Maybe she’d been here a hundred years, or maybe a hundred days. I couldn’t decide. I only knew that as long as she’d been here, she’d been all alone.
I wondered how long it had been since someone had spoken to her. How long since she’d shared a smile or a laugh, or tried to hold someone’s hand.
I didn’t want to ask those questions. Questions are never good.
But there was one question I had to ask. “I’m looking for the bottle house,” I began. “Do you know where it is?”
“Sure.” Her fingers drifted away from mine. “It’s not far.” She seemed to float away. “Follow me.”
I did.
2
“There it is,” the little girl said.
I didn’t see the bottle house at first. There was the ocean to look at, so different from the blue waters that washed the golden beaches of Mexico. Two thousand miles north of Los Cabos, the Pacific was wild and cruel. The coast here was framed by arthritic knots of cypress, gray limbs crippled by winds that were as cold as they were relentless. Iron-colored combers crashed against a beach shaped like a reaper’s scythe. The sand was as dark as freshly poured concrete, and the sound of each wave shook me to the bone.
Just like an ordinary little girl, the ghost scrambled over a fallen redwood. I followed. We threaded our way through knots of bleached driftwood as we crossed the concrete beach. My boots compacted damp sand, but the little girl’s shoes left no mark at all.
A splash of sunlight washed the shoreline and I spotted the bottle house, nestled on the cresting cliff that dropped cleanly into the ocean at the south end of the beach.
I wondered why I’d had trouble finding it. After all, it was exactly where Circe Whistler had said it would be.
The sand slowed me down, but there was no slowing the girl. She started up a narrow trail that climbed the cliff, cutting through heavy underbrush. For a while I lost track of her. I hurried to the trail, picking my way through tall stands of beach grass that hid the girl and the house from view.
I was afraid that she would be gone by the time I reached the house. Sometimes it happened that way. Some ghosts have territories which bind them to a plot of ground the same way fear binds an agoraphobic.
But that’s not the way it was. Not this time. When I reached a set of concrete steps and a twisted wrought iron railing, there she was, waiting on the patio above.
The patio was concrete, too. Beach grass knifed through wide cracks that brought California earthquakes to mind, and I suddenly found myself wondering if we were anywhere close to a fault line.
Another look at the bottle house and I stopped wondering. If this were earthquake country, the place wouldn’t be here at all. Composed almost entirely of old bottles set in concrete, the abandoned structure looked about as stable as a sand castle.
But looks could be deceiving. I knew that the house had stood for nearly forty years, since Circe Whistler’s father had cemented the crowning bottle with his own two hands.
Several PRIVATE PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING signs flapped in the wind, but the house wasn’t exactly secure-there was no door at all, only a battered wooden jam with rusting hinges that held nothing but air. The concrete walls were golden brown with white flecks that caught the afternoon light and added to the sand castle impression. The bottles were of every color, their bases facing out from the walls like startled eyes.
A passing cloud eclipsed the sun. A hundred glass eyes closed all at once, and the wind whipped through the open doorway and played in as many glass throats, the sound a terminal inhalation.
“Some people think this place is haunted,” the girl whispered.
“People believe a lot of strange things.”
She hesitated, drawing close. “I don’t want to go inside.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I will.” She looked up at me, a trembling smile on her face. “If you come with me.”
“Do you suppose your girlfriend is late?”
“Anything’s possible.” We were inside now, and I wasn’t surprised to find that the house’s interior was just as unusual as the exterior. The flagstone floor rose and fell at funhouse angles, throwing off my sense of balance. There was no furniture at all, only a pile of dry tinder heaped near an empty fireplace as if a group of kids had decided to have a party in the ruin only to think better of it as night closed around them.
It seemed a reasonable explanation. Even in the daylight, there was no escaping the spectral wind that played in the open bottles. It sounded like a dying man wheezing through glass lungs. If that kind of thing got to you, it would certainly get to you here. And good.
“No one ever lived here,” the girl said. “Not truly.”
“I can see why.”
The child nodded, staying close to the door. “My mom said this place was like a church. She said there were always people here. Even when it was empty.”
I smiled. “You mean ghosts?”
“I don’t know. I only know that what my mom said scared me. I don’t like creepy places, and I don’t like creepy stories. I guess I’m just a scaredy cat.”
“Stories are just stories,” I said. “They can’t hurt you.”
I might have said more, but that was when I heard the flies.
Trapped inside the bottles, buzzing to be free.
I stared at the wall of glass. A few corked bottles, but most were open. Narrow throats and wide throats. Lips polished and dirty, cracked and smooth…but no flies.
Not yet.
But soon. That was a certainty. Because I had what the flies wanted. They had scented the bloody thing in my backpack.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of that thing, and all that came with it, and all that it attracted.
Flies…and a woman named Circe Whistler.
The woman I’d come to meet. But I wouldn’t wait for Circe here. I’d wait outside, and I’d take the little girl with me.
“Let’s go,” I said, and that was when I noticed that the little girl was already gone.
I took a step back and my heel struck an uneven stone in the floor. It seemed to wobble underfoot, or maybe it was me who wobbled, but the end result was the same. I nearly lost my balance.
The first fly brushed past my cheek.
If I waited another minute, I’d be crawling with the things.
I turned, a chill of disgust capering up my spine.
A woman blocked my way.
I only knew two things about the woman: she wasn’t afraid of flies, and she wasn’t Circe Whistler.
“I was expecting someone else,” I said.
“Plans change,” she said. “Life is fluid.”
“Life is clockwork. Or it should be.”
“Maybe where you come from, but things are different here. Anyway, I didn’t mean to give you such a start.”
She smiled. Blonde and slight, but she didn’t look at all weak. And the way she held onto her amused expression reminded me of some smartass kid who’d just spotted a zipper on Godzilla’s back.
We stood outside, away from the flies. The little girl was nowhere in sight, and I was surprised to find that I was worried about her. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d seen the woman, if this stranger had scared her off “What’s wrong?” the blonde asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I stared at her. Maybe she’d seen the little girl and was being coy with me. Maybe she hadn’t. I couldn’t decide-her eyes were flat and cold, like the ocean.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.
“I believe in many things. For instance, I believe that the bottle house is a place of intense energies. Both positive and negative. Souls dwell here. I’ve spoken to them.”