“It’s worse than that, Mom,” I said from the chair on the window side of the bed.
Her eyes whipped to me. “Do you know something we don’t?”
I nodded and studied the speckled floor tiles. “Yeah, but you aren’t going to like it.” I licked my licks and prepared for the storm. “I dreamed about the attack last night. I was running through the cemetery, trying to get away from the snake. I tripped and then it caught me and… and it killed me.”
After a moment, my mom put her hand on my knee and asked, “Finn, where did this dream come from? Is this something that dryad did to you?”
“No, Mom. It was the snake whistle. Remember, we found it at the dig? I think Erik stole it and used it to get revenge on Chester.”
Her mouth parted in stunned silence, and she sat back in her chair. My dad was shaking his head and rubbing his face. I stewed in the uncomfortable silence.
I cleared my throat. “So, Dad, today’s the day. Are you ready to come home after I sit down with this little girl Anderson wants me to see?”
The reflections bouncing off his round glasses hid his eyes, but his face was drawn, and his mouth grim. “I don’t know if this is such a good thing for you to do, Finn.”
I know it’s not good for you!
It scared the shit out of me, too, but that couldn’t matter. “Dad, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m just going to try and teach them the same thing you taught me to combat my night terrors.”
“The whole thing seems dicey to me. What if these people get violent?” Dad said.
“The doc promised me there’ll be two orderlies nearby to help if needed, but these people aren’t violent. Just terribly unhappy.”
I hadn’t told my dad about the shadow I saw haunting Daniel, and I hadn’t told either of them about the shadow from the broken skull. I wondered if the two were the same thing. I couldn’t decide if it would be better one way or the other.
Peel Away the Darkness
My Mom, Dad, and I stood in the hallway outside the room where I would try to teach a little girl a meditation technique to banish a black demon from her soul.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob and worked up the nerve to go in. Mom rested her hand on my outstretched arm. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll be right outside. If anything happens, we’ll be right there.”
And you’ll burst into the room, just in time to see a black shadow burping eau-de-Finn, came my unbidden thought.
Not trusting my poor verbal impulse control, I nodded grimly, opened the door, and headed into the room.
Spring agreed it was a lousy idea. Dude, I’m telling you, this is most egregious.
Not helpful, Spring.
She scowled mentally at me. If she’d had arms, she would have crossed them, and she’d have been tapping her foot.
It turns out that entering the room was just a trial run of anticipatory dread. Dr. Anderson was the only other person inside. He wanted to give me some last-minute advice before bringing the patient in.
“Finn, remember Holly is just a little girl. She’s been suffering with this all her life. There’s nothing to be worried about. Please be calm, speak softly, and move slowly and purposefully.”
I wondered, How do I say, “Please don’t eat me!” in a calm, soft, and purposeful voice?
We should have brought the gun.
I’m not sure a gun would stop a shadow, Spring.
Then, maybe we should have brought a really big flashlight.
I don’t think that would work, either. Maybe some holy water would have helped.
I made my last-ditch attempt to live through this. “Doc, these things, they really fit the descriptions of demonic possession. They take over people and make them crazy, right? Don’t you think we should be calling priests, voodoo queens, or… Presbyterians or something?”
Anderson gave me a fixed stare. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but it made me want to apologize for something.
“Finn, this isn’t fantasy, there is no reason to throw out everything we know because there is one thing we don’t understand. If I can sense them and you can see these shadows, I have to believe we can do something about them. If you can keep them away, then you might be able to teach it to my patients. If your abilities are unique to you, then maybe you will be what saves these people.
Unique to you? I don’t like the sound of that.
Neither do I, Spring. Neither do I.
“What if this is different from my night terrors? What if those were just imaginary?” I asked.
“If this doesn’t work, then we are out nothing. We still have to try.”
The doctor left me there mulling over his last comments. I paced around the comfortable chairs and couches in the cheerful, sunny room. I wanted to throw up. I had done everything I could to duck this, I’d even asked if my dad could do it instead of me. Yeah, that went over like a fart in church. I could easily see the picture that had conjured in Anderson’s mind: my dad eating his patients.
So, here I was, waiting to teach meditation to a horror-infested little girl that I had never met. If she started spinning her head around and vomiting, I was totally out of there.
How about we just leave now?
Not helpful, Spring.
I sat down in one of the comfortable chairs and pulled out my phone to find something to distract me. Of course, there was no service. I dropped the phone, took a series of deep breaths, and tried to stay calm.
Spring added another helpful comment. It is not too late, dude! Just climb out the window and start running. I don’t want to be here, you don’t want to be here—
Spring, please. I’m not leaving.
What if this thing jumps off the girl and comes and eats our faces? Let’s just go!
No, Spring, let it go.
You are being an idiot. You saw it, I saw it. We shouldn’t be here, you twit. Who cares about this girl? She’s not old enough to breed. You’ve never even met her.
One of my arms started moving of its own accord, trying to pull me out of the chair.
In exasperation, I mentally erected a wall between myself and Spring’s nagging and puppetry. I just pictured a golden wall between us. Then, nothing but silence echoed in my head. Holy crap! It worked!
