The Ghosts We Hide

by Micah Thomas

  She was awake in the cocoon, but couldn’t see. Not at first. A geometry of retina fatigue caused purple and red blobs to populate her vision. She shook them away. Eva wanted to be unconscious. Why can’t this be sleep? In steel filings pulled along a magnet, shades of gray assembled before her, taking a feminine shape curled in the fetal position. She reached towards it with her hand, seeing for the first time that she in fact had a hand in this place. Eva wanted to inspect her spectral hand, look for fingerprints, reality check herself, but she was drawn to it. Before making contact, she felt tremendous emotions flowing from the figure and into her. There was longing, love, and pain; crying and smiling; ecstasy, rage, and laughter. These were hers. Her emotions locked in this basement of the mind. Feeling them here wouldn’t make her pass out. This was where they’d been hiding all this time. She wanted to explore her inventory, but a sense of dread overcame Eva. Something bad was happening at the party. Something bad because of her. She needed to wake up.

  She gathered up the figure, now a pile of ash, and pulled them into her being. The act was instinctual, primal, and right. Strength filled her. She was whole. She would be whole now. There was no time to dwell on this and she started the ascent back, visualizing a staircase going up into the gray-scape. As she approached the window, through it she saw—oh, god, she saw herself.

  Eva had read about the stories of a patient floating above their bodies during operations. She saw the scene from above. There she was. Eva, naked. Eva, illuminated as though from within, an el Greco painting. Her eyes solid black instead of light blue. Everyone naked. This was an orgy. Her body wasn’t a virgin anymore. She wondered if this was even the first time. She put the horror aside, the theft aside, and looked for the thief. It was her. She saw a malevolent smile on her own face, cast upward in ecstasy. She saw herself and what was there. The woman within.

  “No!” she screamed and everyone screamed with her.

  ***

  The fallout from the party had sobered up the whole damn island. The dream was over. Eva shook with rage and pain as she thought of lost time. All the lies. At least she was awake now. At least she didn’t have to bother with school anymore. She was really awake. The bloom was off the rose, she thought. Thank god for English class. Without it she might not have the vocabulary to articulate how she felt right now.

  Immediately after the party, the town woke up. The few unshaved men and disheveled women she saw outdoors avoided eye contact. Eva had eaten from the tree of knowledge and now they were awake, too; now they also knew their shame. Eva wondered how much they remembered, but didn’t didn’t probe them to know their minds. She’d broken the illusion when she woke during her possession. Now she was in control.

  Fuck. None of her life had been real. She was a finger puppet. She’d spent two years in denial, in her own fantasy. Fucking bullshit. She couldn’t trust anyone. No. The people in town weren’t evil. Truth was, some of them might have been shits in their private lives. Eva didn’t know. They were themselves at least sometimes, right? But she had been controlling all of them the rest of the time, when the worst happened. She and it—her other—were the puppet masters.

  A blurry line there, between she and it. That was how it had been, but Eva wielded the power now. Since she’d bumped her head, since she found parts of herself locked away in her cocoon, she knew she could control people. She knew she had been controlled, too, but it was over. After the party, Eva had woken up and felt in control of herself. Somehow, in a miracle, the thing inside of her had been banished to the cocoon and Eva was driving for the first time. No more pretend school, no more pretend teachers, no more any of this. She’d leave the island. No need to see if Dylan would come with. No fear he’d leave her. She didn’t need anyone. She even had somewhere to go. The doctors at Black Star. They were a part of this. Had to be. They’d known something was wrong with her and it wasn’t fucking cataplexy. Eva would get answers from them, but first she had to get off the island.

  Could she fly? She felt like she could. Eva was buoyant on this current of rage. No. She had some devilish power, but she couldn’t fly. She stood at the end of the road, where the old ferry dock was located; where vessels once traveled twice a day. My kingdom for a boat, she thought. Richard the Third. Keep ‘em coming, Eva. You’re a goddamn genius. Channel some psychic shit and bam! People would do what she told them. What she wanted was to leave the island. She’d never wanted anything more. The thought was all-consuming in her mind. To do it, she’d need a boat.

