Stones In My Pockets
by Noah Leete
May 31, 2026 | Fiction | Too late!
The dead follow in my wake, yelling and shouting for me to leave. I do not. I soldier on, across the grounds of this haunted place, for there is nowhere else for me to go. A little boy greets me at the door, our little procession halting at his unyielding, childish face.
He tells me to go home, with the stern voice of someone much older than he appears. In return, I tell him that I am. I walk through him, the ghosts behind me beginning to cheer as I do. None of them had noticed the body I left behind in the lake of this great house, too preoccupied with their own bodies, their own sad tales.
A woman’s voice welcomes me in. She is rushing down the stairs, watching her feet as she goes. When she sees me, she swears. The boy belatedly informs this woman of my demise. She is the one who will have to fetch my body from her lake and consult the authorities. All I have to do is stay out of sight, she says, in a fashion that indicates she has given this speech before. An easy task, to hide.
Another ghost whispers to me, our friendship solidified now that they see I am not a living intruder but rather a dead one, that they will show me all the best hiding spots. As they herd me away, to show me where to be when the living come hunting, the woman asks me what I was doing on her property, what I was doing drowning in her lake. I do not remember, I tell her, and she is not surprised by this answer, merely aggravated. She asks me if anyone else was there when I floated out of the lake. I find her usage of the word ‘floated’ confusing, but when I look down, I am a few inches above the ground. Lower than the other ghosts, which I think is because of the stones in my many pockets.
The boy asks why the ghosts were chasing me if I am clearly a ghost myself. The others look to the ground they hover above, abashed. The woman, and perhaps she has said her name and I cannot remember, asks me why there are stones in my pockets in a tone kinder than before.
I shrug. She sighs, already starting to trudge through the front door, past her boy, who asks if he can have the rocks left in the pockets of my body.
I say yes at the same time his mother says no. Despite the denial, he empties his pockets of their contents — a pen (disassembled), a tiny fistful of pebbles (scattered over the lovely carpet), a bird (disassembled), and a live snake (that he drops, absentmindedly, and hastily picks back up, holding the head of the colorful snake by two small fingers) — and trots after his mother.
When the police show up to investigate, we hunker down inside the dumbwaiter shaft. I am given the dumbwaiter to hide in because I am the guest of honor, they say in solemnity, and because I am the smallest, they whisper in giggles.
Before she goes to speak to the police, the mother lifts the dumbwaiter to the upstairs hallway, where I can see out of the window. I am unsure of how much time passes before I watch the police leave, the mother bidding them goodbye, the boy stealing a few rocks behind his mother’s back. Crouching by the edge of the lake, he stacks them.
With a sudden burst of clarity, I wish I never
I wish
Ah.
There is no wishing. Nothing to undo this. I see that now. Just too late.