Awakening

by Jacqueline Brown

  The fear I felt faded. “Did you do this?” I yelled above the wind and rain.

  He leaned against the inn, his eyes trained on me. He did not speak.

  “Where is Luca?” I asked, my voice louder.

  He stared at me. From behind me, I heard something. I turned, praying it was Luca, praying we could leave.

  “Dad?” I said as he came near me.

  His face, too, was different. Gone was my gentle father, in his place, a warrior.

  Thomas’s lips curled upward, baring his teeth as if he were a dog or a wolf watching its prey. His body straightened to its full height. I swallowed the fear I felt as he towered over me from the porch of the ruined inn.

  The wind, the stench of the rotting fish and sulfur, the rain, nothing stopped or slowed my father.

  “Where is he?” Dad called, glaring at Thomas.

  Thomas growled and his shoulders hunched forward as if he truly were an animal.

  “Where?” Dad repeated, passing me.

  Thomas relaxed his shoulders and laughed. It sent chills through me. Evil was real and it was laughing a sadistic laugh.

  “It’s been so long, Paul,” Thomas said, his voice knowing.

  At this, my dad’s pace slowed, but he didn’t stop moving forward.

  Dad yelled above the storm, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to tell me the truth. Where is Luca?”

  Thomas paced across the deep porch. His movements were not brought on by fear or anxiety, as those movements would have meant in my body. In his they were threatening, signaling an attack was imminent.

  My father moved in front of me, his body blocking Thomas’s view of me.

  Thomas shouted, “It is odd you attempt to keep her from us now, not before. Though before, you did not know her. How short-minded you creatures are.”

  My father’s posture stiffened.

  “Where is Luca?” he repeated, his voice cracking. He was no longer fearless; something Thomas said or did had shaken my father.

  “We knew his mother,” Thomas replied. “She was very good to us, but there is little hope for him.”

  “Where is he?” Dad yelled, regaining some of his power.

  Thomas stopped pacing, his pale arms loose at his sides. He felt no fear, no intimidation from us. “Where it is buried,” he said with amusement.

  We were like a toy he was playing with. None of this was upsetting to him. The opposite was true: he was enjoying our discomfort.

  “Which is where?” Dad asked, angling his body to more fully block me from Thomas’s view.

  Thomas smirked. “You, of all people, should know, Paul.”

  Dad stood perfectly still, Thomas’s coal-black eyes boring down at my father.

  “Yes, we are the same,” Thomas said with a ghastly smirk. “The same ones you knew.”

  “I never knew you,” Dad shouted.

  “Oh, but you did. Not so completely as this one does, but you were close, so very close,” Thomas said with a hint of regret. “Your great-grandmother was such a friend. Far better than the boy’s mother. We could be ourselves with her. No need to hide. With the boy’s mother we could not be ourselves, but she brought us so many, so very many.” He thought hungrily on the memory.

  “Where is Luca?” Dad asked, his voice shaking, his confidence gone.

  Thomas scoffed and said, “There is still hope for you, Paul, for you and this daughter. Little hope for the boy. None for your wife.”

  Dad’s anger rose and he stepped forward as if he was going to attack Thomas.

  Thomas held his expression. “Oh yes, Paul, so much hope for you.”

  Dad withdrew a couple paces. His voice made unsteady by rage, he called out, “In the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I command you to tell me where Luca is.”

  Thomas laughed, stepping toward us. “You have no power over us. No power to command us with his name.” He spit with fury as he spoke.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” Gigi’s voice called from behind us.

  At this, Thomas backed up, his smirk faded, and he stood closer to the inn.

  “The Lord is with thee,” Gigi said loudly, coming toward us.

  “We hate that one!” Thomas roared in anguish. “We have always hated her. No hope, no hope for her.”

  Gigi joined my father. “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!” she shouted.

  Thomas shrieked again, falling to a crouching position, panting hard as he pushed his body against the splintered wood of the inn.

