by C. M. Cevis
The oil spread across the arch of the doorway rather easily and left behind and sweet and tangy scent that didn’t overpower the smoke, unfortunately, but would be nice once the smoke cleared out. The annoying part was that the strip of oil needed to be as thick as Luna’s hand all the way around the door, and she couldn’t reach the top without a ladder. By the end, her right arm was exhausted.
“Alright,” she said, climbing down and putting the bowl to the side as Asher moved the ladder out of the way. “Here we go.”
Luna closed her eyes and held her hands to her sides. Most of her concoctions didn’t need words to go with them, but this one did since something physical was being produced.
Protect all those who walk these halls,
From that which lies within.
East to east, west to west,
North to north and south to south.
Only those that I allow may pass through these gates.
Ouvrir. Fermer. Only for my voice.
Silence.
“Did it work?” Liza whispered.
Luna opened her eyes. There was only one way to tell. “Ferme la porte, mon ami.”
There was an almost audible slam that seemed to shake the house, though the doorway looked exactly the same.
“You made the command French?” Liza asked.
Luna shrugged. “I could have made it something random, but picking a command that makes sense in a language not native to the area seemed easier on the brain.”
“Wait, why does it need to be random or in another language?” Asher asked.
“To make it harder to guess,” Luna said at the same time Liza said, “Two layers of protection.”
Luna nodded. “I don’t want to accidentally trigger the door one way or the other, so French solves that. And it’s also only supposed to work for my voice, but you never know.”
Asher nodded her understanding.
“Now, try and walk through the doorway, Ash,” Luna said, motioning in its direction.
“Pardon?”
Luna snorted a laugh. “It won’t hurt you, don’t worry. But you shouldn’t be able to go through.”
Asher looked wary but stepped forward. She grabbed the door handle and yanked. It didn’t budge.
“Pull harder,” Liza said.
Asher grabbed it with both hands, turned the knob, and pulled again. Nothing. She braced herself, knees bent, and pulled with everything she had. Not so much as a shift or squeak.
“Good. You can stop now,” Luna said. Asher let go of the door and waited. “Ouvert, s'il te plậit.” There was a small click sound. “Okay, try again.”
Asher grabbed the knob with both hands again, and before either sister was able to stop her, pulled on it with all her might. The door swung open easily and she toppled backwards onto the concrete floor to an immediate chorus of giggles.
“What did you think I told the door, seal tighter?” Luna wiped tears from her eyes.
Asher stood with a sheepish look on her face and brushed off the butt of her jeans. “I just didn’t expect it to open that easily.” She laughed.
“We should have her try the commands too,” Liza suggested.
“Good point.” The girls turned back to Asher, who shook her head.
“I do not know French.”
“Oh come on, all you have to do is parrot the sounds. It’ll be easy,” Luna grinned.
Asher sighed. “I guess it is important to test both safeguards. But I demand wine first. Plus, I need to tell you about all the nothing-suspicious I found at your doctor’s office.”
Luna motioned for her to follow towards the stairs. “Well, that’s good news.”
“You feel better about things now?” Liza asked as they ascended onto the main floor.
Luna pushed a wide smile onto her face. “I’m supposed to say yes, right?”
“Why don’t you feel better?” Asher asked, moving into the kitchen and immediately heading for the cabinet that contained the fancy wine glasses that she liked.
Luna sighed before finally shrugging. “I have no idea.”
20
He stood rock still in the window, watching the street below as the cars drove past in the growing twilight. He had wanted to leave hours ago, but the visits were always just before full dark. The last thing he wanted was that thing in his home.
“Interesting turn of events, hm?” it purred behind him.
“Indeed.”
“That’s it? Nothing more to say about what has happened?”
He turned to face the darkness in the corner of the room. “I know that it wasn’t you that set these wheels into motion. Don’t attempt to take credit for manipulating her where you cannot.”
He felt the offence drip from the being almost immediately. “You seem to be putting forth an odd amount of effort to defend someone who barely knows you exist. You don’t have the stomach for this, do you? Your mother was much more ruthless. How in the world did she raise such a soft boy?”
He gritted his teeth against the urge to say something. The evil thing was baiting him. His mother had done what was needed, just like he was. But she had also advised him on the nature of the beast. He knew when to shut up, even if it was difficult.
“What do you want from me tonight? There is nothing more I can do for you other than be here to listen to you babble on.”
“Harsh words for someone who holds the lives of his entire family in his hands. Perhaps I should remove them from the equation, if only to knock you down a few pegs.”
“If you break your own deal, demon, the payment you’ll owe those above you is much more than I could ever hope to inflict. If that is what you want, go ahead.”
The room grew silent, the corner growing darker.
“The girl was not delivered to me, as promised. Figure out why and fix it.”
He waited a moment before a sudden heaviness lifted, and he let out a sigh of relief. It was gone, and he wasn’t about to stick around to ask why. He grabbed his things and left.
21
“Well hey there, stranger,” Luna said brightly as Zelda stepped into the kitchen. The look on her face stopped Luna’s laughter and jokes.
“Is the coffee made?” Zelda asked softly.
Luna pulled down two cups from her cabinet. “Of course. Have a seat.”
“She hasn’t let you serve her once since she’s been here,” Liza whispered through mind.
She was right. In fact, Zelda had done just like she had in her coma dream and said that she just needed to know where everything was so that she could grab it for herself.
Luna fixed both cups of coffee and took a seat beside Zelda at the kitchen island. “Is something wrong?”
Zelda looked up, distant eyes refocusing. Luna could almost hear her replaying the question in her head, coming back to the present.
“No, the room is lovely.”
