Darkness Falls

by Melissa R. L. Simonin

  “Cool story,” said Xander, being polite, probably. “So tell us more about these voices.”

  “Well, they were very thin and I couldn’t understand the words.”

  “What do you mean, thin?” asked Annette.

  “It was like one voice sort of split up into thin strands. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Have you ever heard anything like this before?” asked John.

  “Never,” I said.

  We all had to give that some thought.

  “I wonder why you heard that in response to some of the things he said, and not others,” said Miles.

  “And what in the world this splintered voice was saying,” wondered Xander.

  “Splintered is a good word for it,” I said.

  “It’s like you need an internal audio mixer,” said Xander.

  “Yes! If only that were possible,” I agreed.

  “When Mead spoke to you the previous two times you had run-ins with him, you didn’t hear this,” Miles pointed out.

  “Right,” I said. “Well… maybe that’s what I heard at the restaurant, I forgot about that. I did, I heard something and was dizzy, too. I wish this ability came with an instruction manual. On-the-job training isn’t going to be easy.”

  “No… it isn’t,” agreed Miles. “You won’t have to go through it alone, though.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be in the room,” said Xander. “Your hubby will be watching the whole time, and Jenny will be praying…”

  “We will too,” said Annette.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Don’t wait though. Pray I can learn to understand this splintered voice, and why I hear it.”

  “You can count on us,” said Jenny, as Miles squeezed my hand and Xander, Annette, and John all nodded.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Together we’ll figure this out… and whatever’s causing this darkness, we’ll take it down.”

  Looking around at our friends, all determined to help in whatever way they could, I knew what I said was the truth.

  I just prayed no one would get hurt in the process.

  ~*~

  “We really do have awesome friends,” I commented, as Miles and I sat on our couch later, eating pizza for dinner. “Everything we’ve told them lately is so unbelievable, and strange, but they’ve accepted it without questioning my sanity and are eager to help.”

  “You and I both have experience with so-called friends. That makes us appreciate our real friends all the more, knowing the difference.”

  “This ability I have is confusing me,” I said, changing the subject. “I want to be able to use it to make a difference. How do I solve past murders and prevent future ones, though?”

  “You’re new to this,” said Miles. “Give yourself some time to figure it out.”

  “I wonder if I’ve always had this ability.”

  “I don’t know, I wonder too.”

  “I never saw anything before I met you… not that you were dark. You weren’t at all. And then this voice. That’s new.”

  Trixie put her paw on Miles’ knee and looked at him. He just took the dogs on a walk, but maybe she wanted to go out again.

  A strange look crossed Miles’ face. It made me wonder what she was saying.

  “How do you know that?” he asked her. He waited for her to answer, then turned to look at me.

  “She says… you’ve always been this way.”

  “How does she know that?” I exclaimed.

  Miles shook his head.

  “I don’t understand her answer.”

  Trixie shoved at Miles’ knee with her paw again, and they looked at each other.

  “She says practice like Miles. I mean, practice your ability like I do mine. You can do more than you know.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “I don’t know anything right now!”

  Trixie looked like she was thinking hard, then looked at Miles.

  “She says you can… fix things that aren’t real.”

  We both looked really confused.

  “Does… she mean like you? When you were semi-transparent?” I asked.

  Trixie shook her head and looked frustrated.

  “She says pay attention. People say what isn’t real. You know what’s real.”

  “Okay,” I said, having to give that some thought. It was super cool having a dog who could communicate the way Trixie does with Miles, but there were times when she didn’t know how to express herself in a way that either of us could understand. That had a tendency to frustrate all of us.

  “Well, thank you Trixie, for telling me that. I’ll pay attention and practice.” I knelt on the floor next to her, and gave her a hug. “You’re a good friend.”

  When I sat back, she looked pleased, then she looked at Miles expectantly. He knelt on the floor and hugged her too.

  “Yes, thank you, Trix,” said Miles. “No one could ask for a better friend than you’ve always been. I’m very thankful for you.”

  Trixie looked extremely happy now, and rather proud.

  Miles smiled.

  “She wants to know if she can go shopping with the girls again sometime,” he said.

  “Of course, Trixie,” I said, laughing and ruffling her fur as she smiled.

  “But she wants me to go too…” Miles said, then looked concerned. “She said you need me when dark things come.”

  Cold chills went up and down my spine. Trixie was still telling Miles something, so I sat there and waited anxiously for him to interpret.

  Miles turned to me, stunned, as Trixie walked across the room and rejoined Chip and the cats by the much depleted bag of treats.

  “She says she did the best she could today, but almost lost you.”

  “Oh my goodness, what does that mean!” I exclaimed, completely freaked out by that, as Miles grabbed me by the hand and stood, pulling me up with him as he followed after Trixie.

  “Trix! What do you mean you almost lost her?” Miles demanded.

  She looked up, a large dog biscuit in her mouth.

  “It’s like falling asleep, and being gone,” he said, and grew pale.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ve been dizzy every time I’ve been near this guy, and before you got there I almost blacked out. Maybe that’s what she means. I almost blacked out.”