  “Under the inn. He’s under the back corner of the inn,” Thomas said, choking on the words as if they were being forced without permission from his lips. “Now leave us. This one is ours.”

  “Go,” Gigi said to my dad and me. “Touch nothing except Luca.”

  “Are you sure?” Dad said with concern to Gigi.

  “Oh, perfectly,” Gigi said, stepping toward Thomas.

  Thomas remained rolled in a ball on the broken porch.

  “Come on,” Dad said, signaling for me to follow him.

  Behind me, I heard Gigi praying the rest of the Hail Mary and Thomas shrieking.

  As we neared the back of the inn, the smell of evil was so strong and so repulsive that with each step I took, I was fighting against every instinct in my body telling me to run from this place and never return.

  The inn was built above grade on one side and into the mountain on the other. The backside was in the mountain. I stopped when I reached the place where the building met the earth.

  “This part is solid rock,” Dad said from behind me. “He can’t be here.”

  “Did Thomas—or whatever that was—lie?” I asked.

  Dad lay down in the icy mud and pulled his phone from his pocket. He fumbled as he tried to turn on the flashlight. Then he shone the light under the building.

  “He’s there,” he said, fighting the panic.

  He went under the building. I knelt on the frozen earth, every inch of my clothing drenched by the bitter rain, my body shivering violently to try and warm itself. Minutes passed as I kept waiting to help Dad pull Luca from the crypt Thomas had created for him.

  Dad pushed himself out. “I can’t,” he said, panting, “I can’t … reach him. My body is too big. I can’t get close enough to get a hand on him.”

  “I can,” I said, already inching forward under the inn.

  “Siena … what Gigi said. You have to touch nothing. Only Luca. Do you hear me? Only Luca.” His voice was terror filled, as if he was sending me into a pit of vipers waiting to attack when I was at my weakest.

  I nodded, sleet sliding from my hair.

  “He’s in the back,” Dad said, holding his phone under the building to light my way.

  The earth under the inn was mostly dry, but the odor was worse than I ever thought possible. I could see Luca, his body curled up, stuffed like an old cloth doll into the smallest of spaces. How had Thomas done this? How could anyone be that strong? I was completely under the building. I reached … my fingers tightened around Luca’s ankle.

  “I’ve got him,” I called, my voice muffled.

  I pulled his leg. It was all I could grab; he was stuffed so tightly between the floor of the inn and the base of the mountain. He groaned as I pulled, and hope surged. There was hope. Thomas had lied. I pulled again and again, the back of my coat ripping against the shards of wood and long rusted nails protruding from the floor above me.

  My legs were out now. The wet earth never felt so amazing as it did at that moment. Luca’s body was mostly out of the grave Thomas had stuffed him into.

  Loose dirt fell onto my face. Fear overtook me; someone was above me. Someone was walking inside the inn, directly above where Luca and I were.

  I pulled harder and harder. The boards above Luca’s head splintered and broke. I screamed, unable to stop myself. My dad’s hands appeared beside me, still unable to reach Luca.

  I scrambled back, pulling with all my might, an
d Luca slid farther down the slope. The boards above the grave were ripping away. Thomas’s pale bleeding hands reached into the darkness, illuminated dimly by the light my dad held. I heaved again, and Luca rolled down the side of the stone. He was beside me, still unconscious but no longer within Thomas’s reach.

  Thomas pulled away more boards; they cracked and splintered. From the darkness, his white arms glowed in the beam of the flashlight. His hands grasped air where Luca’s head had just been.

  I felt Luca begin to move. He was being pulled out of the darkness. My dad was pulling him out.

  Thomas didn’t care, I realized then. He wasn’t focused on us. His hands felt around in the dirt and found something. He lifted a metal box from this would-be tomb and disappeared—dirt falling on my face when he walked above me.