I could still feel Spring, though. Her anger simmered as a red hotspot in my mind. After I had finished congratulating myself on a job well done, I started feeling sorry for her. After all, she was stewing in my fight-flight juices as much as I, but she didn’t care about my dad or a little girl.
I let the shield down. Sorry, Spring, I have to do this, and I can’t take you yelling at me all the time. Will you behave?
You are a jerk. She metaphorically retreated and sulked, just like a little girl. I guess that wasn’t surprising. After all, awareness-wise, she was only a dozen weeks old.
After Spring finally fell silent, I thought I was making progress calming down, but I jumped up like a startled flea when the door opened. Dr. Anderson walked in holding the hand of the thin little girl named Holly. She had unkempt short brown hair and big, haunted eyes. She could be the picture in the Dictionary next to the word “waif,” but I didn’t think about that till later. I barely noticed anything but the malevolent black shadow that flowed around her.
Underneath the incomplete covering of the shadow, Holly’s aura showed a pure, brilliant green. To see that beautiful purity covered by such vileness sickened me.
While Anderson tried to introduce us, neither of us had any attention for him; each only had eyes for the other. Her gaze was hungry, haunted, and sad. The way she looked at me, more than anything, overcame my fear. I knew I’d do whatever it took to help this poor little girl.
Anderson led her to the chair. She sat meekly enough, still staring at me. He stood behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders.
The blackness churned across the green sea of her aura like a hyperactive oil slick. After Holly sat, immediately the mass of it began to bu
lge in my direction like a black tide attracted to my gravitational Finn-ness. It thickened so much, it nearly hid the little girl from my second sight. Pseudopods or tentacles of darkness oozed out and strained to reach me for a short time before falling back into the main mass. The thing wanted me. I could both see and feel its dark intent. Its hunger made me feel like a mouse facing down a lion—small and helpless.
I finally processed that Anderson was speaking. “…Finn? Please sit down.”
I slithered into my chair, pressing back in it as far as I could.
“Finn, say hello to Holly.”
“Uh, hi, Holly.”
“Holly, Finn is going to try and teach you how to control your nightmares. He once had the same problems that you do now, and he was able to get rid of the voices.”
She stared at me with wide eyes. I began to think that she hadn’t heard the doctor when she said to me in a small, lost voice, “They still want you. They’re telling me to get closer. They’re hungry.”
I almost lost it then. Anderson apparently noticed my panic, because he said in his calm, über-reasonable tone, “It’s okay, Finn. She can’t hurt you. I won’t let her get out of this chair.”
I tried to control myself with more deep breaths and relaxation, but as my panic subsided, Holly’s agitation grew. She started fidgeting and squirming under the doc’s hands.
Holly spoke to the doctor. She pleaded with him while her eyes never left me. “I need to get closer, Dr. Anderson, please!”
“No, Holly, just stay in your chair. You need to relax and listen to him.”
Her squirming became more frantic under Anderson’s grip. “Let me go! I need him!”
Anderson finally had to move to the front of her chair to keep her seated. Her struggles intensified, and she tried to bite the doctor. Obviously well practiced, he smoothly kept away from her snapping teeth.
The doctor now struggled to control the little girl, but even so, he said in a calm and low voice, “Finn, don’t be alarmed. It may just take some time for her to adjust to your presence. Please be calm.”
That spooked me almost as much as the little girl. No one should have that much self-control and presence of mind. Just the thought of touching Holly made my skin crawl.
I tried to take my lead from him and stay calm and focused. This was just a little girl—even if she did look like she was strung out on crack and dipped in tar. As I told myself this, a thick pseudopod of blackness reached up and plunged through Dr. Anderson’s dim white aura and into his forehead.
A piercing scream broke his lips, and he fell back. He slapped his hands to his head, and Holly surged free.
Spring yelled what was rapidly becoming a refrain in my life.
Finn, run!
With a surge of crazy strength and speed, I swear I did a back flip out of the chair. I smacked painfully into the corner of the room. I was trapped.
I didn’t have time to escape. Holly scrambled over Anderson and jumped onto the chair I’d just vacated. Now it was my turn to scream. Spring echoed it in my mind while I tried to push myself through the wall.
Holly’s face contorted in a horrible parody of hunger. Wide eyed with gnashing teeth, she clambered up the back of the chair and then sprang at me.
I shrieked and put my hands up between us.
Across the room, the door to the hall slammed open. A large orderly rushed in, followed by my mother and father. As predicted, they were too far away and too slow to help me.
For my part, I acted out of instinct and called up the golden shield of my youth. The stick on my chest grew warm as I put everything I had into it. This time, instead of just imagining the shield, I could actually see it shimmer into being around me.
I had little time to process the change as Holly flew at the golden shell.
Belatedly, I panicked for the little girl. “No, Holly! Stop!”
She was already airborne at that point. When she hit my shield, she screamed as if flayed alive, passed unhindered through it, and slammed into me. My hands were already out in front of me to ward her off, and the impact smacked me back into the wall as I caught her. I was stunned, but not by the wall.
