by Harper Lin
“We understand.”
I shuddered and nearly collapsed where I was standing. My eyes flooded with tears, and the sobs raced from my throat, making my whole body jerk. I tried not to wail even though that was what I really wanted to do. Instead, I hobbled to the bed and let gravity pull me into the soft pillows and comforter.
Without anyone around, I let myself wallow in this sadness that seemed to completely envelop me, and I cried. It was that deep, guttural crying like I had done when the realization my mother was not coming back had hit me. She had been dragged underneath my bed by twisted, mangled, inhuman hands, and I’d never see her again. Except no one had died here. Or had I?
Burying my face deeper in the pillow, I mourned the part of myself that I thought was dying. My spirit was shriveling up like a fern deprived of water. I could feel my bones becoming brittle and dry. My heart, which used to pump with wild excitement when Halloween or my birthday with my family came or when I’d see…him, was slowing. Each beat was an epic, painful struggle, as if it wanted to just quit. How terrifying was that to even consider? That my mind wanted to keep going, but my heart wanted to just stop, to give up.
Once I thought I contained no more tears, I let myself fall asleep. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I woke up, my eyes stung. I went to the bathroom. I hadn’t even looked at it when I arrived and was surprised to see a white, lion-clawed tub with a handheld showerhead attached. Complimentary fizzy bath salts the size of tennis balls were stacked on the counter beside a sink that looked like nothing more than a glass bowl on a wooden pedestal.
I turned on the hot water, dropped in a fizzy, and watched as the water swirled around and the sweet smell of roses filled the air. As I watched, I had a flash of the Wonder Falls waterfall near the part of the river where my dear friend Min Parks and I had gone to talk and make plans when we were in high school. For a split second, I was there. I could smell the earth. I could feel the mist against my skin. The water.
And just like that, the image was gone. I climbed into the hot bath and washed my hair and face. Then I stayed there for a while until my fingers became like prunes and my cheeks were bright red.
Trick of the Light
By the time I finished soaking and got dressed in one of my new outfits, I was feeling a bit better. My muscles still ached as if I had gone up and down a bunch of steps a day or two ago. Perhaps I had done just that trying to keep busy and keep my mind off Blake Samburg. I couldn’t be sure, but it wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibility.
The clock next to the bed read 1:34 p.m. I was supposed to meet Aunt Astrid and Bea in the lobby at 2:00. I had just enough time to put on some of the jewelry they’d bought me. Brushing my hair and pulling it off my face into a tight ponytail felt good. I looked in the mirror and was surprised at what I saw. Staring back at me was a very feminine, soft-looking woman.
Was I pretty? Maybe a little. Certainly not like Bea, but in my own way, I thought I had some stuff, good stuff.
Just then came a knock on the door. Stepping into new flip-flops with little jewels dangling from them, I went to the door and pulled it open. Expecting to see Aunt Astrid or Bea, I smiled broadly and started to say “How do I look?” but no one was there. I stuck my head out and looked down the hallway, first to my left and then to my right, where it ended just a few feet away at the red EXIT sign and the heavy metal door leading to the fire escape.
I was hearing things. It was as simple as that. Letting the door pull itself shut, I was turning to go pick up my key from the nightstand when I heard something else. I froze, held my breath, and listened. Scratching. I heard scratching and a raspy female voice mumbling unintelligible words in a venomous tone. The sounds were on the other side of my door.
Images of those rotten little black-eyed children jumped into my mind so abruptly that I took a step back. It couldn’t be them. No. But my mind wouldn’t let me push their wicked little images aside.
For a second I contemplated jumping into the bed and pulling the comforter over my head. That would make me safe, right? That’s why children were never harmed or saw their mothers pulled under their beds by monsters.
“Enough,” I whispered. I tiptoed to the door and raised my hand to the knob, only to be humiliated by it trembling as if in an impersonation of Katherine Hepburn when she and her Parkinson’s disease had reached the ripe old age of ninety.
