Charlie’s POV

A familiar voice was there on the other end of the line.

“Mom?”

“Where are you? We’ve been calling for over twenty minutes and you haven’t picked up!”

“I uh, fell asleep. Sorry about that, but what is it?”

“What’s it is that we’re at the front gate. Don’t you want to let us in?”

Now that woke me up out of my stupor. “Sorry, weren’t you going to come in tomorrow?”

“No, I mean, we heard that you had another day off and we wanted to drop by to help you with preparations.”

I tried to hold back my annoyance as I got dressed. Charlotte was in my room, and I couldn’t well let them see her. I’d have to put her back at some other time, and in the meanwhile locked the door, making sure that my parents couldn’t see her. Who knows what they would have thought if they walked into my bedroom and saw her? Well, if it was my sister she would’ve definitely come to a rather unflattering conclusion.

I opened the door to see my father’s car parked outside.

“Is that all you’re wearing in this weather?” my mother asked incredulously. “Don’t you feel cold?”

“I’m only out for a while Mom, I’ll go back inside then where it’s warmer,” I said.

“It barely takes a second to put on a jacket,” she said.

“Mom, if I felt cold, I would wear a jacket, you don’t have to tell me,” I told her.

“Shouldn’t he be more careful with things like this? What with the c-” my mother began to complain to my dad, before she hit the word that she didn’t want to say.

“Mom, it’s only a few seconds outside, why don’t you come in?” I asked. There had been the mildest powder of snow the day before, which I was thankful for as I could clear off the front yard with incredible ease. I did not want to spend my time off shoveling snow, so I was glad I had cleared it up otherwise it would’ve been a real issue walking in.

“Geez, did you wake up right now?” my father asked as we shook hands and he noticed how messed up my hair was. “It’s nearly two in the afternoon!”

“Yeah, some of the meds make it hard to sleep on time,” I said. ‘Because of my meds’ was easy excuse for nearly everything, and my father didn’t given me a hard time about this because of that.

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” he said. “So, how is the treatment going?”

“Nothing’s gone wrong yet,” I told him. “I did need a few transfusions, but those all went well, so it looks like things are on track for now.”

“Good, good,” he said. Both he and my mother were quite relieved at these words. “Anyway, I brought over some stuff, just give me a moment and I’ll get it out of the trunk.”

“Let me help you.”

“Oh, you don’t need to, I’m fine.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.”

We bickered a bit more which was normal whenever I offered to help my father with anything, though I guess in this situation he did have a point in refusing my help. Still, it wasn’t like I was collapsing or anything.

Most of what they had brought were cooking utensils (I guess Mom hadn’t trusted me to have any that were good enough), ingredients, and some Christmas decorations. My father had even decided to bring a miniature tree to decorate - something we hadn’t actually done in over a decade since Suzy and I had moved out of the house, but I guess he thought it was a nice touch. I didn’t mind.

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“Your house is bigger than I thought,” Dad said while we were unloading things. “Even bigger than ours.”

“Yeah, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere,” I told him. That was why theirs was more expensive - and also because an ancient spirit haunted the walls of this one, though I didn’t mention that part. “And it being huge makes it hard to clean and other things.”

“Right,” he said. “Still, you live here all alone?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing, I thought it was big enough you’d maybe want to either rent out a room or two, or you’d be having your girl with you,” he said. “I mean, does it get lonely out here?”

“Eh, I like the peace and quiet,” I told him.

“Would you hurry up?” my mother called out to us. “Charlie, you are going to get sick if you stand there any longer!”

“Coming, Mom,” I said as I rushed into the hallway with the last thing my father had brought. “So, where’s Suzy?” I asked as I closed the door.

“Oh, she say’s she’ll come tomorrow,” Mom said. “So long as there’s no snowstorm, she should get here in time.”

“Right,” I told them. “So, I think you guys can grab any bedroom you want, there are a lot, and none of them are really cleaner than the others. If uh, I’d had some idea when you were actually going to show up I would’ve tidied one up better than the others. And those are the two cleanest bathrooms, though I guess some of the others do technically work, I just haven’t used them…”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” my father said. “I mean, you could house half an army here. We’ll take care of ourselves.”

My mother had already started setting things up in the kitchen, with ingredients piled up on the table.

“You know, there are only four of us eating, right?” I asked her, seeing the mountain on the table grow ever larger.

“Well, let’s make it a very special occasion tomorrow,” she said.

My father began setting decorations up.

I tried some small talk, but the two of them were so preoccupied with what they were doing that they barely noticed me. It felt odd for them to be doing that in my own house, but whatever, I supposed there was no stopping them now.

The only thing was that I needed to wait for a moment to take Charlotte upstairs. It finally came when my father decided to have a nap and it looked like my mother was busy doing the dishes (she vehemently refused any help with them) that I took my chance and unlocked my bedroom door. I took a peak towards the kitchen, yes, my mother was still there. My father was in a room on the far side of the house, still sleeping.

I picked Charlotte up, making sure that while I was fast, I was not too rough while carrying her. “Sorry Charlotte, but my parents came by a day earlier than I expected,” I whispered to her. “I don’t want to do this without Suzy here, so we’ll just have to wait this out another night. I’m sorry, but I’ll try to visit you when I can.”

I placed her in her case, and then went back downstairs.

The rest of the day passed by without anything much of note happening. Most of the ingredients were still there and had to be placed in the fridge, and most of the decorations were lying about and still had to be put in place. As it was, my father had not bought nearly enough to decorate the entire house, something I pointed out to him, but he insisted that he would decorate the ‘main parts’ of the house, whatever that was supposed to mean.

“Say, I wanted to ask you something,” my mother said during dinner. “Are you really okay living in a place like this?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“I mean… look around the house,” she said. “I don’t meant to be rude, but it feels so… empty. Not to mention you’re in the middle of the woods. It almost feels like a haunted house.”

“No, like I said, the quiet is good,” I told them.

“I like my peace and quiet too at times,” my father said, “I just, this feels a little extreme, don’t you? And it’s even scarier at night. I keep thinking the Mothman’s going to pop up out of the woods.”

“No wonder it was pretty cheap, I can see why no one would want to live here,” my mother said.

“Speaking of,” I started to say before I could help myself. “Do you- I mean, either of you, believe in ghosts?”

My father chuckled. “I mean, this place is spooky, but it’s not going to make me believe in ghosts.”

“Yeah,” I said. That was the response I expected from my father, Mom didn’t even answer but I was sure she thought along the same lines.

The two of them went to sleep earlier, though I couldn’t fall asleep given this was when I had inadvertently trained myself to be awake.

I went upstairs, feeling like a small child sneaking off again given how I had to be sure that my parents did not wake up.

I walked into Charlotte’s room and closed the door, locking it so I’d have a few seconds if any of them happened to come up. “It’s okay Charlotte, it’s just me,” I told her. She came to life almost immediately, she must’ve found having to stay put even when she could move to be very annoying, though unfortunately there was little I could do to help her. Well, aside from telling my folks all about her.

“What’s so funny?” Charlotte asked, seeing my smile.

“Nothing,” I said. “I was just thinking to myself that I was finally sneaking away from my parents to see a girl in secret, though probably over a decade after it would’ve been expected.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, just a joke,” I said. “It wasn’t very funny either. I didn’t hurt you or anything while bringing you up, did I?” I asked.

“No, no you didn’t,” she said. “So, is the plan still for tomorrow?”

“My sister should arrive, so yes. I’ll text you when I’m ready.”

“Understood,” she said before giving me a thumbs up.