  Beside me, Luca was almost out of the building’s crawl space. My father pulled him again, and he was no longer beside me, no longer entombed. I pushed myself out headfirst, caked in dirt and mud. My dad held me and didn’t let me go for a long time. The rain fell, mixing with my tears, washing away some of the mud.

  Beside us, Luca groaned.

  “Thomas took it,” I said.

  Dad’s expression was questioning.

  “Whatever it was that was buried beneath the inn. Luca was lying on top of it. Thomas ripped open the floor and took it.”

  Dad’s eyes became wide. “Stay here,” he said, and he ran around the corner of the inn.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, kissing Luca on the forehead. “I have to go. You’ll be okay now.”

  He groaned again, and I stood, sprinting after my dad.

  Far in the distance I saw bouncing lights—flashlights being held by people running down the trail. I felt a surge of hope; my family and I were no longer fighting alone against evil.

  I rounded the corner. My dad was there, kneeling on the ground. I ran to him. Gigi was lying flat, blood covering her face, the skin under her eyes turning dark.

  She started to sit up. Dad was helping her as she tried to stop the flow of blood.

  “Is anything broken?” he asked her.

  “My nose, I think,” she said, wincing as blood continued to pour from her nose, streaming down her face and neck.

  “Did he hit you?” Dad asked in disgust.

  “It was my own fault. I got too close to him. And he shot his palm up to my face,” she said, using the sleeve of her once cream-colored coat to try and slow the bleeding.

  “At least I can’t smell those poor fish anymore,” Gigi said, her way of telling us she was going to be okay.

  On the porch, Thomas appeared, one hand holding the metal box, the other a splintered board. My heart stopped as he glared first at me and then at my dad and grandmother. Nothing. There was nothing left of Thomas.

  Muffled voices rang out in the distance, the wind and waves drowning out the words. Flashlights shone in our direction, and the steady rain appeared like streams of silver in their wide beams.

  Thomas wore a filthy pair of jeans and a thin shirt. He was drenched and his brown hair stuck to the sides of his face. He strode across the porch, moving away from us.

  “Thomas, wait,” my dad called.

  Thomas turned. For the briefest of moments, his eyes changed to how they once were—not kind, but not cruel—the eyes of the boy I’d grown up with.

  “Thomas, please,” I begged, understanding these had not been his actions. “Please stay,” I said.

  He blinked and the eyes of Thomas disappeared. “This one is ours. He gave himself freely to us.” The expression of evil that spread across his face made me want to cry from the deepest of sorrows.

  “Please, Thomas, please stay, please fight whatever has you,” I cried, rain falling into my mouth as I spoke.

  In an instant, Thomas leaped off the back of the porch and was in the woods of the mountain. I ran after him.

  “Siena, no,” my dad called. He scrambled to catch up with me, it didn’t matter. In the time it took my dad to reach me, Thomas was already at the top of the cliff. That hike used to take my mom and me hours, and it took him minutes.

  I watched in horror as he strode steadily toward the edge of the cliff. Shouts came from behind, running men with flashlights. The police were here, my sisters behind them. All of them coming toward us.

  Tears and rain dripped from my face. The light from the flashlights could not reach Thomas as he stood on the edge of the cliff. I could not see his expression or even his face, but I could sense something—remorse. A moment later he screamed and threw the box far from the cliff. It fell into the depths of the ocean.

  A noise like the growl of a bear reverberated over the mountain and Thomas fell from the cliff. His body hit the rocks at the base of the cliff. He lay there, broken, for one short moment before the waves came and washed his body into the raging sea.

  The night became silent; even the wind for the briefest of moments ceased. All that could be heard were the cries of a child. My father picked up Avi and held her tight against him.

  Twenty-Six

  Divers entered the freezing water at dawn. Mercifully, the rain had stopped long before that. Thomas’s parents, wrapped in blankets of grief, watched in horror as hour after hour passed and their son’s body was not recovered from the icy Atlantic. His death had occurred when his body was broken against the boulders at the base of the cliff.

