The Presence

by Shady Grim

  “You don’t have any self-control, Ethan. You never think before you act. That’s why you get into so much trouble.”

  “I’m workin’ on it; I swear.” I rolled my eyes. A reply just wasn’t worth the effort. He cleared his throat again and shifted in his seat. “If somethin’ happens to me, will yeh take of Emily?”

  “What’s going to happen to you? Did this nutty friend of yours foretell your death?” I asked flippantly.

  “Just answer me, please?”

  The sudden seriousness of his tone took me aback. “Of course I would, but what about her mother?”

  “She’s happy with ‘er new boyfriend. She doesn’t want Emmy. I’ve been to a lawyer and everythin’s settled. My family’s happy to let yeh raise ‘er as long as they get visitation.”

  “Ethan, this is sick. You’re young and healthy. What could possibly happen to you?”

  “I’m not gonna kill myself if that’s what yer thinkin’. I just have this feelin’ that I ain’t gonna be around much longer.”

  “If the house freaks you out that much–”

  “It ain’t the house,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been feelin’ this for a while, and I can’t seem to shake it. I think maybe God’s tryin’ to tell me somethin’. I think it’s a premonition.”

  “I think you’re taking this spiritual stuff too far. You’re going through some big changes in your life, and it’s normal to feel a little overwhelmed. Once you get back on your feet and find someone nice to settle down with–and I stress nice–you’ll feel much happier.”

  “So when are yeh gonna find someone nice to settle down with?”

  “I did...Thor. He and I get along perfectly.”

  “When’s the last time yeh had a date?”

  “Uhhhh...good question.”

  “Yeh don’t even know, do yeh? What happened to that bug guy you was seein’? What was his name? Oh yeah, Buggy Dougie.”

  “Entomologist, not ‘bug guy.’ I don’t know what happened, it just didn’t work out...and he didn’t like being called Buggy Dougie.”

  “That dude was strange. Where the hell did yeh find him?”

  “His type tends to collect around universities.”

  “I remember that dude’s house. Damn that place was creepy. All those cages full of bugs makin’ all those scratchy noises and clickin’ sounds.” Ethan shuddered. “It was horrible. I can’t believe he actually kept those big roaches as pets. I’ll bet yeh he fed those cricket-things steroids. They were huge. I wouldn’t go in there again without a can or two of bug spray.”

  “Well, that’s what he does, Ethan. He studies bugs.”

  “Yeah, studies ‘em, not keeps ‘em as pets. He talked to the damn things, Heather!”

  “Well...he liked his job.”

  “I don’t think he liked me too much.”

  “He didn’t,” I said, remembering how obnoxious Ethan was on that particular occasion when I introduced them. “In fact, he hated you.” Ethan laughed heartily. He loved being an irritant and was exceptionally good at it. He and I often worked as a team when we younger.

  “Do yeh believe in love at first sight?” he said, in another unexpected change of subject.

  “Seriously?” I was a little surprised at his question.

  “Yeah, yeh never talk about this kinda thing. I’m curious.”

  “Yes, I do believe in love at first sight.”

  “For real?”

  “Yes,” I laughed.

  “Damn! I knew yeh were a romantic. I could feel it in yeh. Have yeh ever been in love?”

  “No.”

  “Never? That sucks, dude. It’s the greatest feelin’ in the world when yer in love. Now me, I been in love lots of times.”

  “Yes, I know. I met most of them. I can’t say I approve of your taste.”

  “At least none of ‘em kept roaches in cages. Some of ‘em had ‘em in the house, but they weren’t happy about it.”

  “That’s not exactly the same thing. Doug’s insects were kept in a controlled environment and–”

  “Controlled, my ass! Nobody controls roaches. They’re like aliens or somethin’. What do yeh think all those clicky noises are? They’re talkin’ to each other, and yeh know what they’re sayin’? The time is near, boys. The humans are gonna hit that button soon and the world’s gonna be ours.”

  “You’re demented.”

