Perception

by Eliza Lainn

  The thought of why Bronte would knock instead of using her key flashed through my mind a heartbeat after I turned the handle and the door inched open.

  Noah stood outside, hands in his pockets, working at a loose nail on the wooden floor of the walkway with the toe of his shoe.

  My blood turned cold.

  His hands snapped up and out of his pockets. He held them up in the universal sign of surrender. "I'm here to talk. To apologize. That's it."

  He looked terrible. He had a black eye and there were bandages all along his left cheek from something that'd cut him. And as he held his hands up, I noticed that his right shoulder couldn't quite go up as much as his left.

  My grip tightened on the door. "Oh really?"

  He gave me a sad expression—I couldn't tell if it was regret or not. Maybe it was even sincere. I was the gullible one though—Rose usually knew how to read people.

  And she'd liked him, I reminded myself. She liked him a lot, she'd said.

  "You can have your guard dogs standing watch, if you want," he offered. He tried to smile but stopped when his busted lip pulled at a drying scab.

  I wasn't about to tell him that Bronte had taken them away. Instead, I moved aside and held the door open for him.

  "Thanks," he breathed, stepping inside.

  He lingered awkwardly near the door as I retreated further into the apartment. I moved so that the couch was between us, trying to make it look like a completely natural, nonchalant thing. The way his face fell though, I could tell I wasn't fooling anyone.

  He cleared his throat and looked around. "They aren't—um..."

  "Going to swoop in and finish what they started?" I offered. "No. They aren't."

  He tried not to look relieved but I caught it flash across his face. Then he brightened. "Not that you'd really need them to, what with what happened yesterday. I think I figured that one out."

  "Name invocation," I nodded. "Yes, I did too."

  "Yeah," he said, bouncing on his heels excitedly, "I'd never met another psychic before—I thought we all had the same powers. But they must be different for each of us. How we tap into life energies or whatever it is must vary depending on the individual person. I make wards. You command names. Do you have any idea what Bronte's is yet?"

  I shook my head and his excitement fell off slightly. "Oh. Well, that's ok. I'm sure hers will manifest sooner or later. But I think it's based off our personalities."

  I frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "You do nicknames," he said, almost confused as to why I couldn't see it for myself. "You gave Bronte her nickname and you commented on my name at dinner. Do you give out nicknames often?"

  Shrugging, I shook my head. "I don't know? No more than normal."

  "I bet you do," he said decidedly. "And I bet that goes hand-in-hand with how you're able to perceive ghosts. You can hear them more strongly, you said? I can usually see them before I can hear them. And I'm a defensive person by nature. It makes sense that my power would be warding."

  I crossed my arms. "Yeah, great, but I think you said something about apologizing?"

  He look startled but roused himself fast. "Oh, right. Yes. I am sorry about what happened yesterday. I didn't mean to take things that far. And then, when you...with the couch..." He turned bright red. Looking down, he used the toe of his shoe to draw the line between where the entry's tile floor met the living room carpet. "I am sorry."

  "I'm not the only one you need to apologize to."

  His head snapped up at that. Again, another look of surprise crossed his face. "Yes. Yes, of course. Can I talk to them?"

  Crap.

  "Maybe—maybe not right now. Cyril's still pretty upset." I held up my arm for him to see the bruises.

  His eyes widened and he took a step forward. Pure panic swept over him. "Did I...did I do that?"

  Double crap.

  Quickly, I tucked my arms behind me. "It's fine. I bruise easily. Look, apology accepted. Just—just no more trying to exorcise the ghosts unless they want to be exorcised. And they know that there's going to be some pain involved with—"

  Something growled.

  And I knew that sound.

  Noah frowned, looking around. "Did you hear that?"

  I turned slowly to look over my shoulder, from the direction the sound had come from. But I couldn't see anything. There was nothing there. Just the dinning table. The door to my bedroom. The door to my bathroom.

  Then I heard breathing. Right at my shoulder.

