MOLLYJOES

©Copyright 2025 by Mark Watson

Chapter One – Joe Wilson

It was late afternoon, and the house lay under a heavy, unnatural quiet. Joe was sprawled on the floor of the front room, lost in the intricate world of his toy soldiers. He squinted with one eye closed, scrutinizing his favorite figure—a grand, battle-worn soldier, majestic and imposing at such close range. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and dust motes danced in the golden shafts of sunlight slanting through the window.

Joe's focus faltered as the light behind his soldier dimmed abruptly. A polished pair of boots shimmered into view near the skirting board, reflecting a fleeting gleam of sunlight. He sat up sharply, his breath catching in his throat.

In the dim corner of the room, Uncle Jamie materialized. At first, he seemed like a trick of the light, his figure hazy and insubstantial, the sunlight streaming through his translucent form. The air grew colder, and the quiet deepened, broken only by the distant hum of a car passing outside. The flickering light revealed every detail of his dappled uniform trousers, his immaculate belt and jacket, and finally his face—handsome, yet etched with an expression of shock and sorrow that sent a shiver through Joe’s small frame.

Joe stared, his voice barely a whisper. "Hello, Uncle Jamie."

Uncle Jamie didn’t move at first, his eyes glassy and distant as though trapped in some faraway dream. Then, slowly, his expression softened. A faint smile appeared, hesitant and melancholic, and his form grew more defined, more present.

Joe’s lips curved into a smile of his own. "Do you want to play with me?"

Uncle Jamie nodded, almost imperceptibly, and sank to the floor opposite Joe. The room seemed to tighten around them, the shadows lengthening as if drawing closer. Joe eagerly began to explain his game.

"The green ones are the goodies, and the blue ones are the baddies," he said, holding up a pair of battered toy buses. "They live in these."

Jamie’s spectral eyes followed Joe’s movements intently, though his expression remained distant. Joe glanced up at him, suddenly uneasy. Something about the way the light passed through his uncle’s face made the boy’s stomach twist.

"Uncle Jamie," he asked cautiously, "didn’t you… didn’t you die?"

The words hung in the air like a shard of ice. Joe’s heart thudded as the memory surfaced: his mother’s tears, the hushed phone calls, the heavy silences that had replaced her usual cheer. Uncle Jamie had died. Joe knew it with the absolute certainty that only children possess.

Jamie didn’t respond immediately. When he did, his voice was faint and hollow, as though carried on a breeze from another world. "Tell your mum I’m here."

Joe stood slowly, brushing dust from his knees. He hesitated, glancing back at his soldiers and buses. For a fleeting moment, he thought about tidying them away but decided they’d be safe with Uncle Jamie.

"Mummy!" he called, his voice breaking the heavy stillness as he left the room.

When Joe returned, his mother’s hand clasped tightly in his, the front room was eerily bright. The sunlight spilled through the window, dispelling the gloom and chasing away the strange, cold stillness.

Joe’s mother stopped in the doorway, her eyes scanning the room with a mix of hope and confusion. She sniffed the air, her expression shifting as though she’d caught a trace of something familiar—a fleeting scent of Jamie’s aftershave or the faint aroma of damp earth.

"Was he here?" she asked, her voice trembling.

Joe nodded emphatically. "Yes, he was over there in the corner. He sat down and played with me. I showed him my buses."

She moved cautiously toward the tall, dark cabinet that stood like a sentinel in the corner. Its nearly black wood gleamed faintly, the glass-fronted doors reflecting fractured shards of light. Opening the cabinet, she retrieved a framed photograph of Uncle Jamie in his uniform, his face youthful and vibrant.

"Was he like this?" she asked, holding it up.

Joe’s eyes widened. "Yes! He’s there now, in the photograph!"

His mother smiled, though her eyes glistened. "He’ll always be with us, Joe. In some form, he’ll always be here."

Joe frowned, glancing at the photo. "But he wasn’t playing with me like that," he said, pointing toward the cabinet. "He was sitting here, on the floor."

She placed the photograph back on the shelf, closing the glass doors with a soft click. As they turned to leave, Joe cast one last glance at the photo.

Through the dusty glass, Uncle Jamie’s eyes seemed to shift, locking onto Joe’s with an intensity that made his skin crawl. Joe’s breath caught as a faint shadow passed across the photograph, and the room, now bright and warm, felt suddenly darker again.

Later that evening, Joe sat cross-legged on the worn carpet, facing Daddy, who perched on the edge of the sofa. Daddy’s expression was calm, but the faint furrow between his brows hinted at the conversation he must have had with Mummy. His voice was gentle but probing, like he was trying to solve a riddle.

“So,” Daddy began, “he was wearing his hat, right?”

Joe shook his head firmly. “Nope.”

Daddy nodded slowly, as if that piece of information was a puzzle piece clicking into place. “Okay. But he had his gun, didn’t he?”

“Nope,” Joe said again, his voice steady but serious.

Daddy leaned forward, his tone turning playful. “Alright, then. Was he wearing those big, funny banana slippers?”

Joe giggled, but only briefly. “Nawwwwwww. He was wearing his uniform. A thingy here and here with stuff in it.” Joe gestured at his chest and sides, miming the straps and pouches. “And boots. Army boots,” he added, his voice dropping as if the word itself carried weight. “Boots,” he repeated for emphasis, his small hand thumping his knee.

