by K. C. Hunter
Kana hesitated to give an answer. What terrorized Melody McNeil was real, tangible, and disobeyed the rules she knew about the paranormal. Ghosts didn’t manifest in physical form, demons possessed bodies, and ghouls attacked inanimate objects. This entity wasn’t classified by any of those traits or rules. The droplet of holy water trickling down its body proved it had a physical presence, which ruled out a ghost or a ghoul. Holy water burns demons, they don’t brush it off like a speck of dust.
“I have a theory, but I want to be sure before I say anything to the parents,” Kana said.
The McNeils entered the living room at the tail end of her last sentence, the smiles on their faces dashed after hearing her words. “Wait, this isn’t over?” Mark asked. “I thought we did it.”
Kana and AJ stood to face the parents, not wanting to shake whatever good rapport they had with them. She didn’t want to give them bad news after a perceived victory, but they overheard here. Better to be honest than to coddle them, she thought.
“We fought off whatever that was attacking your daughter, but I don’t think that’s the end,” Kana said.
AJ stopped the video. “We’re working on it. We thought it might be best if you didn’t worry too much until we find out what it was.”
Mark cocked his head. “So, there are different kinds of spirits?”
AJ reached into his backpack for his computer tablet, holding it up for the couple. “Each of the main categories have subcategories.” He scrolled with his fingers across the tablet, switching from screen to screen while explaining the different categories. “An entity or object classified as Safe is not dangerous to the body or mind, often being inanimate objects that are inconsistent with modern physics. Euclids are identified by sentience, having an awareness of their environment and capable of acting of their own free will. Some are dangerous in the same way fire can burn if not handled properly.”
“I’m lost,” Alice muttered.
“By contrast, Keters are malicious spirits that caused physical, spiritual, and emotional harm to their victims.”
Mark pointed at the tablet. “So, it’s one of these… Keters?”
Kana pulled down AJ’s tablet. “I don’t think we should speculate. This is just a list of how we, or AJ I should say, classify anomalies. There're dozens and dozens of subcategories and we can’t say for sure what it is now.”
“But you have an idea?” Alice looked past Kana to AJ, who avoided eye contact. “You might as well tell us. No sense in keeping this a secret.”
“We can handle it,” Mark said, putting his arm around Alice.
Kana didn’t think they could, but if they wanted her best guess she’d give it to them. “There’s only one type of ghost or spirit that comes to mind. Given how it’s tied to your daughter, it’s not possessing her but attacking her, it has a physical structure…” She paused, still not entirely sure she wanted to guess. “It could be worse than we thought before.”
“Worse?” Alice’s voice cracked.
AJ took a hold of Kana’s arm and pulled her aside. “Perhaps it’s not the best idea to speculate any further. I know you’re not big on bedside manner, but these people have gone through hell. And what do you mean by worse?”
Kana shook her arm free. “I thought it might be an incubus, but they normally go after teenagers or adults, never children. The only other thing I can think of would be something a called Shinigami.”
“And what the hell is that?” Alice asked, overhearing their conversation.
No need for AJ to whisper anymore. “A demon from the Far East. It’s mostly Japanese folklore.”
“It’s not folklore,” Kana said, glaring at AJ.
“Right. But I doubt that’s what’s attacked Melody. Unless you’ve had any contact the Japanese occult.” Mark and Alice shook their heads. “Then, you’d never encounter one.”
Alice recoiled, burying herself in her husband’s embrace while Kana continued her theory. “There are those who say that kind of an attack, on someone so young, is because the child possesses something special. Is there anything extraordinary about your daughter? Anything that seems magical or supernatural?”
Mark shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. She was a normal child before all of this happened.”
“So, it might be something someone cursed your family with.” Kana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “If it’s already physically manifesting itself, then it’s gone past the point of invading her dreams. I don’t know, there’s something off here. Like I said, I need more time to tell you what this is exactly. You should let us work now.”
Mark rubbed Alice’s shoulder as they left the investigator to their work, Alice barely able to stand if not for the embrace of her husband. Mark punched the living room wall on their way to the kitchen, his wife’s sobs growing louder.
With the couple gone, AJ quietly continued his conversation. “Look, we don’t know anything yet.”
Kana rolled her eyes at AJ. “You’re the one who wanted me to guess. I made a guess. Now, you don't like the answer, so I'm supposed to be quiet? Make up your mind.”
“I’m not… there’s a way to deal with people, Kana.” AJ took a shallow breath, catching himself before raising his voice. “I know you’re not used to people, but you can’t just blurt out that there’s some demon abusing their child. Imagine how they must feel right now.”
“Their feelings won't stop it.”
“I give up. I give up!” AJ threw his hands in the air. “How about I do the talking with the parents from now on and you stick to speculation? Silent speculation.”
Kana turned away from AJ to look through the stack of notes on the coffee table. Waiting for the creature to attack again was foolish, and in Melody’s condition she might not live through another one. Now that the theory was out there, Kana wanted to find out why this entity attached itself to the little girl. Nothing suggested the family had enemies or ever came across someone with such knowledge and it was highly unlikely they’d gain the attention of a demon from the East without any connection to that culture.
