“Would you stop calling me that?”  the elder of the two sisters demanded, sitting down on the settee and arranging the antimacassar on its arm.  “I prefer the use of my full Christian name.”

Her younger sister rolled her eyes.  “We are quite alone, there’s no danger of anyone taking to the practice.”

“That grocery boy is due any time now, and besides, we’re hardly youngsters now.”

Far too old for the affectionate names of childhood, Susan knew what her sister would say next.  Yet far too old again for the affectations of mere adulthood.

They had gone through three husbands between them, losing all to death, and had moved back in together to share expenses and gain company from the association.  Their children and grandchildren lived far away from the little town where they had been raised, and only visited on rare occasions now.

“Shh!”  Mathilde sat upright on the settee, holding a finger aloft.  “Did you hear that?”

Susan paused, her teacup near her mouth.  There was an odd sound, similar to a key in a lock.  They both waited for whatever would come next.

“It must be the neighbors,”  Susan whispered.

“Shh!”

The door seemed to scrape open.  It was loud enough to be their own door, yet the sound wasn’t right.  The hinges squealed on their posts, and there was the unfamiliar sound of boot-heels clacking on the entry floor.

“I tell you, sister, this house is haunted!”  Mathilde said.

“Poppycock.  There are no such creatures as ghosts,”  Susan said in a voice which, to her children, meant the end of the conversation.

“Our door opens and we hear footfalls in the entry, and you say there are no ghosts?”  Mathilde asked, her voice rising to a fragile crack.  “Then how would you explain these sounds?”

“This is an older house, they do settle.”

“Settle?  My dear, settling is one thing.  Clicking heels and squeaking hinges are quite another.”

“Then it must be the neighbors.”

Their home was a duplex on a shaded side-street of the town.  They had seen several neighbors come and go in their time, some noisy, others quiet.  The quietest of the lot was an elderly gentleman who had ended his life hanging in the stairwell after months of not going out nor of seeing anyone come in to visit.  Mathilde was convinced that his ghost had never left the property and had only become more befuddled in death, mistaking their apartment for his own on occasion.

“I believe there are no neighbors at present,”  Mathilde said righteously.

“Perhaps the agent is showing some couple around.”

“Our apartment?”  Mathilde sniffed.

And the arguement started again.

In the midst of the quarrel, Mathilde raised her hand again, her head inclined toward the hallway and the stairs.  Susan hated to admit it, but there were suspicious sounds coming from that direction.  Muffled footsteps, and the sound of voices.  The words were not clear, but then, one didn’t expect a ghost to be intelligible.

“That does not sound like our former neighbor,”  Susan said, latching on to the definite female inflection in the voice.

A man’s voice mumbled then, in apparent answer to the woman’s.

“Perhaps there was more than one tragedy in this place,”  Mathilde suggested.  Her eyes were bright, and she leaned forward a bit too eagerly for Susan’s taste.

She was enjoying this!  Susan thought to herself, and put on her strictest face.

“It is growing chill in here, sister.  Did you turn on the heat?”

Susan’s head raised at the sudden change of subject.  Her mind raced to catch up with her sister’s.  Had she taken care of the heat?  Had she?  Yes, of course.

“Of course.  I went down to see to it earlier, don’t you recall?”

Mathilde drew her wrap closer about her shoulders.  She was always cold these days, the call of the grave, she surmised.  “Well, it is decidedly cold in here.  Perhaps you should go to see to it again.”

“My knees would rather I stay put,”  Susan replied.  Mathilde knew full well that her joints ached in the damp weather.  “When that boy comes, we shall ask him to see to it for us.  I wonder where he is?”

Mathilde was doubling over with the chill.  Susan had to admit that it seemed the gas hadn’t come on.  She had a chill herself, now that Mathilde had mentioned it.  To take her mind off the creeping cold, she went to the window and drew the curtains back.

“I don’t see him, sister.  When did you ask for him to come by?”

“No later than four.  I told him myself, and the grocer as well.  I do wish he would come, perhaps his ring would drive those spirits away!”

Now that Susan had been given time to think, she decided that the muffled voices merely meant that the agent was showing some couple around the apartment next door.  “It is only the agent with prospective clients,”  she said somewhat harshly.

“This cold is unbearable,”  Mathilde said, her voice strained through clenched teeth.  “Is it snowing yet?”

Susan lifted the curtain back again.  The sky was leaden with the promise of snow, but none was falling.  “No, but it will before long.”

Susan was turning from the drapes when she thought she saw a movement from the corner of her eye.  Nothing definite, nothing she could describe had anyone asked her.  But it was movement all the same and she stood rooted to the spot.

“What is it, sister?”  Mathilde asked, looking at Susan’s face first, then twisting on the settee to try and discern what her sister had seen.

“Something moved back there, by the sideboard.  Did you let the cat in while I was below-stairs?”

“No.”

Both sisters sat and watched the sideboard as though it would get up and walk away of its own power, but nothing else decided to move.  The room was still with shadows of a late winter’s day.

“It’s almost five,”  Mathilde said in a clearly shaky voice.  She sounded worried.  That boy was constantly late, probably stopping to see a girl on his way.  But still, could he not stop after he’d delivered their groceries?

The voices started again, nearer this time as though the spirits were in the same room with them.  Mathilde shuddered visibly.  Susan tried to steel herself against this balderdash.  Ghosts did not exist.  There was always an explaination for things!

Where was that boy?

The young wife hesitated, then smoothed her hair behind her ear.  “I heard once that someone died here.  Could you tell me... us... what happened?”

The agent sniffed and drew back unconsciously.  “Well, that was years ago, before the new heating system was installed.  Two elderly ladies lived here, sisters, I understand.  They must have tried to put the heat on.  It was one of those older units, and the pilot must have gone out.  Anyway, they were asphyxiated.  The grocer’s delivery boy found them dead in the living room here.  Too bad, really.  The boy was over an hour late.  If he’d come on time, he could have saved them.”

“Is it true the place is haunted?”  the young woman asked.

“That’s nonsense.  I’ve been in here dozens of times and haven’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary,”  the agent replied.

Susan rolled her eyes.  Ghosts!  Of all things!  And yet she didn’t want her childhood nick-name to be used!