Daddy’s smile faltered just a little, but he quickly smoothed it over. “Riiggghhhhtttt. But, you know, buddy, sometimes when we look at photos or think really hard about someone, our imaginations can play tricks on us. It can feel like they’re right there, even when they’re not.”

Joe’s face didn’t change. He looked at Daddy with the unflinching seriousness only a child could muster. “He’s in the photo now,” Joe said matter-of-factly. “He watches me. And other places too.”

Daddy blinked, his smile freezing for a moment before it softened again. “Yes,” he said, his voice quiet and careful. “He’ll always be with us. In our hearts, in our smiles, and in the photos we have of him. Wherever we go, we carry a little piece of him with us.”

Joe tilted his head, considering this. A small smile crept across his lips, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Was he all covered in blood and that?” Joe asked suddenly, his voice startlingly loud in the quiet room.

Daddy’s eyebrows shot up, but he recovered quickly. “Nawwwwwww,” he said, chuckling awkwardly, though the sound was strained.

Joe nodded solemnly, but his gaze wandered to the darkened corner of the room where the cabinet stood. Daddy didn’t follow his eyes. If he had, he might have noticed the faint gleam of polished boots reflected in the glass door, or the way the shadows seemed to ripple and shift, as though something unseen lingered just out of sight.

Miss Jane Turner was fresh from earning her teaching degree, a young woman full of optimism and energy. Her bright smile and kind demeanor made her an instant favorite among the children in her class. But Jane had a secret, one she didn’t like to think about too often: she was just the tiniest bit sensitive to things that couldn’t be explained. The spirit world—the other side—seemed to brush against her awareness like the faintest whisper in the dark.

She didn’t know it, but something had started following one of her students, little Joe Wilson. Something—or someone. Uncle Jamie, Joe’s ghostly relative, had found a way to accompany the boy to school.

Most of the time, Uncle Jamie stayed hidden, retreating into the freezing-cold storage cupboard at the back of the classroom. The cupboard was a place the children dreaded; they squirmed and protested whenever Jane asked them to fetch something from it. And Jane, despite her authority as the teacher, avoided it as much as possible. There was something wrong about that cupboard—something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

A few weeks into the term, Jane began noticing something strange. When the cupboard door was ajar and the light was off, she could see—just barely—the faintest impression of eyes in the darkness. They weren’t fully formed, just two dim voids that seemed to drink in the light around them.

Jane tried to dismiss it. She was sensitive, she told herself. She had always been prone to letting her imagination get the better of her. But the unease gnawed at her. Those eyes weren’t a trick of the light, and the discomfort she felt wasn’t her imagination.

Today, as the children sat quietly reading and coloring, Jane’s gaze kept drifting to the cupboard. She had learned that if she didn’t look directly at the eyes—if she let her peripheral vision do the work—they seemed clearer, more distinct. Her breath hitched as she realized the eyes weren’t just floating aimlessly. They were fixed on something, unwavering.

She followed their sightline, her own eyes tracing the direction of the gaze. Her heart sank.

It was Joe Wilson.

The eyes were locked onto him, burning with an obsession that made Jane’s stomach churn. If they could, she thought, they’d bore a hole right through him.

Her hands trembled as she looked back at the cupboard.

The eyes had shifted.

They were looking directly at her.

A chill ran down her spine, and the room seemed to grow colder, heavier. The air was thick, oppressive, and the faint sounds of children flipping pages and scratching with crayons faded into a muffled hum.

Something was happening.

Jane felt it before she fully understood. A creeping, invasive pressure began to swell in her chest, as though something unseen was pressing against her, trying to get in. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She stood abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor.

“Don’t…” Her voice cracked, loud and desperate. “Don’t come out! Stay in there!”

The children froze, their wide eyes darting between Jane and the cupboard.

Jane’s voice rose to a shriek, her words tumbling over one another as she backed away from the cupboard, her arms raised defensively. Tears streamed down her face, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. She stumbled into the whiteboard, the impact jolting a marker to the floor.

Then, with a piercing scream, she bolted from the room, leaving her class in stunned silence.

The quiet didn’t last.

Several of the children began crying, their small voices rising in confusion and fear. Others sat frozen in their seats, staring at the dark cupboard, half-expecting something to emerge.

The next day, a new teacher greeted the class.

Miss Joanne Johnson was young, cheerful, and just as fresh from graduating as Jane had been. She stepped into the classroom with confidence, her bright smile immediately putting the children at ease.

Unlike Miss Jane, Miss Joanne had no trouble at all with the storage cupboard at the back of the class. She even opened it on her first day, pulling out supplies with ease. The children watched her in uneasy silence, but nothing happened. The cupboard seemed perfectly ordinary.

But if you looked closely—if you let your peripheral vision do the work—you might have noticed something faint. Two dim impressions, barely visible in the shadows, watching from the darkness.

A few years later, Joe had found himself in the middle of an important Geography exam—and he had been stuck.

“What was the only major city located on two continents?” he had read again, frowning at the question.

Leaning back in his chair, he had casually tapped the paper three times with the nib of his pen, then let it go, watching as it had twirled like a spinning top.

“Istanbul,” it had written.

Joe had frozen, then leaned forward, snatching up the pen and chewing the end thoughtfully.

After a moment of deliberation, he had tapped his pen on the exam paper three more times.

Joe decided that university wasn’t for him—it sounded like too much hard work. Though he’d always excelled in exams, he never felt like he truly learned anything. Besides, he’d always dreamed of being a bus driver.

And so, Joe followed his heart and became a bus driver.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

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