by Eliza Lainn
Rose leaned into Noah. "She likes to give nicknames—she gave Bronte hers. She's still working on mine though."
"I'll get to it eventually," I said, dropping my straw back into my glass. "Something stately. Royal. I'll find it."
Noah smiled at Bronte. "What's your real name?"
"Charlotte. But I love Bronte. Everyone says it suits me perfectly."
He nodded. "It does. Because of the author?" he asked me.
"Yes. Mostly. But just the sound of it too, how it rolls off the tongue—I love the sound it makes."
The waiter returned with our salads. For a moment, there was nothing but the soft crunch of eating. Then Noah looked up at Bronte. "Rose tells me that you've lived in that apartment for almost a year now. Do you like it?"
I worked on keeping my face impassive, even as my entire attention focused on their conversation.
"The stairs suck," she chuckled. "But it's not bad. You looking to move?"
"Thinking about it. I'd like to get closer to work, if possible."
"And where do you work?" she asked.
"Hardwick Elementary. I'm a fourth-grade teacher."
I froze with my fork halfway to my mouth. Bronte's head snapped up from her salad.
Both Rose and Noah laughed at our expressions. "Yeah, I get that a lot."
"But you look—" I started before Bronte jabbed me in the gut with her elbow.
I let out a whoosh of air and that only served to deepen Noah's laugh. "I admit, I was the stereotypical frat boy in college. I guess I haven't really updated my wardrobe much—but I like the style. I'm comfortable in it."
"So long as you don't get white-boy wasted," I mumbled into my salad.
He grinned. "Not on school nights."
Rose put her hand on Noah's arm. "Do you mind sliding out? I need to use the restroom."
He slid from the booth and stepped aside so she could get to the bathrooms. Bronte hopped up from her seat. "I think I'll go too."
Noah and I retook our spots as they disappeared down the hallway on the far side of the restaurant.
He waited until they'd turned from view before addressing me. "Your apartment is haunted."
I eyed him for a moment, not sure whether to deny it. But he sounded certain. And our behavior earlier hadn't exactly given me a solid foundation for lying through my teeth about it now. He'd seen the Ouija board. Bronte had admitted that we'd done something with it.
Pushing away my salad, I sighed. "Yes."
He lowered his tone and leaned in closer. Anger flashed in his eyes. "Provoking them with a Ouija board was extremely dangerous. What the hell were you thinking?"
"I wasn't," I snapped. "Ok? I didn't know the proper etiquette for talking with spirits—I must have skipped class that day."
"They know you're aware of them now. And you've invited them to engage with you by using the board. That's like lighting yourself up like it's the Fourth of July for spirits—they'll haunt you. Constantly, and not just through the board. They flock to people with heightened perceptions."
"Is that what happened to you?"
He jerked back from the question. Then he shook his head. "Does Bronte know about all of this? Was she involved?"
"Does it matter?"
His eyes flashed. "Yeah, actually, it does. Because if she's involved, you've just doubled everything. Ghosts pool in places, or near people, with stronger perceptions. Sacred ground, graveyards, psychics, mediums. Anything that has a stronger than average spiritual perception? They seek it out, if they're able. Like moths to a flame. It's bad enough if just one of you has that spotlight on your head. But both of you? Living together?" He shook his head.
"How does it work?" I asked.
He opened his mouth to answer and then his eyes flashed over to where the restrooms were. "Go to the bathroom."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
He wadded up the cloth napkin from his lap and threw it on the table. "Go to the bathroom. Lock the door behind you. I'll be there in a minute."
I debated for a moment about telling him to drop dead. But then I threw my own napkin onto the table and headed for the bathroom.
I met Bronte and Rose as they were coming out. "Thought I'd go before dinner arrived," I said, slinking past them.
"Hurry back. I'm sure the food will be there soon," Bronte said.
I nodded and made as if going to one of the stalls. When the door shut behind them, I moved to it and threw the deadbolt.
Then I waited for Noah.
Perceptions. Well, Bronte and I were absolutely perceiving something different at our apartment. Unless, when the leasing agent had taken us on the tour and kept saying two by two, she had really meant ghosts instead of bathrooms.
Cyril had said something about perceptions being influenced by time and proximity. Is that what had happened? Bronte and I had been living around ghosts until we could see them? Well, see or hear them. And our perceptions were strengthening because there were two of us? And them? Double the spiritual perceptions, or whatever?
That could explain whatever that third thing was. If Bronte and I were deepening our perceptions and seeing ghosts, did that mean that Cyril and Oliver were deepening their perceptions and seeing their own kind of ghost? And it was all happening because we were pooling together our perceptions. Like candles giving off light. Four would be stronger than one.
Knuckles rapped against the bathroom door.
I unlocked it and Noah strolled in. He threw the deadbolt himself and then pulled on the door to check it.
Then he turned toward me. "How long have you been perceiving them?"
I held up a hand. "No way. First, I want to know how you know about all this. Frat-boys turned elementary school teachers don't usually have a wealth of knowledge on the occult."
