A shadow in the trees; an estranged mother’s passing; an unwanted houseguest. Featuring the voices of Malcolm McDowell, Gina Rickicki, and Lauren Vogelbaum. Written by Kit Fay.
M twelve Ghosts is a production of I Heeart three D audio and grim and mild from Aaron Banky Headphones recommended listener discretion advised. Out of the bosom of the air, out of the cloud, folds of her garments, shaken over the woodland's brown and bear over the harvest fields forsaken, silent and soft and slow, descends the snow. The night is growing old and a bell My dear, surely your eyelids are heavy. Are you expecting anyone else tonight? I'm always expecting someone. I expect the whole of the world to cross my threshold eventually. I'm happy to have your company, of course, But you've had a long journey. You wear the weight of it like a cowl over your shoulders. You only need lay it down. But if you'll perhaps indulge one more weary traveler before you go, yes, of course, Hello, dear, come in, warm yourself. So something was out there in the woods. I could see it in the trees, and out there in the trees it will stay, unless, of course, it wants a drink. I won't turn a thirsty soul away. And speaking of would you like a seat drink to warm yourself and settle the nerves. Yeah, okay, am I dead? Are you surprised? Only surprised it so warm? I was expecting the cold and the dark. We must come from similar backgrounds. What do you think was in the trees? I'm sorry if that was too forward a question. No, No, it's better to just it's better to get it out, you know, I'm so tired of dealing with it. Well, dear a sip for courage. Then, my mother always told me I would miss her when she was gone, which made the arrival of the impossibly translucent apparition of the woman I had not actually spoken to in years almost funny. I might have laughed, had I not been suddenly and totally overcome with guilt for not even having any suspicion that this day was coming so soon. Had she been ill, had she laid in a hospital bed for months praying her only daughter would come and see her. Surely if that were the case, someone would have called. Unless my mother had wasted away in passive aggressive silence, proving herself right about her ungrateful daughter to the end, at the cost of any possible reconciliation, which did not. I realized stray too far from the realm of the feasible. I felt, then suddenly that I was being terribly uncharitable to a dead woman who had, despite all her faults, chosen to hover now a few inches above the floor at the foot of my bed, on presumably the day of her death. I was a little shaky on how ghosts worked, having not really believed in them until this exact moment. But the way I had always heard it was that a relative would sometimes appear around the time of their death when there was unfinished business, which would definitely apply in this case. Honestly, I was flattered my mother had chosen to come to me at all. The day of your death had to be the most important one since birth, which hardly counted because infants don't know one days are momentous and never have the foresight to file away the memory Mom. The figure didn't move. I tried again, Hey, Mom, Silence, stillness, except for a faint shimmering. Maybe in our years of silence, she had forgotten how to speak to me, I could relate. Arose from my bed, feeling embarrassed in my bare feet and ratty mismatched pajamas. My mother's ghost was dressed in a sensible pantsuit, or at least most of one, as she sort of seemed to fade out of existence around mid calf. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting visitors. I took in the clutter of my room shifted uncomfortably. My mother's ghost said nothing. Would you like a glass of water or some tea? We could sit on the couch if you'd like. After too many moments of awkward silence, I settled on dragging a chair from the kitchen into my room and setting the blanket on it in case you get cold. Old. My voice sounded strange to my own ears. I ah, I am going to go to bed now that okay, still nothing, okay, good night. I got into bed and shut my eyes. I knew sleep wouldn't come, but I didn't know what else to do. The hours ticked slowly past, and I stayed perfectly still, eyes shut and listening to the silence in my apartment and the muffled noises outside of it, until I could see the morning sunlight through my eyelids. When I finally opened my eyes, I could not see my mother's ghost. The air still crackled with energy and smelled like her perfume, and I expected her around every corner. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and felt eyes boring into the back of my head. I lifted the spoon, chills rising on my neck. I put the spoon in my mouth and crunched into the cereal, and a bitter taste exploded over my tongue. There was a disgusting, wet texture coating my mouth, and I felt something moving and spit it out with a gasp. There was half of a leathery brown cockroach legs still crawling in the air as it got sleeked onto the table and dropped my spoon into the bowl, which I realized Horror was now writhing with a wet mass of giant roaches spilling out over the sides and swarming the spoon. Pushed back from the table invulsion, and saw her, then silent and hovering in the doorway. She smiled and her teeth looked thin and sharp. I at my girlfriend Alice for lunch at her apartment, as I usually did when we both had the afternoon free. I sat across from her with steaming bowls of rice and vegetables on the table between us and her big sweater draped over my shoulders. I am being haunted by my mother's ghost. Alice took both my hands in hers and kissed them. Estrangement sucks, she said, simply. No, I mean she's dead. I think you think she's been in my apartment, only she doesn't have feet and you can see straight through her. Baby, She sounded wary. Have you been sleeping and taking all your meds and everything? It's hard to sleep with your mother's ghosts standing over you. And yes, I have been taking all my meds. I took a breath and pulled my hands back from Alice's feeling defensive. They're just anxiety, meds and ship. Anyway, I know what I saw, Alice frowned, eyebrows knitting together. I just care about you, and I am literally on antipsychotics. It wasn't a dick. Alice's shoulders clenched up into her neck, and I instantly felt guilty. We never had fights, and she had never doubted me before about anything. I told her my exhaustion and my anxiety had me assuming the worst in my partner, and it wasn't fair. I reached for her hands and she let me take them back shoulders, relaxing as I kissed each of her fingers. My situation did sound far fetched. