by ERIN BEDFORD
“Thanks Aunt Sue.” I gave her a small smile in return and turned to look back out the window. For all her suspicions, I have always like Aunt Sue. She’s always standing up for me against Aunt Kate, even if her older sister was right in most occasions. At least I wouldn’t have to see any of them for a while after this. College was right around the corner.
One good thing about not having that many friends growing up was there was always plenty of time to study. I actually had the highest GPA in my graduating class. If I wasn’t a social leper, I would have been valedictorian, but no one wanted to hear inspirational speeches from the death girl. I could just imagine what my speech would entail.
“Thomas Jefferson’s class of 2019, though many of you will die before you have time do anything exceptional in your lives, you made it through high school. Your lives will go on to be completely boring and meaningless and while your husbands and wives have affairs behind your backs and your children end up in juvie, you will think back to this day when you were at the height of your lives. Congratulations you poor sad fuckers.”
Or something like that.
While I wished I could say I got into Princeton or Harvard with my stellar GPA, but unfortunately the big Ivy League colleges looked at more than just grades. So, what if I didn’t want to be a cheerleader of a mathlete? Did that mean that I didn’t deserve a great school? I could be the next Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin but no they only cared if I had spirit. Which I didn’t. Not at all.
Unlike Nikki. She had so much spirit it was coming out of her wazzoo. But since Nikki didn’t have any such high standards, despite what her parents would want for her, I would be joining her at the big UN of O in the fall. Majoring in whatever I found to be the least nonsensical and touchy feely. Probably a lab tech. I could hide in a tiny lab every day and blow shit up.
Nikki was going to be a nurse.
“We’re here kiddo.” Uncle Bob who had been snoring most of the trip, kicked my black ankle boot with one of his dress shoes. I glanced at him and then looked back out the window. We actually were there. When had that happened?
“Come one kiddo. They ain’t gonna start without you.” Uncle Bob waited outside the door for me as I smoothed out my short black dress over my knitted tights and stumbled out onto the gravel of the graveyard road.
So, this is what a graveyard looked like. For all the deaths I’d seen I’d never actually been to a funeral before, let alone a graveyard. I had enough problems with the dead. No need to rock that boat quite yet.
I followed the trail of somberly dressed people as we made our way toward where my mom’s new home would be. It was a lot cheerier than I would have expected a graveyard to be. I mean where was the darkened skies, the crows, and all the creepy weeping angels? Maybe that was only a nighttime attraction. Shouldn’t have signed up for the midnight special.
A hand grasped mine in theirs before I could pull it back. When I followed the hand up to the owner’s face I relax. It was just Nikki. No more visions for me today.
Yay.
“How you holding up?” She gave me a small concerned look.
I rolled my eyes at her. “How do you think?”
“Well, judging by the scowl on your face I’m assuming your Aunt Kate said something rude again and you are trying to decide if it is worth it to tempt the fates and kill her early.” I snorted and tried to cover it up with what looked like a distraught cry of anguish. God, do I love this girl.
Nikki pulled me into a hug in front of the coffin that held my mother’s body and pretended to be comforting a crying daughter, when really I was trying hard to breathe through my laughs. She gave me a particularly hard pat on the back. Her signal for knock it off already, it wasn’t that funny. What can I say, I was easily amused.
When I finally had myself under control, I pulled back from her and took my rightful place next to the coffin. The minister was staring at me as if he knew I hadn’t really been crying. I narrowed my eyes and jerked my head towards him. I almost started laughing again when the large man startled at my hard gaze and quickly looked down at the book in his hand. My eyes wandered away from the man as his gravelly voice went on to talk about walking through the valley of death.
Man, you’re preaching to the choir.
My gaze drifted to the surrounding graves. There were a few family tombs around the outskirts of the graveyard. Each lined up along the metal fence. At least that part of the graveyard was consistent with horror movies. I moved my eyes along the different types of graves and paused.
