The Presence

by Shady Grim

  “Who knows why things pop into kids heads.”

  The excitement of Saturday’s barbecue spilled over into Sunday and we had a lovely day, although we were all hard at work with property upkeep and repairs. Even the children, whom Ethan and I insisted should have some kind of chores to do, were civil with each other all day. Naturally, Shelly was opposed to Jimmy having chores to do, but since he actually liked having some responsibility, and especially being praised for a job well done, she permitted us to assign him work. We stopped working only to grab quick meals, except for dinner, which ended up being prepared very late and proved to be long and raucous. Even Shelly was cajoled into a little joviality, and I must admit that it felt warm to relive a little of the past with Ethan, and also to hear the hearty laughter of another generation of children. It seemed strange to me, and I know he felt the same way, that it was us prompting and guiding children this time. It wasn’t so very long ago that it was we who were the little half-grown bodies sitting in their chairs, and laughing with our parents and grandparents and other assorted relatives. As happy a time as it was, it seemed a little empty without the older generations being present. Some of my fondest memories were with my grandparents and great-aunts and great-uncles, listening to them talk of the alien era and way of life in which they grew up.

  It was Ethan’s night to do dishes so he and the children stayed in the kitchen to finish drenching it in suds while I went to search for Thor and collect him for bed. He was as much addicted to schedules as was I and liked loud noise even less, so after it became apparent that our little party was nowhere near a close, he trotted off somewhere to catch his beauty sleep. I found him in the library and called for him to follow me, but he just laid there with his head between his paws staring up at me. I thought he was ill and went over to check him. He grumbled at my fussing. I could find nothing wrong so I assumed he was punishing me for the late and noisy evening. I stood in the doorway calling him and thinking to myself how amusing it was that the only other member of the household, aside from myself and Thor, that wasn’t afraid to come into this room alone was Emily. That was certainly one marked difference between she and her father, nothing seemed to frighten her. Ethan said that she inherited it from me, but I thought it was the lack of Ethan’s mother’s paranoid influence that was to be credited. I always felt that Ethan would’ve been much stronger had his parents not torn him down so badly. One can’t help but be influenced by one’s surroundings. Thor refused to budge so I left him there to stew while I went to bed by myself. As I rounded the main hallway, I saw Shelly scrambling rather nimbly on her crutches. She obviously was unaware of my presence. She stopped just before she reached the stairs as her left crutch slipped on the floor and she bent down to identify the cause. I began to walk toward her, also curious as to why she might have slipped. I caught a glimpse of something white above her head, and I dove to tackle her. As we landed, I heard a heavy crash behind us and felt myself being pelted by falling debris of some kind. Shelly was screaming furiously, and Ethan came running followed closely by the children.

  “What the fuck?” cried Ethan as he yanked us both to our feet and then asked us if we were injured.

  “I’m fine,” I said as I brushed off the plaster pieces and turned to survey the damage.

  “Well, I’m not...,” began Shelly spitefully, but calmed as she realized what almost happened, “...fine.”

  Ethan and I cautiously stepped around the enormous lump of plaster that lay on the hallway floor, and looked up to see from where it may have come. Seconds later, Thor came walking past us and placidly trotted up the stairs to go to bed. Ethan and I looked at each other and started to laugh, which garnered an immediate reprimand from Shelly. He and I went upstairs and searched every nook and cranny, but were unable to find even a single chip of plaster out of place. It was as if the chunk appeared out of thin air. Ethan told Shelly that it was a piece from a difficult-to-access space under the stairs at the top of the house, and pointed to where the staircase turned away from easy view. He assured her that he and I would fix it immediately. We waited until everyone was securely in bed before we went about cleaning up the mess. It was large and unwieldy. We had to carry it out together to the trash where Ethan broke it up with a hammer so it could be more easily disposed of. We then swept up the remnants and were stunned to find that there was not a single blemish on the floor.

  “That ain’t possible,” he said, running his hand over the pristine wood floor. “That thing had to weigh about a hundred pounds. “If I didn’t see it for myself, I would never have believed it.”

