overboard just a little bit. Want to help me take them down?” Drew asked as she started to grab one of the paintings she had taped to a wall.
“Yes, yes, I do.” Liza said with a sigh of relief.
As they made their way around the room, one of the pictures that Liza pulled from its sticky grasp really caught her attention.
“Drew, this picture is really creepy. Who are the girls in this one?”
Drew looked down at one of her drawings that Liza was holding in her hand. She had sketched it with charcoal. It was a man; the same man in her other works, and a woman holding hands walking through a woodsy area. There was a young woman watching them from behind a tree with a snotty little look upon her face. The man looked very happy, almost glowing. The woman that he was holding hands with looked as if she could reach out of the picture and scratch your eyes out. It was very disturbing.
“I don’t know.” Drew said as she grabbed the paper from her friend’s hands and wadded it up in a ball. “I don’t remember drawing that one.”
“Drew, let’s go into the kitchen and get you a sandwich, ok?” Liza had started feeling a little better about leaving her friend until seeing that picture. It was scary as hell and Drew didn’t even remember drawing it. Something was going on in that house. She had heard the piano playing as Drew had described and Drew had been nowhere near it. A harmless ghost was one thing; a crazy obsessed and maybe even possessed friend was another.
Drew ate her sandwich and they talked about what had been going on in Liza’s world in the last week. Drew told Liza about the librarian and the cemetery and her encounter with Brendan the ghost. She assured her that she was not going insane and that she had just had a lot on her mind the last few days. She wasn’t planning on going back to work either. She wanted to make a living with her own drawings instead of staring at everyone else’s all day. She had discovered that that was her dream and she had enough cushion in her savings now that she could do it for a little while.
“Plus, I’ve got a few paintings in storage that I think could sell, mostly of the French Quarter. Tourists love that shit.” Drew had said with a mouth full of ham and cheese sandwich when Liza looked a bit skeptical.
She assured her that she would be fine. They were just making their way to the front door to say their good-byes when Drew’s phone rang in her back pocket.
“I thought that you said that you lost your phone, Drew.” Liza said newly aggravated.
“Oh, I thought that I did.” Drew said sincerely.
“Hello? Oh, hey, mom.” Drew said rolling her eyes. “Yes, I know I haven’t called you in a while, I’m fine.” She paused to half listen to the other end of the line and continued to sigh and roll her eyes.
“Yes, mother, I did cash out my life insurance policy… No, mother, I’m not doing drugs.”
Liza couldn’t help but laugh a little. She knew that Drew couldn’t stand her mother and she understood more why after what Drew had told her about her childhood misfortune.
“Mom, I have to go my stove is on fire. Bye.” And she hung up.
“That woman waits eight months to call me just to bitch at me.” Drew said and shoved the phone back in her pocket.
“Call me tomorrow, Drew. Go take a shower, you stink, and then get some sleep, and don’t forget in two weeks you are coming over for Labor Day.” Liza shut the door behind her and immediately heard the piano playing again. She felt chills from head to toe.
“Not now, Brendan.” Drew said rubbing her head. “Actually, if you could find something a little less depressing that would be nice. Especially since the damn cable guy won’t come in the house again since you kept moving the cable wire every time he turned around. If you knew what you were missing you wouldn’t be such an ass about having television.” The piano picked up its pace and Drew danced her way to the bedroom.
The hot bath felt amazing. The music drifted in from the living room and she found that it was quite relaxing. She had filled the bath with bubbles that covered everything up to her chin, just