  And I felt a puff of putrid air hit me in the face.

  Triple crap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Something hit me. Hard. With enough force to send me flying backward across the room.

  Noah caught me before my back slammed against the wall. We both went down, falling into a heap on the ground.

  "Stella!" he shouted, trying to simultaneously get out from underneath me, help me to my feet, and move us closer to the door.

  I looked down at my front, expecting bleeding cuts like what he'd shown me across the front half of my body. But there was nothing. Nothing besides the ache from the impact. It'd felt like an airbag had gone off in my face. An extremely violent, viciously malevolent airbag.

  It howled again. That sound sent life back into my body and I was up and moving, pulling on the front door's handle.

  But it wouldn't budge.

  "It's stuck!" I shouted.

  Noah grabbed at it, pulling with me. But the door wouldn't open.

  "Down!" he shouted, shouldering me to the side. We fell, him on top of me, as splintering wood erupted above us.

  I looked up to catch a glimpse of massive claw marks wrenched across the front door.

  "Put up a ward!" I yelled. We both scrambled away from the door, into the living room.

  I made to head for my bedroom but Noah's arm shot out. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back. I turned.

  He focused on something, watching it as it moved about the room. Jumping from the walls, to the ceiling, to the floor. It moved fast. Like a bouncy ball.

  I nearly laughed. A monster bouncy ball was about to eat us.

  And I still couldn't see a damn thing.

  "This is so freaking old!" I shouted just as Noah yanked me toward Bronte's room.

  The door slammed shut before we could reach it.

  We stopped short, Noah spinning to follow the creature's path as it continued to bounce through the living room.

  I stared at Bronte's door. It swung open, then shut. Open, then shut.

  Then all the doors in the apartment began doing the same thing.

  All the kitchen cabinets. The drawers to the furniture. The bedroom and bathroom doors.

  Open, then shut.

  Banging. Knocking. All so violently the wood protested in groans.

  Beyond Bronte's door, the Ouija board rose into the air. It spun like a pinwheel, spinning around and around until it was eye level with me across the door frame. Then it stopped. Hovered at eye level.

  Then the planchette began to move, spelling out letters.

  Three letters.

  Over and over and over.

  D.

  I.

  E.

  "Put up a ward!" I shouted at Noah, spinning around toward him.

  He stared into the apartment. Watching the banging doors. His mouth moving, forming unsaid words. Eyes wide. Panicked. Terrified.

  "Noah Walker!" I shouted, relief flooding through me when power surged through my voice again. "Put up a ward!"

  His hand slapped up over his eye.

  The banging stopped.

  And the following silence felt infinitely louder than the knocking.

  I could hear my heart hammering in my chest. My body felt jumpy, shaky. My legs wanted to give out. It was a miracle they hadn't yet.

  Noah's hand began to slide down from his eye and I reached out to stop it. "Wait," I whispered, afraid to speak too loudly. Even then, my voice seemed too loud in the stillness. "Maybe
it's gone. Do you see it?"

  "N-no." His voice shook. His hand underneath mine shook.

  Then a noise, so soft and light, drifted through the room.

  I couldn't place it. It sounded like sliding. Fabric sliding. Like when you're stretching the sheets over the bed.

  I turned to look through Bronte's bedroom door. Her bed was still. I stared, waiting, watching, but the sound continued without the sheets moving.

  "Stella."

  I turned at Noah's voice.

  He faced the windows.

  Where the curtains, ever so slowly, began to close.

  The sheer curtains. The curtains that couldn't block out light, even if they were pulled close.

  But somehow they were thicker. They were the same curtains, the same sheer curtains from before. But as they closed, they blocked out the outside light. All of it.

  Sheer curtains closing, casting the room in total darkness.

  And they were halfway closed.

  "Put it up," I hissed.

  Noah pulled his hand away from his eye. The same shimmery film from before pushed out, enveloping everything.

  When it reached the curtains, they stopped moving.

