Perception

by Eliza Lainn

  "You said something."

  "No, I didn't."

  His brow furrowed. "You did."

  I looked back at the flame. "No, I didn't. It was probably Ted."

  He scowled. "It wasn't Ted—the ghost," he grumbled, obviously annoyed at my penchant for naming things. "It was you. What did you say?"

  The front door opened.

  We both turned, startled, to see Bronte standing in the doorway. Out of breath. The pocket watch clutched in her hand.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Noah moved faster than I could. He grabbed Bronte, yanking her into the ward.

  The pocket watch hit the barrier, unable to pass through it. With Noah pulling her one way, Bronte's fingers slipped from around the pocket watch. It fell, clattering onto the wooden front porch, outside of the ward.

  I scrambled after it, ducking under Noah's flailing arms as he tried to stop me. I passed easily through the barrier, landing on the pocket watch like it were a grenade, curling around it.

  A second later, I felt something rip into my back. Fire and pain exploded in my senses, turning my throat dry and ripping cries and tears from me. It felt the way I imagined cutting into a tomato might. Messy and sharp and deforming.

  Shouts sounded above me. I curled even tighter around the watch. I'd put Cyril and Oliver up on the chopping block once by inviting Noah into the apartment. I wasn't about to let some monstrous serial killing ghost play Jack the Ripper on the one thing tethering them here. Not if there was even the faintest trace of them that wanted to stay.

  Bikini season be damned.

  Chills crept down my arms. "Stella! You need to get back inside the barrier!"

  I looked up at Cyril's voice, once again forgetting that I couldn't see a blasted thing. But I could hear roaring, straining grunts, the sounds of fighting.

  Noah appeared suddenly, trying to lift me off the pocket watch. "Stella, you need to get inside the ward now!"

  I pushed myself more toward the ground, covering up the watch with everything I had. "They can't get inside the barrier!"

  Bronte screamed behind me. A sound I'd never heard her make before. Fear and fury mixing together in her voice.

  Oliver swore.

  The wind began to pick up. Behind me, in the apartment, I heard things fall over and crash to the ground. The tell-tale smack of books hitting walls. Of furniture toppling over. Sounds I'd all heard before.

  Bronte's screaming shifted. Something in the tone changed. And that change went from fear and fury to pain. Pure, raw, suffocating pain.

  Noah and I whipped around at the same time.

  Bronte had collapsed beside the still flickering candle, eyes wide, her hands braced on either temple as if her head would explode if she removed her hands. Her face was screwed into an expression I'd never seen before. Her slack mouth hung open, the scream erupting from it. She was absolutely still except for her eyes. With her head held in place, her eyes darted, seeing things that I couldn't see. As if hundreds of things had appeared before her and she was trying to see them all at once.

  The wind died instantly. Everything in the apartment that had been moving stopped suddenly.

  The helpless worry in Oliver's voice stabbed into my chest. "What's happening? What's going on?"

  Cyril grunted as the creature hissed a guttural cry.

  Stunned, I could just stare at Bronte. She hiccupped, her lungs finally running out of air, and the screaming stopped. Her mouth still hung open, her eyes kept buzzing with movement, but she remained completely still. Trying to absorb everything she was seeing.

  Above me, Noah stared, mirroring my uncertainty and worry.

  Behind me, someone cleared their throats.

  Noah and I swung around again. Our neighbor across the way stood half out of his door. Still dressed in a white pajama shirt and his boxes, he looked over us: Bronte through the open door, screaming; me curled up just outside the front door; Noah partly on top of me.

  "Is, um," he cleared his throat and tried again, "is everything ok out here? I heard screaming."

  As one, Noah and I looked back at Bronte. If she heard what was happening, she wasn't letting on. But I doubted she could sense anything beyond the visions occupying her.

  My head snapped back to my neighbor, his eyes dancing between Bronte and Noah on top of me. His pepper hair stood up, as if we'd jerked him from bed with our noise. And his middle-aged wrinkles stood pronounced as he furrowed his brow at us.