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, And there was only one way to get us back on the same page. Okay, would you like to come meet my mother? I was very much out before my mother died, and she had to have known I was a lesbian, but I had certainly never come out to her. When she discovered what she called and inappropriate friendship I had as a child with a girl my age, she took me to a doctor until I learned how to hide myself from her. I remember her relief when I finally found a boyfriend in high school, boy from the school play, who held my hand and brought me flowers and never ever tried to kiss me. When Alice and I walked into my apartment, it was cold and smelled like smoke and damp earth. Mom I didn't see her anywhere. Alice shivered and squeezed my hand. I could see goose bumps rising on her neck and her cheeks. There was a faint wrestling, and my curtains seemed to flutter a bit despite the windows being closed. Mom a soft skittering sound, and then nothing. Alice's hand felt cold and clammy, and I noticed her face was sweating a bit too. Are you okay? Alice took a deep breath and nodded. It's weird in here. Yeah, it's making my head hurt. I think I need to go home. Do Do you want to come stay the night? Yes? Please? Um, Let me just pack a few things, or you get to get home on your own. Yeah, no worries. I'll call you when I get there. Okay, I love you. I love you too. When I stepped back into the apartment, Mom was waiting near the sofa. Her fingers looked longer than before. Hey, Mom, I missed you. It was a lie. She seemed to get closer to me without actually taking a step, and I slid past her into the kitchen. I stood at the sink, watching my mother's ghost from across the open countertop that served as the only barrier between my kitchen and the main room of the apartment. I picked up a plate and a sponge and began to scrub nervously. My mother's ghost wore a dark expression that was Alice, She's my I was interrupted by a loud clattering sound from the coffee machine on the counter behind me. My coffee pot flew across the room, felt the air as it rushed past my face. Glass shattered against the far wall, and stale coffee pooled on the floor. I swept up the glass and mopped my floor until it's shown, but I could not scrub the yellow brown coffee stains out of the wall paper. I took the phone from the wall and dialed Alice, Hey, I can't come over tonight. What why? Not? Is everything? Okay? I think she's angry your mother? Yeah? Are you sure you don't want to Yeah, I'm sorry. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, Okay, I love you, you too. Clip. When I went to bed that night, I heard a soft, melodic humming in a voice that was almost my mother's, and the figure hovered closer than before. It made me happy. I couldn't sleep that night or the night after. I had worked the day after that, and I was so exhausted afterwards that I nearly fell asleep on the train going home. My mother's ghost stood in the kitchen when I finally arrived, making a face of disgust at me and my apron and dirty shoes, stinking of dish water. Her hair was matted in some places, hanging loose in other skin stretched and discolored. She stank too sweet and foul and musty. I'm sure our faces must have mirrored each other, then masks of disgust. As I lay awake in bed that night, I heard something high pitched and soft and disjointed, something that was just far enough from humming to set my teeth on edge. I took to staying out as much as I could after that. Alice was very accommodating about all the extra nights I was spending at her apartment, and my mother's ghost was anything but On the occasions I had to return to pick something up or check on the place, I always found it in chaos. Often there were objects flying through the air, always the stink of decay, and another hole in the wall. My mother's ghost was looking less human, less familiar, every time I encountered her. Alice asked a few times if I wanted to move in with her permanently, and I did, but of course I couldn't. My apartment smelled like old cigarettes and wrought. The walls were full of holes in the floor strewn with broken glass and shredded paper and torn fabric. There was no way I was going to get my deposit back on the place, and even in full it certainly wasn't enough to cover the extent of the damage. Besides, I couldn't very well move out, just leave my mother's ghost there to haunt some stranger. On the first chili afternoon that winter, I went to my apartment to fetch my coat. When I got there, I was instantly overcome with nausea, dizziness, and exhaustion, and the room swam in front of my eyes, and my knees threatened to give out underneath me. I dropped down on the couch and sank back, my head resting against the torn fabric and exposed foam. My vision tunneled out into a black hole. My head throbbed. I closed my eyes lying on the couch. The nausea is settled, and a comforting warmth spread over my body. I could hear my mother humming. Suddenly I was not in my apartment at