Herbert in the attic (part 2)

"Are you a ghost?" asked Mia. "Cos I'm not afraid if you are."
"For the longest time I didn't think I was. But I've been here so long now, floating amongst these boxes, I don't think I'm anything else but a ghost."
"How long have you been here?"
"Longer than this house has, that's for sure," said Herbert.
"You mean you were a ghost before this house was built?"
There was a deathly silence and Mia saw Herbert whizz so fast from one end of the attic to the other he left a smoke trail like that of an aeroplane in the sky.
"I take it that means yes," said Mia.
"YES. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," spat Herbert. "And if I had been alive this house would have been torn asunder."
"What do you mean?" asked Mia.
"I mean this house is a monstrosity. They demolished my home so they could build this. It's a travesty, is what it is," said Herbert."I'd lived in my home for seventy six years."
Herbert's rant suddenly fell silent and was replaced by the scratching of mice and a sound of Herbert sobbing.
"Brigley Manor," he sniffed. "That was my home. My beautiful old Georgian manor, and now I'm here."
"What's so bad about this house? I like it," said Mia.
"What's bad about it? What's bad about it?" Herbert said as he whizzed about in a fit of anger. "I'm trapped by it that's what. Confined by these walls," he wailed and beat the roof trusses do hard a rain of dust fell on Mia's head.
"Why can't you leave?"
Herbert sighed. "If I knew the answer to that question I wouldn't be here now. But I'm trapped in a place I'm unfamiliar with. You're the first person I've spoken to since then. I don't tend to let people up here."
"So you're the disturbance?" Mia gasped. "I heard the man who sold the house to my mum talk about the previous residents and how none of them ever went up into the attic. No wonder mum didn't want me up here."
Mia looked about at the junk piled up on the floor. "And that also explains why none of this stuff has been touched," she said as she picked up a dusty pocket watch from a open wooden box. "The owners must have decided to leave it rather than face you. You must have really scared them."
"I did nothing more than was required," snipped Herbert. "All I wanted was to be left alone."
"To do what, wallow and be sad all the time," said Mia. "What good has that done you?"
"You're very impertinent, do you know that?"
"I'm only telling the truth."
"Yes well, I'm sure you'd be sad too if you couldn't see to read again."
"Can't see?" asked Mia, surprised. " So you can't see me?"
"No, but I can hear obviously, and I have to say you do sound rather pretty."
Mia chuckled not just at the complement itself but at the way Herbert seemed uncomfortable saying it. She sat herself down on a box, wondering if there was a way she could make Herbert happy.
"What do you look like?" Herbert asked. There was a hopeful lilt to his voice. "Perhaps I could see you in words."
"Well, I have long straight brown hair, tied up in a ponytail at the back, with a fringe. I have green eyes and big ears, like my dad. Mum says I'm short for my age but that doesn't bother me. And I'm nine and three quarters years old. I'll be ten in June."
"A summer child," said Herbert. "I was a summer child too. I remember when I was little my mother used to read to me. She loved to read like I do, or did. She read everything to me, even the newspaper. I tell you I knew more about science and crime and engineering and business than anyone when I was your age."
Mia leapt off her box. "I have the perfect idea, Herbert," she gasped. "I'll read to you."
Herbert flew through the air and stopped just short of her, hovering in the air like a cloud of midge flies. "You'd do that, for me," he said excitedly.
"Of course I would. Although," she said, glancing back at the open hatch to the attic. "I'm not sure I'd get up here. I had to borrow the ladder from our neighbour to get up today, and I accidentally kicked that over. To be honest I don't know how I'm going to get down."
"I think I can help you there," said Herbert as he disappeared and then reappeared at the far end of the attic, behind an old wooden sculpture. An old rope ladder rolled across the loose floorboards as Mia approached him. "You could use that. I could lower it down and let you up and then pull it back up when you leave."
"You can't see but you can move things?" Mia asked.
"I still have energy. Haven't you heard of ghosts moving things?"
Mia raised her eyebrows and thought on Herbert's point. "I suppose you're right. So we have a deal then. You help me get in and out and I'll make you happy again."
"I know you can't see this, but I'm nodding," said Herbert. "Or at least I think I'm nodding."
With that Herbert shifted the rope ladder and let it fall over the edge of the hatch. Mia began to climb down. When she was halfway she looked up and saw the wispy cloud that was Herbert swirl and twist and reanimate itself to form a face. It was full and round, with puffed out cheeks and deep set eyes. The eyes blinked and the mouth curled into a smile.
"Until next time, Mia," he said.
"Until next time," Mia replied.