Page 6 of Ghostly
More creaking and—
Nope, he’d had it. He grabbed his wireless earbuds and shuffled to a recording of the Baker vs. Johnson trial on his phone. He set it to a nice, low volume, perfect to carry him off to sleep, and settled back into the pillow.
Fuck you, branches.
***
Calmed and satisfied with every object being in its exact place, Ida returned to the music box.Job well done.He’d probably never even notice, and if he accidentally moved something again, she’d repeat the procedure the next night. Every night until she figured out how to properly approach him.
She couldn’t wait to see what he’d do tomorrow. She bet it would be something exciting.
***
Gabriel woke to a clear, sunny morning, decided to put the weird first night behind him. Under the flickering light in the bathroom, he started his morning routine: one, two, three, four, five, six minutes, wash and brush teeth. Shaving, hair, one, two, three, clothes, four, five, six, down to the living room, one, two, three, power up the laptop, four, five, six, start the—
He sat, staring at the screen. A blank schedule stared back at him. He’d opened up his calendar, now empty, out of habit. Not one meeting, one court hearing, not a single reminder for today. Or tomorrow. Or any day after that.
Gabriel didn’t know how long he stayed like that, sitting in his regular office clothes—he’d even gone with his favorite shirt, mint with tiny white leaf prints—doing nothing.Havingnothing to do. He just sat like a dumb,lost puppy who’d been chasing his tail for the past half hour and now realized that it was all, well, dumb.
It’s okay. That was the plan. Do nothing, as much as it hurt. Only 176 days to go. He could do this. There were plenty of things around here he could distract himself with. Such as, taking a walk around the house so he’d get to know the grounds. Great idea.
Five minutes later
Walks sucked.
Granted, he could’ve gone on a longer one—there were probably plenty of paths in the forest—but why would he, when he couldn’t even stand a five-minute walk?
He went around the house, twice. He checked the backyard which at some point must’ve been a proper garden, but now looked more like a place where plants went to die or, if you were a fungus, go eat the wooden bench, the only piece of outdoor furniture. He checked the bare, half-dried trees and confirmed one of them spread its branches close enough to the house they could scratch the facade when windy.
Not that he’d been looking specifically for that.
And now he was back inside the teeny tiny, damn claustrophobic hallway, and he realized he’d go insane from boredom in this house. He leaned on the console table and stared at the creepy bronze animal statues.
The deer-hog had moved.
He stepped back, leaned left and right, even went back to the door to get another vantage point. Was he already going insane? He could swear yesterday, when he put the statue back, the three of them weren’t perfectlylined up—the deer-hog was a bit in front, as a creature with such ambiguous origins clearly should be. But now they formed a perfect line, straight as a ruler. In fact, Gabriel switched to a ruler app on his phone and measured the distance (it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do). Each statue’s square base was exactly 3.3 inches from the edge of the table, and furthermore, the distance between the statues themselves was also 3.3 inches.
Yup, he was going crazy. He needed work. Now.
“Please, Cliff. You’ve got to have something for me.” Gabriel paced in front of his laptop, then sat down so his boss could see him on the camera. Clifford removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You know I can’t give you any work. Not anything you’d want. You’re suspended, and the law prohibits me—”
“What about research? I can do research.”
“Vane, you’re above research. That’s for paralegals and litigation lawyers and recent college graduates who think too highly of themselves.”
More exciting than watching the grass grow. Or, to be accurate, the weeds. His backyard was about 78% weeds. “Please? Anything?”
Clifford sighed and leaned back in his chair. Gabriel grew envious just looking at the pristine white background of his office. He raised his eyes to the striped mustard and brown wallpaper of the living room.
God, he was going to hate it here.
“I suppose Jacobsky could use some help,” Clifford’s voice, slightly raspy from the bad connection, came from the laptop. “He just took a massive case, a pharmaceutical company. Tons of research needed.”
Yes!“Then I’m your man, Cliff.”
“I’ll get him to send you the info. Remember, you’ll be his subordinate. You can’t do anything else regarding the case.”
“I know, and no legal advice, no drafting of documents, verbal communications to the minimum—”
