The Boarding House - Toni Castillo Girona (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📗

all over briefly, as if the dream was hard to cope with; after a while he was at ease, breathing regularly, eyes-closed and arms-crossed upon his pit; he was crying no more, so the stains upon the bedlinen dried and vanished; the TV was merely a rumour and the night had finally fell down; his landlady and her husband were sleeping peacefully one storey below; there was no-one to be seen strolling the streets, and the canals reflected the moonlight recklessly; from time to time some distant voices could be heard because there were some tourists coming back to their hotels and boarding houses; but not there, in that peaceful street, fairly far from the bustle of that ancient city; so, neither his landlady nor her husband heard the door's latch moving; neither did he. Otherwise, they would have got up in order to go quickly to see who that

was; for no-one apart from the guest staying in the first room was supposed to be there or to have the key to get in; and most likely, in doing so, they would have seen something they had not managed to comprehend, not with the use of their left-side of the Sperry's model for the human brain; for although it was a fact that the door got open, no-one was standing there to be seen, and despite so the door was widely opened, as if someone big – or maybe we could possibly say fat – was having some sort of difficulties to get through; and what about observing the door, after a couple of seconds, shut itself again slowly, and then hear the key acting on the lock? Surely we could continue our odd description in telling that that

was not just the only supernatural event for that night, because right then the narrow staircase seemed to complain itself by emitting some creaking noises, the usual ones one could hear when someone was going upstairs, aiding himself with that wooden white rail; but that would not be over until hearing the second room's door open and close itself again, followed by some small pressure faintly perceptible through the ceiling, in case one had stood one storey right below.

6

“D

id you sleep well?”
That was his landlady in her way from the kitchen, holding a silver tray with a white plate full of home-made ham upon it. She put the tray on the dining table and smiled at him.
“Oh yes, I did.”, he responded.
She nodded and took a seat opposite him.
“So, no odd noises in the middle of the night this time, right?”
“Nope.”
“It looks like there is no ghost, after all, does it not?”
“I suppose it does, yes.”, he said, sipping some coffee.
She nodded once again, letting her back rest against the wooden chair. Her look was somehow different that morning; he could barely fathom why. She looked older, as if she had been awake all night long.
“Are you okay?”, he asked her.
She took her time to answer:
“No, not really.”
He put his cup of coffee, now almost empty, upon its saucer. Staring at her, he folded his arms and frowned: “So?”
“This morning I found the second room's door locked.”, she said without hesitation.
“Is that so terrible?”
“I did not lock the door; neither did my husband.”
“I see.”
“It is common to give a pair of keys to our guests, as you do know, to allow them to lock their bedrooms for security reasons and to get in and out whenever they please; there is no curfew in this house, as you well know. Most of them don't lock their doors, because they don't feel like doing so in this very house, and that's something of the utmost importance to us.” She paused briefly, sighting. Then, she continued: “But that other guest I told you yesterday morning about, that, that was really a paranoid one.”
“Was he?”
“Oh, yes, he truly was.”, she said, disgusted.
“So he usually locked his bedroom's door every time he was out, is that so?”
“Pretty much.”
He nodded and added, smiling sadly: “My wife would've done the same.”
“But it could possibly be I was wrong, you know, and maybe it was me who locked that door. I'm getting on a bit, and I've got memory lacks from time to time.”, she admitted, regretfully. “The problem is, “ she went on, “ I looked for those keys; not the ones we keep for ourselves, but the ones I normally give to any guest staying in that room.”
She stopped talking, as if trying to find the right words to describe what was in her mind. That was a dull morning; the dining room was barely illuminated by all the lamps hanging from the ceiling, and even the opened garden's door seemed to project weird shadows on the dining room's walls, thus hardening the darkness inside. That house, the one which looked so lovely and homely, now, little by little, was becoming something quite the contrary: a place where shadows were painting walls black; a place where not even the central heating was able to produce the slightest warmth; a place where too many memories melted down like ice, composing a bleak atmosphere of sad and gloomy remembrances no-one could possibly bear.
“I could not find them.”, she concluded, looking down as if she was ashamed of herself.
“Did you use the other keys, the ones you've got, to get in the room?”, he questioned.
“Yes, I did.”
“So? Did you see something in there? Anything?”
She looked at him vividly and nodded widely. Taking a deep breath, she said:
“The shower.”
“The shower? What was wrong with it?”
“I clean the shower myself at least twice per week; more often if a guest leaves and there is another one coming to the same room.”, she explained tiredly. “So, it was supposed to remain that way.”
“You mean...”
“I mean what I did see when I got in that room: the shower was not clean any more, as if someone had used it. It could have been used that first night of your arrival, when you thought you heard the water running.”
“You are kidding me!”, he shouted, astonished.
“I fear I am not.”
Upon the wooden dining table, more or less in its centre, a sole honey wax candle rested quite unaware of a cold wind entering the dining room through the garden's opened door, all of a sudden. He stared at it for a while, observing how that wind was blowing the candle slightly and not on purpose, until she got up and shut the door almost violently; then, the candle was still offering its honeyed light and fragrance, but just briefly, because after not so long its flame was finally extinguished.
“According to your own words then,” he stated, “there is a ghost in this very house, and it does have those keys.”
She went to the kitchen and came back after a minute holding a match box. She intended to light the candle again, but oddly she did not manage to do so. She gave up, eventually.
“I know it sounds a bit crazy, but it does look that way.”, she confessed, putting the match box upon the table, beside the honey wax candle.
For the best part of a minute, neither of them said anything. Too many things to ponder; too many weird events to consider.
Finally, it was him who said:
“I think we should find out more about that guest you told me.”