  "We're fine," I said, surprised at how calm my voice sounded.

  He didn't look convinced, but I could see relief flooding his features. He'd done the neighborly thing and asked. That was all he'd felt obligated to do and I could see how pleased he was that he wasn't going to be asked to do more.

  But the strangeness of the scene must have got to him, because right before he ducked back into his apartment, he asked again. "You sure?"

  "Yeah. We're doing...role-playing."

  His eyebrows shot up almost as quickly as he ducked back into his apartment. The door slammed loudly.

  Noah scoffed above me. "Role-playing?"

  "Lower the ward."

  "I'm not going to lower the—"

  "Noah Walker, lower the ward!"

  The shimmering film inside the apartment began to fade. I snatched up the pocket watch, and pushing him off me, hurried to Bronte.

  I passed through Oliver–probably Oliver–his coldness sending tingles through the left half of my body. I dropped down beside Bronte, taking hold of one of her arms and giving it a good shake.

  She felt limp in my hold. Her arm moved as if she were sleeping, giving me no resistance whatsoever. But her mouth still hung slack. Her eyes still darted at unseen images.

  Oliver's silvery voice sounded panicked. "What is she doing? I can't get her to stop—I don't think she can see me."

  "Move!" Cyril shouted.

  I felt something hit my shoulder, throwing me into Bronte. We went down, me on top of her. She fell like a rag doll.

  "Help her!" Oliver shouted. "I'll handle that thing!"

  Bronte didn't try to sit up. I turned behind me to ask Noah but he was gone.

  Typical.

  At least he'd shut the front door so the neighbor wouldn't see anymore of what was happening.

  She wasn't moving. I didn't know what to do. Still clutching the pocket watch in one hand, and gripping her arm in the other, I looked between the two.

  But I still didn't know what to do.

  I needed a name to fight back against whatever that creature was.

  And now that Noah had left, we didn't have anything to protect us with.

  Not that Cyril and Oliver could have used that protection.

  And they were fighting for their lives right now, going off the sounds of shouting, swearing, and grunting I kept hearing echo throughout the apartment.

  I didn't know what to do.

  "Bronte?" I asked, shaking her arm slightly. "Bronte, I need you to hear me. Please—please wake up."

  But she didn't.

  She just laid there, trapped in whatever she was seeing.

  Desperate for any kind of hint, I looked around. Maybe there was something I could use to wake her up. Or fight back. Anything that could help.

  My eyes fell on the candle.

  It had been tipped over in the commotion, the candle lying on its side, hot wax oozing onto the carpet.

  But the flame. The flame that should have either caught the carpet on fire or should have gone out when the candle fell, hovered in midair. In the exact place where it had been when the candle had been upright.

  It just hovered. A small, tiny speck of fire. Floating six inches above the carpet.

  I should have been surprised. And I was—but more surprised for not being surprised. I should have known.

  Because what I'd mumbled earlier, while staring at the flame, had come back to me with the unwavering certainty.

  I'd named it.

  I'd named it. And that m
eant I could control it.

  Chapter Twenty

  This flame, this small, almost inconsequential flame. I'd named it. And so it had sat, waiting for me to order it. Not moving because I hadn't ordered it to. Not tipping over because I hadn't given it permission to.

  It just hovered, waiting.

  I let go of Bronte and reached out for it. The flame warmed my fingertips but didn't burn.

  When I thought of it sliding into my palm, it obeyed. Moving down my fingertips with the same softness of a feather until it sat in the center of my open hand.

  "Oh, my God," I breathed.

  A crash thundered from the far side of the room. I jerked out of my thoughts in time to see my recliner in the book nook on its side and yards away from where it should have been, with Bronte's being thrown back next.

  Cyril let out a cry of pain.

  I jumped to my feet, still cradling the tiny flame in my hand, the pocket watch in the other. My mind snapped back to Noah's words. How fire was a purifying force.

  If it worked once, I prayed it would work again.

  When I thought of the flame growing, it did. The drop expanded, greedily consuming the air, until it was about the size of a tennis ball.

  "Where is it?" I shouted.