  The rest of our little sojourn was filled with similar banter and nostalgia. We were both in very good humor when we reached the residence of Ethan’s friend. “She’s not going to be burning any incense is she? That stuff makes me choke.”

  “No, but she likes to burn a lot o’ candles.”

  “Not those stinky scented ones, I hope. They’re too perfumey.”

  “Will yeh quite bitchin’ and come on?” Ethan walked across the middle of the woman’s manicured lawn and straight up to the front door and knocked loudly. I followed along the path of flat round stones that led from the sidewalk, along her driveway, and up to the front door.

  “Hey, there’s a stone walk here. People generally have little walkways so you’ll walk on them instead of their nice lawns.”

  “It’s shorter to walk on the grass. Look, yeh gotta walk all the way over to the driveway and then up to the front door.” He pointed at the walkway and traced the line of the path in the air.

  “Like it matters to you, you’ve got six foot legs.”

  “I’m tired, and I don’t feel like walkin’,” he answered sharply.

  “As if you could call it a walk, it looks like ten maybe fifteen feet?”

  As the front door quickly opened, we both turned to greet a heavy-set middle-aged woman with hazel eyes and long dark hair that was piled high on her head. She was wearing a long flowing dress of midnight blue and a grey shawl over her shoulders. She explained that her husband hated the warm weather and kept the air conditioning up too high. “Did I interrupt something?” she said, looking from Ethan to me.

  “No, no, we were just talking,” I replied.

  “Hey, Carly. She’s full of it, she was bitchin’ at me. This is my cousin, Heather, by the way.” Ethan introduced me as he moved past Carly toward the living room to say hello to her husband, Raymond, who grunted what seemed to be a greeting without turning away from the television set.

  “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said, shaking my hand. “I have so much to tell you. If you don’t mind I’d like to get started right away.”

  “That would be great.” We moved into a small room just to the left of the front door, which contained a small round table and four chairs. There were a few elegantly designed sconces on the walls containing half-burned candles. There was little else in the room aside from the table and chairs. There were a couple of religiously themed pictures, simply but elegantly framed, hanging on the walls. Ethan and I both had personalities that seemed to magnetically draw eccentric types, but where I attracted the strange but harmless, he attracted the strange and potentially dangerous. I was expecting this one to be a real corker, but she wasn’t at all what I had anticipated. She appeared to be unusually normal for a friend of Ethan’s. Carly was gracious and well-spoken, and considerably more intelligent than Ethan’s usual brand of liquored-up wild men. I knew most of his friend’s and there were only a few who had enough redeeming qualities to make them socially tolerable. Although they were generally not intellectuals, only Ethan’s closest friends were interesting and well-mannered enough to actually be good company. Ethan had similar feelings about my friends as I did about his. I always had a rough side to me. I never minded getting dirty or banged up from rough housing, but I tended to prefer the company of more intellectual types than that of barroom brawlers. Most of my friends weren’t nearly as physical as I was, and Ethan found them to be intolerably soft. He called them “A bunch of candy-assed space cadets” which they were, but at least the conversation was always interesting. Ethan had little time for thinkers and even less for the act of pond
ering. A review of his life choices was testament enough to his impulsiveness. It amazed some of our friends that we were such close friends. Ethan and I were very much alike in many ways, but our differences were dramatic. We never considered our connection to each other for a second. We just fit so well that we never took the time to examine why. We were much more aware of our friends’ differences, however, and took considerable pains to keep many of them separated. His friends thought mine were snobs, and my friends thought his were a horde of noisy cretins.

  Carly offered me a seat at her lovely light-oak table, while she busied herself lighting the candles that occupied every wall in the room. I looked more closely at the table and then at the matching chairs. I recognized an unmistakable familiarity of design. It was immediately obvious to anyone who knows fine furniture that the set was hand crafted, but it wasn’t until I made a closer inspection that I recognized the craftsman. “This is Ethan’s handiwork, isn’t it?” I said, as I ran my hands over the chair sitting to my left.

