by Gaby Triana
A small desk lay on its side, its carvings intricate and indicative of a civilized person having once occupied this home. One drawer was open, papers spilled everywhere. Sharon bent to pick one up and handed it to me. “More research papers.”
“Okay, and?”
“Rutherford wrote tons about daily life. Somewhere here there has to be evidence of my father passing through.” She picked up a piece of hurricane lamp glass that had shattered beside the desk. Standing, she placed it in my hand. “Hold this.”
“Why?” I pulled my hand away.
“Tell me what you see when you feel it.”
“Sharon, no. I’m not Linda. I don’t have a handle on this yet.”
“Please just do it.”
“I’m not a performing monkey, Sharon. Just because you snap your fingers doesn’t mean—”
“Just do it!” Sharon shouted then bit her bottom lip in a failed effort to calm herself. “I saw you holding that wood that Linda gave you. I saw the way you reacted. I watched your hands spread all over the floor right before you woke up to tell us about carving a boat, and I know you keep that gator tooth around your neck to remember your grandfather.”
“You don’t know shit about me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Linda told us so much about you before we even met you.”
“Why? How would she even know me?”
“She didn’t. It wasn’t her job to know anything, just to relay information. To tell us what she sees, what she feels, what she knows…” Sharon still held out the broken hurricane lamp. What did this have to do with my grandfather? Nothing. She had lured me in. This woman was not to be trusted.
“I can’t stay here.” I turned to leave, but she reached out and grabbed my arm.
“You and Linda both could see things attached to objects. Just hold this and I’ll be done, Avila. I swear to God. Just do it. Please.”
I stared at her eyes in the darkness, a light within them, imploring me. Like Kane had said, she was a woman on a mission. Adopted. Haunted. More than the homes she investigated. I guess if I had one chance to find answers related to my birth mother, I might act a little crazy too.
“I can’t see visions in everything I touch. Look, I know you came here with a goal in mind, but that goal has changed and every minute is of essence. We need your help out there, and all you’re doing is exploring this house.”
“It’s changed for you, Avila, but not for me!” She shoved the glass into my hand. “Hold it. Please.” Her bright, pained eyes demanded, and something inside of me told me I needed to comply.
Sharon was not right in the head.
My eyes bounced around, searching for the shotgun, knowing I’d feel a hundred times better if I knew it wasn’t anywhere near her. When I didn’t move fast enough, she pressed the glass into my hand, drawing blood. “Fucking do it.”
“Bitch. You cut me,” I growled, yanking the curved piece away and slamming my elbow into her chin.
Sharon gripped her chin and gave me a demented smile tinged with blood. “I’m going to forget you did that, because I need you. Concentrate and tell me what you see.”
“Shut up,” I said through clenched teeth. “This is the last parlor trick I do for you. After this, I’ll be getting the hell out of here.”
She said nothing but I caught the ire in her eyes, the determination to make her time here worth every minute, even at the cost of others. Sharon Roswell, doing what she did best—using others.
I breathed in deep and let it out slowly to ground myself. I let any thought run through my mind, whatever it may be, and out of a jumbled mass of worry and fear, I imagined this room as it’d been fifty or more years ago. This office, bomb shelter, or whatever. Fifty years ago, that small window facing east had been open. The morning sun shone through it, though it wasn’t as hot as it is today. A cool breeze wended its way into the subterranean room.
A set of slim fingers curled around the edge of this desk.
A woman gripped the edge, lurched forward, then lurched again.
Her arms rigid, her face like the surface of the river on a clear morning. Young, beautiful with dark hair falling over her cheeks, as her hair moved in agitated waves. She held on tightly, a swatch of fabric tied over her mouth and knotted behind her head, as a man stood behind her, wide hands gripped over her hips. She’d been instructed not to make a sound, and even now as she looked at me, or appeared to, she couldn’t ask for help. Even though her life depended on it. The knife blade against her neck promised her that.
Over and over the desk lurched forward, an inch at a time.
My lungs felt constricted, my pulse quickened, and I thought I might be having a heart attack. I released the glass and it fell, shattering into even smaller pieces on the wooden floor. Shards disappeared into the rotted holes of the wooden flooring. “Get that thing away from me.”
“You idiot. I can’t believe you broke it. What did you see?” Sharon yanked my hand down toward the floor, placing it on the desk. “Tell me. The faster we get this over with, the faster I’ll help you outside.”
“You mean you won’t help until you’ve gotten what you wanted?” I fought her grip on my arm. I never expected a woman like her to have this much strength. Glaring at her, I said, “You might never know. You may as well get used to the idea.”
“I will know, one way or another.”
“You won’t if I don’t help you,” I said. “And with those gators headed this way, you’ll be the next one dead. Once you cross over into the spirit world, you’ll have all your answers.” It hadn’t meant to come out as a laugh, but it did.
The next thing I knew, Sharon Roswell, host of the TV show Haunted Southland, had slapped my face with the back of her hand. “Cheeky little shit,” she hissed.
My cheek stung. A fire flared inside of me.
Hold it together, Avila, I thought. This woman is not well.