  And the creature shrieked. A sound halfway between pain and fury. Somehow much more terrible than anything I'd heard from it before. It sounded wounded. Wounded and furious.

  Whatever darkness resided behind the curtains vanished and sunlight filtered through them again. And the room stilled.

  My eyes darted around, still trying to catch a glimpse of the thing. "Is it gone?"

  "I don't—I don't know."

  "We need to get out of here."

  We both turned toward the door.

  "I don't think we should," Noah breathed.

  I took a step toward it. "Um, yeah. We absolutely should."

  His hand snapped out and latched onto mine again.

  Annoyed, I shook him off. "Will you stop doing that?"

  Noah continued to look around the room. "I think it came from the outside."

  "What outside?"

  "I don't think it's bound by the same rule as the ghosts—" his eyes widened and he spun toward me. "Where are they?"

  I jumped at his shouting. "What?"

  "Your ghosts—they—where—"

  "They're fine. Bronte took them this morning. They're ok."

  Unexpectedly, I watched his shoulders sag in relief. "Thank God. If that thing had gotten to them..." He shuddered and then turned toward me again. "Are you ok? Did it scratch you?"

  I looked down at my pajama shirt. "No. I'm fine." Then I looked up at him. "You think if we leave your ward, it can reach us? That's it waiting outside?"

  He nodded.

  I turned to look at the shimmery film outlining the living room of the apartment. Where the doors into the other rooms stood open, the ward had acted as if the doors were closed. I could see past the film and into Bronte's room. Nothing stirred there, but nothing looked protected by the ward either.

  "How long do we need to wait here?" I asked.

  Noah shrugged. "I have no idea." His voice lowered. "You've heard it before, haven't you?"

  I glanced at him and he continued. "When I mentioned the monsters that come after the ghosts before, you didn't seem surprised by it. You've heard it before, haven't you?"

  There wasn't any point in hiding things now. "Yeah. Once. On Friday."

  "How long did it stay then?"

  "I don't know. I left. Cyril and Oliver stayed here."

  He sighed. "We're just going to have to wait it out."

  I turned to look around the room again. The protection turned prison, I thought dryly.

  Then my eyes fell on my laptop, still sitting on the dining room table from the last time I'd used it, earlier in the week. Before all this madness began.

  And a thought struck me. "You said the monsters that come after had lost their lives and their humanity, right? That they were like ghosts, but depraved?"

  He nodded. "Yeah."

  "Why do you think that?"

  He took in a long breath. "Because the thing that attacked Clara—the old widow I'd told you about—boasted about how many people he'd killed before. An uncaught serial killer—back before they knew what serial killers were. He'd added Clara to his kill count. Ninety-six, he kept saying."

  "Ninety-six?"

  "I'm guessing that was living people and ghosts."

  "So it had been human once?"

  He arched a brow at the excitement in my tone. "I guess so. Why?"

  I moved toward my computer on the dining room table. "If it was human once, it must have a name."

  He caught on immediately, following after me. "And if it has a name, you can command it."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "I hate this," Cyril mumbled, looking through the window, down to the street outside. He kept expecting Stella to arrive at any moment. For her car to pull into view. For her to storm up the stairs. He could see it so perfectly in his mind's eye.

  But she still hadn't come.

  "As you mentioned," Oliver called from over his shoulder. He moved throughout the new apartment, studying everything: the I Love Lucy memorabilia lining the walls, the bible study material left on the couch-side table, the array of travel mementos on the bookshelves. "But if I could go along with your decision to talk with Noah Walker, you can at least sit here for a few days."

  "She shouldn't have taken the watch."

  Oliver sighed. "She was upset, Cyril. You should have seen her last night. What Stella did went too far."

  Cyril whipped around. "At least Stella acted from a place of compassion. She was trying to spare Bronte. Bronte taking us away without a word to Stella was malicious, if not downright cruel."

  Oliver's hands clenched into fists at his side. "Compassion? For who, Cyril?"

