‘Stomping Ground’ by Jane Healey

Livingstone’s ghost is walking again, grandmother says, and we know that we will be the ones to have to shut the doors up tight with rags and tape tonight so that his strange, oozing anger does not enter our home. But we are lucky, being twins, because we will make quick work of the task with four hands to do it. In our country we treat identical twins as one, individual soul – we share the same name and the same chores, we will marry the same person and be the mother of either of our children, we will be buried with the same gravestone, tucked up tightin the same grave.

Livingstone is an ornery spirit, the ghost of a murderer who haunts our street and tries to freeze us dumb in our sleep. It already happened to Martha two doors down, and to our great-uncle fifty years ago, and a handful of others besides. They do not last long, these traumatised victims; they wither away and die soon after. We do not know why death cannot stop Livingstone’s murderous ways, we only know how to stop him killing one of our own – to close up every crack in every door and window so that he cannot slip inside, once one of us has seen the footprints in dew that precede his walkabouts.

We have finished our task and are in bed trying to sleep when the air goes cold with Livingstone’s arrival outside. Our breath clouds the space between us. We hold each other’s hands tightly, our fingers are chilled.

When we were born, the old men of the village said that we – with our unnaturalness – would cast a protective glow over our village and Livingstone would not haunt it again. The old women said that that was nonsense and instructed all the wives to ignore their prattering husbands and stop up the gaps in their windows all the same. Livingstone has already killed two in our village during our lifetime. If he kills much more we might instead be held to blame.

A knock on the front door and then the hiss of his voice that cannot be stopped by walls and wood, Can I come in?

No, we whisper to ourselves, you cannot.

If we lived in other villages we would not be bothered by ghosts. Perhaps we will marry someone who lives in such a place. Our parents want us to marry soon, we are getting too large to feed, they say, too beautiful.

I do not like you two, Livingstone hisses, the ‘oo’ of the last word stretching out longer than a human breath could.

Us one, we reply even though we are scared. We did not know he could hear us upstairs.

You have two hearts, he says, two sets of eyes, two warm guts, four feet.

One soul, we reply.

I do not deal in souls.

Perhaps, we think, if we keep him here outside talking, he will not have time tonight to venture into any home which has not been prepared as neatly as ours. But the air soon warms; he has moved on to another house.

In the morning, after we have woken early to pull out all the rags and tear off the tape, we hear the news from shrieks down the street. Old Tom has been frightened in his sleep; he cannot speak, his heart is slow, his legs are numb.

We look at each other as we eat breakfast; as our parents chatter about other things and our grandmother hums noisily while feeding our younger brother his toast; sharing the same thought, how long do we have?

Only a few weeks, it turns out, because when Livingstone’s footsteps are seen again there is a village meeting to which we are not invited. The mayor comes to our door afterwards. Our parents are standing behind him and they will not look us in the eye.

It has been decided, he says with a squint against the morning sun, that you will not be allowed inside tonight. You must stay in the street. With blankets of course, and warm tea, he adds.

We are not unnatural, we say. We are special. One soul, two bodies.

If you are so special, he says, then you will not fear those who walk at night.

We hate him and his small nose, his weak convictions.

That night we wait on a wooden bench near our home. We have blankets wrapped around us, warm tea, two candles and a prayer book. We wait for the ghost to walk.

He appears from nowhere, his white body filling-in like an Etch A Sketch. We watch him as he checks each house for cracks, smoothing a misty finger over the frames of doors and windows, dragging a bone-white palm across the edges of tiles and siding. And then, finding no way in and no other willing victims, he turns to us.

We run, hand in hand, trailing blankets and tea and prayer book. We run towards our house and bang on the door, rattle the doorknob and the window-panes, screaming to be let in.

Livingstone walks; he walks right up to us and touches the backs of our necks with a cold finger. The dark closes in.

Night is over. We sleep for a while and then somehow it is night again. We are in the street and there is a pretty dew on the earth and the patches of overgrown grass, just begging for our dainty footsteps. A pleasant night for a pleasant walk. We call for our mother and father, our baby brother, but no one replies. We frown. It is not polite to ignore us. We knock on our door and call for them sweetly. But there is no answer.

The house is shut up tight with rags and tape. But we have two sets of hands after all, and we will make quick work of finding a way in.

From issue #2: spring/summer 2016

About the Author
Jane Healey lives in London and has stories published in Paper Darts, Tin House online, and The Normal School. She was shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award 2014 and the Bristol Short Story Prize 2013, and won first prize in the Dragonfly Tea/Henley Literary Festival flash fiction prize 2015.