There in the midst of them, sticking out like the only straight guy at a Jonas Brothers concert, was a tree. Though, it was mid-June, the tree looked like it was stuck in a perpetual winter. Not dead, but not full and vibrate like the rest of the trees outside the graveyard. I stared at the tree for a moment, wondering why they decided to put one tree in the whole lot of land. As I stared the shadows of the tree grew and widened, stretching out into long black wings on either side. My head jerked up from the ground just in time to see a lone figure step out of the shadows.
A man. At least he looked like a man. He was blurry at first, but after a few moments he seemed to solidify. Dressed in what had to be a pretty expensive black suit along with a pair of dark shades stood my dad. Bart.
What the hell was he doing here? How did he even do that? Crap he’s looking at me.
I looked away from him and turned my gaze back to the minister. Did they see? I chanced a quick peek at the others around me. None of them seemed to have noticed the man just standing in the middle of the graveyard. A quick look at Nikki showed she hadn’t noticed anything either. She glanced down at me as if she expected me to do something.
When it looked like I wasn’t getting what she wanted me to do, she nudged me forward with a nod of her head towards the casket. Oh. It was that time already. I tried to keep my eyes off my father, who just watched us from his place by the tree and reached out to take one of the white roses off the casket. I clutched it in my hand and moved back to my spot, letting the aunts and other relatives have their turn at it.
I hurried a look at the tree and saw him staring at me. He had taken his sunglasses off now and I could practically feel his eyes boring into my skin. What was he doing? Without a remark to those around me, I pulled away from the pack and marched over to where the lone tree waited.
As I arrived in front of him, I took in his features. To my ever growing chagrin, I looked just like him. The straight blonde hair that swept across his forehead. His slightly blue green eyes and bowed mouth. Even the little upturn of his nose was the same and he didn’t have a wrinkle in sight. How was it that he looks this perfect when mom had had grey coming in and laugh lines around her mouth? It just wasn’t fair.
Ignoring his outstretched arms, I stopped in front of him arms crossed. “What are you doing here?”
He dropped his arms and just looked at me. What was he staring at? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before. I hadn’t exactly changed since the age thirteen. Yea, I had boobs now and maybe a curvier figure, but I was overall still the same.
“You didn’t call me.” Had his voice always been that melodic? I glared down at the ground and kicked the dirt beneath my feet.
“Didn’t think you’d care.”
I watched his face turn from concern into anger and then controlled irritation. Wish I had that much control over my temper. I usually just let it all out. Probably another reason why I was getting in trouble all the time.
“Of course I care Eleanor. I’m not completely heartless.”
I snorted, “Could have fooled me.”
His eyes return to their previous concern and for a moment he seemed flustered. “I wanted to be here for you. Especially today. I…I didn’t know. I didn’t see.”
I stared at him for a moment, my mouth a gaped. I watched as he dragged a hand through his hair in a gesture I had never seen him use before. My dad was not the frazzled type. He didn’t get flustered. He didn’t show
emotion. He definitely never said anything about ever seeing anything. My shocked look must have made him realize he was breaking his usual cool exterior, because he quickly dropped his hand and hid his eyes behind his sunglasses.
I forced my mouth closed and put on my best interrogator face. “You didn’t see what exactly?”
“Don’t start Eleanor. You know damn well what I said.” Oh, he wasn’t as put together as he seemed. I took joy in knowing he wasn’t as perfect as he puts off. Meaning he could be hurt.
“Don’t what? Don’t wonder why my father is never around? Don’t ask why he has never thought to mention to me not once that he could see stuff too?” I hold a finger up in his face. It felt good to vent. “Or how about the fact that when I was five, I watched my mother die and had nightmares about it for months!”
“Enough, Eleanor. Stop.” The calm in his voice made my own repressed anger break its leash.