  Carly clicked off the light switch on the wall behind me and set a lit candle in the middle of the table. She sat herself down across from me and said with some surprise, “Yes, that was very observant of you. Ethan told me that the two of you were bonded, but I didn’t think it was to such a high degree.”

  “Bonded?” I said, as I popped my head up from my inspection. “What does that mean?”

  “To put it loosely, it means that you’re karmically linked together.”

  “Uh-huh, you don’t say?” I hoped that Ethan would soon decide to join us.

  “What do you think Ethan’s doing right now?” She looked at me and accurately interpreted the expression on my face. “I know it sounds like a silly question, but please humor me.”

  “Okay, well...if he thinks as much of you as he says, then he’s probably raiding your fridge. The more comfortable he is with someone, the more of their food he eats.”

  She started to chuckle as she leaned back in her chair and put her hand over her heart. “As the old saying goes, ‘Speak of the Devil, and He’ll surely appear’.”

  Ethan walked in with an arm full of food and two cans of soft drinks. He sat down to the left of me and placed one can in front of me, and one in front of himself. He placed a dinner plate containing a triple-decker sandwich and a couple of pickles on the table. “Don’t give me that look,” he said. “Carly doesn’t like to eat or drink nothin’ when she’s workin’. Since yer a vegetarian, I know yeh won’t eat any of this deli meat, so I brought yeh this pickle.”

  “Oh, how thoughtful of you, and after me being so bad minded,” I said as I took the pickle from his hand. “That meat is loaded with salt and saturated fats. I can practically hear your arteries hardening.”

  “I have to have my quota of meat ‘cause I’m a man. See, I’m a hunter and yer a nester, so as a hunter I need to eat meat.”

  “Who could argue with such perfect logic? How are you going to eat that? You can’t even get your mouth around it.”

  “Figuring out how to eat it is half the fun. Are yeh gonna eat that pickle?”

  “Do you want the pickle?”

  “Well, if yer not gonna eat it...” he said as he took back the pickle. “Did I miss anythin’?”

  “Carly was just explaining to me that we’re spiritually linked.”

  “Oh, yeah, we talked about this before. This is really cool.” He examined his sandwich, looking for the best spot to take a bite. “No matter what, we’ll be together forever. Every time we’re reborn, we’ll find each other and share our lives.”

  “Does this mean I’ll be doing your laundry for the rest of eternity?” He laughed while he crushed his sandwich into his plate and then bit into it. “Eeeww, do you have potato chips on that too?”

  “Nachos,” he answered, blowing crumbs on me.

  “Well, Carly, I hope you have a hardy vacuum cleaner.” I brushed the crumbs onto the floor.

  “That’s alright, my husband’s the same way.” Carly waved her hand in dismissal. “I hope you don’t mind the soft lighting. It helps me to concentrate.”

  “Not at all, I find it relaxing.”

  “I think it’s creepy. That’s why I have to eat in here. It calms my nerves.”

  Carly placed her hands palms-down on the table. “Could you give me a minute to study your aura?”

  “Take your time,” I replied. Carly closed her eyes, and we sat in silence for nearly ten minutes. I knew exactly how long it took, because I repeatedly checked my wristwatch. I looked over at Ethan, who placed his index finger on his lips to tell me to be quiet. Carly opened her eyes just as my patience was nearing its end. “How does my aura look?”

  “Incredulous,” she replied.

  “How did you see it with your eyes closed?” I said.

  “Your aura is a reflection of your spiritual essence. It can only be seen with the mind’s eye.”

  “I told yeh she was good.”

  “Yes, you did.” I had no interest in discussing what the mind’s eye was, or how it could see anything. I steered the discussion back to Carly’s remark about linked souls. “I had a college friend tell me something very similar to what you just explained. I always wondered if it’s really true or just a nice fairy tale.”

  “We all have our own beliefs. I can’t tell you to believe it or not. You have to find your own spiritual path, and I suspect that you don’t need anyone to tell you what to think.”

  “So does this mean that if one of us goes to Hell, the other has to follow?” I said.