I gripped the doorknob, took one big breath, held it, and yanked the door open. Nothing. No one was there.
“I heard it,” I said to myself, only a second later realizing I had called the noise and female voice “it.”
Shaking off the shiver that ran up my spine, I headed off down the hallway, tucking my card key into the breast pocket on my loose, flowy blouse. No one was in the hallway. No housekeepers were knocking on doors or mumbling crazily inside other rooms. No one could have knocked on my door, let alone stood scratching and panting outside it.
“I’m burnt out. That’s all,” I uttered out loud. “I can’t do this anymore. That’s all there is to it. The powers that be are telling me it’s time to get out while it’s not too late to have a normal life.” The thought was painful, but I was sure it was true. I had lost my nerve.
As I headed downstairs, I wondered how I’d tell Aunt Astrid and Bea about this. Maybe I wouldn’t have to if I found another job, maybe sold the house and moved into a small condo in another town and made all new friends. Yeah, that would work. People were always trying to be my friend because of my sparkling personality. Even my thoughts grumbled those words. I was as approachable as a hungry feral cat and about as embraceable as a cactus.
Once down in the lobby, I looked around but didn’t see my relatives anywhere. It was then that I realized I was getting tired again. I had slept all morning after my crying session. I should have felt refreshed, but instead I had this weird feeling that I was plastic wrap that had stuck to itself. Fresh air was all I needed.
I walked out the electronic sliding doors and let the hot sun chase the chills away. A slight breeze blew, but it did little more than carry some pollen and a lazy leaf or two down from a drying branch.
I exhaled and checked whether I could see my own breath. Not yet. It wasn’t that cold. I rubbed my neck and stepped out of the way of the other guests coming and going. I found loads of fall flowers and foliage to study from where I stood on the sidewalk. It amazed me how much nature still seemed to be alive even as the season was winding down for its long winter nap.
It seemed no matter where I looked, I found a hidden treasure of a bright gazing ball perched among some pussywillows or a little wooden door at the base of a wide old tree or the bird feeders and bird baths that attracted bright yellow or blue winged creatures. Some bird zipped by every couple of seconds.
Fat, heavy bumblebees still bounced along the little white flowers. Bright-green things were still sprouting, literal late bloomers. I listened and heard trickling water that must have been coming from the hot springs. Maybe I’d find a waterfall around here, too.
The thought of that made me feel hopeful. Was this just a funk I was in? Would I wake up tomorrow and feel better? I doubted it. That had been my mantra over the past several weeks. Every day I went to bed saying Tomorrow I’ll feel better. I’ll feel like myself. And every day I woke up with that sinking feeling that nothing had changed.
But wasn’t all this beauty, this nature, wasn’t it all a sign that things could get better? The late-blooming plants and the fat bumblebees didn’t know it was almost time to call it quits. They just kept going, right?
As if in a sick answer to a naïve question, I spied the pink innards of what had been a chipmunk not so long ago. It had been torn open, probably by a raccoon. Now ants and flies were making their way over and inside it. While I watched, three other chipmunks came out from underneath the decorative slabs of stone and began tugging on the body, one at the tail end, one at the head. I stared.
Why would they do this? Were they
trying to eat the remains? Did they eat their own? I had never heard of such a thing in the rodent world. Not that I was all that privy to it. I watched in gruesome fascination as three figures buried their heads, side by side, in the exposed cavity. They were from the same family. I shuddered even though the sun was making me feel hot.
Hey! Stop that! What are you doing? Leave that alone! I called in my thoughts. Rodents were harder to communicate with than cats. It was like trying to have a conversation with someone who had extreme attention deficit disorder.
