Above me, darkness swarmed … not the darkness of nighttime but another form, an evil form. There was no shape, yet it existed, something more than the nothingness that should have been above me. It plunged toward me, screeching—a furious, terrifying scream. I tried to move. My body wouldn’t respond. Was this a dream? An awful, horrible dream where I was being attacked by darkness? Or was it real? Again, the shapeless form hovered above me; again it swooped inches from my body, its wide gaping mouth shrieking in fury. Fear encapsulated me … my heart beat so fast. I tried to move; I tried to turn my head away from the horrible open mouths. There were so many of them, all together in one shape. There was no good. Only evil. They dived, again and again, each time inches from my face. Some invisible barrier kept them from reaching me, enraging them as it protected me.
My body lay rigid, flat against the bed. I tried again and again to move; I could not. I could do nothing except watch these creatures come closer and closer with each pass—their cries like shrieking banshees.
My brain went blank from the terror. I could not move, I could not think. The word pray entered my thoughts. Yes, I wanted to pray. No words formed in my mind, until … Our Father, who art in heaven … the words, so ingrained after being prayed thousands of times in my life, came quickly. My lips did not move, but the words to this simple prayer formed perfectly in my mind.
The figures disappeared immediately. The night became suddenly still. My body was alive; I could move again. I scrunched myself against the headboard, pulling into a tight ball. My heart beating frantically, I wanted to yell for help, but I was too scared. Moonlight streamed through a crack between the curtains. Next to my bed hung a delicate silver crucifix. A gift from my mother on my first birthday. I took the cross, the metal cold in my hands, and pressed it against my chest.
Was it a dream? Was it all a dream? The night was so quiet. Had there really been something in here? Something that hated me, something that wanted to hurt me but couldn’t because of some invisible barrier? If so, did it leave because of the prayer? My body started to relax, my feet slipping down under the covers. My pulse slowed; my breathing was heavy, yet becoming more normal with every passing second of silence.
Nothing was there; I was alone in my room. Slowly I stretched my legs out and lowered my head to the pillow. It had been a dream, an awful nightmare. Nothing more.
With the cold metal cross in my hand, the thought of returning it to its spot at my bedside entered my mind, then quickly left. I would not release it. With my right hand I crossed myself and I prayed another Our Father, followed by the Prayer of St. Michael the Archangel. This prayer explicitly asks God to return to hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
I pulled the covers up to my shoulders. I still grasped the cross. What a strange faith I had. A faith that in one of its most well-known prayers spoke about demons. How very strange.
It was all a nightmare. I was sure of that now. My mind was calm and my body was getting there. Within minutes I was asleep.
***
The morning was silent. I stood looking out of the snow-covered window, still wearing the dress from Thomas’s funeral. One of the blankets my mother had knitted me hung from my shoulders. The rest of the night had been as quiet as this morning. A dreamless sleep had followed the nightmare. That’s all it was—a nightmare.
Back in bed, I stared out the window. The treetops were covered in white and the towering cliff showed only a few bare stone edges. The spot where the inn had been appeared no different from here. There’d been no lights there since Thomas died; it was only those lights in the darkness that I could view from my room.
I fumbled through the bedsheets until I found the little silver crucifix. Reverently, I hung it back on the nail that protruded from the wall beside the bed. My gaze moved from the crucifix to the picture of my mom and me. I went to it, holding the cold pewter frame, I stared down at her sparkling eyes. What would my mom have done if the first boy she had the slightest feelings for had jumped from a cliff, into a raging ocean, and she was now blamed and despised by all who knew him?
The corner of my eye detected movement. I jumped reflexively at the snowball hitting the window. Avi was beneath my window, a pile of snowballs beside her. She threw another, and it hit right below the window.
“Come play with me,” she yelled up at me.
For the first time in weeks she wasn’t clinging to my father or looking horribly morose.
I stepped away from the window. I returned the heavy picture frame to the shelf. I wasn’t sure what my mom would do with the rest of life, but I at least knew what she would do in that moment. She’d be outside with her youngest, throwing snowballs at my window. I smiled—this simple upward movement of my mouth brought me some peace. At the window I held up my finger to tell her “One minute.”
I changed out of the wrinkled dress, hanging it in the back of my closet where I hoped it would miraculously disappear.
I dug through my drawers, finding my fleece-lined running pants and snow pants. From the shelf in front of me I grabbed a fluffy turtleneck, and quickly dressed.
My steps were light going down the stairs. I was happy to have a reason to go outside. Happy to have a reason to play.
“What are you doing?” Lisieux asked as she and Gigi sat at the kitchen table.
“Going outside to play with Avi,” I said. “Want to come?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “Thank you for asking, though.”
“Always,” I said. I pulled on my snow boots and coat.
“Have fun,” Gigi said. Both hands were holding her mug of tea.
“If Avi has anything to do with it, I will,” I said. Opening the door with determination, I hoped it was true: that my sad little sister had turned back into the joyful one.
The cold burned my lungs, making me feel alive.