  “Good Lord, no! It means that one of you will always make sacrifices for the sake of the other, even if it means forfeiting the current life. I suspect, Heather, that you are the older soul. You have either reached or are very close to reaching the point where you won’t need to reincarnate. I suspect that you may have strayed a little from the path in order to remain close to Ethan’s soul.”

  “I don’t think I’m following you,” I said, reluctant to absorb the information.

  “I believe that your essence has learned more from the lessons of life than has Ethan’s. You’re on a higher plane of discovery. You are the older soul. At some point in your existence, you became bonded with Ethan’s soul. For reasons known only to the two of you and the Almighty, you’ve committed yourselves to each other. So every time you reincarnate, you will both be instinctively drawn to each other. If you don’t know each other in childhood, then you will search until you’re together again as adults. You’ll wait until Ethan’s essence has reached the same plane as you, and then you will both enter Heaven together.”

  “Is this the same thing as a soulmate?” I said, a little sickened at the idea. I looked over at Ethan, and I could see that he was thinking the same thing, but was unable to voice it as his mouth was too full of food.

  “Some people believe that we go through all of our incarnations knowing the same souls over and over again, except in different capacities; sometimes as siblings, sometimes as parent and child, sometimes as friends, or sometimes as lovers. Personally, I believe that bonded souls and soulmates are different. I believe that our souls’ mates are our ideal mates in every incarnation, whether or not we’re able to find each other. Even if bonded souls end up as lovers, they wouldn’t be soulmates. I think you two have been reincarnated many times, but this time you were lucky enough to be the same age. Sometimes, for whatever reason, souls are incarnated long before their mates or linked souls. So, sadly, they aren’t able to spend an entire lifetime together...but there’s always hope for the next life,” she said with a smile. Carly held my gaze for several seconds, and I could tell that, this time, she was having trouble reading the expression on my face.

  “Please don’t think that I don’t believe you. It just takes me a while to work things out. I have to think about all of this.”

  “It’s quite alright. There’s a lot to take in, but that was just the run through. I have more important information for you. Ethan has explained to me som
e of the past events that have occurred around your home, and I think I can give you some insight.” She went on to repeat some of the information that Ethan had relayed to her to confirm that everything was accurate. She asked for a detailed description of the events surrounding Rachel’s death. I disliked being asked to recall the past in such detail and, frankly, I thought her interest in it was ghoulish, but Ethan insisted that it would be helpful so I complied. She then asked me to go over the information that I dug up at the library surrounding the old murders. Again, I had reservations, but Ethan continued to prompt me. The last thing she asked for was a concise description of the old house, which has always been a ceaselessly enjoyable topic for me, so I needed no prompting from Ethan to launch into a detailed narrative. I had no conception of why she wanted any of this information, but I never turned my back on any opportunity to talk about the house. She showed interest in details that even the most polite of people find intolerably tedious.

  “Those murders you described are particularly intriguing.”

  “How so?” I said.

  “Their similarities suggest to me a singular perpetrator.”

  I thought her statement was ridiculous since they all occurred years apart. “Do you really believe the same person could be responsible for crimes that happened years apart? It seems more likely to me that there were numerous offenders who held the same beliefs, or shared similar types of psychoses.”

  “Will yeh please be quiet and let Carly finish?” I agreed to be patient because of his faith in his friend’s abilities, but was beginning to think that my initial opinion of this woman was correct after all.

  “The connection isn’t with a person,” said Carly, “but with a force, an entity. Some people believe in God and Satan, both entities are known by many names and envisioned in many forms. God exists within all of creation, independent of and indivisible from all that exists within and beyond the range of human senses. Evil as an idea and as an intelligence is also part of God’s creation. It can’t exist without God, and for whatever reason, God allows evil to be. This evil can move freely about the Earth, but it can harm or influence only when we allow it to do so. As God has angels who are individual beings but also a part of Him; so Satan has demons who are individual beings but also a part of Him. These beings use doorways to travel from one world to another. That doorway, called a vortex, is a portal where spiritual beings can travel from the spirit world into our physical world. I believe there is one of these pathways located near your home.”