asides and notes I'd made to myself in between the cataloguing of a day's events, when the door to my unit opened. One of the reasons I'd chosen number twelve was because it had a working door; I just never expected anybody else to use it.
I almost died at the sound of the door. The fit's a little stiff, and the wood seemed to screech as it opened. The journal fell from my hands and I jumped to my feet, ready to do I don't know what. Run out the front door into the parking lot. Pick up something to defend myself with. Freeze on the spot and not be able to move.
I picked the latter— through no choice of my own, it just happened— and in walked this woman. The first thought that came to mind was that she was some old hillbilly, drawn down from the hills after seeing the light that spilled out of the window on the pool side of the room. When I was cleaning up the unit, I took the boards off that window and, miracle of miracles, the glass panes were still intact. I never did bother to tack the boards back up when night fell.
She had to be in her seventies at least. She looked wiry and tough, face as wrinkled as an unironed handkerchief, hair more white than grey and standing up from around her head in a wild tangle. Her eyes were her strongest feature— a pale blue, slightly protruding and bird-bright. She was wearing a faded red flannel shirt and baggy blue jeans, scuffed work boots on her feet, with a ratty-looking grey cardigan sweater draped over her shoulders, the sleeves hanging down across the front of her shirt.
She looked vaguely familiar— the way someone you might have gone to school with looks familiar: The features have changed, but not enough so as to render them unrecognizable. I couldn't place her, though. When I was a reporter I met more new people in a month than I could ever hope to remember, so my head's a jumble of people I can only vaguely recognize. Most of them were involved in the arts, mind you, and she didn't look the type. I could more easily picture her sitting on a rocking chair outside some hillbilly cabin, smoking a corncob pipe.
I wasn't thinking about ghosts, then.
She seemed to recognize me, too, because she stood there in the doorway, studying me for what seemed like the longest time, before she finally came in and shut the door behind her.
'You're the one who comes to the well on Sundays,' she said as she sat down on the end of my bed. She moved like a man and sat with her legs spread wide, hands on her knees.
I nodded numbly and managed to sit back down on my chair again. I left my journal where if lay on the floor.
'Got a smoke?' she asked.
How I wished.
'No,' I told her, finally finding my voice. 'I don't smoke.'
'Don't eat much either, seems.'
'I'm on a diet.'
She made a hrumphing sound. I wasn't sure if it was a comment on dieting or if she was just clearing her throat.
'Who... who are you?' I asked.
The sense of familiarity was still nagging at me. Having pretty well exhausted everyone I could think of that I knew, I'd actually found myself flipping through the faces of the ghosts I'd called up from the well.
'No reason to call myself much of anything anymore,' she said, 'but once I went by the name of Carter. Ellie Carter.'
As soon as she said her name, I knew her. Or at least I knew where I'd seen her before. After I first found the motel and then started coming by more or less regularly, I'd tried looking up its history. There was nothing in the morgue at
I'd had a copy made of the article, and it was pinned up above my desk back home. There was a picture of Ellie accompanying the article, with the motel behind her. She looked about the same, except shrunk in on herself a little.
She'd been the owner until— as an article dated five years later told me— business had dropped to such an extent that she couldn't make her mortgage payments and the bank had foreclosed on her.
'So've you made yourself a wish yet?' she asked.
I shook my head.
'Well, don't. The well's cursed.'
'What do you mean?'
'Don't you clean your ears, girl? Or is that a part of your diet as well?'
'My name's Brenda.'
'How long are you planning to stay, Brenda?'
'I... I don't know.'
'Well, the rate's a dollar a day. You can give me a week in advance and I'll refund what you've got coming back to you if you don't stay that long.'
This was insane, I thought, but under her steady gaze I found myself digging the seven dollars out of my meager resources and handing it over to her.
'You need a receipt?'
I shook my head slowly.
'Well, have yourself a nice time,' she said, standing up. 'Plumbing's out, so you'll have to use the outhouse at the back of the field.'
I hadn't got around to thinking much about that aspect of the lack of bathroom facilities yet. When I'd had to pee earlier, I'd just done it around the corner near some lilac bushes that had overgrown the south side of the motel.
'Wait,' I said. 'What about the well?'
She paused at the door. 'I'd tell you to stay away from it, but you wouldn't listen to me anyway, would you? So just don't make a wish.'
'Why not?'
She gave me a tired look, then opened the door and stepped out into the night.
'Listen to your elders, girl,' she said.
'My name's Brenda.'
'Whatever.'
She closed the door before I could say anything else. By the time I had reached it and flung it open again, there was no one to be seen. I started out across the parking lot's pavement until I saw headlights approaching on the highway and quickly ducked back into my room and shut the door. Once the car had passed, I slipped out again, this time shutting the door behind me.
I walked all around the motel, but I could, find no sign of the woman. I wasn't really expecting to. I hadn't found any recent sign of anyone when I'd explored the motel earlier in the day, either.
That's when I started thinking about ghosts.
So tonight I'm waiting to see if Ellie's going to show up again. I want to ask her more about the well. Funny thing is, I'm not scared at all. Ellie may be a ghost; but she's not frightening. Just a little cranky.
I wonder how and when she died. I don't have to guess where. I've read enough ghost stones to be able to figure out that much.
I also wonder if the only reason I saw her last night is because I'm so light-headed from my diet. I'd hate to find out that I've suddenly turned into one of those people that Jilly calls 'sensitives.' I've got enough problems in my life as it is without having to see ghosts every which way I turn when I'm awake as well as when I'm asleep.
Besides, if I'm going to meet a ghost, I wouldn't pick one from the wishing well. I'd call up my dad— just to talk to him. I know I can't bring him back to life or anything, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to know why he quit loving my mom and me.
18
Brenda's apartment was the second story of a three-floor brick house with an attached garage in Crowsea. It stood on a quiet avenue just off Waterhouse, a functional old building, unlike its renovated neighbors. The porch was cluttered with the belongings of Brenda's downstairs neighbor, who appeared to use it as a sitting room-