  After a silent moment I looked up and said, “Well, it must’ve come from somewhere up there.”

  “It didn’t come from anywhere. The house did it.”

  “It had to come from somewhere.”

  “Then tell me why we can’t find it, Heather. The possible places for it to fall from are pretty limited. While yer at it, please tell me why there ain’t no pieces anywhere on the stairs. There ain’t even any dust anywhere for Christ’s sake. And don’t tell me Shelly staged this one. There’s no way she could’ve lifted that much plaster. She ain’t that strong.”

  “It’s just a little too hard for me to believe that, that thing emerged out of thin air.”

  “Why? Yeh finally admitted the other night that yeh have a gift–”

  “Had a gift, and seeing spectral images isn’t quite the same thing as this. That was a physical manifestation, and it nearly killed two people. Frankly, I think the violence in this house is more than just coincidental, but I’m not inclined to believe that the house itself is the source.”

  “Well, I think this place is tryin’ to tell yeh somethin’ and yeh just ain’t listenin’.”

  “I think Shelly’s trying to tell us something and you can’t face it,” I retorted. “Either way we’re at an impasse, and we have to figure out what to do.”

  “I know yeh love this place, and I know yer happy here, but there’s somethin’ in here that just don’t want us around.”

  “If you want to take Emily out of here, I’ll understand and I’ll set you up somewhere else. Shelly too, if she wants to leave, but I will not leave my home under any circumstances.”

  “If you ain’t leavin’; I ain’t leavin’. Besides Emmy’s as happy here as you are.”

  Ethan prayed to St. Michael, lit a candle, and placed it on the hall table. He didn’t want to dedicate any “holy” thing by himself in case something malevolent should retaliate, so I wasn’t allowed to go to bed until he was finished. I walked him up the stairs, and we stopped at his bedroom door for him to give me a candle to take to my room. I did have the candle lit for a while, but the flickering kept me awake, so I blew it out and re-lit it when I arose in the morning. Once the candles were lit, they were supposed to remain so until they burned themselves out. Ethan had a habit of checking all the candles to see if they were still lit, and I knew I would catch hell from him if he knew I’d blown it out. An unlit candle was proof to him that there was a powerful evil presence in our midst, which is something else I didn’t want to have to listen to.

  I rose at my usual time, five a.m., and went downstairs accompanied by my roommate, Thor. In the hallway, between the dining room and kitchen, he let out a little squeal and began to bite at his left front paw. I inspected his paw and found a red push pin sticking out of the pad and pulled it out. I checked the rest of his paws just as a precaution and made a mental note to tell the kids to stay out of my study. I went to the kitchen and made some biscuits to accompany breakfast. I ate my usual fruit salad and muffin while they were baking. I had less to do in the mornings since Shelly had come. She was doing most of the house cleaning during the day, while Ethan worked on household repairs. Emmy would be down between five thirty and six to have her cereal, and we would start her boxing training outside until her dad came down, around seven, to make breakfast. Jimmy would sometimes come down with Ethan and sometimes with his mother, who normally arose
between eight and nine. As expected, Emmy came down for her pre-breakfast cereal. Just like her father, she generally ate a snack before and after every meal. The pre-meal snack was to hold her over until the meal was ready, and the post-meal snack was to top it off. This was an eating schedule common to most of our family members. Most of us were blessed with high metabolisms and little to no self-control where food was concerned. I shared the family’s metabolism and large appetite, but was much more selective about what I ate. Having finished her morning wash-up, Emmy accompanied me outside for her lesson. She was a somewhat more diligent student than her father. He refused to do his beginner’s exercises and insisted on skipping straight to “bustin’ heads,” which is why my father refused to train him personally. Although her attention span was short, she willingly worked at her lessons. If she was unable to pick up a movement properly by the third or fourth try, she would become frustrated and lose interest. Like her father, she was very competitive and a bad-tempered loser, but unlike him, she was willing to work at getting better. After occupying herself with something else for an hour or two, she’d go back to practicing her lesson. This morning’s lesson was finished in just enough time to hear Ethan swearing in the hallway.