  Please let that be what she means!

  Trixie thought, and nodded. Miles and I both sighed in relief.

  “I can’t take any more tonight,” I said, looking up at Miles. “Whatever you do, please don’t engage the dog in any more conversation this evening.”

  Miles laughed a little, and hugged me hard.

  “No more conversations tonight,” he said. “Unless it’s with you.”

  I hugged him back.

  “How about no more conversations tonight at all?” I suggested, kissing him.

  “You make a good argument,” said Miles, with a melting look. “How about we give up conversation altogether?”

  The huffing sound Trixie made and the subsequent eye roll as she picked up what remained of the bag of treats and moved to another part of the living room, the rest of the pets trailing along behind her, made us both laugh.

  So as not to further offend the kids, we took our lack of conversation to another room.

  Chapter 7

  Miles, Xander, and John were off on a covert operation, casing the classroom where I’d be doing more detective work than I would be learning about the class’s subject matter. The plan was to place the tiny webcam so that it would be ready and set to go when classes started next week.

  Annette and I were helping Jenny try out some new dessert recipes.

  She was trying them out by making them. We were trying them out by tasting them.

  “Will you and Miles be here this weekend?” asked Jenny.

  “No, we’re leaving for Cedar Oaks in the morning, actually.”

  “Is everything okay?” asked Annette, in concern.

  “Grandma Polly’s fine. She’s on a trip right now with
her friend Enid, so we won’t get a chance to see her this visit. I know this isn’t our usual habit, but Miles wants to talk to Pastor Gary about my abilities. So we have an appointment with him tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” said Jenny. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see what he says. It’ll be interesting to see if he even believes us,” I said, kind of nervous about it.

  “Well… I can understand your concern, I’d probably feel the same way,” said Jenny, as she carefully decorated some tiny little cakes with icing.

  “Thanks, Jenny,” I said sarcastically, which made her laugh.

  “Sorry, I didn’t finish my train of thought. I got caught up in what I was doing. What I meant to say, is that Pastor Gary and his wife are more likely to believe you, than not. Annie sometimes feels prompted about things, and when she and Pastor Gary follow those promptings, then great things happen that they never expected. That’s why they offered Nate and Lizzie the counseling positions that were left open when the two head counselors got sick at the last minute, and it’s what motivated them to have the two-week counselor orientation Nate, Lizzie, and I went on a year ago while you were getting to know Miles. That’s what brought them together again, cleared up the lies that separated them, and by the end of summer, they were married.”

  “Yeah, that was very cool,” I said. “I’m glad I got to know Lizzie over the summer. Miles is good friends with Nate now, too. I didn’t realize the part Pastor Gary and Annie had in that, though.”

  “Well, let it reassure you,” said Jenny, as she kindly gave each of us a plate with a little cake on it. Of course several of those little cakes would be even kinder, but I’m not complaining.

  “This is delicious,” I said, trying mine.

  “It is, very good,” agreed Annette. “But I have a question. You talked about following promptings. There are people who follow promptings though, and they end up doing truly horrible things. So…”

  “Okay. I understand your question, even though you didn’t exactly ask one,” said Jenny, and I laughed, and Annette smiled.

  “Well I didn’t know how to ask it!” said Annette.

  “I know, that’s fine,” said Jenny. “The answer is this. Not all promptings come from God. So how, you want to know, does one differentiate?”

  “I know the answer to that,” I said, gladly trying one of the little cakes from the next installment. “If the prompting is contrary to the way that Jesus says we’re to live as Christians, then we know it isn’t a prompting from God.”

  “Good answer,” smiled Jenny. “Miles is rubbing off on you.”

  I laughed. Jenny tried diligently and unsuccessfully to get me to go to church with her when I was managing the Bannerman estate, and Miles was semi-transparent. I started going with Miles as soon as he came back, and I’ve gone with him ever since.

  “I accept that as a compliment,” I said.

  “As well you should,” smiled Jenny. “Anika is absolutely right. One of Satan’s oldest tricks is taking God’s word and misrepresenting it. That’s one reason why it’s so important to study God’s word and know it well, so that the sliver of falsehood Satan hides between layers of truth, stands out for the lie that it is. It’s by knowing the truth, the whole truth, that we can recognize what masquerades as such.”

  We heard the door open and Xander walked in, followed by Miles and John.

  “So how did it go?” I asked, setting my empty plate on the counter close to Jenny, hoping she’d get the hint.

  “It went great,” said Miles, as he and the other guys joined us in the kitchen.

  “Jenny, these—are truly awesome,” said Xander, trying several of the little cakes.

  Jenny smiled, as he kissed her cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “They are, they’re excellent,” said Miles, and John agreed.

  “So tell us about it,” I said to Miles. “Planting the webcam, I mean.”

  “It went great,” he said. “Mission accomplished.”

  “Usually they keep the rooms locked,” said John. “We lucked out today, because this particular classroom wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering how we’d get around that,” said Xander,

  I smiled at Miles, and he smiled back.