7

I

t came to happen he got a friend who had never spent a sole night away from home. Odd, certainly, because that very same friend of his was, at that time, about forty years old. He tried to convince him to do the other way round, that is, to get away from home for, let's say, a whole year. To taste it

, as he put it once. The idea was to show him good things could happen when one was out there, in an unknown environment. That was before she passed away, so he himself was not willing to be far from home for such a long time, obviously, but still he could suggest so to his friend. When she died, it was the Doctor who suggested him just the same.
“Catch a plane; go see the world out there.”, the Doctor said to him one rainy morning.
Being alone was hard to cope with. Sometimes, whilst wondering around the city, he saw people having beers in pubs. He wondered if he could have a seat, alone, amidst that very same people and ask the waiter for a beer. Would that beer taste the same as the ones they were drinking? He feared it would not. So, instead of taking a seat over there, he just passed by, going back home. He could remember perfectly well how he met his wife. He was not that sort of handsome man well known among the women; on the contrary, he was pretty ugly: almost bald, with a big nose; as long as he was sweating gross trails of acne were clearly visible upon his skin. Besides, he did not socialize much, there it laid the difficulty of meeting women. So, it was quite a surprise how they bumped into each other that Saturday evening. He was a bit crossed that evening because some sort of an unsolved problem at work, so instead of staying at home as usual, he went for a drink. He walked into a bar not so far away from home, merely a matter of pragmatism: in case he got ill-drunk, he could reach home more or less safely. The bar was dark and stank of smoke and fries; but he did not pay attention to that: he got in, had a seat at a table placed in a far corner, and waited for the waiter to come. Instead of a waiter, it turned out it was a waitress, and quite beautiful. After so many beers, but right before he started to feel awfully drowsy, she asked him if he was all right. He responded he was not, that was why he was having lots of lots of pure cheap beer: to brush all his problems away. She said that

was wrong; life was, essentially, marvellous and he was mistaken in throwing it away like that; he looked up and smiled, but just briefly; it was then when their eyes seemed to meet for the first time that night. She was holding another bottle of cold beer upon a tray, but instead of putting it on the table, she turned around and disappeared among all that smoke and dim light. He could make out some words she uttered right before vanishing in thin air:
“You had enough.”
He stayed there for a while, despite the fact he had beer no more. The bar's interior looked fairly gloomy but that was the kind of atmosphere he was looking for; thus, he decided to stay seated at that empty table, letting time pass by. Half an hour later, she returned carrying a white plate; she put it upon the table, right in front of him. On it, he could see a tasty sandwich made of ham.
“Eat it.”, she said.
“I'm not hungry.”, he admitted, folding his arms.
She smiled at him: “You must be, it is just you didn't realize yet.”
After saying so, she took a seat beside him. He could smell her perfume and her proximity, somehow, scared him. So he tried to say, politely, that he was not hungry at all, so she'd better be going to attend to other customers, thank you very much. She did not respond, looking at him a bit amused.
“Whatever it is, it cannot be