What do you do when you discover your new house is haunted by a transgendered ghost?

Edited and proofread by Angela Rasch

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"Anna, I'm telling you my new house is haunted," Lucy sat with her arms folded, staring across the table top in the booth at the diner.

Anna laughed, "Yes, couldn't you tell just by looking at it. I mean really you should know better than to buy a house that looks like the Addams family lived in it."

"Please, you know it's a little, split level. It's in good shape, it certainly doesn't 'look' like a haunted house, but I'm telling you it is. I'm not joking around here, honest I'm not."

Anna waited until after the waitress took their orders before bringing up a sensitive topic. “Oh honey, how long has it been since. . . .”

Lucy bit her lip. “. . . since Edwin died.” She closed her eyes and remembered the night that the police came to her door and informed her that Edwin had perished in a car accident.

“I was worried about you moving out of your home into a new place.”

The waitress arrived with their drinks. “I’ll be back with your salads in a few minutes. Is there anything else you need?”

Lucy wiped the tears from her eyes, “No . . . thanks.”

“Umm. . . . Sorry. . . .” The waitress backed away.

“It’s a bad day,” Anna explained for her friend.

The waitress shrugged and left.

Anna looked into her friends eyes, “Hon — are you okay. It’s been four years, you need to move on.”

Lucy nodded. “I know, but. . . I still wonder about Edwin, Why, Anna, Why? I was supposed to be with him that night, but. . . .”

“And if you had, you would probably be dead too.”

“They said he fell asleep at the wheel, maybe if I had been with him, I could have helped him stay awake. He was so annoyed that I wasn’t going. . . . Our last words were in anger.”

Anna handed her friend a tissue and took one for herself, “You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over this, you know Edwin loved you. You weren’t feeling great, and Kevin met him at the game, and they had a good time. When it went into the twelfth inning they should have left, but no . . . they had to stay till the last out. Kevin told me that night when he got home that Edwin felt just as bad about your argument as you did.”

“I know.” She took a sip of her iced-tea. “I just wish, I could have said goodbye.” A small tear fell from her eye.

“Do you think it’s Edwin that is haunting your house?”

Lucy appeared not to be able to talk, so she shook her head.

"Okay, so what makes you think it's haunted?"

She took another small drink. "Well at night I hear noises coming from the attic, but when I go up, there’s nothing there. I thought maybe a squirrel, or a bird, or God forbid, a raccoon might have gotten in the attic, but there’s no sign of any animals."

"Houses creak; you aren't used to being alone. It's probably just settling when it gets cooler at night, or wind or something like that."

"I know about those kinds of sounds, and I get them too, but this is more like crying and footsteps -- like someone is pacing up there. But that isn't the only thing. I think I've seen him. Only a couple of times, and only out of the corner of my eye, but I've seen a man."

Anna shivered, "Stop it; you’re giving me the heebie-jeebies."

"How do you think I feel?”

“What does he look like?”

“About average. He’s wearing a nice suit. I suppose he was buried in it.”

“Does he jump out from behind doors and yell ‘Boo!’?”

“Be serious, Anna.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not every day your best friend has a ghost in her house. Okay — okay. You must be terrified.”

“Funny, I'm not afraid of him. He looks so pathetic, as if he’s sad about something; I need to figure out how to help him."

“You need to call in the Ghostbusters or an exorcist, or something.”

Lucy shook her head. “What if it was Edwin? I’m serious, Anna. What if Edwin was haunting someone, wouldn’t I want them to help him?”

"Oh Sweetie, of course I would feel like you do. Okay, stipulating that you’re right, who do you think this ghost is? Finding out about that would go a long way to helping you figure out how to help."

"I think it’s the previous owner, Mr. Gregg. I never met him; his son had the power of attorney at the closing. He and his wife had lived in the house since it was built, a little over thirty years ago. According to my neighbors Mrs. Gregg died of cancer several years back, and Mr. Gregg went to live with his son's family. He died soon after I closed on the house."

"It doesn't sound like there should be any reason for him to haunt your house. If ghosts do exist, then they’re supposed to be on this side because of something unresolved in their lives, but he sounds like he had a good life, a wife, and a family."