“No! You don’t get to tell me when it is enough. Do you want to know she died crying out your name? Do you? She was waiting for you to save her!” I gripped the front of his meticulous suit, happy to ruin something of his. “Why? Why would she call for you? A husband who was never there, when I have been there for the last eighteen years and she wouldn’t let me save her. She wouldn’t let me!” A large part of me delighted in the pain that marred my father’s flawless face. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me all these years. Like he had hurt her.
“How long has your hand been bothering you?”
I took in short shallow breathes and stared at him. I released his suit jacket and stepped back, my brows drawn together. What? Out of all that he was only worried about my scar? I looked down at my hand where I had been rubbing at it. I hadn’t even realized I had been doing it.
“A few months. Why does that matter?”
I almost laugh when he cursed and pulled out his phone like nothing I just said mattered. Watching him talk into his phone I realized something. The man I thought was my father was not who I thought he was at all. I didn’t know this man.
“Yes, now. Perfect. Be there soon.”
My brow furrowed as he hung up his phone and turned back to me. “What’s going on? What’s my scar have to do with anything?”
He suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders, and I tried not to flinch against him. My father has never touched me before and I didn’t really want to see anything about him. But nothing happened. No blurred eyes. No images. Nothing. It was almost like he didn’t exist.
“We have to go.”
“Go. Go where? I’m not going anywhere with you.” I tried to jerk out of his grasp, but he tightened his grip and I couldn’t break free.
“I’m sorry. There’s no time.” He pressed his lips to my forehead in the way I’d always secretly hoped he would. When he pulled away, I could only stare at him in wonder.
“No time for what?”
But my question went unanswered as the world started to dark around me. Later, much later, I would wonder how nobody noticed when he picked me up and faded back into the trunk of the tree like he was never even there.
Chapter 3
Sometimes when I dream, I find myself sitting in my own personal movie theater. Where a reel of my life played out on the screen. There’s never anyone else around. Just me. In the dark. Watching my life pass by.
To my utter irritation the reel never got farther in my life than where I already was in my life. So, when the screen goes dark and the reel starts to click against the projector, I was left empty and hollow. Alone.
Bullshit. The whole thing was utter bullshit.
Was I not allowed to see my own future? Didn’t I deserve that much? Was it God’s idea of protecting me from myself? I’d hardly think after everything I’d seen and felt that he would think that this would be his way of saving my sanity. From what I’d witnessed God didn’t give two shits about me or anyone else.
He was that mean girl in high school who spread rumors to other kids just to see the horror and mayhem unfold.
If the very fact that I was getting screwed over in the whole deal, then I could appreciate the irony. I liked irony. Like the time that a bully named Reece at my middle school had cut in front of the whole line so he could get the last piece of pizza only to find out it had pineapples on it. See, irony. Didn’t want that gross crap anyway and neither did Reece.
But I had even gotten to see even Reece’s death. I could see everyone else’s future, but my own. In the end I guess I was just like everyone else. Waiting in the dark for a future unwritten. I had never liked the dark. Too many shapes and whispers around the edges that fought to be free.
“Eleanor.” They whispered. Their voices are like raspy smoke victims, all crackled and harsh. “We see you, Eleanor. We’re going to find you.”
Usually, by this point I was curled up into a ball on the floor of my theater with the dark creeping in around me. This dream was different than the others. This time they didn’t come any closer. They were stuck. As I looked around the corners of the theater, I could feel the pressure of their struggles as they tried to get to me. Why weren’t they moving?
I suddenly cried out as a burning overtook my right hand. The scar. I stared down at it and realized it wasn’t like it was before. It’s red and festered like an infected wound. What in world was going on?
“Help!” A scream ripped from my throat as the pain radiated through my hand and I fell to my knees. The whispers in the dark laughed. A haunting cackling that bounced off the walls.
“No one to help you now. We can see you, Nabi.” The last word came out as a hiss. Nabi. They repeated it over and over almost like a prayer. The sound of them grew louder and louder, until I couldn’t even hear the sound of my own voice anymore.
