Decorus Phasmatis

Our house is fairly old, not quite as old as the library, but getting there. Mum collects antiques so our house is filled with old wooden pieces of furniture. Inside our ceiling is high and slanted in the same way as the roof. We have wooden floor boards and wooden panels on the walls. We have two living rooms. In one, the couches are all crowded around a brick fire place. It’s filled with logs as it hasn’t been used for a few months. It will get more than its fair share of action in the coming winter months. The other living room has a TV instead of a fireplace. It is one of the old ones where you still have to turn the knobs next to the screen to change the channel, and it always looks like it is snowing no matter what is showing on the screen. Mum thinks it is perfect, Dad secretly wants to get a plasma television like ‘every other normal person living in the twenty-first century’, but won’t complain because he sees Mum is proud of it.

When I get inside I head straight for my room. I get the usual eerie feeling that I’m not alone, but brush it off as my imagination. Mum and Dad say they feel the same thing, Mum says it’s normal and everyone gets that feeling sometimes. Dad says Mum has brought home a ghost with one of her prehistoric artefacts. This causes Mum to become protective and defensive. It usually ends in Dad twirling my mother around in the kitchen, dancing. I like watching them dance and smile. They are so happy and utterly in love. I see other people’s parents watching them with envious eyes, and I only hope I can fall in love like that one day.

I jump onto my bed- another one of my mother’s antiques, a huge four poster- and empty my books onto the covers. A puff of dust blows up in my face and I know immediately that I’ll have to clean off my emerald green covers before Mum gets home. I blow the dust off each one and lay them out on my bed. What treasures I have found. I set them on my desk in order of reading importance.

Eric: I watch her lying diagonally across her bed reading. She brought home more books today. I look over her collection, pleased. Her auburn coloured hair is spread thoughtlessly over her pillow, and she is the perfect picture of peace. I sit and watch her. I could do it for hours, just studying her fair face, counting her freckles, memorising her by heart. I have a nagging need to touch her, to run my hands though her long hair, to feel the softness of her skin. I touched her head once, a few years ago when she was only fourteen. She felt it and I scared her. She cried out and her mother came running. They couldn’t see me of course and passed it off as a bad dream. She didn’t sleep for three days. I’ve never tried it again. Sometimes I just want to reveal myself. When I see her cry I want to comfort her, sometimes I want to read to her. To refrain myself from doing so is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, dead or alive. Sometimes I think she knows I’m here, but is too afraid to acknowledge it. I wish she would. It would make everything so much easier.

The door bangs closed and Riley sits up and stretches her arms above her head. It is four o’clock, her mother is home. Riley jumps up and runs out to greet her mother. I follow silently behind her.
“Afternoon Mama,” she hugs Miriam lightly.
“Good afternoon, my dear,” her mother hugs her back. “What did you get up to today?”
“I went to the library. You should see what I got!” Miriam laughs.
“Those librarians are far too fond of you,” Riley leads her up the hall to her bedroom. Riley jumps on her bed and sits right on the spot that is covered with dirt. I smile; it’ll be our little secret.

Miriam stands in the doorway for a moment admiring Riley’s room. I admire it too. It is beautiful. Her four poster bed made of deep brown wood with green covers and pillow cases, the matching emerald green curtains with gold tassels, the wooden floor boards and the cream coloured walls. Her room is like something from a fairy tale. I love it. Her whole house is like this. I love Miriam’s antiques; they give the house a magical feel.

“Read me something,” Miriam asks politely. Riley opens to the page she is up to.
“It won’t make sense to you,” Riley tells her mother.
“That doesn’t matter; I just want to hear you read.” I am glad Miriam asked her this. I love it when Riley reads aloud. I like to hear how she gets lost in the words. How her voice pronounces every word with meaning, the way her voice rises and falls after an exciting or important sentence.
“Are you scared? asks Lee. Not anymore, replies Sarah...”
She finishes the page and puts the book down beside her on her bed.
“Brilliant,” says Riley’s mother. Miriam kisses her on the head and leaves the room. For some reason my heart is beating a million miles an hour.