  “There goes your dad again, Em.”

  “Yeah, he’s always grouchy in the mornin’,” she said as she reached into the fridge for a container of orange juice.

  “God damn it! Who the hell is leavin’ these thumb tacks all over?” He showed me the red push pin that he’d retrieved from his foot.

  “It wasn’t me, Dad.”

  “I pulled one of those out of Thor’s paw earlier, same color too. Somebody must like red,” I said as I prepared a fresh bowl of water and sat it on the floor for Thor. “I already asked Emmy to stay out of my study. If Jimmy’s not awake before I leave for work, will you have a talk with him?”

  “Yeh bet yer ass I will! This is the third tack I’ve stepped on.” He sat at the table to have his cereal, which would stave off his hunger until he was able to cook breakfast. This gave Emmy the chance to recite her morning lesson to him. “That’s great, Em. Am I gonna have a golden gloves to cheer for someday?” She gave an enthusiastic “Yes!” to her dad’s question, and went back outside to practice by herself.

  “How good is she?”

  “Not bad, she’s just like you except that she tries harder.”

  “Does she have my fast hands?” he said, throwing a mock combination.

  “I think she’ll be faster than you, but she’s a bit young to judge. She’s got good hand-and-eye coordination, and she’s ambidextrous. She has the same problem as you too. She can’t coordinate her footwork. She tends to plant her feet.” I thought of my father as I spoke, and how much he would’ve liked to train her.

  “Well, yeh can get ‘er outta that right?” he said with a bit more alarm than I thought was necessary.

  “Oh yeah, she’s a lot younger than you were when you started training. It shouldn’t take too long to get her out of her bad habits.” I reassured him although I thought it was far too early for him to be getting so serious about her athletic potential.

  “God, I haven’t done any trainin’ since...I can’t even remember. Yer so lucky yer dad did stuff like that with yeh. Mine wouldn’t even let me join the track team.” He sat up straight, puffed out his chest, and pointed his finger at the empty chair in front of him. “Young man, extracurricular activities are privileges that must be earned. If you expect me to reward you with athletics when you can’t even help your mother keep up this house, then you are sadly mistaken.” Ethan’s speaking voice was naturally much deeper than his father’s, but he always significantly lowered it when he impersonated him. It added an uncomfortably real dimension to a chillingly stern character. “When I see perfect test scores in school and a perfect behavioral report from your mother, then and only then, will I consider allowing you to waste your time with these foolish pursuits.” The foolish pursuits were activities like the track team, the soccer team, art classes, auto shop, the gymnastics team and the list goes on. It was always the same promise, and every time Ethan managed to perform whatever insane tasks he was given, either something new was added to the list, or fault was found where there had been none previously.

  “We were about eighteen, and I trained you for less than six months when you found better things to do,” I said, wagging my finger at him.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I was thinkin’ about startin’ to train again. Maybe I could get rid of the rest of this gut.” He patted his somewhat diminished belly.

  “I think that’s a great idea, and I was thinking that old barn would be a good gym. What do you think?”

  “Are you nuts? That thing’s barely standin’. It would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.”

  “So you think it’s not worth fixing?”

  “No, it would take a small fortune to get that thing standin’ again. Yeh should get everythin’ else settled before yeh try and restore it. That’s a major operation, and I couldn’t do it by myself. Now, that garage yeh never use would be a better choice. It would still be expensive, but nothin’ close to that barn. It’s got a solid foundation, and most of the work on it would be cosmetic, and I kinda like the loft that’s above it. It would make a good-sized apartment.”

  “Deal, as long as the loft has a separate entrance, my gardens don’t get trashed, and the noise is kept to a minimum.”

  “Done,” he said, and we shook hands on it. “But I need someone to help me do the electrical and plumbing. Yeh gotta be licensed for that stuff.”