It was better to give her what she wanted and quietly slink away than to fight. If I struck her now, we might never get off this island. Kane and Eve would be dealing with two more dead bodies.
“Just tell me what you saw.”
“A woman,” I spat and hesitated on how much to tell her. Something told me this was her mother. But this was it—this was what she wanted. Better to get it done and out of the way. “She was raped in this room. I think it was one of the assistant biologists,” I lied.
What if telling her the truth angered her, made her worse?
“Who was raping her?”
“I don’t know.” Another lie. It was one of the Nesbitt brothers, possibly her father. I hadn’t seen his face, not that I would’ve recognized him, but I didn’t have to. I knew he was a Nesbitt from his camouflaged pants and dirty undershirts, the shotgun strapped to his back, same way the brothers had appeared out in the woods where they were buried.
“You’re lying to me. Tell me who it was.”
“It’s like you want to hear that it was your father. Is that what you want me to tell you?” I yanked my hand away from her and stumbled to my feet. “It was one of the brothers, I don’t know which.”
She stared at me then shook her head. “Do you know why we’re here, Avila?”
“Because you dreamed about this house. Kane told me.”
She smiled. “That’s right. Because I dreamed about this house every night during my childhood. All my life I’ve been searching for photos of it in books, on the internet, even articles on microfiche, never finding it. You don’t even know what microfiche is, do you?”
I watched her laugh for a whole thirty seconds. I didn’t know what was so goddamn funny.
“You fucking millennials. You wouldn’t survive without mommy and daddy to do shit for you. My search has led me to hundreds of houses, hundreds of locations for our shows. But never this one—never the one I actually needed to find. Then, finally, last year I find one photo of it.”
“On the Deadly Florida website,” I said.
“Tha
t’s right. So now I’m here, after a lifetime of searching, fifty-one years old, Avila, and you want me to just give it up, accept it, move on?” Sharon grabbed my wrist and twisted it, slapping the piece of glass back into my hand. “I’m not going to get used to the idea. Try again. Who is the man committing rape?”
As someone who knew exactly where I’d come from, the history of my people given to me every day by my elders, stories orally crafted and lovingly delivered, I felt for Sharon Roswell—I really did. I felt sorry for anyone who didn’t know their origins and I was grateful to know mine. This woman had been searching for her parents, and my touching this stupid piece of glass could give her the missing piece she’d always needed.
So, why did my body warn me with every fiber of my soul?
I closed my eyes.
Again, I saw the woman, her face clearer this time. Crystal blue eyes shone from a pale face, as she realized someone was in the hallway, someone who could help her if only they could hear her all the way over here in the bomb shelter. Her assailant paused, pulled away, and stood on his toes to see out the window. She cried out through the gag, prompting her rapist to slap her, press his blade to her ear.
“What did I tell you? No noises.”
Seeing him clearly now, he was definitely one of the two men out in the woods who’d shot the assistant, one of the two brothers fighting to get this house back. The knife he used to threaten her had etch marks on the side—W.N.
“William. It’s William Nesbitt,” I croaked.
“Bill,” Sharon whispered.
But it wasn’t so much the rapist who stood out to me, it was the victim. Bill Nesbitt hadn’t raped the assistant biologist—this was Elena Villegas with the pleading eyes and the rag stuck in her mouth. I’d seen her in the other vision crying on the front steps when my grandfather arrived to help.
“What are you doing here?” Bill paused, fixing the waist of his pants and coming around the table the moment he saw me. I dropped the glass and moved away, sure as hell that this ghost from the past had noticed me watching him committing a crime.
He was coming for me.
“Get away,” I said.
“There’s nobody here, Avila,” Sharon said.
But he was—he was coming for me.
I ran from the room, positive that Bill Nesbitt had seen me watching him—witnessing his crime. Running down the hallway, I looked for a way out, felt Bellamy following me, laughing. I was supposed to be watching her, keeping her safe while her husband was away, only her husband was back now—just outside—and his wife was here with this man.
What was happening?
I looked down at the shotgun in my hands. Hands that were darker, wider, and more wrinkled. Hands that were not mine. How had this appeared?
This was crazy. When had this shotgun appeared in my hands? Who was I, and why could I only think about the rage I felt? The pure anger coursing through my veins, the resentment of having been tricked by a wicked woman, condemned to the sea of grass forever. I wasn’t Captain Bellamy, and yet Captain Bellamy lived inside of me.
I tried shaking the images from my mind to no avail.
My thoughts weren’t my own; they were someone else’s. I was trapped inside the mind of someone else entirely—and now I knew who. My fingers clutched the gator tooth necklace around my neck. My grandfather’s. I was supposed to be keeping Elena Villegas safe, but instead, I’d been outside with my boy, and as a result, this animal had sneaked in and assaulted her.
I lifted the barrel of the shotgun, even though I’d never shot a man before, and aimed it at him. At the offender. Fury flowed through me at both him and his brother. Wrath at myself for not doing my job, the one job I had promised Rutherford. The other Nesbitt brother stepped into the house at just that moment, met in a hallway and both of them looked at me, pleading to give back the gun.