  I can think through this. Noah built an ark. I can, too. Slave labor. Fucking evil thought. The townspeople had been enslaved long enough, but what was so bad about one more day? At least she wouldn’t be making them fuck or kill each other. The thought made a voice chuckle in her head. Shut up, you. I’m driving now.

  Mentally, she stretched her arms out wide, but there were no arms. She was an octopus. She was a predator with a million telepathic tentacles. Eva sought and found people. They were fuzzy, buzzing baskets of neon light. They jittered and sparked. She pulled at them like dragging in fish on a line and catching it in a psychic net. A tugging at a tendril from their midsections. They’d build her boat. They’d row her across the lake. She was getting out of here.

  Sudden knowledge came to her. Something from the minds she had touched. Of course, Eva didn’t need a barge or ark; the dead, dumb ferry could rot some more. Michael Flemming had a boat. One rumored to still have gas. She dismissed her potential oarsmen and builders from her mind.

  Michael, where are you hiding? I’ll be Velma from bit from Scooby Doo, Michael was the island weirdo. A weirdo who never came to town much in the old days, and when he did, he dressed like the Gordon’s Fisherman. She’d never met him, but he was a playground legend. An urban myth. There was almost nothing bad his name wasn’t associated with among the kids of the island. Pedophile, eats dogs and cats, probably murdered his wife and whole family.

  The mind who’d given up the knowledge on Michael having a motorboat didn’t know anything else about him. That was fine. There’d be someone who knew where he used to live. If he was still alive was another question.

  Eva got on her bike, still feeling powerful, still mad, and rode back home. She’d need to pack a lunch if she was going to find him today. Mom and Dad were in the living room when she came in. Dad looked like he was sinking within his plush recliner, shrinking smaller with each heavy sigh. Mom fretted around the room, and stopped straightening books on the coffee table as Eva came in.

  “Oh, Evie!” her mother said. She reached towards Eva and drew back.

  “Don’t start. Look, things are going to be different. I don’t know how different, but probably worse. I don’t know if you’ll be better off if you stay or if you get off this island. I honestly don’t know, but I’m leaving. I love you two very much. You were great parents. I want you to know that.”

  “But where will you go?” her father asked without looking up.

  “Back into the real world, Dad.”

  Both of her parents hung their heads in shame, but neither tried to stop her. She could see their thoughts. They had some recollection of what had been happening and they’d need time to process it. Eva felt hungover, like she’d done something wrong, but the details were fuzzy. Their minds were a mess. She couldn’t help them and they clearly could not help her.

  She left with a few of those perfect ham sandwiches. Local raised pigs, fresh eggs for mayo, layers of cheese she wasn’t likely to have ever again. Eva was giving up a lot of comforts here. It was easier to think about the sandwiches than her parents. She’d never seriously considered leaving home before. Her little trips to Seattle—to Black Star—had been mini-vacations. She always knew she was going back home. This time, she had a feeling this was it. The little bird was testing her wings even if she could fall out of the nest and break her neck. It was time.

  When the knowledge came to her, Eva had been pedaling in the wrong direction. Michael’s house was on the o
pposite end of the island. Well, the northern tip anyway, in Port Madison. By midday, she was cycling through parts of the island she hadn’t seen since she was a kid. Town life had become so provincial. The homes on either side of the street were million-dollar spots. All were aging badly, sure. Lack of upkeep. Eva didn’t see anyone; didn’t sense anyone either. Had this whole part of the island been abandoned to keep up the play? How many had died? No. How many had she killed? The bitch still had so many of her memories. She’d get them back eventually.

  As she left the northern outskirts of town, the trees were larger, older, edging over the street more. When the sun goes down, it will be super dark, she thought, mad she hadn’t brought a lantern. What if she got there and he wasn’t home? Fuck. I need help.

  “Okay, bitch. Where is he?” she asked the thing inside her.