  Their voices sounded like they were everywhere. Without Bronte to guide me, I couldn't pinpoint the ghosts and the monster.

  Oliver must have glanced in my direction because he let out a sharp hiss. "Stella! Your hand—"

  "It's fine—where is it?"

  "It's fine?" he repeated, then must have seen the fire wasn't burning. "What in God's name is happening?"

  "Just tell me where it is!" I shouted.

  "Above the dining table!" Cyril shouted.

  I spun around and held up my hand like I'd seen in every super hero movie ever. The fire, mimicking my thoughts, shot forward like a beam. A beam of fire hurtling toward my dining table.

  Panicked, my mind thought of the fire spreading.

  And it did. It jumped from the dining table to the walls, the carpet, the pictures.

  Another panicked thought that I didn't want anything to burn.

  And it didn't. The fire spread but didn't consume.

  "Focus," I whispered to myself, imagining the fire in the dining area being extinguished.

  Following my thoughts, the fire faded until I was left with the ball of it in my hand.

  "Did I get it?"

  "No—just barely mis—" Oliver let out a grunt, stopping midsentence.

  The monstrous growling became angrier.

  And it might have been my imagination, but I imagined it was closer too.

  "I can't freaking see it!" I shouted, taking a step backward. I glanced down to make sure I wasn't stepping on Bronte, but she was still locked in her vision.

  My head swiveled, eyes straining, hoping to see it. All the while I concentrated on the flame in my hand, silently willing it not to burn anything except the monster.

  I kept looking, but there was nothing. Not a faint shadow or ghostly glimmer. The apartment looked completely normal—aside from everything thrown about and giant claw marks raked across the front door.

  "Come on, Ted," I said, using my most insufferably obnoxious tone, "let's play a game."

  It hissed, the sound, I thought, coming from behind me. Over the TV screen.

  Spinning, I shot another wave of fire. Willing it to connect with the monster, to not spread, to not burn anything but him, to leave Cyril and Oliver untouched.

  It didn't connect. The misfire faded until it was extinguished.

  "Marco?" I mumbled, straining to hear.

  "Mantle!" Cyril shouted.

  I spun to the fireplace and fired again. But it missed, the fire fizzling away.

  The creature's laughter seemed to come from everywhere.

  Then it turned hysterical and giddy as Oliver shouted, "Cyril!

  Cyril cried out.

  Adrenaline spiked through me.

  I whirled around, furious that I couldn't see anything, furious at my ineptitude, furious at–

  Something grabbed onto my leg.

  I screamed. The fire wrapped around my fist and I was about ready to punch at whatever grabbed hold of me.

  But it was Bronte. She was breathing heavily, tears streaming down her face. Her entire body shook with internal sobs. Sweat caused her hair to stick to her face, her neck. Her freckles stood out so noticeably against her pale skin.

  Blood dripped from her nose.

  She whispered something, her hoarse voice cracking and breaking.

  I dropped down to be closer to her.

  She repeated it around the sobs spasming through her. "N-nathan El-gin."

  His name.

  His freaking name.

  I straightened, the fire still coiled around my fist, and shouted at the top of my lungs, "Nathan Elgin, freeze!"

  "It's still moving!" Oliver shouted.

  Why?

  Because he hadn't given it to me.

  Panicked, I thought of every video game, every book, every movie I ever saw. Every fantasy story, every epic adventure with names and the power of things.

  I had his name. I had the name of the flame in my hand. They were separate. I needed to connect them.

  To bind them.

  "Bind them!" I shouted. Then I drew the flame close to my lips, like Gollum with the Ring. "Find Nathan Elgin. Burn him, bind him. Do not leave him until he's gone."

  The fire flew from my hand, leaving my palm completely. Sudden, unexpected coldness rushed to fill the void.

  For an infinite moment, I couldn't tell if it worked. The flame hovered before me as silence descended. Just a stretch of silence, too new to be uneasy or relieved.

  Then the flame moved, throwing itself sharply to the left.

  Mere inches from where I stood.