  “No problem, Fitzie can handle all that, and he can do some carpentry work too. I already asked him.” I winked at him and reminded him to have a talk with Jimmy as I had to get ready for work. After I left for work, Ethan made breakfast for everyone as he usually did. He told Shelly, who had finally abandoned her crutches, of the push pins that had been dropped on the floor, and asked her to keep an eye out for any more of them. Jimmy insisted he was innocent so Ethan warned Emily and Jimmy both to stay out of the study, and if he found any more pins on the floor, he would punish both of them. He made a quick phone call and asked Shelly to listen for the phone as he was expecting a friend to call him back. In the meantime, he would be finishing up the work on the front porch. The children went out to play, and Shelly went about her daily routine of washing up the breakfast dishes and doing the chores of house cleaning and laundry.

  Shelly rather enjoyed her self-designated chores. She found it to be relaxing while at the same time she was keeping her mind and body busy. She found herself enjoying the solitude of the country, which is something she would’ve hated when she was a little younger. She’d been a people person all of her young life. She was outgoing and loved a good loud party, but all that changed when Jimmy came along. He took up all of her time and energy, and she felt she didn’t really need the company of other people anymore. She’d become reserved to the point of being timid, and had little interest in anything but Jimmy. She chalked up her change in personality as being the product of maturity and motherhood, and she felt satisfied with herself. Strangely, she didn’t miss Rick at all, but she allowed Jimmy to speak to him on the phone. Rick sincerely wanted her to come back to him, but she refused. She was even considering telling her brother that she planned on staying here instead of going home with him. She was very pleased that Ethan and I treated her Jimmy exactly the same as we treated Emily, as if he were a member of our family. She felt herself becoming very settled in the old house, and she knew that Jimmy was settling too. As long as Jimmy was happy, Shelly would be happy. She was beginning to take a serious liking to Ethan, and had been fantasizing that he and she could become a family. She knew how much he loved children and that he would like to have more. She liked that he made no preferences over Jimmy for his own child, and she imagined him to be a good father to Jimmy. Her daydreaming was sharply interrupted by the ringing of the telephone, which she ran to answer. Finding that it wa
s the return call for Ethan, she laid the phone down on the hall table and called to him. He ran in the door and straight for the study.

  “Thanks, I’ll take it in the study. Hang up when I pick up the other phone.”

  Shelly thought his behavior was a little odd, but she did as he’d instructed and went back to her housework. Several minutes later, Ethan asked Shelly if she would mind watching Emily for a few hours. He had to see an old friend about something important, and would likely be gone for some time. He asked Shelly to tell Heather that the front porch was finished. All it needed now was to be painted, which Heather would do herself as Ethan was a sloppy painter. On his way out the door, he suggested that Shelly go canoeing with the kids. That usually kept them occupied for several hours, and he’d promised them earlier that he would take them out. As he was closing the front door behind him, he hesitated for a second and asked her if she would be alright by herself. She assured him that she would be fine and went about making lunch for the children before they all went canoeing together. Emily spotted him as he made his way to his truck, and came running from some unseen hiding place where she and Jimmy were playing.

  “Can I come too, Dad?” she asked breathlessly. He explained to her that he had some important business and that she couldn’t come with him this time, but he promised he would take her out at another time. After a few minutes of begging and pleading, she realized that her dad wasn’t going to change his mind and she disappointedly gave in. She stood waving as she watched his truck roll down the long dirt driveway and disappear into the wooded distance. It would be late in the evening before Ethan would find his way home again.

  I allowed Emmy to sit up and wait for her dad to come home and tuck her into bed. By ten o’clock, she was fast asleep on the couch, wrapped up in her favorite purple blanket. Shelly had found her bed by half past ten. By eleven, I was ready to carry Emmy up to her bed when I heard Ethan’s noisy old truck come rolling up the driveway. I went out onto the back porch in time to see him sprinting from his truck to the porch. He almost ran into me before he realized that I was standing there, and jumped back with a start.