The notes AJ took from Mark during their interview, which were incomplete, sat at the bottom of the stack. Kana read through them, turning page over page, until she reached the section on the house’s prior owner. After reading the page twice, she stood up and tapped at one particular sentence with her finger. “Of course, the attic. AJ, come here for a second.”
AJ returned to the living room. “What’s going on? Did you find something?”
Kana pointed to the notes. “In your interview with Mark, he told you about the attic. An item left behind by the previous owner.”
AJ took the pad and read through his notes. “Yes, he said it was a bunch of junk the moving company forgot about.”
“And that previous owner was a relative on Alice’s side of the family.”
AJ cupped his chin between his thumb and index finger. “Yeah, so what?”
“Did you actually look in the attic?”
“I didn’t think—”
Kana didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence, marching into the kitchen to get more information from the McNeils. Mark was brewing a cup of coffee while Alice sat at the kitchen table staring at a picture of Melody. Neither of them noticed Kana in the kitchen doorway until she spoke.
“Tell us about the person who sold you the house,” Kana blurted out.
AJ put his hand to his partner’s shoulder. Kana took a step back, remembering their agreement from earlier: he would talk to the family and she’d say as little as possible.
AJ took a seat at the kitchen table across from Mrs. McNeil. “Alice, Mark told me you bought this house from someone on your side of the family.”
Placing the picture frame down, Alice looked up to the ceiling, trying to recall the circumstances around their home purchase. “Russell. Yes, well he’s not family. He’s a friend of the family.”
“A friend?” Mark sipped his coffee. “I thought he was
your cousin.”
“We call him cousin because he’s been around our family for a long time. His dad and one of my uncles were friends. They’d come to our family events often. We thought of them as family.”
“But he’s not a blood relative?” AJ asked.
“No. Why, is that important?”
AJ inched a bit closer to Alice. “I’m not sure yet. What do you know about Russell’s family? Is there anything odd about him? Did your families have a falling out?”
She shrugged at his question and turned to her husband as if to get validation. “I mean, Russell’s quiet, and he rambles, but he’s not dangerous. He was just weird.”
“Can you think of anything else?” AJ asked. “Did any of those objects he left in the attic strike you as odd or give you a weird feeling when you were up there?”
Mark handed his wife a mug of coffee. She held it between her hands, blowing into the mug to cool the brew while searching her memories. After a few moments, she shook her head. “No, nothing else.”
Mark snapped his fingers. “That painting! The one with the little girl in it. I don’t know, something about it was creepy. Like one of those old timer portraits where the people look sad, almost like they’re…”
“Dead,” Kana finished his sentence.
Mark nodded. “Yeah. Now that you say it, yeah.”
AJ grabbed his backpack from the sofa and followed the couple and Kana upstairs. Mark and Alice stopped by Melody’s bedroom to make sure she was still sleeping. Reassured, they continued to the hallway and opened the ceiling hatch to the attic. She climbed the steps first and poked her head through the opening.
The space was nearly empty. Piles of boxes, a broken table, and two old lamps rested against the far wall, but most of the area was clear of clutter, the only decor being cobwebs and insulation.
Mark joined Kana at the top of the ladder and pointed to the far wall. “That’s the painting, over there above that broken table. I’m sorry it's so dark up here. I haven’t replaced the lightbulb. Here you go.” He handed her a flashlight. “Stay on the beams over there. The floor is brittle in spots.”
“Noted.” Kana turned on the flashlight as she made her way to the table.
The light beam cut into the darkness, highlighting motes of dust floating through the room like snowflakes in a winter storm. Her steps were cautious, heeding Mark’s warning, her heavy black boots pressing into the loose floorboards. She moved the light back and forth across the painting. The little girl’s eyes, depicted in strokes of oil, peered back at her. The impasto used on the face created deep shadows beneath the eyes as if they were crying black tears.
It was nineteenth century Asian artwork, flaking at the corners. The wood frame was etched with unfamiliar symbols, circles and slashes carved with obsessive precision. The girl’s cream dress, her porcelain skin, and the vacant stare she shot back from behind the fabric of faded canvas raised goosebumps on Kana’s arms and neck. She motioned to AJ, who climbed the ladder and stood beside her.
“Do you see what I see?” she asked.
AJ leaned forward to take a closer look. “It’s a creepy picture, that’s for sure. Especially up here in this dark attic. And it’s Eastern, so your theory might not be farfetched after all.”
“That’s not all.” Kana touched the wall around the painting with one finger, showing the dust to AJ, and used another finger to touch the painting, showing no dust on its surface.
“That is odd.”
AJ fumbled in his backpack. Among the EMF meters and infrared detectors in the bag was a silver tube about the size of a pencil with markings like a thermometer. AJ scraped a few flakes of paint into the open end of the tube and closed it. He called this invention a PNe reader, its function was to measure the amount of potential paranormal energy in air, water, and solid objects. The tick marks on its side ranged from 0 to 100, with 0 meaning the sample was clean and 100 meaning the sample was from another dimension.
“The Paranormal Pregnancy Test.” Kana rolled her eyes. “So, is she knocked up?”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“It’s not my fault you made a gizmo that looks like a pregnancy test. So, what does it say? Boy or girl?”