As Holly had flown through my shield, the shadow had splattered on it, looking like something found in Satan’s spittoon. It somehow maintained its hold on Holly’s aura, and as her body kept moving, the green luminescence surrounding her stretched back to the shadow still slimed across my barrier. Her tortured aura flared from deep green to bright white, and then it snapped with a terrible non-sound. Half of it splashed back against her body. The rest snapped back to be consumed by the darkness. That was when Holly screamed.
Panic hit me. This was different from the distress I had been fighting earlier. This was worse; I was panicking for someone else. I examined Holly, terrified that I had maimed or killed her. Her too-thin, limp body cradled in my arms was only partially covered by a swirling, ragged, and torn aura.
Horror at what I had done hit me. She was dead, or close to it. “No, no, no, no. Please, no…”
The orderly closed the distance to me and tried to take Holly away. I screamed at him, “No! Get away!” I turned my shoulder to him and gripped her tighter.
The ferocity of my reaction momentarily stopped him in his attempt protect the little girl from the crazy man who was holding her. He took a half step back, and my mom stepped into that opening. She pushed past the burly man and grabbed hold of my shoulder.
“Finn, honey! Are you okay?”
“No, Mom! She’s hurt bad. She’s all torn up. It tore her in half!” I started sobbing. “I tore her in half, Mom!”
My mom grabbed my face with both hands and forced me to look at her. “Finn…Finn, look at me. Finn! She’s not torn in half, d’you hear me? Look again, honey. She’s okay.”
I looked again and saw the same thing. Her aura now only covered a portion of her body. The ragged, fluttering edges of her remaining green corona flared white, as it licked around her like dying green flames over a log too charred to burn.
Dr. Anderson came to me, talking in his calm and soothing voice, but I couldn’t understand him. He reached out tentatively and put his hands around Holly’s torso and tried to pull her from me.
I yanked her away and clutched her to my chest. “No!” Tears flowed down my face. “You can’t take her out of my shield! It’s still there waiting for her!” I wildly searched the golden dome that still coruscated around me, but I didn’t see the shade’s blackness. It was gone, but I didn’t know to where or for how long.
Anderson gave up trying to take her from me.
“Finn, please, we just want to help her. Can you bring her over to the couch?”
I nodded, staggered over to the couch, and laid her fragile form down. My breath was rapid and shallow while I tried to hold back my sobs. As I watched Dr. Anderson examining her, I searched frantically for the shadow. I didn’t see it.
Spring jumped to the fore of my mind. Finn, you’re pushing yourself too much. You have to stop. Drop your shield.
No, it’s out there. It will come back and finish what it started. I can’t take that chance.
No, Finn. It’s gone. Listen, Feel. Somehow, she was able to force my attention away from Holly and subdue my fear and guilt long enough to do as she asked. I reached out with my new senses and found… nothing. I couldn’t find the shadow’s cold presence anywhere.
If it returns, you can hold it away again, but if you don’t stop now, you will collapse.
Gradually and reluctantly, I stopped the flow of power I had been using to hold up the shield. As I did, the golden dome faded from my sight. It became a construct of my imagination once again, before it dropped altogether. I also pushed off the grief and the guilt and walled them away. The exercise left me empty, exposed, and vulnerable yet oddly calmer. The fatigue from my mental effort caught up with me. I became light-headed, and I collapsed into the chair across from the couch. My breath came in gasps, and I had to focus on it to slow
it down.
As always after crying, hiccups moved in. I became aware of my mother crouching beside me with her arm around me. I leaned into her, emotionally and physically exhausted.
Dr. Anderson finished his examination, crouched back on his heels, and said to the room in frustration, “She doesn’t look hurt, and I don’t feel the darkness around her now, but something’s not right. I can’t tell what, but I can feel it.”
“I ripped her (hic) soul in two,” I choked out between hiccups. “I saw it happen. When the shadow hit my shield, it clung to her aura and tore it in two.”
Another horrible thought occurred to me, and I couldn’t hold it back. “That must be what I did to my father.”
The doctor gazed at me with his blue eyes blazing. I had his full attention and could almost physically feel it. The pressure of his need to know weighed against my lungs and I struggled to speak.
“What do you mean? What did you do to your father?”
I shut up and shook my head. My mom squeezed my shoulder, either trying to send some message about what I had said or just hugging me tight. No matter which it was, I didn’t see any reason to keep my secret guilt from the doctor.
“Finn, what did you do to your father?”
“I’ll (hic) tell you, but could I get (hic) a glass of water?”
He nodded to the burly orderly standing silently behind me and said, “Tom?”
Tom quickly left the room.
I stared at Holly. Her small body didn’t even take up half the couch. I couldn’t help but think of her as my second victim.
Spring chimed in, This is different.
When I checked with my extended senses, I realized she was right. Holly’s body wasn’t shutting down like my dad’s body had. It was small relief as I examined her tiny, vulnerable form. I pulled my gaze from her and looked for my father. He was gone.
“Hey, (hic) where’s Dad?”
The shared glances around the room told me no one knew.
Worry pitched my mother’s voice. “Finn, honey, will you be okay while I go look for him?”
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