Escape from East Village

Anna contemplated the mold that the realtor had failed to mention to the young woman who dreamed, apparently, of owning a railroad flat on East 9th Street.

The fourth floor, one-bedroom walk-up was part of a tenement building built in the 1850’s that had once offered a housing solution to overcrowding in the East Village, but now presented the twin challenges of adequate ventilation and centuries-old decay.

A coat of white paint had been slapped around the bathroom window where fuzzy black spots had grown, and again behind the aging commode. Had the buyer bothered to check under the sink, or inside the bathroom vent where mold continued to bloom, she might have reconsidered her purchase.

Instead, the young woman, named Frances, had signed some paperwork as the realtor lauded her decision to acquire a “strategically located” unit, full of “pre-war character.”

Which war? Anna wondered. She knew there had been other, more recent conflicts, but her sharpest recollections were of the War Between the States, when the Union had been preserved through the bloodshed of countless young men.

The shock of learning that her own beloved, John Henry O’Reilly, had perished in the Battle of Gettysburg still reverberated. In a rush of patriotic fervor, he and his friends had enlisted in the Union army when Fort Sumter was captured by the Confederates. Two years later, both John’s and Anna’s dreams were dead.

Time for Anna had become meaningless. She mournfully roamed the flat, frustrated that life continued without her, joyless and unending. No one could see her or hear her tale of woe. Once, she thought she had spied John Henry and felt a spark of joy, but it’d been only a trick of the sunlight slanting through the blinds.

Anna became accustomed to being a shadow, existing and yet not existing. She took no caution when Frances began moving in her belongings. She observed the way the new owner lovingly decorated the bedroom, organized the kitchen and busily sprayed Mold-B-Gone in the bathroom.

For lack of anything better to do, Anna occasionally merged her energy with the hall light, causing it to blink in a dot-dash pattern. She spelled out the name “John Henry” in Morse code, thinking herself quite clever. She howled her grief in the bathroom when Frances showered, causing the steam to swirl, and wept invisible tears into Frances’s morning tea.

It was always the same, though. Like all the flat’s occupants before her, Frances took no heed, ignoring Anna’s grief and going about her daily routine, until one day she hit her head on the corner of a drawer that Anna had slid open while Frances picked a sock off the floor.

“Ow, godammit!” yelped Frances, looking straight at Anna.

Anna stared. “Can you see me?”

“Long dress, hair in a bun, dark scowl? Purposefully opening a drawer so I could whack my head on it? Yes, I see you!” Frances snapped, rubbing the sore spot. “What’s your deal?”

“My deal?” repeated Anna.

“Who the hell are you and why are you here? I’ve got a lump!” Frances stomped to the freezer, pulled out a bag of frozen peas and put it on her head.

“This is my home, too,” declared Anna. “I grieve the loss of my fiancé.”

“Sorry for your loss,” mumbled Frances, still annoyed. “But, ya know, it’s been a while. Like, more than a century. What’s your name?”

“Anna.”

“Anna what?”

Anna blinked. “Don’t recall.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Anna Don’t Recall, but you are dead. If I were to guess, you’ve been dead a long time.”

“I know,” nodded Anna. “But this,” she gestured around the flat, “is not Heaven.”

“It could be my little slice of Heaven,” countered Frances, “if someone wasn’t haunting me day and night.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” said Anna.

“Don’t you want to leave?”

“No,” Anna replied. “I’m waiting for my fiancé.”

“Why can’t these dead folks ever leave me alone?” muttered Frances. Resignedly, she settled on a kitchen stool and plunked the bag of frozen peas onto the counter. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, listening intently. “Well, Anna,” she said finally. “There is someone here who wants to speak with you.”

“Where?” squeaked Anna, looking around. “Is it John Henry?”

“No, it’s a woman. She says, Irene.”

“Irene?” Anna quavered. “Mama?”

“She’s waiting for you,” said Frances. “She and the rest of your family. She says you can leave this flat any time you like and join them.”

Anna hesitated. “But … I’ve been waiting for John Henry!”

“Your mother says forget him; he fell in love with another girl in Gettysburg.”

“John Henry fell in love?” Anna was dumbfounded. She held up her hands, as if to push this revelation away. “He fell in love with someone else?”

Frances shrugged. “It happens,” she said, not unkindly. “The good news is, now you get to move on!”

“How strangely you speak,” replied Anna, vibrating with the beginnings of a paranormal panic attack.

Frances tensed as she sensed the sudden presence of dark energy. “Who’s there?” she cried.

The demon ignored her. “Anna!” he crooned. “John Henry promised himself to you. He snipped a lock of your hair. He wrote you all those beautiful letters.”

“He did!” agreed Anna with a wail. The ceiling fan started spinning wildly.

“But when he got to Gettysburg and saw Carolee’s pretty face,” continued the demon, “it was as though you didn’t even exist. He should have been drilling with the other soldiers and preparing for war, but no. Every chance he got, he would steal away to court Carolee. Her parents’ farm was located on what would be the bloody battlefield.”

Anna’s form had risen into the air, crackling with anger. “All these years I have allowed myself to languish in the in-between, waiting for John Henry in this miserable, moldy flat!”

“Hey!” said Frances, feeling offended. Then all her books came flying off the bookshelves and crashed to the floor. Appliance alarms went off and the kitchen cabinets slammed open and shut. A potted plant whizzed inches from Frances’s face.

“Anna!” yelled Frances. “Please stop before you give me another lump and ruin my apartment! Irene says he’s not worth it!”

“Oh, he’s worth it,” purred the demon. “It’s worth making him pay for the way he treated you, don’t you think, Anna? You didn’t deserve that! You thought it was true love!”

Anna was livid. “Perhaps I no longer want to go to Heaven,” she said, her transparent body expanding to the height of the ceiling. “Perhaps my final wish is to follow John Henry to Hell!”

“Hahaha!” cackled the demon. “That’s the spirit! Follow me, dear girl.”

“No!” warned Frances. “Anna, I don’t know where this freak show thinks he’s taking you, but please listen to me: there is no Heaven and there is no Hell. Those are religious constructs. There’s just the Other Side, where you’ll find peace and love and healing. Your mother wants to help you.”

“Freak show?” huffed the demon.

“Freak show?” Fear had crept into Anna’s voice; she resumed her normal size.

Frances coached Anna in a stage whisper. “You have to say, begone, demon!”

Anna hollered at the top of her non-existent lungs, “Begone, demon!”

“Later, loser,” said the demon to Frances, and his energy vanished.

“What do I do, Mama?” Anna called out. “I’m ready to leave.”

A soft shaft of light appeared in the window and Anna flew to it like a magnet. Her transparent figure blended easily with the beckoning glow. “Oh, Mama, it’s wonderful to see you!” she cried. Anna turned back to Frances and lifted her hand in a brief wave of thanks. Then she smiled and disappeared.

Frances danced over to the window and returned the wave, gleefully bidding farewell to her long-suffering poltergeist. Finally, she had the moldy old railroad flat all to herself.