  She received no reply, but she knew it was listening.

  “I know you want off this island as much as I do. We’ve had our fun. Think about what we can do out there in the world.”

  Eva let her dark imagination picture crowded cities, new places and people to play with. This got a reaction: a stirring in her body, the flush of arousal.

  “No. Not me. Find Michael,” she instructed as if to a misbehaving dog.

  There. Not the location, but she knew the direction to go now. It wasn’t like looking something up on the Internet, but damned if it wasn’t weird to suddenly know things.

  As she pedaled, feeling her temper steam as she left town, Eva wondered why the bitch hadn’t ever left the island. Eva had no doubts. As powerful as she was, if she wanted off this island, she could have done it. Eva hit a pothole and nearly flipped. Focus, girl.

  The road practically glowed with the directions. So far, she’d been riding inland. Now the road was cutting closer to the lake. Here, the wind was freezing, cutting through her layers, her fingers ice on the handlebars. It was another hour of hard pedaling before the forest opened up and there it was, an ugly black house sitting on stilts above the water. Would there be a man inside and a boat behind?

  The house was rotting, wood gone sodden, black with saltwater slime, and missing as much roof as it still had. Looks like a death house, alright. Maybe some of the rumors were true after all. Eva unceremoniously ditched her bike at the dock leading up to the house. The boards were rotten too. Watch your step, baby girl.

  The door was unlocked.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  Eva let herself inside, hearing moans and creaks with every step on the water-logged floorboards. Moldy quilts on the couch, buckets holding rainwater, wet ashes in the fireplace—if anyone lived here, it was a miserable life.

  “Mike? Yo, Mickie? You in here? Taking a shit in there or something?”

  She advanced through the living room, to the rundown kitchen with a rear door to the dock. There was a boat. It was in great shape despite the abandoned, broke-down condition of the house. The thing looked new and shiny. Eva didn’t know what to call it. Boat. Watercraft. Yacht. Whatever. For living on an island, she knew fuck all about boats. She blamed it on gaps in the education system. Opening the back door, Eva was greeted by the freezing wind off Puget Sound. Uncertainty gripped her. Have I made a terrible mistake?

  A terribly strong hand gripped her arm, nearly toppling her over the rail with its force.

  “Hey!” she shouted.

  The man—probably Michael—was taller than her father and, oh god, the rage in his grey eyes took Eva aback. This man is a killer, she thought. Where was her protector now?

  “Why are you here?” His voice was rough, pissed, full of accusation.

  She wasn’t ready and stumbled over her words. A faint threatened to collapse her legs. Where was her strength? Her power? This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.

  “Why are you here, girl?” he barked and pulled on her arm.

  And then it happened as it always had for Eva. Black screen of death, hard drive failure, brain reboot, and down she fell, utterly unsure if she would land in the water or on the deck and unable to care whichever one.

  ***

  Eva saw she was indoors. The tiny proportions of the room and the gentle rocking told her she was in the boat. This was good. She wasn’t dead. The boat was much nicer than the shack. Warm. She was alive and warm.

  “Drink this,” a gruff voice said behind her.

  She remembered falling. She’d fallen. Michael. She looked around. The bad man. He was offering her something to drink and she accepted it. He was squatting next to the bench where she relined. Eva was wrapped in a warm, homemade quilt. This one wasn’t moldy. Perhaps a little roughly made. Dissociation. Facts tumbled at her. She was an observer. Eyes in a head.

  “Girlie, what are you doing here?” he asked, his voice still rough but a little gentler than before.

  Eva’s eyesight started to focus, but her mind was gapped. She wasn’t concerned. It was as if nothing mattered. As she always did, she ran a quick audit of her life. A memory test. She’d ridden in the cold. There was shaking and aching fingers. She’d fallen. But before she had, there was a boat.

  “You have a boat,” she said, sitting sat up.

  “A-yuh, you’re on it, missy. What I want to know is why.”

  “I need to get off this island,” she said.