"Everyone has regrets. I don't know what the issue is, but I'm going to find out."

"How?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I’ll find a way."

The waitress arrived with their salads and a wary look on her face. She left quickly.

"Maybe you should just ask him?" Anna offered.

"Maybe I will."

That evening, Lucy was sitting in her living room when she felt the temperature drop rapidly. She shivered, and wrapped one of her throws around herself.

"Mr. Gregg, is that you? I want to help you if I can."

She waited, looking around, and then her breath caught when she saw Mr. Gregg standing in the hallway. Even though the hallway was dark, she could see him, it was as though he were coated in phosphor, and bathed in black light. Yet she could see through him as well.

He was staring back at her -- as if curious.

"Mr. Gregg?"

The spirit nodded.

"Can you speak to me?"

A look of sadness came to his face and broke Lucy's heart.

She saw him shake his head. “You can cry, but you can’t speak?”

He nodded.

"I'm sorry. Is there something I can do for you?"

He pointed toward the ceiling.

"You want me to go into the attic?"

He nodded vigorously.

Lucy got up, and then pulled down the ladder from the access panel in the hallway. She climbed into the attic, and turned the lights on. She looked down in vain for Mr. Gregg, but when she turned around he was already there pacing along the back wall.

Lucy went over to that area, and he pointed to the floor. She examined the spot indicated, and realized the board was not nailed down. She pushed one side, and it popped up. Below the board, she found a small metal cash box. Lucy pulled it out, found that it was latched but not locked, opened it, and found several USB thumb drives.

She turned to look for Mr. Gregg, but he was gone.

Taking the box, she then turned off the attic lights, descended, and pushed the ladder back into the access port. Having gone into her office, she fired up her laptop, put the thumb drives into the USB port, and ran an anti-virus scan.

Once it was cleared she opened the drive and found it contained a directory with two folders, the first one was labeled “Venessa Brown” . . . the other “Other Peoples Stories”.

Lucy was confused; who was Venessa Brown? She opened the directory and found it was full of MS Word documents. The first in the list was titled If Ever I Would Leave Her. That was also the oldest file in the list, so she opened it.

"This story is about cross-dressing . . . eww," she said after reading the first five hundred words, but she didn't stop. It was an autobiographical story about Venessa, the love she had for her wife, and her family, and how she had done everything she could to hide herself from them. Lucy had never encountered a transgendered person, but reading the story she could feel the pain that Venessa clearly experienced. It was obvious that Venessa loved her family, and as such had endured mental anguish her whole life rather than to risk losing that love or hurting her loved ones.

When she finished the story, she was crying, but she wasn't sure how she felt about Venessa. If she had been Venessa's wife, she would have been furious with her, for keeping something so important hidden. Even though he had never acted upon his needs, he was in pain that whole time, and that must have had an effect on everything.

One moment I’m thinking of her as Venessa and the next I’m thinking of him as Mr. Gregg, she thought.

She could feel him watching her. "Mr. Gregg, are you Venessa?"

He looked anguished, but nodded.

"How could you do that to your wife? You clearly loved her, I can see it in your writing, but how could you let her go her whole life without knowing you?"

He buried his face in his hands and disappeared.

"Damn it! Don't run away, Venessa. You did that your whole life. Come back here!"

"So what did you do then?" Anna asked, while looking over her menu.

"I slammed my laptop closed, and left the house. I needed time to think. I have a transgendered ghost. What am I supposed to do about that?"

"Well it could be a lot worse. At least he isn't a vengeful spirit. He doesn't seem to be angry . . . just sad."

"How would you like to be living in a house with a guy that wanted to be a woman? I mean really. Why would he want that -- anyway? I know from his story that he was really hurt, but come on; he's a man, or at least he was."

"I don't know, I kind of like being a woman, you seem to be pretty happy as a woman, why shouldn't he want it?"

"Because he wasn't born a woman, and you and I were. If I were born a man, I'm sure I would have been fine as a guy."

"I don't know -- I don't know much about this stuff, except what you see on the talk shows. But you know my cousin Joe is gay. It took me quite a while when he came out, but you know eventually I realized he couldn't help it, he was born that way. Maybe being transgendered is the same."