all. I was surrounded by the humming and beeping of machines and the squeak of new rubber shoes against an old tile floor. I smelled chemicals and sick and sweat. I heard an authoritative voice fading in and out, using words like treatment resistant and experimental in miners. Then I heard screaming and felt a jolt of electricity through my body, and I drew in a hard breath and opened my eyes. That was back when my roomed apartment, and the sharp hands of my mother's ghosts were pressed into my head, sending jolts of what felt like electricity down through my spine. Took all my strength to get to my feet and make it to the door. When I slammed it shut, my mother's ghost stayed behind it, and the strange sensation baited. It wasn't until I was halfway to Alice's that I even remembered my coat. Screw the coat. I decided I had to get out of there. When I asked Alice if she was still open to me moving in with her, she gave me an emphatic and immediate yes. She met me at my apartment as soon as she finished work. We spent the day packing up all my belongings, throwing away everything my mother's ghost to destroyed, sweeping and mopping and scrubbing and painting, and patching all the holes in the walls, and trading SIPs of wine from a bottle that had somehow remained untouched on the top of the fridge until now. By the time we had finished, it was late and we were a little bit drunk, and the bus was no longer running. The moving truck was coming in the morning to collect my things, so I'd have to be there anyway. My mother's ghost wasn't around, at least I couldn't see or hear her. I never did around Alice. Alice and I laid together on my stripped bear mattress in the living room, just for a moment, to regroup and prepare ourselves for the cold walk back to her place. My eyelids grew heavy, and I felt my body melting into the warmth of hers. The next thing I knew, I was jolting out of a deep sleep, with Alice gently snoring beside me. The room was dark and cold. At first I thought I had awoken on my own accord, but then I saw her. The figure looked nothing like my mother anymore. She stood over us, empty eyes in a hollow face. Mom I whispered, wrapping an arm around Alice to try to protect her or wake her. The figure's eyes glowed red, and the silhouette contorted into something long and sharp and inhuman. Mom and a flicker, she appeared directly in front of our faces, needle teeth hanging out of an empty skull, and long, long fingers. Alice, Baby, wake up. Alice blinked and started to sit up, and then the figure was upon her, pressing its long, long fingers into Alice's throat. I tried to pry the hands away, but I slipped right through them like air. I grabbed Alice by the shoulders then and tried to pull her away. She was shaking, her face turning purple, body thrashing violently. Then she got paler and stiller, and her eyes grew on focused, and I screamed, kicking the air where the figure hovered and pulling desperately on my girlfriend. I was sobbing and shaking, almost as violently as Alice. Alice is more family to me than you ever were, And if you still consider me a totter, then she's your family too. I love her, I want to marry her. I am a lesbian, and there is absolutely nothing you could ever do about it except make sure, I die hating you. The air shimmered, and then suddenly the room was still, and it was empty, and Alice was lying silent and pale except for the bruises on her neck. Then I saw the faint flutter of movement as she drew in a shallow breath. I squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. We both exhaled. The rest of the night was a blur of ambulance lights and hospital smells and beeping machines and Alice's raspy breathing. The doctor said that she would be fine, but they asked me to leave. She promised to call me as soon as she was out. Alice begged me not to return to the apartment alone, and even offered to go with me yourself, but I knew I had to do it. I braced myself before walking inside, breath catching in my chest. As the key turned to the lock, click, I stepped inside. The air was warm and still. Sunlight streamed through the open blinds onto my still packed boxes, ready for the truck. I didn't feel watched or threatened or trapped. My head didn't pound, I could see, I could breathe. My apartment was empty. I sat down on the couch, buried my head in my hands and wept. M it was her in the woods? You thought it was her? Yes, I assure you, dear, she cannot harm you anymore. She will only ever cross my threshold when she's ready to rest. Good that in mind, Perhaps you'd like to rest yourself? Yeah, I would up the stairs, tenth door on the left. Thank you. And now, my dearest aunt, Bill, the time is drawing, nigh. I can see it in your eyes. They aren't as sharp as they were when you first arrived. You know what she saw out there in those woods? Now, what's been chasing you? Twelve Ghosts starring Malcolm McDowell as the Innkeeper and Gina Rikiki as Annabelle. Episode ten, Poor Mother, written by Kit Faye with additional writing by Nicholas Takowski, Editing by Chris Childs and Stephen Perez, featuring Lauren Vogelbaum as Eloise. Directed by Nicholas Takowski. Original score and sound design by Chris Childs. Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alexander Williams and Nicholas Takowski. Supervising producer Josh Thame. Producers Chris Childs and Stephen Perez. Casting by Sunday Bowling c s A and Meg Mormon c s A. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon. Recorded at Lantern Audio in Atlanta, Georgia, engineered by Chris Gardner Aeros Sound and Recording in Ojai, California, engineered by Ken Arrows. Twelve Ghosts was created by Nicholas Takoski. That is a production of I Heeart, three D Audio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. 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