Part 2
I discovered the last entry. I first read it the other night after I said I would go to sleep. But as I moved aside one of the boxes to get to my room, I felt its distinct lack of weight, and a soft shifting of the contents inside. There was only this final note. It was bound in twine like the others, but it was bound alongside something else. I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll just get into it.
-————-
It was another wickedly, Wintery day. The last cold snap before the warmth of Spring could blossom. Homer spoke with his brother in between bites of his dinner. His arms no longer moved. Only his face and neck. As Langley fed him, they conversated and listened to a gentle tune on the radio. Peaceful. Content with their situation. Then a breeze crept in through the ragged window. Langley Collyer searched the room for a blanket, or shall. Eventually he settled on an old worn suit jacket that he draped overtop his brother’s arched body. But the suit jacket was not just any incidental coat. No random rag.
It was mine.
From an age long ago. From an age now passed. The jacket I’d worn so often in life now was used to shield the old hermit from the frigid gusts. But the jacket was not what I desired. It was not what kept me bound to this disgraceful domicile. It was the treasure inside. The elder brother looked past the younger, into the conglomerations of possessions long kept. There he saw me. Not with his eyes, for they saw nothing save for blackness, but with his soul.
He knew.
“Langley,” he whispered. “I feel Its presence near. In this very room.”
Langley paused from his task of feeding the old man. He allowed his senses to think for him.
“Is it very close? Will it set off the traps?” he whispered back.
“Does the creature interact with our physical world? Do we even know?”
“How should I act? As if nothing were the matter?”
They discussed for a while. All the time I waited patiently. So patiently. Slowly my emotions harshened as I recalled how many long years I had let them be. I had forgiven them for their sin. But now I could bear it no longer. I had absolved them before by letting them claim ignorance. They did not know what a precious thing they held. But now, as the second brother wore my coat, I knew my dear treasure would soon be found. And once they knew, if they dared discard it again to be treated like rubbish, like just another of their possessions, they would truly feel my wrath.
Langley leaned in closer to Homer. In doing so he pushed the trinket into his brother’s rib and Homer winced.
“Langley,” he said. “There’s something in the pocket.”
He fished it out, and lifted it to the light for a better view.
“It’s only…a locket.”
Langley Collyer now openly looked at me, at the shape of a man now passed on, but not quite. Then back down at the trinket. A beautifully ornate bronze shell. Then inside were the ticking, moving watch hands. He saw the source of my affection and devotion. Her majesty and grace. Crafted by God so delicate in detail and radiant to see. Now I knew the old man understood. Now he knew why I lingered and spied on them.
“This is the source of the trouble? Only this?” he asked me.
Only this? I thought. My anger returned, only much more vicious. How foolish could this pair be? I had given them far too many chances. If they did not—
Into the fire my dear, treasure flew. Into the flames of the filthy hearth. But not for long. In my asperity and indignation, I flew into a frenzy. A torrent of violent, frosty thralls swept through the room. They blew out the fire. They blew away papers and refuse. They blew away my coat from the shoulders of the paralyzed miser.
“What is happening?” he cried.
“I tried to destroy it. To banish the demon away!”
But I was no demon. I was the ghost of a life long gone. And Langley’s aberration had only served to cement my place in this world. I could not pass on without the assurance that what I held dearest in life would be taken care of after death, that her radiance would live on.
I died in that jacket. At first I followed the locket. Hidden in the pocket of my coat. I witnessed it as it was auctioned away with my estate. Little more than a breeze at the time, I was unseen and could not alter reality. I could only see. Only pray.
But when that wicked old hoarder had purchased me, back when his legs still moved, I followed him home and watched as he cast my jacket aside. Immediately, without second thought, onto a pile near the door. For years I lay dormant, awaiting the moment they recognized their misdeed. And as my patience dissolved, I grew more attached to this reality. More determined to shape it. No longer a specter unseen, I was now a shadow, a flicker in the corner of an eye. They began to notice me. They began to whisper about my existence. Slowly I became more and more close to matter. And I became less and less able to neglect.
But they did neglect me. I was bound to the locket, and bound to the first floor. They moved upstairs and refused to see me. Until the day came. The fateful, frosty day. Langley was on his way to the market, as he did only once a month. But as he opened the grand door, and the gales pierced his shirt, he realized he was ill-dressed for the cold. He grabbed the first thing he saw; my coat. So I followed him. Only he saw me. Only he knew to look. I trailed him through the city and through the crowds. My first look outside the den of degeneracy in years.
