When Alex and I moved into the house on Charleston, down by the railroad tracks, we knew the entire neighborhood was sus. I mean, we could afford it – enough said. The two-story house with peeling turquoise paint was a hundred years old if it was a day and stood defiantly as the last house before the weed-choked lot that separated the residential from the industrial warehouses that butt up against the railroad proper. Long ago it had been converted into two units – upstairs and downstairs. We had the downstairs unit.

After I’d told her I found us a place we could afford that was larger than a shoebox I tempered her expectations by saying the magic words – “Keep an open mind…” She rightfully raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“Oh, this place is haunted as hell,” Alex said when we moved in.

“Keep an open mind…” I admonished as I carried a chair across the threshold.

“Ruby,” she said accusingly.

“Seriously…” I protested, a little crestfallen at her implied criticism.

She chuckled as I set the chair down. “Ruby, I didn’t mean I wasn’t stoked that you got the place.” She wrapped her arms around me as she looked around. “I just don’t think we’re going to be the only ones here…”

We both jumped at a loud knock on the door.

“Hey neighbors!” The tall thin man with the tanned skin and wide smile called from the doorway. Seeing our reaction he frowned, “Oh, sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you!” He stepped forward, hand outstretched, broad smile back in place. “I’m Elan,” he said as Alex took his hand. “My wife, Shadi, and I live upstairs.”

I shook his hand with a friendlier smile than Alex. “Oh, good to meet you, Shadi. I’m Ruby, this is Alex. We… well,” I gestured to the one box and single chair in the room, “we’re moving in, as you can see.”

“I saw you and I thought I’d say hi,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need any help or anything, feel free to stop in!” And he left as quickly as he arrived.

Alex and I exchanged a look. I shrugged and we wordlessly headed back to the truck for more stuff.

It didn’t take long for Alex’s first impression to be proved true. With both of us working from home, finding a place that was large enough for both of us to have our own workspace where we wouldn’t kill each other was paramount – hence my celebration at finding this lower floor unit we could afford.

I heard footsteps run across the floor upstairs first and I told myself I was making it up. Then I heard it again. And another set of footsteps. And then the muted laughter of a little girl made my blood run cold.

Alex appeared in the doorway, her face pale. “What in the hell was that?” she asked.

“Shit,” I said. “That means I didn’t hallucinate it.”

“Elan and Shadi?” Alex asked hopefully.

I shook my head. “I saw them leave for the University this morning. Besides… that sounded like children.”

Alex nodded solemnly and looked up at the ceiling. As if on cue, the footsteps rain across again, followed by the second set, followed by the peal of children’s laughter. She took in a deep breath then looked at me. “We can afford this place?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged and said, “We’ve got headphones…” and started back for the spare room she used as an office. Before disappearing down the hallway, she turned. “Whoever said ‘the sound of a child’s laughter is the music of the home’ never heard it come from an empty apartment.”

Fortunately, the footsteps were about the worst of it – and only from upstairs. Whatever ghosts lived in the house didn’t come into our flat – for which I gave thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Alex, ever the curious one, spent her free time at the library looking for references to our little haunted house. She discovered one of the first residents of the house had two little girls who died in the house in the 1930’s. She found microfiche of the town paper describing the death of the two little girls from carbon monoxide poisoning “…from a blocked fireplace flue,” she read. Both of us turned to look at the bricked-up fireplace in the family room where we sat. Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

I started, “But, the girls,” as we’d started calling them, “are always upstairs…”

“Yeah…” Alex agreed.

“Even though they…died,” the word came out choked, “down here.”

“Hey, don’t invite trouble,” she smiled wanly.

***

A few days later we went upstairs to have dinner with our neighbors. We agreed not to say anything about the ghost girls. “Maybe they don’t know about the girls,” I offered as we climbed the rickety outdoor staircase to the second floor.

“So, like it’s some sort of spectral subletting while they go to work and leave them be when they’re home?”

“I don’t know…” I admitted as I knocked on the door.

“Don’t know what, dear?” Shadi asked as she opened the door. With a build nearly as wiry as her husband and skin just as dark.

I stammered, but Alex covered perfectly. “Much about the area. We don’t know much about the area. We just moved to the area a few months ago.”

“Oh,” she smiled. “This part of town isn’t much to look at, but it’s safe and quiet – well, except for when the train comes through.”

“We noticed,” I chuckled remembering the way Alex and I stared at each other as the walls shook the first night when the endless train stacked with shipping containers roared through.

“You should try it on the second floor,” Elan said as he joined us. He reached over to a bookshelf covered with nicknacks. He plucked a small carved owl figure which took more force than the little carving should. “Museum putty,” he smiled, showing the beige smudge on the base. “Shadi figured that out shortly after we moved in, what? Ten years ago?”

