. It looked well kept and orderly, instead of the mess it currently was.

"It says here that the family had only one child, a son. He died in his room on October 31."

"He died on Halloween?" Wufei sounded more startled than he'd meant to. Quatre nodded.

"The coroner ruled it a suicide because a bottle of pills was found spilled by the bedside. The family had only been living here for a few months when it happened. They had moved in when the house had been finished. Shit, the boy was our age." They collectively shuddered.

"Creepy." Wufei whispered. "I wonder why he did it."

"I don't know." Trowa replied.

"Is there anyway to ask him?" Trowa shook his head. "How about a séance?"

"I have no idea how to perform one."

"My sister does." Quatre said. "I could ask her. She'd be more than happy to help with anything supernatural. Wufei, are you free this weekend?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Trowa, do you mind if we hold it this weekend?"

Trowa shrugged. "I don't see why not. I'll ask Catherine."

"Great!" Quatre said excitedly. "My sister will want a full report no doubt."

"Out of curiosity, which sister are you talking about?" inquired Wufei.

"The one that has all that new age stuff in her room. She wears crystals and has a tattoo of a butterfly dripping blood from its wings on her ankle. Father was really pleased about that one." Quatre rolled his eyes as he said it. Wufei just shook his head.

"You have too many sisters."

"Tell me about it. You want one?"

"No thank you. I have enough siblings."

"Are you sure? Your other for one of my sisters?"

"No deal."

"Please?" Trowa snickered as he listened to his friends bicker. It was nice.

"Trowa, I need to talk to you." Catherine called as she entered the house.

"I'm in the kitchen."

"Good." Catherine strode into the kitchen to find dinner being put on her plate. "That looks good."

"Thank you."

"Listen, I was talking to some of the people at work about hiring someone to help clean up around here and do general maintenance." Trowa nodded. "And this woman from the juvenile correctional center was in. She said that a number of her kids are great for that type of work. I wasn't too keen on having a juvenile delinquent in the house, but Ms. Po assured me that they do this sort of thing all the time. So I'm going to talk to her tomorrow about having one of the kids that's in there for his first offense come live with us. It would be only for a month trial period and Ms. Po lives only two blocks away. If anything happens she could be here in a flash. What do you think?"

Trowa sat down. For several minutes he didn't speak.

"I don't know." He told her truthfully. "I would have to meet the person and see his record."

"Oh, of course. This would be an opportunity for the kid to do something constructive rather than spend the entire time in Juvie."

"He'd be about my age?"

"Probably." Catherine replied. "This pretty good Trowa. You're becoming an excellent cook." Trowa nodded and picked up his fork. His life was suddenly becoming more complicated.

That night he couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning he fought the worries that cluttered his mind. Giving up, Trowa tossed the covers aside.

"I don't know." He whispered to the darkness. "I don't know if I can handle someone living in this house besides Catherine and I." The temperature dropped to a bone chilling low. In the darkness, he thought he saw a light. It was there for a moment then streaked towards the door, disappearing through it. Trowa leapt out of bed and followed it. It had to be the ghost, he knew it. Stumbling down the hall, he saw the small orb bounce up the staircase. Blindly he followed it.

"Wait, I didn't mean you." He hissed hoping not to wake Catherine. She'd never believe him if he said he saw a ghost. It was hard to find his way in the dark, but with one hand firmly gripping the banister, Trowa ascended. He knew that the dead boy's body had been found on the third floor and that he'd seen shades in the windows of the third story. Therefore, that must be where the ghost was.

There was a faint glow from under door of one room, so Trowa pushed it open. The room was awash in a pale ethereal glow that appeared to have no source. He could see the layers of dust in the room, marking it as one of the many rooms that never were cleaned. Old furniture was stacked everywhere. On the bottom of the heap was a bed still cover with a quilt. Inching around the tangles of chairs, Trowa looked for the ghost.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean you. I was talking about a prospective handyman that my sister wants to hire. This was your house before we bought it, so as far as I'm concerned you are always welcome here." The light intensified for a moment, then dimmed. Trowa found it difficult to see. Not knowing what to say to the ghost next, he tried to clear a space for himself on one corner of the bed. It was the only surface that looked anywhere suitable for sitting.

"Look, my friends are coming over this weekend. They want to hold a séance in order to contact you. They want to know why you died." The light intensified slightly. "I don't know if you want to talk to us or not, but..."

"It's hard to talk." A voice whispered. Trowa shivered involuntarily. "Don't have much energy." The light vanished, leaving Trowa alone in the dark. "Can't..hold...on...Tired. Sorry." Trowa felt the temperature rise in the room. The ghost was gone, but more importantly, it had spoken.

End Chapter 2

Tigress Pern