  Nathan Elgin roared as the fire struck his hand. Then it spread. Consuming, eating, growing. It washed over him like a swarm until his form flickered around the room. The malevolent bouncy ball, doing a ghostly version of stop-drop-and roll.

  Shrieking and yelling filled the room. I flinched from the sound, dropping down beside Bronte, my eyes fixed on the ghost's burning form.

  He roared like a caged, whipped tiger. He howled like a burgled dragon, returning to find its gold missing. And he thrashed as if he were a demon doused in holy water.

  It took me a moment to realize words layered the screams. "Mercy! Mercy, psychic!"

  "Give me your name."

  "I am Nathan Elgin. Please, mercy, pl–"

  "Stop moving, Nathan Elgin. And stop screaming."

  The burning form froze near the center of the room and another silence fell.

  I turned to Bronte. She was unconscious, with tear tracks streaking through her sweat and salt face. Even asleep, she shook. Like she couldn't get warm. Or she was still seeing whatever trapped her sight.

  I brushed wet hair from her face. "Bronte? Bronte, can you hear me?"

  "Stella..." Oliver's whispered voice sounded close, "is she going to be alright?"

  "Yes" I said, more out of reflex than knowing. I had no idea if she was going to be alright as my hands hovered uselessly over her, unsure what to do, how to help.

  A chillness I knew was Cyril touched my arm.

  Behind us, the fire continued to burn. And the monster remained absolutely still, unable to scream as it consumed him completely.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rose sat perfectly still on our sofa. She didn't move. Didn't look up from the ground. Didn't speak.

  I was beginning to wonder how badly we'd scared her when she finally looked up. Not to me. But to Bronte behind her. "Bearing witness?"

  "It's what we're calling it," she said, her voice painfully empty. "When I go into that...that trance...thing."

  It had been a few days since we'd purified Nathan Elgin. Each night, I heard her wake up screaming. Heard Oliver try and comfort her, saying words everyone knew she'd never h
ear. While Cyril sat with me, listening in the dark. She'd spent most of her free time with Rose, at her apartment. And when she did come home, she just slid wordlessly into her bedroom.

  When Rose had finally demanded to know what had happened, Bronte and I had decided to tell her.

  Everything.

  Well, minus the part about her boyfriend leaving us. Or trying to purify our perfectly pleasant phantom roommates.

  I glanced over at him, sitting on the sofa beside Rose. Their hands were intertwined in her lap. And as I watched, she squeezed his hand comfortingly.

  I looked away.

  "And you see...?"

  "Everything," Bronte whispered with a shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself. "It was like a movie played on high speed. His birth, his life, his death. All of it. Witnessing everything."

  I hadn't asked her for details about what she'd seen. Neither, to my knowledge, had Cyril or Oliver. We all knew better than to have her relive what she'd witnessed in the life of a serial killer.

  I felt a chill at my shoulder. Noah was looking at Rose but I could see that Bronte's eyes had slid to Cyril, hovering just behind me. I wasn't sure where Oliver was—probably near Bronte. He was always near Bronte whenever she was at the apartment these days.

  Rose looked up at Noah. "And you too?"

  His eyes slid to meet mine. If he was looking for support, I wasn't about to be the one to give it to him. I kept my face blank and he looked back to Rose. "Yes. Me too."

  She pointed at him. "Defensive warding." Then to me. "Name invocation." She turned to point at Bronte behind her. "And bearing witness. Right?"

  We all nodded.

  "And there are two ghosts in the apartment? Cyril and Oliver?"

  Again, we nodded.

  She nodded too, her eyes sliding back to the ground. I could see her brow furrow.

  All things considered, our grand unveiling hadn't been too bad. She hadn't disbelieved us straight off, hadn't insisted we were all delusional. She'd listened, calmly and silently, only asking occasional questions for clarification.

  Her head snapped up and I could see the fire I'd been expecting starting to smolder. "Wait just a minute. You mean to tell me that you, all of you, have psychic powers and I'm jilted?"

  Noah's lips quirked up in soft amusement. And I hated that mine did too.