“Twelve, dear,” she smiled. “And we use it in the museum, so it seemed natural.”

“Makes sense,” I said to fill the momentary silence.

“Tł’ohchin biiyaazh is ready!” Elan exclaimed as if he just remembered why he came into the room.

Alex and I exchanged confused looks.

Shadi rolled her eyes. “Navajo tacos, dears. Elan just likes to make it sound fancy.”

When we finished our frybread tacos sitting contentedly around their round kitchen table, Elan started, “We were wondering if you ladies could do us a favor. Shadi and I are going to visit her mom in Salt Lake and hoped you could water our plants while we were out.”

“It’s just for a few days,” Shadi added.

“Sure,” Alex said. “I mean, I’m guessing you don’t have a massive grow lab up here, right?” she laughed.

“Well,” Elan said seriously, “there are a couple of those… but only a couple…”

Shadi stood, “Everything is on the patio through our bedroom.” She headed for hallway.

We rose and followed her as she opened the closed bedroom door. “It’s this way…” she said, but Alex and I stood staring at a bookshelf just inside the room. The bookshelf was the inexpensive kind we have several of that we bought at Walmart – about six feet high, five or six shelves. But this unit was packed with small porcelain figurines of people and animals. Some looked positively antique – one crude coyote figure looked carved from red clay. Others looked more contemporary, but all had eyes that seemed just a little… off. Almost like they were looking at us.

“You found our family,” Elan came up behind us. His voice sounded almost resigned.

“You’re family?” Alex asked.

“Spirit dolls, dears,” Shadi said, coming back into the room from the patio.

I spotted the figures of two little girls front and center on a shelf at eye level, their eyes on me, their painted faces seemingly grinning at me. “I… don’t understand…” I stammered.

Elan let out a deep sigh. “When we come across a spirit wandering this plain, Shadi and I are able to contain its lonely spirit in a figure that we place here.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “That’s better?”

“Oh yes, dear,” Shadi added. “A spirit left alone on this plain will eventually just fade away. Here they have us and each other for company.”

“It’s a safe place,” Elan said.

“Those…” I stammered, “Those girls?” I pointed at the two on the shelf.

Elan nodded seriously.

“They were here when we moved in,” Shadi said.

“We’ve heard them,” Alex nodded.

“Heard them?” Elan looked quizzically from Alex to Shadi.

“Yeah, running around up here when you guys have gone to work,” I said.

Elan shook his head, “That doesn’t make sense. When they’re in the spirit dolls they aren’t able to come out…”

Alex shrugged. “It sounds like two little girls are up here during the day.” Then she asked practically, “They’re all, uh, stuck there with what did you call it? Museum paste?”

“Museum putty,” Shadi said, pulling a cow figurine off a shelf, showing us the beige blob before returning it to the shelf.

An awkward silence fell on the room.

“Well,” Shadi said, startling us all. “Let me show you the plants.”

***

A few nights later I stared at the figurines while Alex watered the plants out on the porch. I reached out for the same cow figurine and found the museum putty indeed fixed it in place pretty good. I picked at a snake figurine to check it, too – I don’t know why I was more comfortable touching the animal dolls but not the people. No, I know why – I mean, right?

“Creepy as hell…” Alex said, coming back into the room with the watering can and locking the balcony door behind her.

“Yeah,” I said distractedly. My eyes traveled over each shelf. The girls weren’t front and center. In fact… I couldn’t find them at all. “Alex, I don’t see the little girls.”

“What?” She came up behind me and looked at the shelf, searching for the little girl figurines. “There,” she pointed to a tall shelf. “There’s one of them.”

“How…” I started but was interrupted by the sound of a distant rhythmic and repetitive bell-like clanging outside.

Alex and I looked at each other and said “Train!” at the same time.

The shaking came on gradually. Sure enough, though, the intensity of the shaking was magnified by being higher off the ground. But the shaking and accompanying roar grew past what I thought was natural.

“What’s happening, Alex?” I pleaded. Then I followed her eyes up to the top of the bookshelf. The second little girl figurine stood on top of the bookcase and seemed to wedge itself between the bookcase and the wall, the shaking of the house causing her to wedge into the crack. The bookcase began to lean precariously forward, its movement exacerbated by the unnatural shaking.

I stood fixed, in shock by what I was seeing, but Alex was already at the doorway and grabbed the collar of my shirt. “Ruby!” she called as she pulled me out of my reverie.

We slammed the front door and had our feet threshold of the stairs when we heard the bookshelf topple over in a crash of broken glass.

Broken figurines.

Broken spirit dolls.

Alex and I looked at each other.

“Run,” she said. And we did.