"So what do you think I should do?"

"Go on-line, and see if you can find out more about it. You said that the thumb drive had more of his stories, as well as other people’s. I'd see if I could find out where Venessa was publishing those stories. Maybe you can find someone who knew her. "

"I don't know. . . ."

"Want me to help out? I can tell Kevin that I'm gonna spend the night at your place, and we can see what we can find together?"

"Oh great; aren't we a little old to be having a slumber party. You, me, and the ghost story."

"Never too old . . . we might be just a little too up-in-the-years to have to have a pillow fight, but I wouldn’t turn your back on me, if I were you."

"Let me see one of the other thumb drives."

Lucy handed Anna one.

Anna put it in, and checked. "Ok, this appears to be a backup. It has the same directories, and the same stories." A few minutes later they had checked them all, and confirmed that they were all identical copies.

"Well it seems my ghost was very cautious. How do you want to do this?"

"Let's see what we can find on transgenderism to start with."

An hour later Anna sighed and leaned back from the computer. "Well there is certainly a wide range of opinion on the topic. Where do you think Venessa fell on the transgender line?"

"I don't know, she certainly never did anything about transitioning. Was she transsexual, or a cross-dresser, or something else? I think she may have been in between. According to her story she certainly was thinking about wanting to be female."

"Let's see if we can find that story. . . . If Ever I Would Leave Her Venessa Brown," she said as she typed into the search engine.

They found a site called Big Closet TopShelf that claimed to be “a friendly place to read, write, and discuss Transgender Fiction”.

They were quickly able to understand the structure of the site, and clicked on the list of Venessa's stories. They found, If Ever I Would Leave Her and a number of comments welcoming Venessa to the site and encouraging her to write more. There were several comments about how the story could have been written about them.

They read through the comments on her other stories.

One of the comments had a link that led them to a blog entry that Venessa had written.

"Oh, there’s a blog portion of the site? I wonder if we can find the rest of hers?"

After clicking on a few links they found Venessa Brown's blog. They started at the oldest entry and worked their way through them all.

They spoke of her frustration at being so deep in the closet, and her fears that if she told her wife and family, they would reject her and not be able to understand. She wished she had been able to be open to telling her wife, when she first met her, but at that time and place so many years ago it was just too risky. She had been sure that once she had a wife she would not need to be Venessa anymore. She had been so wrong.

They went through several years of blogs, one of the final entries told everyone about her wife succumbing to cancer. There were at least two dozen or more expressions of sympathy from the people that had clearly come to care about Venessa.

A couple of more entries after that the comments stopped.

They found a blog entry by one of the other members of the Big Closet community, asking if anyone had heard from Venessa recently. No-one knew what had happened.

Anna shook her head. "I guess she never had a chance to let them know she was going to live with her son."

"No, she probably didn't. My neighbors told me that soon after Mr. Gregg’s wife died, he fell down the ladder, coming down from the attic one night. He broke his hip, and it was the next afternoon before his son found him. Mr. Gregg had passed out and was quite a mess. When he was released from the hospital he never came back to this house."

"We should really let the people on Big Closet know," Anna said.

"Yes, they seem like nice people, and they seemed to really care about Venessa. I'm sure they would like to know what happened to her. . . him. Oh, you know what I mean."

"From what I can see, he did the best he could, with the cards he was dealt. He loved his wife, and his family, and never wanted to hurt them. It's tragic that he went his whole life without sharing this part of him. But you know, we don't know what would have happened if he had tried to tell them."

"I know; I'm not mad any more about him not sharing this with his wife. I'm sad for Venessa. I'm sad that she never got that chance to know. Mr. Gregg . . . Venessa are you there? I hope you can hear me, I'm sorry I snapped at you the other day.”

Mr. Gregg’s ghostly form appeared about fifteen feet away from them. He was no longer wearing his suit; he was now wearing what appeared to be a unisex outfit, something along the lines of a workout suit. His hair was decidedly longer.

“Mr. Gregg, this is Anna. She’s helping me, help you. But I suppose you know that.”