  “It’s not any better out there.”

  “You leave when you want? You’ve been inland in the last two years?”

  “No man or woman commands me or my doings but myself.”

  “I need off this island.”

  He stood suddenly, pacing in the small area and disturbing Eva with his speed. “Has something changed? In town? Tell me, is it true?”

  Her downcast eyes played across the pattern of the quilt. Red square with a blue flower, pink nylon square, green and blue cross-hatch square, repeat.

  Michael calmed himself. Clearly, Eva thought, he was unaccustomed to guests. She shivered beneath the quilt as she heard his thoughts. He assumed she’d been through something—a family drama, a storm. He was strong, guarded, but she could still read him a little.

  “I’ll fix up something to eat,” he said. “How about that?”

  Eva nodded.

  A hot plate on the counter next to the bench comprised the meager kitchen. Still, Michael prepared the can of soup with the care of a chef. He added spices to the brown, beefy slop of Dinty Moore and stirred vigorously. “While that there simmers a spell, how about your name?”

  “I’m Eva.”

  “Okay. Now we’re cookin’ with gas. How come you come all the way out here looking for a boat?”

  She sighed, feeling the weight of her mind and memory come back to her. “Something bad was controlling the island. Everybody on it was…not right. But that’s over.”

  “That bitch is gone?”

  Eva was taken aback. Did he know? “What bitch? Who?”

  Michael dished up a bowl of the hot stew and handed it to Eva. “I knew about your troubles. If you didn’t think old Mike was mad before, you’ll pee your pants when I tell you this, but I was born with a caul. You know what that is?”

  She shook her head and started eating, surprised by her own appetite and how good the food was. Did he actually know her about her problems?

  “It means when I came out of my mama, I had a membrane across my face.” He ran his hands over his face like he was playing peek-a-boo.

  “Gross.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Kids today… In the old days, long before I was even born, the caul meant something.”

  “I’m sorry. What did it mean?” Eva wiped her mouth with her sleeve but was too shy to ask for more stew.

  “My mama knew the old stories and told me once I was old enough to know that I’d have a second sight, and I did. Still do. What do you think about that?”

  “Super powers?” Eva held back a laugh.

  He laughed and then Eva did laugh. “Not that much ever came of it, but sometimes I know things before they happen. I fel
t her come here. In the night, even before the fall of man, I sensed her. Seems to be just days before the world turned upside down for good that she really woke up. There’s something connected between it all, I swear, but I’m not the one to go figuring things out. I says, Michael, we best be out to sea when this happens. I could feel her hunger. Hunger and rage like a shark. I ain’t too proud to admit it. I never been so scared in all my days.”

  “So you hid out here? All this time?”

  “That’s the short of it. When I felt her creepin’ towards me, I ran away. There’s no fighting a demon that strong. Tell me, how did it happen? Someone fight back? Kill the bitch? Or did she just pack up and leave, bored with us at last?”

  “I don’t know. It was like a spell had lifted. Nothing different, but everything changed.” Would he detect her lie? Were his gifts as strong as hers? Eva didn’t think so.

  “And you wanted to get free of that mess? She make you do anything not good? I felt her unnatural desires. The hell she must have brought…”

  “I don’t know,” Eva said, fighting back tears. “I want to leave and never come back.”

  “I’ll take ya then. Far as you need to go across the water, but no farther.”

  Eva set the empty bowl down and gave Michael a hug of gratitude. “Thank you.” She cried at last.

  “Save your blubberin’,” Michael said and returned the embrace. “There’s gonna be plenty of time and reason for that. I got a feeling about it. You can sleep here. I’ll bunk in the house, but you’ve nothing to fear from me. We’ll leave in the morning. You know how to work the toilet pump?”

  Michael left her on the boat after showing her how to lock the door. She shouldn’t have felt safe as she did, but she did feel safe. She was doing it. Exercising agency and control over her life for the first time. The motion of the boat rocked her to sleep and she thought of nothing until Michael came knocking on the door in the morning.