Rutherford announced his arrival, demanding to know what was going on. I felt the fury within even at him for having moved into this house, for not having left the premises when trouble first started. Because of him, a woman had died at the hospital, a family wanted their home back, and a spirit possessed this home, even me.
Now they would all DIE…
“Mr. Cypress, sir. Don’t do this,” Bill Nesbitt pleaded, hands up. “You don’t want to do—”
I pulled the trigger, heard the screams.
Multiple shots.
In every direction.
Watched them fall—both brothers—slumped to the floor. A pool of blood spread throughout the rooms and hallway. I shot again. All of them, every last one of them—Rutherford, the male assistant, Peter, who’d come out of his room to see what was going on. All their faults. I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for them. The biologist’s wife watched in horror as I murdered the entire outfit—both warring parties. I could not shoot her, as she’d been my charge to protect, and the boy I would spare, because he was my own flesh and blood. But I had to end this reign of terror before I caused more harm.
I turned the gun on myself.
What had I done?
Oh, God, what had I done?
TWENTY-TWO
“Avila!” Sharon shook me so hard, I held onto the handrail to keep from tumbling back into the small room. Bomb shelter. Wherever the hell I was. “What the hell?”
Kane and Eve rushed into the kitchen and found us at the steps leading down.
I panted, gasped for air, reality, and all the sanity I could find. I pulled at my hair and sobbed full sized tears. I wasn’t Robert Cypress, my grandfather. I was me and it wasn’t 1967. What the hell had just happened?
“My grandfather…”
“You were screaming.” Eve caressed my hair.
“My grandfather…”
I couldn’t say much else. The words felt stuck in my throat. The blood—my God, the blood was everywhere.
He committed the murders. But that was impossible. My grandfather had been a peaceful man, a diplomat, a tribe council leader, for the love of God. He’d come here to mediate, to make peace between the feuding families. He hadn’t come here to kill anyone.
I needed space, to sort this out, and so I stumbled through Kane and Eve, through the kitchen, on a heat-seeking mission to find air and space. I felt claustrophobic. It was impossible. Impossible.
“No, it’s not. It’s not…” I rambled incoherently. Exhaustion and emotion welled up inside of me. I didn’t know what was up or down anymore. Without sanity, I would never get out of here. I was already halfway gone.
“Avila, tell us what you saw.” Sharon reached me, sidling up to me and grabbing me by the arm, whirling me to face her.
I shoved her off and her back hit the wall. “Tired of your demands. Leave me alone.”
“No, listen,” she insisted. “If my father didn’t commit the murders, then I need to know who did.”
I couldn’t help sneer at her. “You need to know, you need to know. Your need to know everything has ruined our lives. He didn’t commit the murders,” I growled. “Now, leave me alone.”
“Who did then? You saw who did it, didn’t you? I heard you saying, ‘What have I done?’ Who did it, Avila? God damn it, stop walking away from me!” Her fingernails dug into my arm.
Ripping my arm and cocking it back, my fist came pummeling forward with a mind of its own and cracked into the side of Sharon’s face. If I made it out of here alive, I would deserve an award for dealing with this woman, the house, and the psychic attacks I never asked for.
“My grandfather.”
Sharon stood, shocked, hand to face, staring at me.
I stopped in the hallway and gaped around the living room.
At Linda’s dead body.
At the rotting, festering walls dripping with rainwater.
At the black cloud of hatred and cursed death seeping through the walls.
At the pools and pools of dark liquid spilling from innocent veins.
I couldn’t shake them off, the images.
&n
bsp; Grandfather Robert Cypress had walked into Villegas House—cursed, haunted Villegas House—after taking a slow walk with his son, my Uncle Bob, and found Elena Villegas getting assaulted. The guilt had consumed him at first, and then a wave of rage had risen over him. Because the crime he was witnessing had been his fault, to some extent, for not watching over her, sure.
But none of that had been the real reason he’d snapped—the real reason he’d snapped was because his spirit had been taken over by the oldest entity here. Same reason why Roscoe Nesbitt had vacated the house ten years before. Same reason why nobody had been able to live here in fifty years. Because Bellamy had been a cursed soul, first in life, then in afterlife, condemned to ruin the lives of everyone he came across until his curse was lifted.
He possessed the body of whoever was in charge, and for some reason, he thought that was me.
“Your grandfather killed everyone?” Sharon’s mouth was agape.
“Not everyone.” I spoke into the wall as more visions came to me. They were everywhere. I couldn’t escape them. The only way they would let me go was for me to leave their influence. Until I could do that, I would never be free again. “He spared my uncle who was a child then. And Rutherford’s wife.”
I looked at Sharon.
Same heart-shaped face, same eyes as the woman who’d been raped.
“Your mother.”
“No,” she said slowly. Blue eyes pierced mine. “No, Avila. My mother was a Florida gladesman’s wife, Bill Nesbitt’s wife who’s still alive and living somewhere in Big Cypress. Linda told me Nesbitt was my father, but first I had to find out which Nesbitt brother…”
“No, Sharon.”
“Yes. It’s just a matter of narrowing it down, and besides, she couldn’t bear to raise a child alone without her husband, so she gave me up for adoption. See what I mean?”
My head shook slowly.