“We’re going to tell your on-line friends about what happened,” Anna said, her voice quaking just slightly.

The specter nodded and seemed to smile.

“Maybe that's what you needed me to do. In any case, you’re welcome here. . .as long as you need. Venessa is welcome to stay here, too. I mean, you as Venessa. . . . You know what I mean.” Lucy smiled at her inability to articulate. "Ok, let's do this. But I think we should reach out to the woman that runs the site. We saw her in a few of the blog entries. Erin . . . right? From some of the comments we know that members can send private messages, I don't want to create a new account and then immediately post something about Venessa dying."

Anna agreed, so Lucy clicked on Create New Account, and used the marginally anonymous e-mail she used for signing up for things on the web. As a screen name, she laughed and created the name GTierney.

They were soon in the site with full access. It did not take long to find out how to access the private message system, so they wrote a message to the sites host, Erin:

Dear Erin,

My friend and I are new to this site. I recently purchased a home that had previously been owned by Venessa Brown, one of the authors on Big Closet. I found a USB thumb drive of hers that had all of her stories, and that led us to your site.

We know that Venessa stopped posting some time back, and that there have been questions as to what had happened to her. As her friends know, her wife passed away from cancer a couple of years ago. Shortly after that, Venessa had an accident and fell while climbing down from her attic. She broke her hip, and when she was released she moved in with her son and his family. She lived with them for the past two years, until she had a heart attack and passed away a couple of months ago.

From what we have found on your site, we are certain that her friends here would like to know.

Sincerely,

Lucy & Anna

She looked back to face the ghost, but he had disappeared again.

"Mr. Gregg. Venessa --- I hope that's okay," she said loudly, then pressed send.

"Alright Anna, let's put a movie on for a while."

They went and watched an old movie starring, Rex Harrison, and then before they went up to bed, they checked the site one more time and saw, You have a Private Message.

They opened the message,

Dear Lucy & Anna,

I am very sorry to hear about Venessa. She was a very well loved member of our community for a number of years, and has and will be missed. I have posted a blog; with the information that you have provided, and I have added her name to the In Memoriam list on our front page.

Thank you for letting us know.

Hugs,
Erin

They then read the blog entry, which basically passed on the information. There weren't any comments as of yet, but it had only been posted a little while, and it was very late.

Anna nodded. "Well maybe that is what she needed you to do. . .let her friends know what had happened. Maybe she can rest in peace now."

Lucy went to her room and Anna to the guest bedroom.

Lucy woke up in the middle of the night and heard crying coming from the attic. She called out. "Venessa, please don't cry. Your friends all cared about you, and now they know."

Since the crying only faded and never really went away, Lucy knew it wasn't the end.
In the morning, before they went in to make breakfast, they checked the blog, and were astounded to see twenty entries already. All of them expressed sorrow for the loss, and hoped that Venessa was now at peace.

Their concern that Venessa might be at peace hurt because Lucy and Anna knew that Venessa was not, and that it was their job to figure out what to do about it.

“I’ve been thinking,” Anna said. “Didn’t you say that Mr. Gregg was wearing a suit?”

“Yes, he was the first time I saw him. Why?”

“Well he wasn’t wearing a suit last night. Who ever heard of a ghost changing clothes?

“I haven’t, but you know his hair grew too. In fact, he’s changed quite a bit.”

“So? Maybe he found a spook salon.”

“Or. . .maybe he’s trying to transition after death and needs our help.”

“How do you figure?”

“I think he made a big step along the transgender line by coming out to you by showing you his stories and leading us to Big Closet.”

“If you’re right, we need to keep looking into things.”

Two weeks later, they were sitting in front of the computer again. The blog entry had finally stopped getting new comments; it was at thirty-nine entries.

The soft muted sound of Venessa’s whimpering in the attic was heartbreaking.

"Lucy, let's think about this. She wanted you to have the drive. I'm sure that notifying her friends was not a mistake, but what else could she have wanted you to do? There are no unposted stories on her drive. What else in her life could have been left undone?”

“She came out to us, which seems to have allowed her spirit to move towards its true image. What are the other steps to transitioning? She needs to inform her family. Her wife is already dead, presumably she has a better chance of telling Mrs. Gregg then we do. Is there anyone else she should have come out to that she didn’t?”