  “You are so cool,” I whispered, as I kissed his cheek.

  “So are you,” he whispered back, which made me laugh.

  Xander piled a plate with little cakes, which we all found funny.

  “Better hit the gym later Xander,” said John, “or you’re not going to fit through the apartment door much longer.”

  “Not to mention the elevator, which does have a weight limit,” Miles smiled, and everyone laughed.

  Xander rolled his eyes and waved us away, then added another cake to his plate.

  Miles took his iPhone out of his pocket and opened the photo album.

  “This is the classroom. The webcam is here on the wall above the whiteboard,” he said, pointing to the front of the classroom. “Then Xander will have one, and you’ll have one. John, our computer whiz, is going to rig your laptop’s webcam. It can be turned on also, but there’ll be no sign of that on your screen. So no one around will realize.”

  “That’s so cool!” I said, smiling at John. “You’ve got me totally covered then.”

  “I think so,” said Miles. “So now, how about lunch? What are you hungry for today?”

  “Chinese is always good,” I said. “How does that sound to everyone else? We can all eat together if the rest of you don’t have plans.”

  “Sounds great,” said Annette, and everyone else agreed.

  Miles ordered, and after the food arrived, we sat and chatted with our friends while we all ate. After lunch was over we said goodbye, and went back to our apartment.

  Of course we were teased about that, and I didn’t mention the need to pack for our trip back to the estate, because they knew as well as I did, that would only take us about thirty minutes to accomplish. Miles didn’t bother to say that we had plans to watch movies all afternoon either, which we did.

  Our friends didn’t quite get it yet, but time alone together is vital, no matter how it’s spent. Miles and I are close, and we want to keep it that way. Too much time in a group and not enough time alone, and that closeness would start to erode. We don’t want that, and besides, we look forward to the times when we can hang out, just the two of us.

  So that’s what we did. We made popcorn and watched our favorite superhero movies, plus some that we’d never seen before. Ever since we discovered Miles still had his abilities, we’d both become a lot more interested in superheroes than we had been before! We could relate on a completely different level now.

  I had fun pointing out, “You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. Okay, now that, probably not. Can you? Okay, I didn’t think so. But you can do that…”

  We ordered pizza for dinner, then fell asleep on the couch.

  Not a very exciting afternoon or evening to our friends probably, who did the same thing as a group—although there probably was no falling asleep in the middle of one of the movies. To us though, it was awesome.

  The next morning we woke to the jingle of the tags on our dogs’ collars.

  “I can’t believe it, there’s daylight outside,” I said, sitting up and brushing my hair away from my face. “Did you realize we slept all night on the couch?”

  “I woke up once. You were sound asleep though, and I was comfortable, so instead of waking you, I went back to sleep. You must have slept okay, since you didn’t realize where you were until now.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I stretched. “But my pillow is a lot softer than your chest is.”

  Miles laughed.

  We had coffee to make, showers to take, dogs to walk, and bags to pack. We kept an eye on the time, mindful that we had an hour and a half drive ahead of us, and an appointment to keep. Miles has excellent timing and managed to get us all ready
and in the vehicle with time to spare, in spite of waking up later than we intended.

  After an uneventful trip, we arrived at the House of Bannerman, Miles’ ancestral home. It was beautiful as always, the afternoon sun glinting off of its many windows. The towers rose into the deep blue early autumn sky, and the oak trees that surrounded the estate were beginning to show a hint of their fall colors. The roses bloomed profusely, filling the air with their perfume and reminding me of our wedding.

  “I love our apartment, but I love it here too,” I said, as Miles picked up the one suitcase and both cats in their carriers, and the dogs tore off into the garden to play.

  “Me too,” agreed Miles. “I’d say they love it here the most, though.”

  We watched Chip and Trixie for a minute, laughing at how excited and happy they were to have freedom. They rolled and rolled on the lawn, then lay there panting, looking utterly content.

  “It’s admirable really, how well they do living in the apartment,” said Miles, “considering the kind of freedom they’re used to after living here.”

  “Yeah, it is,” I agreed, as we entered the estate. “Especially Trixie, after having over a hundred forty-five years of freedom.”

  Miles led the way to the elevator which I was once again so glad he had installed. It carried us effortlessly up to the fourth floor.

  We walked the short distance down the hall to our room. I looked out one of the large windows at the estate grounds, the rose garden, and our dogs who were now chasing each other, playing keep-away with a stick.

  “What happened to Trixie between the four years after you were killed, and the time that you became semi-transparent?”

  “I don’t know,” said Miles, joining me at the window after releasing the cats, who scampered out of the room and down the hall as fast as their gray legs could carry them. “I asked her once, but she couldn’t explain in a way that I could understand. I do know that it was her choice to stay with me, and that she vanished the day that Delevan and I were murdered. My family spoke of it on occasion over the years, wondering what became of her.”

  “They probably also wondered about her dog hair continuing to turn up over the years,” I said, as I unpacked the few things we brought with us for the weekend.