The Presence

by Shady Grim

  “It’s over,” said Tim.

  I didn’t believe him. I looked all around for more spectral beings, but saw none. I saw red lights flashing from the driveway and thought that something else was coming, but then I realized that it was the sheriff followed by an ambulance.

  “How do we explain this?” I said.

  “Let me do the talking. I’m a good liar,” replied Tim.

  “We made it, Ethan. It’s okay.” I squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze back. Thor sniffed his head, laid on the ground next to him, and cried.

  “He’s gone,” said Tim.

  I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t have enough air to speak. I felt Ethan’s neck and didn’t find a pulse. His handsome blue eyes were blank and staring, their devilish twinkle gone forever. I heard screaming and looked up to see Emily running toward us. She must’ve broken away from her minder. One of the deputies caught her in mid-stride and carried her away. She was kicking and hollering for Ethan. I felt cold. It was too much for me to handle, and I shut down.

  Epilogue

  My memory of the time leading up to Ethan’s funeral is vague, but I remember his funeral vividly. Ethan’s mother had a breakdown during the service and spent a year in a psychiatric hospital. His father never spoke to me again–not that I cared. We’d never gotten along anyway. Ethan’s siblings fought over his will. I don’t know what they thought they’d get from him. He owned nothing of value–at least not the sort of value they were looking for. It was a lengthy battle that eventually settled in my favor, and I thumbed my nose at the lot of them.

  Tim stayed with me, and I was so grateful for his company. I had to plan Ethan’s funeral, settle his remaining debts, fight with his siblings, and take guardianship of two children I wasn’t emotionally prepared to raise. It was too much to handle on my own. Tim’s company felt so familiar to me that it was like I’d known him my entire life. We were married shortly after Ethan’s funeral. It was a quiet affair. The only attendees were a couple of my oldest friends, the children, and Jack and Stacy. I very much liked Tim’s adoptive family–the family that he’d adopted, that is. It felt good to be a part of a large and loving family again, and they were very supportive of me during my battle with Ethan’s siblings. Tim and I were a happy couple throughout our lives, and very rarely argued. Only once did I ask Tim to tell me about his childhood, and he refused. Until the day he died, a peaceful and well-loved old man, he never spoke about his past. Although he lacked Ethan’s outgoing personality and zany wit, he proved to be a gentle and doting husband and father.

  Three days after Ethan’s funeral, Nicky returned to his garden home in perfect health, and Candy had her babies. She had three females and a single male, whom Emmy named after her father. Thor claimed an old pair of Ethan’s sneakers, and carried one or the other around the house for weeks. Tim, while still healing from his wounds, set about building a kennel to get the children’s minds off of the horrible events and onto something positive. As soon as he was finished, our ragtag little family went to the dog pound. We brought home ten dogs of varying breeds and sizes and a few stray cats as well. We remembered our debt to the pukwudgies and planted more strawberries as well as some blueberries. In fact, Tim’s sprawling gardens were a masterpiece of form and function and the pukwudgies guarded it as their own.

  Once the routine of caring for the new pets settled in, the children’s minds were free to wander again. Emily called me one afternoon to look at the foyer door. She told me the stained-glass panel had changed, and had Ethan’s neatly framed drawing in her hand to prove it. She pointed to the angel Gabriel. In Ethan’s drawing, Gabriel stood with his right hand hanging at his side. In the glass, Gabriel’s right arm was bent, and he held it a little more than waist high. His hand cradled a golden mezuzah. I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t even looked at the glass. I was completely unable to explain what Emily showed me. Emily said it was a message from Ethan, telling us that he was okay. After all I had experienced, Emily’s explanation seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

  Tim eventually finished the work that Ethan had started, though it took him several years to do it. I was actually a bit saddened when the old girl was restored. I think that working on her made me feel a little closer to Ethan. Perhaps there was a part of me that expected to see him come home as restored as she, but the reality of it was just too disappointing. There were many times that I looked out to the lake and thought I saw Ethan skipping stones. Every now and then, I’d smell a light whiff of bay rum pass under my nose. I saw many spirits in and around the house, but I never saw Ethan. It made me feel slighted. Tim told me that seeing Ethan would be too traumatic for me, so he kept himself hidden. I don’t know if that’s true, but it comforted me nonetheless. The front porch became my favorite part of the house, and I spent a great deal of time on it over the years. I decided to paint it purple–Ethan’s favorite color. I eventually painted the entire outside of the house lilac, and I received many an unfavorable criticism for it, but I don’t care. I know Ethan would’ve loved it, and I think it made the old girl happy too. She was once again a symbol of love and no longer the destitute vagabond that she’d been for so long.