As I knelt there with my hands over my ears trying to drown at the noise, the burning in my hand started to fade and with it another voice could barely be heard over the chants.
“Eleanor.”
Dad?
The chanting around me came to an abrupt halt as if they had heard it to and were trying to listen. I lowered my hands and slowly pushed to my feet. With the pain in my hand gone, I scanned around me and saw the shadows still there, just barely moving around in the corners of the room. Were they scared of my dad?
“Wake up, Eleanor.”
The sound of his voice caused light to shine into the darkened theater and my eyelids fluttered open. Even as my conscious awakened in the back in my mind, in the theater I could still hear them. No longer silent and waiting but panicked and rushing about in the darkness. In their haste for escape I could still catch them chanting the word.
Nabi.
“I think she’s waking up now, Bart. Give her some room.” My eyes snapped open at the new voice of a woman near my feet. One hand rubbed my eyes as I tried to sit up on what seemed to be a leather couch. Where was I?
“Don’t move to fast dear. Though, you were out cold, shifting still makes most of us nauseous the first time.” There was a slight musical note to her voice, and I wondered for a moment if she was related to my dad.
I blinked my eyes several times as I stared at the dark-haired woman at the end of the couch. She stood with her arms crossed under her breast, which looked like they could spill out of the v-cut in her deep purple suit jacket at any moment. Was she even wearing a shirt under that thing?
“Who are you?” Damn. Even my voice sounded hollow compared to hers. Maybe I should stop smoking. Nah.
“Eleanor, don’t be rude.” My eyes jerked from the woman and over to my dad, who stood by my side. Hands in his pockets he had a smug expression on his face that was just itching to be slapped off. If my hand didn’t still ache, I would have done it by now.
I swung my legs over the side of the couch and took in the room around me. We were in an office. The woman’s I assumed. Books filled the bookshelves that decorated the walls. A large mahogany desk took up much of the space in the middle of the room. There was no name plat
e and no personal items that would give away who she was.
“What did you do to me?” I was proud of the venomous tone my voice had taken on. It was hard to sound threatening when you had to look up at someone.
“Eleanor it was for you own good.” My dad didn’t even remotely sound apologetic for what he had done. “You wouldn’t have left with me otherwise and we were running out of time.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t have.” I stood and curled my hands into fists. I’d never had a lot of patience. As an only child I had always gotten what I wanted, when I wanted it, and right then I wanted answers. Ignoring the stranger in the room, I shoved a finger at my dad. “You think you can just pop back into my life whenever you and abduct me because you think it’s best? Well, listen up, pops.” I popped my p aggressively. “I’m a grown ass adult. Eighteen, almost ninteen. I don’t have to do anything you say. In fact, you lost that right when you left mom and me to fend for ourselves.”
I shoved around him intent on leaving. Never mind that I had no idea where I was. I just needed to get away from him. A thin but strong hand latched onto my elbow and halted my dramatic exit. Glaring down at the black painted nails, I jerked my eyes up to the dark purple eyes of the stranger. I was startled enough by her unusual eye color to drop my scowl but what really got to me was I couldn’t see her death either.
Leaning in close to her, I stared hard. “What are you?”
Her crimson colored lips tilted up on one side. “Stay and find out.”
She had me there.
I contemplated for a moment between barging out of the room or satisfying my curiosity. The fact that my dad also couldn’t be read was what won out. Whatever this woman was, I had little doubt my dad was too.
“Fine,” I clipped, pulling my arm from her grasp. I didn’t sit back down on the couch but wandered around her room.
“Eleanor,” my dad started.
“Elle,” I interrupted him, my eyes skimming the books on the shelves. Book of Enoch. The Rise and Fall of the Morning Star. Encyclopedia of Celestial Beings. Frowning at the books, I turned back to my dad and the strange woman. “Are you some kind of religious organization?”