A snowball hit the side of my face. Without thinking, I bent down and retaliated as quickly as I could. Avi shrieked in delight as she dodged my snowball by falling into a snowdrift. Jackson ran between us, barking, leaping into the air, trying to catch the snowballs that flew between Avi and me. Avi was a good shot, better than I remembered.
“It’s no fair. You already have your snowballs made,” I yelled as she pelted me again and again while I sought cover in the corner of the house—the corner that held the burnt handprint left by a holy soul. The ashen one, made by Thomas, had washed away a week after he died.
“It is, too, fair,” Avi said as she snuck toward me with an armful of hardpacked snowballs. “I woke up earlier than you and made them. It isn’t my fault you were a sleepyhead.”
I worked furiously to form a few snowballs before she got too close.
Suddenly she was there, laughing maniacally as she launched her attack. I returned fire, and when my arsenal was empty I fled. In my attempt to dodge two balls she threw at once, I tripped and fell headfirst into a soft snowdrift. I rolled over, laughing so hard I could barely breathe. She stood triumphantly above me.
“A perfect Siena print,” she said, pointing beside me.
I followed the direction of her red glove. She was right. Beside me was a print of my gloved hands going deep into the snow—trying without success to keep my body from reaching the wetness. In the middle was my body, made wide by the snow clothes I wore, topped by the small head complete with the outline of my nose, lips, and eyes. It was, as Avi said, the perfect Siena print.
“Don’t move. We need a picture!” she said, running toward the house.
It wasn’t a problem not to move; I was exhausted. I sat, panting, as my dad emerged from the house, carrying his phone.
“You even have snow stuck to your hair,” he said, chuckling. “This is definitely frame worthy. Say cheese.”
“Cheese,” I said, squinting into the sunlight.
“Perfect,” he said, and showed the phone to Avi.
“Definitely framing that one,” Avi said, no
dding. “Want to play again?” she asked, bending to form more snowballs.
I held up my hands. “You win, game over. I’m too tired to go on.” I pushed myself out of the snow.
“Here, let me help,” Dad said, reaching down.
“It’s nice that you’re having fun,” he said, releasing my arm as I brushed off the snow.
His words bothered me. It was nice to have fun, but what right did he have to comment on that? He’d been the most depressed of any of us these last six weeks.
“Yes,” I said, keeping my feelings to myself.
“Want to go for a walk?” Avi asked, undoubtedly sensing my change in emotion.
“Yeah, okay.” I allowed her to pull me away from our dad.
“You two have fun. I’ll be inside, showing everyone this picture,” he teased.
As we made our way down the hill, Avi slipped an arm through mine.
“Do you ever feel bad for the chickens?” I asked as we neared their coop. It was so cold they hadn’t bothered to come out this morning.
“I feel bad sometimes that chickens are chickens. It’s not such a rotten life, but it’s not all that great,” Avi answered.
“I meant, do you ever feel bad that they have to live outside in the cold.”
Avi giggled. “You’re so silly. They were made to live outside. Besides, if it’s really cold, we plug in their heater.”
Behind us, Jackson was sniffing the wall of the coop.
“Come on,” Avi called to him as we continued down the trail.
Jackson sprang quickly ahead, clearing a path through the snow for us to follow. Together the three of us entered the trail. It was easier to walk here than in our yard. The trail was covered in snow, but without drifts. When we came to the fork in the trail, Jackson waited for us to catch up before continuing on. With all that had happened in the last two months, he no longer assumed we were going to the beach when we entered the trail. My heart sunk at this. I’d been to the beach once since Thomas died, and that was yesterday, to burn down the inn.
“To the pond,” Avi commanded Jackson, pointing to the trail that Luca had taken earlier this morning to go to work. His footsteps in the fresh snow were visible.
The trail twisted its narrow way around barren, snow-laden trees. My gloved hand touched the biggest of the trees, the same one I always touched when I came this way. It was a solid beech tree, the largest on our land. Its trunk was wide enough for me and Avi to join hands and still need Lisieux to reach around and encircle it. The trail turned sharply around this tree.
Avi and I wove our way past it. After a few more steps, we left this trail for the one that led to the pond. The snow here was fresh and fluffy; no one had walked this way since at least last night and probably much longer. Jackson ran in front of us, bounding through the snow, biting it as he went.
“Do you think he does that for fun or because he’s mad at it?” Avi asked as we watched our dog.
“For fun,” I said. “Definitely for fun.”
“That’s what I think too,” she said.
Jackson jumped up to the boulder that stretched out over the pond. When we reached it, I used my gloved hand to brush the snow off. The white powder fell gently onto the frozen surface of the pond. I followed Avi’s lead after she sat on our favorite rock. We surveyed the mostly iced-over pond.
Avi said, “I like how the middle never freezes.”
“It’s because of the spring. It keeps the water warm.”
“I already knew that,” she said, her elbows pushing against her folded legs, her chin resting on her red gloves.
“Yes, I thought you did.”
“I know more than people think I do.”
It struck me that her tone sounded ominous. Or perhaps that was the tone I interpreted, sitting in the middle of the still woods. In the distance were muted sounds of construction, though those faraway noises made this place feel all the more remote.