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. His eyes darted to the mirror above the sink. "I was haunted when I was younger," he let out on a sigh. "For years. All through my childhood. My parents didn't believe me when I started hearing things—they thought I was going crazy. Took me to shrinks and doctors but none of them knew what was wrong."
"Because you were hearing ghosts?"
He nodded. "It took years for my perceptions to develop to the point where I could actually talk with the one in our house. Communicate with her. Eventually I reached the point where I could see her too."
"Her? As in, a lady?"
"Yeah. The old widow who'd died in the house before we bought it. Between the two of us, we eventually realized what was happening. The longer we were in contact with each other, the stronger our perceptions grew. I could see that world. She could see the next."
I shivered. "The next. So there are layers then? Haunting layers, or whatever?"
He gave me a curious look. Then he turned to look over his shoulder, his eyes stopping on the paper towel dispenser. "Got a pen?"
I dug through my purse as he pulled out a paper towel and flattened it on the sink.
He drew a dot near one side and then, from that point, made a cone. Then he started drawing lines in the cone, making different levels. "Did you ever read Dante's Inferno?" he asked while he worked.
"Dante Alighieri? The levels of hell? Geez, Stark, what kind of college did you go to where a frat-boy learned about literature on the level of The Divine Comedy?"
"Funny," he said, then gestured me forward to look at his drawing. He darkened his dot on the towel. "This is us. The living world. Real and alive, full of things that are real and alive. Follow?"
When I nodded, he continued, using the pen to point to the next layer. "This is where the ghosts are. The nice ones. The little old widow from my house was here. They're human except for the fact that they're dead. No life. Think of this as limbo."
He wrote the word and then moved up to the next layer. "This is what's next. This is where the dead and the depraved are. They've lost their life and their humanity. The monsters that crawled under your bed or in your closet? They came from here."
He wrote monsters in that layer.
"In order to break through the barriers between layers, you have to have a strong enough perception to perceive what's there. The old woman and I lived in proximity to each other for a while. So our perceptions deepened. And because of that, we were able to perceive this layer." He jabbed at the monster's layer with his pen.
"Think of it as a veil—most people do. You have a ghost pushing from this end. And you have yourself pushing from the other side. Eventually, it makes a hole, ripping right through the fabric that keeps the layers separate. Now, instead of it being a stationary hole covering a place—which it sometimes is—this hole is right over you. Following you. Does that make sense?"
When I nodded, he continued. "If we'd continued to interact and strengthened our perceptions, I've no doubt we'd get to see into this layer too." He said, pointing at the next one. Instead of writing a word there, he just drew a giant question mark.
"You don't know what's there?"
"Not a clue. Our perceptions hadn't deepened enough when a monster from this layer attacked."
I froze. "Attacked?"
"It killed her," he whispered, a distant look coming into his eye. He stilled, staring down at the paper. "It ripped her to shreds while I watched. While she screamed."
"Noah, I—"
He rounded on me, pulling up the hem of his shirt and turning to show me his back. "And it got me too, Stella."
There were four massive lines dug into his back, from his waist upward, reaching past where I could see with his shirt drawn. They were angry, red, and deep. Scarred over time, but they still stood noticeable against his skin.
I couldn't help the small gasp that slid past my lips. "Oh my God."
He lowered his shirt and turned. "It tried to kill me, Stella. And it would have, if not..." he shook his head, banishing the thought, and met my gaze again. "You need to get rid of those ghosts, Stella. The more time you spend with them, the deeper your perceptions become. And when you're spiritually aware enough to perceive the monster's layer, they're able to see you too through the hole you've made in the veil. To interact with you. To attack."
My eyes were locked on his shoulder. I could almost visualize the red claw marks hidden under his shirt. "How?"
His voice softened. "Purification. I can show you how."
Someone ran into the bathroom door then swore when the lock caught. We both jumped at the sound.
"Go back to the table," he ordered, heading for a stall. "I'll meet you there. And tomorrow, I'll show you how to purify your apartment."
I waited until he'd shut himself into a stall before opening the lock and the door. A woman pushed past me and I watched as she headed straight for an open stall, muttering under her breath.
Then my eyes fell on the paper towel still on the sink counter. I grabbed it, and folding it carefully, stowed it in my purse.
The food had been brought to the table. "About time," Bronte mumbled, standing so I could slide in. "You ok?"
Rose fiddled with her napkin in her lap. "Have you seen Noah? He said he was going to the bathroom too, but it's been a while."
"I'm sure he just had to wait in line or something."
He appeared a few minutes later, sliding into his seat with a too-practiced smile. "Sorry about that," he grinned, then took in a long breath of the steaming plate of spaghetti in front of him. "This smells delicious and I am starving."
Chapter Nine
"Purification huh?" Cyril's voice floated through the room.
I turned to look at the Samwise figure hovering over my bed. When I spoke, I kept my voice soft and low. Bronte had already gone to bed but I didn't want to risk her overhearing if she stepped into the kitchen for a glass of water. "That's what he called it. I just...I don't know."
"About what?" Oliver asked. The Frodo figure he'd taken from my shelf floated near the closed bedroom door.
"You two don't exactly seem like spirits that need to be purified, you know?"
Cyril let out a small laugh. "Yes, well, I do appreciate you viewing us that way."