AJ grunted, the small green light of the PNe reader growing more intense by the second before it dimmed. “Sixty-five.”
“Enough to say the painting has paranormal energy?”
AJ nodded. “Without a doubt.”
Kana turned to Mark and Alice, who huddled at the entrance to the attic. “Did your daughter come up here often?”
Mark carefully made his way across the fragile floorboards to see the painting for himself. He placed his hand against the clean canvas, pinching fragments between index finger and thumb. “You can see how hard it is to get up here.” He flicked dried paint from his finger. “This place is dark. I doubt she would even know how to get up here, let alone spend time around that creepy painting.”
“Are you sure?” Kana shined the beam of the flashlight on a series of childlike handprints on the table and the wall around the painting.
Mark squinted at the prints. “She must have been up here late at night. I had no idea.”
“Well, it looks like we know how this happened.” She yawned and glanced at her phone for the time. “It’s 3 am. I think we should all get some rest and link up in the morning. We need to find out more about this painting.”
The Alpha Female
Kana got a late start the next morning, waking to the smell of brewed coffee and the sound of Melody singing upstairs. Getting up early was never her thing, she was a night owl who preferred midnight to midday.
While she struggled to lift herself from off the couch, AJ rummaged through his bag, pulling out shirts and sniffing them.
“What on Earth are you doing?” Kana asked, watching him with one open eye while she rubbed sleep from the other.
“The Fresh Test,” he said, picking up a t-shirt, sniffing it, and then stuffing it into his travel bag with a grunt. “I’m trying to find a shirt to wear. Something that doesn’t smell like I’ve been working on a plantation in mid-summer heat.”
“You usually smell like incense anyway, I’m not sure anyone would know the difference.”
AJ frowned, his investigation of laundry put on hold after Kana’s insult. “I can’t believe you said that. I smell fine. Natural oils are way better than that poison they sell in the mall.”
“Right,” she said, opening her other eye and pushing herself up to a seated position on the couch. “And you’re still just going to sit there and keep doing it?” A yawn forced her to stretch, pushing her hands above her head as AJ resumed his Fresh Test, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the same jeans and striped shirt he wore the day before. “Please tell me you didn’t Fresh Test my clothes.”
AJ paused in the middle of sniffing the last shirt in the pile, darted his eyes to Kana, then back to the shirt, and stuffed it back in his travel bag without answering her.
“Okay, that’s it.” Kana popped up to her feet. “Stop this weirdo sniff test and go back to the office. We keep an extra set of clothes in the locker for a reason. Go get them and bring me back my other travel bag too.” AJ zipped up the bag of dirty clothes while Kana glared at him. “And for the love of rum do not sniff any of my clothes.”
He had no comeback for her, so AJ gathered the dirty laundry bag and slung it over his shoulder. He struggled to look her in the eye. “I don’t sniff clean clothes,” he said, then paused as he watched Kana’s eye widen. “That didn’t come out how I meant. Never mind, I’m going.”
“Yes, please do!”
AJ opened his mouth to say more, chose otherwise. He reached the front door and patted at his pants pockets. Kana dangled the car keys in the air behind him. He grabbed them from her, still unable to look her in the eye, and left the house taking the bag of dirty clothes–and his shame–along with him.
An hour later Mark and Melody were
in the middle of planning an imaginary wedding for her dolls. Alice watched from the doorway, hovering so much that Mark couldn’t help but notice something was bothering her.
“Sweetheart, do you think your mother and I could talk for a minute?” he said.
Melody was busy arranging her dolls on the floor. “Adult stuff?”
Alice forced a smile. “Yes, dear. It won’t be for too long, I promise. You and Daddy can plan Gabriel’s wedding to Stanley after we’re done.”
“Yes, it’s very important, Dad.” Melody raised her index finger to him.
Mark put up his hands in surrender with a playful grin. If an imaginary wedding kept her smiling and happy, that was good enough for him.
He joined Alice in the hallway, far enough that they were out of earshot of Melody. “We haven't talked about what’s going on. What do you think?”
Alice rubbed her shoulders, thoughts from the previous night chilling her. “I’m terrified.”
Mark couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort his wife. He’d have to change the subject. “I remember when the worst thing we had to deal with was selling my Firebird for an SUV.
“You loved that car.”
“Yes, I did.”
Alice twisted her lip. “I hated that thing.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You were a reckless driver in that thing.” Alice let her hands drop from her shoulders. “There was no way we were having a baby seat in the back of that death trap.”
“I sold it. It was hard letting go, but I did. The last bit of my youth gone in an instant.” He snapped his fingers.
“Yes, you’ve always needed me to remind you that you were an adult.” Alice turned to watch Melody playing in the bedroom. “Being a grown-up isn’t helping with this. Demons and fairies were something you left behind in grade school. Or, in your case, Bible school.” She eased back against the hallway wall. “I can’t believe you remembered that Bible stuff.”
“My parents beat it into me. You know how my dad was. He wanted me to be a preacher, join his congregation. I still remember the look on his face when I told him that I wanted to work in the corporate world and not the gospel one.”