I listened but didn’t hear anything except a weird humming coming from them. They were gone. Something else had taken over. Whether that was good, old-fashioned instinct or something more insidious, I couldn’t say. I wrinkled my nose, shook my head, and stepped aside for a more tranquil view. But something inside kept prodding me as if I was meant to see that gross act of nature. Was it an omen? As a witch, I was supposed to believe in that sort of thing. I was supposed to take heed and let the rest of my coven know.
“But I don’t want to be a witch anymore, right?” I grumbled to myself.
I looked off into the uneven barrier of trees only to gasp! What I saw there looked like a daddy longlegs spider that had grown to the size of a cat. I wouldn’t have noticed it except that it shifted its position. It had moved when I spoke to the chipmunks.
“No,” I muttered. It must be a trick of the light. But then a human-like head tilted up at me. It was a sickly white with large red eyes that pierced through the shadows from the overhead branches like the tracers of a scope on a rifle. It grinned.
I looked behind me to see if anyone else could see it too, but I was all alone. Funny how just seconds ago I had been musing to myself about all the life, all the activity in the woods, but when I turned toward the parking lot and entrance to the spa now, nothing moved. I could have been staring at a picture. I whipped back around and saw the tree again. No giant human-arachnid hybrid. No fiery eyes. All I saw now was a weird pattern in the tree bark. Just a regular tree that had probably been in this spot for over five decades.
“Just a trick of the light,” I soothed myself. But a grumble began in the center of my chest and continued to grow. Seconds before a full-blown panic attack took over, I realized it was the roar of an approaching motorcycle that was causing my heart to dance inside my ribcage.
Tom Warner
A limousine came chugging up the cobblestones to the front entrance just behind a police motorcycle. The cycle’s red and blue lights were flashing. My first thought was that we were all going to get kicked out because some politician didn’t want to risk bumping into the riff-raff that had actually voted him into office.
However, when the officer hopped off the bike and opened the door on the stretch, four lovely women carrying champagne glasses hopped out. The fifth woman to emerge had a short little white veil attached to her head. Then two much older, portly women brought up the rear. This had to be the bridal party the desk clerk had been talking about.
As all the women giggled and chatted their way inside, I couldn’t help but envy them. They didn’t see any creepy spider with a human head grinning at them.
It was just your imagination, Cath. That’s all.
I tried to comfort myself and think of how nice it would be if I were to get married someday. If I were going to shed my witchy ways, perhaps that day would actually come.
The police officer stood for a moment before slamming the car door shut. He was facing me and looking at something. I turned around and saw nothing there, and when I turned back, the officer was smiling.
He was wearing sunglasses and looked very cool in his black boots and holster. Just as he gave me a wave, the young lady with the tiny veil came running back out. She said a few things to him, kissed him on the cheek, and then dashed back into the lobby.
Typical, I thought and turned back to face the woods. The wedding was probably tomorrow and he was going to try and get one last fling in before he had to give up the single life for good.
Back to focusing on the wildlife, I strained to see anything out of the ordinary. It had to have been a trick of the light, or I was just seeing things. Tired or confused or a little bit of both.
“Excuse me.” The deep voice made me gasp as I whipped around. It was the police officer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
He took off his sunglasses. His jaw was square and perfectly complemented his flattop haircut, which was so short that only his thick black eyebrows indicated what color his hair really was. Long black eyelashes framed blue eyes that seemed to dance like the water by the river at home did. His lips were thin and curved in a smile that produced a dimple in his left cheek.
“Do you happen to know what time it is? I think the battery in my watch just died.”
“I think it’s just about two. You could probably ask your fiancée and she’ll tell you.” The irritation in my voice was like sandpaper.
“Fiancée?” The puzzled look on his face was almost convincing. Then he rolled his eyes. “Ugh! That’s my sister. The one with the veil, right? Yeah. She’s my sister. She’s getting married next week.”
Folding my arms over my chest, I looked at him skeptically.
He didn’t seem to be too put off by my incredulity and kept smiling.
“My name is Tom Warner.” He stuck out his gloved hand. What could I do? I didn’t have to be completely rude.