  I wondered now about his soul. I’d been taught the choices we make in life prepare us for the final choice, the choice made in the most instantaneous of moments—not by our minds, but by our souls. If we have spent life choosing God, our souls will choose him; if we have not, then … our soul will not. God will never force himself on anyone, no matter how badly he wants us with him. It is always our choice, even at the very end.

  What was Thomas’s choice? Would the last few weeks negate the good he’d done before then? Would his death be eternal or temporary? I was sure, as I asked these questions, his parents were asking them too.

  When the drones came, I escaped into the shelter of the trail. They were not police drones; they were controlled by reporters in news trucks. Aerial footage was the easiest way to show the expanse of our property, including the cliff where the well-liked yet disturbed young man had leaped to his death.

  None of us spoke about it, all agreed that any mention of the box long-buried under the inn, or the demons that took it, was useless. No one would believe our tale, and if they did, it wouldn’t matter; it wouldn’t lead to an arrest or take a murderer off the streets. Demons could not be hunted—they were the hunters.

  The breaking of an old woman’s nose and the beach strewn with dead fish were more than enough to convince the authorities that Thomas was not in his right mind. His parents were told he’d had a psychotic break. He must have. What else could describe such grotesque behavior? Would knowing the truth help them in their grief? We all independently must have decided “no” because none of us spoke about those things.

  No one mentioned finding Luca buried alive. Only that after the fire burned down his house, he came to the beach in search of solace and for the off chance someone else could be on the property. His fears were confirmed when he found Thomas acting crazy. The rest of us eventually showed up looking for Luca. After Thomas attacked Gigi—something none of us could have expected—he ran. We tried to catch up to him and so did the police, but his body, fueled by the psychosis, provided him tremendous speed. Thomas leaped from the cliff before any of us could stop him.

  Between the rain that had continued for hours and the massive amount of foot traffic, the trail to my house was nothing more than a stream of mud. I moved off the trail, into the woods. The dry blanket someone had wrapped around me was still across my shoulders. My fingers grazed tree after tree. Somehow, feeling their steady strength brought me the faintest semblance of peace.

  Luca tried to stay with us at the beach, but he was far too weak. Sam was not much better. Jason had to help them both up the trail. The police
had no reason to detain them, assuming they were sick or that the cold was too much for their non-native blood.

  Gigi and my sisters were the next to leave. Once Gigi was interviewed, the three of them went to the house.

  Avi had not wanted to leave my father, but she hadn’t wanted to stay so close to where Thomas died, either.

  She would have nightmares … so many nightmares. I closed my eyes. We all would.

  I slipped off my boots and entered the house as Jackson rushed to me. The air was warm and dry.

  “Power came back on sometime last night,” Gigi said, the skin around her eyes completely black, her nose swollen.

  How long would it take her to heal? How long would it take any of us to heal?

  “He’s been worried about you,” she said, nodding to Jackson.

  I rubbed his misshapen ears, grateful for his warmth and life.

  “He’s been wanting to go out to find you. With all the activity, I thought it best he stay inside.”

  I nodded and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table.

  Gigi placed a warm mug in front of me. “Hot cider,” she said, her voice thick because of her swollen nose.

  I sipped the cider. The warm liquid stuck to my top lip. I wiped it off with my fingers and realized I hadn’t washed my hands. The thought of all I’d been through suddenly disgusting me, I ran to the sink and vomited the cider. Nothing else came up; I hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours. I stuck my face under the faucet. The warm water helped to give me life. I squirted soap in my hands and scrubbed, water dripping from my chin and nose as I did. I used a paper towel to wipe dirt from my face and neck. I wanted to shower but didn’t have the strength. I stumbled back to the table, collapsing into the chair. I wanted to cry, but didn’t have the strength to do that, either.

  Gigi placed a hand on top of mine.