"You've been here for so long," I said quickly, sitting up straighter in my wingback chair. "I just–if you wanted to do something to us, I felt like you would have already. Then there's what happened with that...thing."
"What does Bronte say about this?"
I looked down at the hem of my shirt. My fingers pulled at a loose thread. "I haven't told her."
Oliver's sharp tone caused me to flinch. "Why not?"
"Easy, Oliver."
"She has a right to know, Stella," he continued, ignoring Cyril, his silver voice darkening. "Why haven't you told her?"
I wound the thread around my finger, still unable to look up at the floating figures.
"Because you're partially considering allowing the purification," Cyril answered with a sigh. Samwise began bobbing back and forth between his hands.
"I-I heard it. Bronte didn't hear it; she's going by what we've told her. But that thing? What I heard? I'm going to have nightmares about it. When someone asks you what you're most afraid of, I can promise you, my mind is going to snap back to that thing. Every time."
Oliver sighed. I cringed, preparing for another verbal lashing, but he softened his voice. "Yes, I can understand your hesitation at allowing that–that thing anymore of a presence nearby. I would want to keep it as far away as possible, if I were you."
"I don't know what to do," I admitted. I looked up at Samwise and Frodo. "On the one hand, purifying both of you will work toward keeping that monster from reaching me and Bronte any further. It brushed me once. What would happen if we all continue living together and our perceptions deepen enough for it to attack? Then there's also the purification allowing you to go where you're supposed to go. You wouldn't be stuck here anymore."
I tightened the string around my finger, looking down to see the tip of it turning white. "And on the other hand, I'm not sure that it's the right thing to do. You're here for a reason. Is it right of me to just boot you along without you finishing your unfinished business, or whatever?"
For a moment, neither one of them responded. I continued to stare down at my finger until, finally, I had to release the thread.
"Which is your preference?" Cyril asked.
I sighed and threw myself back against the back of the chair. "I don't know."
"It can't be comfortable, ghosts haunting your apartment," he said.
"Being uncomfortable? Is that any reason to kill people? Because that'll be like what this is. Forcing you to go onto your afterlife, or whatever. Moving on."
Oliver's voice held a bitter tinge. "We're not people, Stella. We haven't been for a while."
"Your people enough," I said, reaching for the throw draped over the back of the chair.
"Are you cold?" Cyril asked.
"A little. Do you change the temperature in a room?"
There was a hesitant pause before Cyril answered. "I'm not sure. It's not something we've noticed, but then again, it would be difficult to without a body. We can leave, though. If you're chilled."
"I'm fine," I said, spreading the blanket over my legs. "But I do want to hear your opinions. Noah could give you a chance to move on. Is that something you'd want?"
"No," Oliver answered immediately. "Not like that. I'm of your mind on the matter, Stella. We're here for a reason. I would like to figure out what that is."
Cyril hesitated before speaking.
"What?" Oliver asked. I wondered if he saw something on Cyril's face that betrayed his thoughts.
"It's just, over a century is a long time to wonder at your purpose. Isolated and alone. Cut off from everything." His voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke. "It's lonely, Oliver."
"Not anymore." Frodo bobbed a little, no doubt Oliver expressing himself gesturally with the same excitement I could hear in his tone. "Stella and Bronte can perceive us now too."
"Yes, but we'll still be stuck in this apartment. Trapped by four walls whil
e they're out living their lives, and the pair of us, sitting at home to wait for them. It might work now, but how long will that arrangement last? Will it still work when they split up? Marry? Have children? Not to mention we still have no idea how to handle that creature. It might be better for all parties involved if we did move on."
"So you'd rather kill yourself?" Oliver asked, his tone biting.
Cyril responded with patience. "I'm just saying we should consider all options before making a decision. Look at everything."
"We're here for a reason."
"Don't you think if that were true, Oliver, then we'd have figured out our purpose by now?"
"So you want to give up?" There was venom in his voice.
I rose from my seat. "Guys, please. I don't want to fight about this."
Frodo move suddenly, springing toward me. Startled, I took a step back and fell back down into my chair.
Frodo stopped short. "I'm sorry, Stella. I keep forgetting that you can't really see us."
"It's fine," I said, disentangling myself from the throw blanket.
"I was going to ask though," Oliver continued. "Do you think it'd be possible for Noah to purify one of us? Cyril can leave if he wants then. And I can stay."
I glanced over to the Samwise figure, expecting Cyril to respond. But he didn't.
"I'm not sure," I said slowly, turning back to Frodo. "But I don't think so. I mean, you both haunt the same item, right? I think purification would be of that item. So you'll have to be decided on it. And besides, you wouldn't want to stick around without Cyril, would you?"
Oliver snorted. "I've been stuck with Cyril for over a hundred years."
"But still. That has to be better than having no one."
Oliver didn't answer.
But the Frodo figure dropped to the ground.
"He's gone," Cyril sighed.
I rose again and went to pick up the hobbit. "Yeah, I figured. Did I upset him?"
"No. I think he's just upset about the idea of being purified. I think it's the word that upset him. Purified. As if we're something defiled that needs to be cleansed."
