The Blank Page Read online

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  The next day, Brooke sat with Mrs. Willoughby on the floor around the lace-covered coffee table. Men were once again tramping in and out of her house down the street, only this time they were putting new locks on the windows and installing an alarm system. When Mrs. Willoughby had offered for Brooke to stay at her house, Brooke had taken her up on it; she wasn’t ready to go home yet, and given her strange new connection with her neighbor, it just made sense. Her mother had even joined them, sharing the double bed with Brooke in the guest room.

  A large cardboard box sat next to the coffee table, filled with photographs.

  “This one was always my favorite,” Mrs. Willoughby said, withdrawing and holding out a shot of a handsome young man in a military uniform.

  “Is that from World War Two?” Brooke asked.

  Mrs. Willoughby nodded. “Richard was an Army captain. He fought in France and Germany, and came home with a Silver Star. That was before we met, though. He showed me that star on our first date, trying to impress me.”

  Brooke smiled. “I guess it worked.”

  “Oh, yes. Not that I let him know it at the time, though. I even told him not to brag about himself so much.” Mrs. Willoughby gave a wicked smile. “I had to play a little hard-to-get.”

  Brooke snorted with laughter.

  “But we were married the following year. That was outside of Chicago, where our three children were born. We didn’t move to this house until our youngest was ten. That was in nineteen-sixty-six.”

  Brooke frequently forgot how old her neighborhood was, since her own house had been remodeled so many times – including by her own parents just a few years back.

  “This is a nice one,” Mrs. Willoughby continued, handing Brooke a color photo of her family standing in a yard. It looked to be from the Mad Men era; Mr. Willoughby wore a short-sleeved, white button-down shirt and brown slacks, and looked a bit older than in his military photo. Mrs. Willoughby wore a lime green sundress, and thick, black-framed glasses whose outside corners came to exaggerated points. Her face looked the same as now – minus the wrinkles and white hair, of course. A boy and two girls of elementary school age were clustered at their parents’ feet.

  “Richard worked as a banker,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “He was successful, but he was always tight with money. ‘Save for a rainy day’ was his motto.”

  She gathered a few of the photos into a pile as she spoke. “He loved Saturdays, though. Those were his half-days, since the banks closed early. He always said people were in their best moods on Saturday mornings, because their weekends had just started. And as he got closer to retirement, he appreciated those half-days more every week.”

  Mrs. Willoughby tapped the ends of the photos against the table to straighten the pile. When she spoke again, her voice was suddenly quiet.

  “That day was a Saturday.”

  Brooke stilled. “His… last day?”

  Mrs. Willoughby nodded. “I was out shopping. I’ve always thought that if I hadn’t left that morning, the burglar might never have tried to break in. But the house was empty, so he did, and then Richard came home. There were no signs of a struggle; nothing was disturbed other than what the man stole. I think Richard simply walked in and took him by surprise. And the man shot him.”

  In his own house. This house.

  Brooke was silent. She understood the particular terror and helplessness that came with being attacked in a place you always thought was safe. “I never knew that happened here,” was all she could manage to say.

  Mrs. Willoughby shrugged. “So many people have come and gone in this neighborhood, and stories naturally get lost with the years. For a while after it happened, though, everyone was frightened. In fact, our next-door neighbors at the time moved away because they felt so unsafe. But it was an isolated incident; for the next twenty-eight years there was never so much as a break-in – until yesterday.

  “But you know,” Mrs. Willoughby went on, turning to look squarely at Brooke, “people, including my own children, have asked me why I don’t move. They can’t believe that I’d want to stay in the house where Richard was murdered – that I’d want to walk, every single day, over the place where I discovered his body. But I’ll tell you why: it’s because he’s still here. I can feel him.”

  Mrs. Willoughby closed her eyes, as though her husband were there at that moment, kissing her cheek or stroking her hair. Brooke had to admit that if she’d heard Mrs. Willoughby saying any of this a week ago she would’ve thought the old woman had gone bonkers. But now she knew better. She couldn’t feel Mr. Willoughby herself – maybe only the people who’d loved them best could actually feel the dead. But she couldn’t deny for a second that he was there. She had written proof.

  ********

  At the end of the week Brooke finally headed home. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to face the scene of her attack, but she knew she couldn’t stay away forever. Plus, her mother had been making continual trips back and forth while they were at Mrs. Willoughby’s, and her father was there as well, having returned early from his trip to Seattle after learning of her attack. And the fact that the house had not stood empty helped conquer Brooke’s fear that the intruder’s presence might still be lingering.

  Brooke stepped cautiously onto the porch. Her mother opened the front door and then stood aside, as though her daughter were some unpredictable wild animal that should be given a wide berth.

  Brooke took a breath and stepped through the door, but instead of the eerie stillness that had greeted her last time, the television was already on, the microwave pinged in the kitchen, and her father’s voice floated out. “Is that you?”

  Brooke couldn’t find her voice to answer as she slowly retraced the steps she’d made on her escape. She entered the kitchen, looked past her father, and took in the room that had been a place of comfort until last week. The sliding glass door, the spot where the man had shoved her against the counter – seeing those was enough to send her into tears. She again felt the man’s hands on her, could see his contorted features beneath the nylon stocking, just inches from her face. But then a strange sense of comfort passed over her – a sense that while the incident had been terrifying, it was now really and truly over. She straightened up, wiped her eyes, and glanced out the window in the direction of the Willoughbys’ house.

  From then on, when she was home alone or walking down the street, Brooke would glance into the air around her, wondering about Mr. Willoughby. Was he watching her every second? She blushed at the thought, but then got a sense that no – he knew when she was safe, and when she was in danger. Perhaps he could only cross into the world of the living in extreme circumstances. Perhaps the rest of the time he was looking out for other people.

  Brooke wondered how many of the deceased were protecting their loved ones, or even people that they’d only gotten to know after their deaths. Her warning had been unmistakable, but perhaps Mr. Willoughby had more power than others. How often was a minor delay – a missing shoe, or a misplaced set of keys – the reason that a terrible car accident was avoided? How often did a young woman actually heed her sudden, strange sense that something was wrong, and refuse to enter her house alone?

  Brooke wondered if her warning would be so blatant next time.

  ###

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Krista Bean lives in Southern California with her husband, two dogs and a cat. (Okay, just kidding about the pets – her apartment building doesn't allow animals, she just wishes it did.) She works in television production.

  The Watch

  Eye of the Storm

  Find me online:

  My blog: kristabean.com

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/KristaBean2

  My podcast/writers' resource site: scriptsandscribes.com

 
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