“I’m sure you do,” I answered, watching a fish swim in the center of the pond—a strange sight when there were inches of snow around it.
“There’s a deer behind that tree,” I said, pointing subtly in the direction where Jackson was glaring. His tail moved from side to side, clearing away the snow. Thankfully, he’d never tried to chase a deer.
Avi moved her body a little. “Yes, I already saw it,” she said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.” She blinked up at me. “I told you I know lots of stuff other people don’t.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it,” I said, teasing.
“Dad thinks all of this is his fault.”
“Yes,” I said somberly, “he does think that.”
“But do you know why he thinks it?” she said, her face turning to me with an expression that made my skin prickle.
I hesitated. “No, not really.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because I pay attention to people. I watch them like you watch the trees and the ocean.”
“How do you know I do those things?” I asked.
“I already told you, I watch people. You are people.”
“Yes, I am people,” I acknowledged to my baby sister, who suddenly seemed my equal. “What about Dad?”
“He was friends with Great-great-grandmother,” she said sadly.
“Yes.” My shoulders relaxed a little. Maybe she knew nothing more than I did—our father had, in fact, been friends with his great-grandmother. Despite his parents’ warnings.
“He spent a lot of time with her inside the inn,” Avi said, shaking her head in clear disappointment.
“He didn’t understand what he was doing,” I said, trying to defend him, not for his sake but for hers. I didn’t want her to carry anger against our father.
Avi said, “He can’t remember most of what happened in there. He says he remembers the fireplace, but nothing else. He can’t even tell Gigi what the inside of the inn looked like.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said. “I forget stuff that happened yesterday. It’s not a big deal that he can’t remember stuff that happened before we were born.”
“He knew about us,” Avi remarked.
I was silent, unsure of what she was trying to say.
“He knew he’d have three daughters,” she added.
“How could he?”
“I heard him whisper to Gigi that his great-grandmother told him.”
“He remembers that?”
She nodded. “And I was the third girl, and after that, Mom …. After that, there were no more children.”
Her face was so sad that she didn’t look like Avi. Instead, I realized she looked a great deal like me.
“None of that has anything to do with Thomas,” I said, refusing to be overcome by the sadness that our mom’s death always evoked.
“No, it has to do with our family.” She looked up at me, her green eyes so wide, so young, so wounded. “It has to do with you.”
“Me?” I said, startled. “How could it have to do with me?”
“You’re the oldest,” she said somberly, her voice so much like mine it was unsettling.
“What difference does that make?” I inhaled slowly, calming my racing thoughts. She was eight. Yes, she was smart, but she was still only eight.
“Haven’t you noticed how closely they’re watching you?”
She was overreacting, reading things into innocent actions. “That’s because they’re worried about me. A guy I was sort of friends with jum—it’s because of Thomas.”
“They’re worried about each of us, but there’s something different about you.”
“What’s different?”
“You’re different.”
“Because I’m the oldest?”
She nodded.
I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it. There was nothing to be said. No way to prove her wrong, and I had no reason to do so. Nothing about my dad’s past had anything to do with me. How could it? When Gigi�
�s grandmother lived, my father was a boy; he hadn’t even met my mother, so I wasn’t born. A thought from the night Thomas died fought to enter my mind, a memory of what the demons had said. I pushed it away. It didn’t matter. None of that mattered. Maybe there weren’t demons—and Thomas really had become psychotic.
Memories of that night forced themselves in front of me. Thomas’s black eyes, so cold, so cruel, so inhuman, staring down at me. It is odd you attempt to keep her from us now, not before.
Avi asked, “Are you okay?”
My consciousness rested somewhere between past and present. In the present, Avi was there; in the past, she was not.
“You weren’t there,” I mumbled.
“What?”
The deer in front of us jumped, spooked by something. She sprang away, deeper into the woods.
I hesitated, not wanting to tell Avi while not wanting to keep things from her. There were too many secrets, too much left unsaid.
“The night Thomas died, he said something, or the demons did. Something about how it was weird Dad was trying to protect me from them when he hadn’t tried to before.”
She said, “Dad has always tried to protect us. It’s what he does … he protects us.”
“Yes.”
Dad has always done what he could to protect us. I stared down at the mostly frozen pond. A memory of another day, many years ago, played in front of me. The pond looked similar to today, covered with ice and snow so that its borders merged with the land. The only clear difference between land and water was in the very center … the center that never froze.
~~~
The day was bright, the birds calling cheerfully from the snowy tree branches above my small form. I was young, half the age Avi was now. My little legs ran faster and faster through the pristine snow. I loved the powder; it was like running through feathers. It was my favorite. I heard the giggles in my memory. I was a happy child. I had no reason not to be happy. My parents were behind me. They never thought I would get so far ahead of them.
The snow was so fluffy, so inviting. I ran faster and faster. I didn’t realize I’d gone beyond the hard ground. The pond appeared the same with snow on top of it. But it was not the same.
Gifted (Awakening Book 2) Page 4