  I kept those ridiculous silver bullets that Ethan had made. I gave one to Emmy, one to Jimmy, one to Tim, and I kept the last. I carry it with me wherever I go. It never leaves my body. I’ve often thought about why I was so drawn to the house and if the attraction had anything to do with my involvement in that nightmare. Ethan would’ve said that God chose me to help Him because of my good nature, but I don’t think it was about goodness at all. I think God just gave me a long hard lesson in humility. In truth, it was I who had strayed farthest from the fold. I had lost my faith, not just in the divine, but also in myself. I blindly put my faith in the science of humanity, which is as imperfect as humanity itself. Although Ethan had made some tragically foolish decisions in his life, he never lost his faith. He knew in his heart, which is where–for him, the ultimate of all truths lay; that faith is the eternal path to light and hope is the companion of our journey. How beautiful is it for a grown man to have the pure and unwavering faith of a child? I finally came to embrace my “gift,” as Ethan referred to it. I had once thought it a curse and, at one point in my life, I self-diagnosed it as a curious psychiatric ailment. It was a hard lesson for me, but I eventually came to understand that logic and reason can be complimentary to such an inexplicable ability.

  Most importantly, Ethan’s final wish was granted. His daughter spent her entire life in a god-like worship of her father. She named her first son Ethan, and made sure that all of her children knew everything there was to know about their grandfather; even a few things that weren’t exactly true, but served to elevate his hero status. I, of course, supported these fabrications because I wanted to believe them just as much as Emily did. She had me make a list of all the things her dad wanted to do in life, but had never accomplished and used it as a checklist. She took art classes and became a skilled painter and sculptor. She learned to surf, and she even won a pie-eating contest. She ran track all through school, winning many trophies, and she earned a scholarship to a fine university. She fulfilled every dream that her father had when he was alive, and then she did something that he could never have done–she became an architect. She was, at once, a comfort and a cruel reminder to me. To see the generations changing hands is a bitter-sweet vision indeed. Emmy and Jimmy stayed very close throughout their lives and spent much of their free time restoring and racing vintage motorcycles. Jimmy’s fondness for Ethan eventually faded to a vague shadow of a memory. Emily had always been focused and strong-willed, but Jimmy was such an indecisive child that I initially worried for his future. He grew to be a decent and well-adjusted young man with quite a large family of his own. Surprisingly, it was he who followed in my footsteps and became a very fine surgeon. My own two sons took more after their father than for me. Timothy Ethan was the oldest and obviously named for his father. Henry Neil was the yo
unger, and was named for both my father and Tim’s.

  The old girl’s prayers were answered. Her family had been returned to her and would continue to return to her even after I passed on to join my husband and long-departed friend. Her walls would forever be alive with the sounds of children. Her many generations of offspring, spread far and wide, would always return to her comforting embrace.

  The End

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  Also by Shady Grim

  Playing With Fire

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  About the Author

  Hello fellow Shadow People; Shady Grim here. My story started much like everyone else's. My formative years were uneventful. I was sent off to night school when I was but a tiny specter where I learned how to read and write, and frighten the Day-Dwellers while they rested. I was a quick study and an above-average student.

  My parents had high hopes that I would reach the highest level a frightening being could and land a job with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). But I rebelled. I just couldn't bear the thought of spending eternity skulking through a labyrinth of cubicles and being obnoxiously rude to confused Day-Dwellers over the telephone.

  Somewhere along the way I'd discovered myself and my true calling. I realized that I was a sensitive dark spirit, who much preferred entertaining the Day-Dwellers rather than frightening them out of their wits. That realization has led me to become an author of dire and woeful tales that frighten and titillate Day-Dwellers of a certain bent, those caught between the light and the darkness, those like myself. My mission now is to create beauty woven in shadow, to bring together day and night, and to share my creations with the world.

  Read more at Shady Grim’s site.