  "For us!"

  "And what do you think Bronte's trying to do? You don't think taking us away from Bronte through purification is the exact same? Bronte brought us here because she was afraid Stella might try again—especially since Stella's now in a position where she could do it herself."

  Cyril rolled his eyes. "Please. The name invocation? She couldn't purify us with that."

  "Couldn't she? We don't know how any of this works, Cyril. For all we know she could..." he waved his hands around, searching for the word, "she could speak us into the next life. Bronte's trying to give us a chance, here. For us to decide."

  Cyril turned back toward the window. "We aren't staying in this apartment."

  "Not for long. Just long enough for Bronte and—"

  Cyril waited for him to continue. When he didn't, he glanced over his shoulder, first at Oliver and then to where Oliver looked.

  Bronte stood in the space that led to the kitchen, clutching a steaming mug with both hands. Her eyes watched them, moving back and forth between them.

  Cyril forgot she could see them with the same clarity with which Stella heard them. He'd become accustomed to Stella eyes wandering, unable to land on them. Having Bronte's gaze pierce through him so completely left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Her eyes finally landed on him. "You're angry." She sounded convinced, not at all questioning, uncertain.

  Honesty seemed the best course. "Yes," he said, then recalling she couldn't hear him, he nodded.

  Her eyes swung to Oliver. Then down to his hands still balled into fists at his side. "You too?"

  Oliver nodded but pointed over at Cyril.

  She let out a heavy sigh and brought her mug up to her lips. Instead of sipping, she took in a deep breath of the coffee's aroma. "I didn't mean to start a fight between the two of you."

  Oliver moved closer to her but Cyril stayed put by the window. He turned somewhat to face Bronte, hoping to convey that he was upset rather than angry. But he still wanted to be able to glance out the window. Just in case.

  Oliver hovered uselessly, trying to speak with his hands, gesturing. After a few moments of confus
ion, Bronte let out a weak laugh and finally took a sip of her coffee. "We should have brought the Ouija board."

  "Yeah," Oliver grunted.

  Cyril caught the unexpected sadness in his tone. A thought danced through his mind that maybe Oliver longed to be able to speak with Bronte with the same fervor with which he, personally, wished Stella's eyes could meet his. But the thought vanished when he glanced over his shoulder, out through the window again.

  Bronte moved toward the couch, Oliver trailing behind. "It's only temporary, you being here. Just until I can trust Stella not to try and send you away again." She'd been settling comfortably into the couch but then her eyes snapped up worriedly. "As long as you still want to stay here."

  Cyril wondered at what else Oliver and Bronte discussed.

  "Of course we still want to stay," Oliver said, sitting beside Bronte. Then he hung his head. "We should have brought the stupid board."

  "Maybe they make travel Ouija boards or something," Bronte mumbled between sips. She gave Cyril a hopeful smile. "It's not too bad here. But Rose won't be able to perceive you or anything. I am sorry about that."

  Cyril glanced around the living room once again. The room reflected the owner, without question, with its bright patterns and bohemian trends. He'd known to whose apartment they'd come without the owner even being present.

  He prayed Bronte was right about Rose’s perceptions. Bronte was counting on Rose not having spent enough time at the apartment to perceive the dead yet. But still, with Rose gone for the day, they hadn’t had the chance to test that theory yet.

  "And I wonder what we'll do when Rose's suitor comes to call and finds us haunting the place," he grumbled.

  Oliver sighed. "Yes, as you already said, Bronte and I hadn't thought about that when we spoke last night. There's no point in harping on it now. We won't be able to convey that thought to her unless we can talk. Which we can't."

  Bronte pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She frowned at the screen. "Persistent," she mumbled. "Seven texts and nine voicemails." Her frown deepened.

  "What?" Oliver asked.

  Cyril glanced at them.

  Bronte continued to stare at the phone. "They're all over two hours ago," she mused, more to herself than the ghosts. "But why wouldn't she..."