Then he returned home, and found his crippled brother asleep on the floor. As he went to make the fire that night, he took off my coat and set it aside. So close…but again I despaired that perhaps they would never notice it.
I grew impatient. Days later I watched as Homer slept. I was more than I was before. No longer just a shadow in the distance, or a motion in the periphery. And though his vision was faded, he looked at me directly. He fired his gun right through me, where my head would have been. But I was still not a part of this reality, not fully at least.
It was Langley’s abrasive action. His despicable attempt to rid himself of me without care that finally shaped me into what I am now. As the torrent of winds died down, the old man whose eyes still worked took his arm away from his face to see me and finally behold me. I was now in the shape of a man. The man I was in life. Only the faint shadows of my outline could give away my true identity. Langley stammered and stepped backwards. He did not pay any attention to his surroundings. If he had, perhaps he would not have tripped his trap.
An avalanche of heavy trash fell onto him. It pinned him tightly to the ground. He did not die, but he could not move. His brother cried out to him. He asked what had happened. I moved towards the old man in the chair, and for the first time truly touched him. I pulled my coat from his shoulders. That was when I realized that I could now mold my surroundings.
Quickly, I recovered my treasure from the hearth. It showed no signs of damage. It was not in the flames long enough before they were extinguished. For a while I stood there admiring it. And simultaneously I wondered what to do next. I knew this form would not last forever, it was only a symptom of my devotion and anger. So I got to work.
As Langley choked for air, and pleaded for assistance, I searched the stacks for blank paper. I sat at a desktop and shoved the litter atop it onto the floor. I have written these pages for the next owner to find. So that they know, not only what I desire, but what will befall them if they fail to heed my instruction. I have written these pages to detail every extent of misery I have felt and witnessed. I begin with this final page. I will add more, as many more as I can manage in my time in this form. I will paint every excruciating moment that I had to endure but could never speak of.
For you see now is my opportunity. I can now plainly admit to the wickedest of my actions. With what little influence I had in this world, I worsened the decay of the old cripple’s condition. I turned his muscles black and tough as brimstone. And now I sit and watch, jubilant, as the two sob and plead.
Langley will go first. If he is fortunate he will asphyxiate and die prone underneath the pile. Homer will not be so lucky. With no one to care for him, and no ability to do so alone, he will starve or freeze. He will die there in front of his fireplace. And only feet from his brother. They will have time to talk; maybe hours, maybe days. They can say their goodbyes, and make amends for their past. But they can do nothing to change their fate. One entombed in the physical embodiment of a lifetime of greed, and the other trapped in his own corpse, incapable of moving or seeing. They will die alone. Surrounded by their collection. And they will understand what it cost them.
Now I speak directly to you, reader. I do not know when you will find these papers. I pray only that they will not be thrown out when the home is searched. But assuming you read these final words, assuming you have taken in my full testimony, just know. I will have been watching you do so the whole time. And if you choose to follow the same path of the Collyer Brothers, I will not be as kind.
—————
That was the end. I turned my attention from the page to the trinket bound to it in the box; an old, antique locket. I looked up from my work and saw the apparition. Not in my periphery but straight on, as Homer did in his bed. I nodded to him, and he nodded back. Then I opened the locket to see the watch, but I found something else as well. She was as he described the source of his affection and devotion. Her majesty and grace. Crafted by God so delicate in detail and radiant to see.
He did not mean the watch, or the locket, but the picture inside, and the woman within it. The image was old and monotone. It was a wedding photo of a handsome groom and his beautiful bride. The man smiled brightly as his new wife kissed him on the cheek. A moment captured in time. The greatest moment of a life, held dear even after the life was gone. I understood.
Without breaking my gaze on the photo I said, “I will look after this. I will take good care of it. Tomorrow I will take it to a friend who does restoration. He will be delicate.”
But when I looked up, I saw no apparition. I only felt a soft breeze pass me. A gentle warm breeze which shifted the hair at my shoulders, and left through my open window.
I did not lie to him. I will uphold my promise. I will wear this locket every day of my life. I will do so with honor, whether he sees it or not.
I do not fear the Ghost of the Groom. I know what he wanted. I know how to act.
What I fear is the two shadows I see now in the corner of my eye. One standing. One sitting. Because I do not know what they want.