Hello - happy new year, and thanks to all of you who are following me, despite my lackadaisical posting history! I’ve got a new short story for you today - drawn from my current work in progress (so no promises it will match the final edition in the book). I hope you enjoy it - please comment and let me know!
And, as always, you will find more free short stories from around the world in the links at the bottom of the page.
Knot Right Yet
Architecturally stunning, the concrete and glass library’s swooping crescent wall led to a rooftop garden which should be coming to life with the warming spring. I debated detouring, but my yarn shop would open in a couple hours, so I needed to stay focused. Instead, I headed in through the five-story glass entrance then into the stacks and eventually found three books that might have something about my ghost.
A woman’s’ voice carried to me. “Are you a knitter or a hooker?” If her voice had been slightly softer, she’d have been funny instead of bitter.
I shifted so I could see her— translucent and glowing. I’d found another ghost. “Just learning to knit.”
“You— you can hear me?”
The utter loneliness in her voice caught me. “Yes, I can hear you. What’s your name?”
“Lynnie. Marilyn Dillard.” The late-sixties woman gave off an elementary-school-teacher vibe, with steel-gray hair, sharp blue eyes, a wildly colored shirt, comfy knit pants, and a whiff of lilac perfume.
“I’m Claire Walker. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Is it?” Lynnie’s voice sharpened further. “I wouldn’t think so.”
So… one of the angrier ghosts. “Do you want me to help you move on?”
“Oh!” She brightened. “Could you? I’ve been stuck here for so long. I was a schoolteacher for thirty-seven years. Lynnie, they always said when I talked about retiring, you are the absolute best we have and we can’t lose you. My husband and my children and my grandchildren loved me so much. They all flew in to spend time with me, the last few days. I passed in my sleep, with all of them around me.”
“Sounds like a lovely life.” Something didn’t ring true, but we’d come to one of the study areas— a table with four chairs, surrounded by glass and air. I moved a chair out for Lynnie, then sat opposite her and pulled out my project bag.
“It was!” Again, Lynnie beamed at me.
Going on the feeling of her, I selected a skein of yarn.
The ghost made grabby hands, surprised then disappointed when her translucent fingers passed right through the yarn. She pouted. “I think you’re doing it wrong.” That disgruntled edge was back.
If she’d had such a great life— and death— “Why did you stay?”
Her face went blank and her outline flickered. Lynnie solidified, looking annoyed. “I told you. I’mtrapped.”
Lynnie. Marilyn Dillard. Beloved teacher, beloved mother. With my blue yarn, I cast on, remembering Hattie’s explanation that I could knit most of the project before knitting ghost thread into it. “So what did— do— you do for fun? Read, I guess?”
“And knit, though I was much better than you.” She glanced at the two rows in my hands. “You need to keep your tension even. If you just—”
“I’m okay.” I leaned back and straightened.
Again, she looked at my knitting. “Not really. Loop the yarn around your little finger then your index finger.”
Idly, I wondered if ghosts lied. Or rather, how much ghosts lied. Because live people lied to themselves and others— unintentionally and intentionally— all the time. And I had a feeling about this ghost.
But feelings weren’t evidence, so I partially tuned out Lynnie’s monologue and continued knitting.
Until she snarled, “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just dead.” She looked darker, more solid, with shadows around her eyes and the beginnings of claws.
Like Trent had, that day in the coffee shop.
Seeing she had my attention again, Lynnie sweetened her tone. “Not like I have anywhere else to be.”
“Just whatever comes after, when you’re not stuck here.” I twisted my face into a smile. “I think I’m far enough along to knit you into the work, Lynnie. If you’re ready.”
She contemplated me for a long moment, her face eerily blank, then reached out a hand. “I’m ready.”
Suddenly, the yarn felt wrong in my hands, but was that because it didn’t match Lynnie or because I was new at this?
Irritated at myself, I huffed, then swept the needle over Lynnie’s ghost hand, pulling a bit of her into the square. I knit the row, watching for the light beyond.
Lynnie shifted fitfully. “This is how you’re helping me? It doesn’t feel right. What did Hattie teach you?”
“I can take it out and try again, if you want.” I hesitated, my fingers over the loops on my needle. “Can you come to the shop?” Where I was stronger.
“No.” Lynnie tugged, nearly pulling free. “What part of I’m stuck don’t you understand?”
My tension was all over the place, with her jerking around like that, and I needed her to calm down if I was going to cast off properly. “Marilyn Dillard—”
“Wrong!” The ghost grinned, her teeth sharp. “Dillard is my married name, not who I truly am.”
But she’d asked me for help—
“That worthless old bat taught you all wrong, girl.” Like she was part of one of the Ghost Buster movies, Lynnie’s phantom shape suddenly expanded and darkened. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
I jerked to my feet, one hand up as if to brace me against the ghost, one hand hovering over the gun hidden under my shirt. Useless against a ghost.
Lynnie’s gaze fell to the table, the discarded yarn square there. She swooped down, snatched it up.
Her fingers didn’t pass harmlessly through— this time, the claws caught, lifted the square and the needles and the yarn and brought it into the center of her darkness.
She rose up, cackling.
The lightbulb shattered overhead and in a whiff of burnt electrical, Lynnie disappeared.
With my knitting.
Glass rained down on me and I yelped and covered my head with my arms.
Links:
Game Over by Angelica Medlin
Harvest by Ruth Sard
Deceptive Decryption by James Husum