“Her son!” they said together.

“Maybe she wants her son to have these,” Anna said excitedly. “She regretted never facing it in life, maybe she wants him to know now?"

"You want me to call up this guy I have only met once and tell him his father was transgendered? What is he going to say? How do I do that? Do I tell him his father’s ghost is crying here every night?"

"No of course not. We call him up and tell him we found something of his fathers, and then have him come here and we will show him. Hopefully he won't freak out. Hopefully he will appreciate the fact that his father had a lot of people that loved him, and are sharing in his loss."

Suddenly the only sound they could hear was the hum of the laptop, the crying had stopped.

The doorbell rang.

Lucy opened it. "Hello Mr. Gregg; may I call you Dan? Please come in."

"Thanks."

The young man came in and looked around. "It sure looks different. Sorry, it’s always hard to go back someplace after you have moved on. Mom and Dad loved this house."

"I know; they took very good care of it. I love it too, believe me. This is my friend, Anna."

"Hello, Anna, nice to meet you."

Lucy led them to the living room, and they all sat down.

"You said on the phone that you found something of my father's, and wanted me to stop by and pick it up?"
Lucy reached for the metal cash box and a stack of papers she had ready, next to her chair. "Yes, I did. I have to say, I was a little shocked by it when I found it, and you’ll probably be as well. But I've found out a great deal about your dad as a result, and I want you to know that he very much loved you and your mother."

Dan Gregg looked very confused. "I'm certain that’s true, but I guess I don't understand what you could have found of his. I was pretty careful about getting everything out of the house."

"Yes, I was surprised when I found it too, but it was under a loose floor board in the attic. I found this box with some USB thumb drives. When I looked at what they were, I found stories your father had written."

"Stories? About what? I never knew my father wrote anything."

"Look Dan, this is hard, but your father was. . . ." Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the ghost of Mr. Gregg looking on, he looked frightened, but resolved. "Your father was transgendered. He fought it his whole life, and never really acted upon it. But he did write, and he was part of a community on the web. His name there was Venessa Brown. Anna and I wrote and told them about your dad's passing away. I think you should know that he was very much loved, and well. . . . Here . . . here are all the messages people wrote." She handed him a pack of the comments from Big Closet.

Dan looked like he was in shock, but he didn't look angry. He took the print-out that Lucy handed him, and read through it with tears in his eyes.

"Oh, Dad. . . . You know, Mom and I always thought there was something bothering him. We wondered about this. In fact, I tried to let him know that if it were true it would be okay, but I didn't want to upset him if I was wrong. He had access to the computer in our house, but it's in a central room. I guess he was afraid we would walk in on him."

Dan broke down and cried, and Lucy and Anna both joined him.

It took a while, but Dan eventually got himself under control. "I'm sorry. . . ."

"Why? Because you loved your father? It's okay, Dan. He loved you too."

They took Dan into the office, started the computer, and showed him Big Closet. She gave him the USB drives with his father's stories. A little while later, Dan left.

As Lucy turned back into the living room Venessa appeared.

She was crying, but her face looked at peace, and was bathed in white light. She was wearing a beautiful and elegant dress like those a TV anchorwoman would wear. Everything about her seemed ideally feminine.

She motioned frantically for Lucy to follow her into Lucy’s bedroom, where Venessa pointed at a picture of Edwin.

“Have you met my Edwin?” Lucy asked excitedly.

Venessa nodded.

“Is he. . . . Is he okay? Does he know I miss him and love him very much?”

Venessa nodded again and again. "He’s fine.” She smiled broadly at her new ability to talk, although only at a whisper. “He says he loves you, and he is sorry, and that it’s time for you to move on and have a long and wonderful life, and that he will be waiting and watching over you. Thank you." She faded away.

The End

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Authors Note:
Many thanks to Angela Rasch for her assistance in cleaning this up, and helping me to flesh out my ghost!

Also thanks to Erin for her permission in referencing Big Closet and her cameo appearance!

Kristy

Copyright (c) 2010. All Rights Reserved.