“Cath Greenstone,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it.
“Greenstone. Are you related to Bea Williams?”
“She’s my cousin. She’s here too.”
“I know her husband. He needed help from some of us state troopers for a sting operation a while back, and we got to spend a little time together. A real nice guy. Detective Jake Williams, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, feeling the ice start to melt under the gaze of those blue eyes.
“Can’t say the same for his partner. But Jake’s a good guy.”
That was all I needed to hear.
“So, you gave your sister a police escort? That was really sweet.”
He smiled and looked at the ground for a minute.
“Yeah, it was just to give her a little thrill.” He stood there for a moment as if he was waiting for something. I just enjoyed looking at him. He had the kind of shoulders that made you think if he really wanted to, he could just hoist a lady over one of them and carry her off into the sunset. “Are you here with your fiancé?”
I blushed and giggled like a lunatic.
“No. More like a little R&R with my aunt and Bea.”
“No fiancé?”
I blushed a dozen shades of red and shook my head.
“Okay,” he said, smiling as if he approved. “Well, Cath Greenstone. I have to get going. I’ve got to go to work in a couple hours. It was nice meeting you.”
I took his hand again and smiled, too.
“What’s that thing they used to say on that cop show on television? Let’s be careful out there,” I said, feeling corny but too late to stop it.
He smiled. I spied that dimple again.
“I remember that show. Hill Street Blues.”
“Yeah. Is that what made you decide you wanted to be a cop?” I joked.
“No. It was The Andy Griffith Show. I wanted to be just like Barney.”
As much as I didn’t want to, I started to laugh.
“That’s awesome,” I replied, not sure what else to say.
He started to walk away and then stopped. He turned around to face me again.
“Jake Williams is a detective for the Wonder Falls PD, right?”
I nodded.
“That’s great, because I live in Segal and do all my shopping in Wonder Falls.”
“Well, maybe I’ll see you around some time,” I said, still smiling.
“I think you might.” He turned, and I watched him as he walked back to his bike, climbed on, started the engine, slipped his sunglasses back on, and drove aw
ay. Sure, he was strutting a little, and yes, I’m sure he knew how sexy he looked riding that motorcycle, but I liked it all the same. I didn’t expect to ever see him again. But for those few moments, I’d laughed a real laugh, and it felt good.
When I went back into the lobby, I saw my aunt and Bea waiting.
“Sorry,” I said, shrugging. “I lost track of time out there just looking at the scenery.”
“No worries, honey,” Aunt Astrid said, her earlier scrutiny now completely gone.
“So what are we doing?” I asked, trying to sound enthusiastic but feeling that dusk settle over me again.
“Well, we are all getting massages first and then pedicures.” Bea looked as if she had aged backward and was at least five years younger. This place must have been feeding her aura with good, holistic vibes. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for myself.
“Well, that sounds fine,” I lied. I didn’t any more want a massage than I wanted a root canal, but they had gone through the trouble. This was to help me, they’d said. Okay, I’d play along.
I decided not to tell them about Officer Warner. What would be the point? He wouldn’t be making any special appearances. I figured he was just a flirt, one of those guys who acted nice to all the girls. He probably thought I needed to be cheered up, and a quick conversation with Officer Devastatingly Handsome was just the ticket. I hate to admit it, but it hadn’t hurt.
The Paranormal Lifestyle
I was sitting in a plush chair wearing nothing but underpants underneath the softest terrycloth robe on the planet when Olga came for me. Yes, her name really was Olga. She was a professional masseuse and was built like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears.
“You’re with me, honey.” Her soft voice was not at all in sync with her physical appearance of curly blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, a ruddy complexion, and thick, hardworking hands. I would have expected to see her on a farm or perhaps at a roadside construction site holding the STOP/ SLOW sign for cars to go by, but not at all in the white T-shirt and slacks that were typical masseuse attire.