“I’m not asking about the room, Zelda.”
Her eyes teared up as she took a small sip from the hot coffee. She wouldn’t look at Luna, but she answered.
“I came up here to get away from home for a bit. Everything that I have there reminds me of someone that was important to me. Someone I recently lost. I needed a moment to gather myself.”
“Liza,” Luna thought.
“Right” came the reply.
“I brought her ashes here with me, you know. She asked that I decide where to scatter them, but I can’t seem to find a place that’s worthy of her. So instead, I just truck her around in that stupid urn,” she said with a soft laugh tinged with sorrow.
“Do you want to tell me about her? She sounded like a wonderful person.”
“She was. She was my best friend, had been since sixth grade. She hated both of my ex-husbands from day one and loved the last boyfriend. I was with him when I found out that she—”
Luna reached over and put her hand over Zelda’s.
“She had gotten really sick. The doctors weren’t sure what had happened or what to d
o about it, but they had specialists in her room around the clock trying to figure it out. I was there in the room with her as much as I was allowed to be, and one day she’d told me to go spend some time with the man I love. It took her almost two hours to convince me that it was okay for me to go meet him for dinner, and I was coming right back afterwards.” Zelda stopped.
“She knew,” Liza whispered.
“Perhaps she didn’t want you to be there for the hard part,” Luna offered carefully.
Zelda sniffed and nodded. “That’s what Daniel said. Daniel is the guy I’ve been seeing. He went with me to say hi to her that night, but the nurses stopped us on our way past their station.”
“I’m so sorry, Zelda,” Luna replied.
“They said that she didn’t feel any pain when she passed. I try and hold on to that.” She smiled sadly and took a shaky sip of her coffee.
“What was her name?”
“Amie,” Zelda whispered.
“I can see her,” Liza whispered.
Luna hesitated. She always did, unsure how any one person would react to what she was about to say. “What… do you know about psychics?”
Zelda tilted her head. “Those people who do late night infomercials?”
Luna smirked. “No, those are mostly fake. I mean real psychics, Zelda. The ones who can function as a medium for someone who recently left you.”
Zelda sat stone still and looked at Luna. “Is that real?”
“Some are. Not all.”
“You can?” she asked, leaning forward.
“I can help,” Luna replied. Saying yes to a question like that always felt dishonest to her, since it was really Liza. But that part was even harder to explain than the fact that she could help talk to dead people.
“I’m not sure…”
“Amie said she’ll wait,” Liza said in Luna’s mind.
Luna nodded slightly. “You don’t have to decide right now, I’m not going anywhere. You take your time, and when you think you’re ready to talk to her, come find me.”
Zelda started to tear up again, and Luna gave her hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
22
Jacob had been just as nice as he’d been the first time that Luna had gone to see him, and his office gave her the same uneasiness. But this time, Liza was taking a look around during the appointment.
“Wonderful to see you again,” Jacob said, smiling as he ushered her into the office. “How have things been since we last spoke? It’s been four days, hasn’t it?”
“It has indeed,” Luna replied with a smile. “It hasn’t been bad.” Luna settled down onto the couch and putting her purse to the side. “Less nightmares, so that’s something.”
Jacob raised his eyebrows. “That’s great news. Hopefully that means talking through this is helping your mind work through the trauma.”
“I guess I should talk more often.”
“You don’t open up to people?”
Well, that was a loaded question, wasn’t it? She tried to be casual in her response. “No, not really. Not because I don’t want to—there are people in my life that I’d love to confide in. I just… don’t.”
“Like?”
“Like my best friend, Asher. There are so many things I can’t tell her.” She hadn’t meant to say that, exactly.
“Why can’t you?”
“Well, I mean, I can’t seem to make myself open up.” That wasn’t what she meant at all, but it was going to have to do.
“Believe it or not, a lot of people find it easier to open up to someone that they don’t know, like a therapist. The reasoning is that they are less worried about being judged from someone that isn’t a close fixture in their life. By opening up to a relative stranger, they are able to unburden themselves. Therapists and patients often become friends, but by then, the fear of judgement is gone, since the patient already knows the therapist won’t judge them.”
“That actually makes sense, in a weird way.” She still wouldn’t be opening up to Jacob—ever.
He smiled warmly. “Think about this as the start of a beautiful friendship. I am not here to judge you. I am simply here to be what you need me to be. That’s all.”
“So, when I talked about my brother last time, and how he and I left things the last time I saw him… Nothing inside of you judged me even the smallest bit for leaving things like that for so long?”
“Sibling relationships are difficult for everyone, and from what you’ve told me about your brother and yourself, the relationship wasn’t meant to stay the way it did. You simply haven’t had the chance to fix it. The fact that it’s been years isn’t really relevant.”
Luna looked at Jason like he’d sprouted a second head, and he laughed.
“It sounds so simple when you put it that way.”
“It is simple, Luna. That is the part that most people allow themselves to forget. When you are ready, and when he is ready, a phone call could bring back the friendship you all had as kids.”
“Do you really think that’s why he was the body in the dream?” Luna asked with a sigh.
“Remember, I can only speculate… But yes, I do believe that’s why. The reasoning would make sense.”
“What reasoning?”
“You feel guilty for your stalled relationship with your brother, so you place him in a situation that would make you feel more obviously guilty about it. Maybe to force yourself to deal with it outside of your head, since it sounds like there wasn’t a resolution in the dream.”
Luna glanced up, the wheels in her head turning. “Definitely no resolution.”
“And are you thinking about him more than you were before?”
Luna nodded.
“See?”
She did see. Except there were several reasons she couldn’t just pick up the phone and call Matt, even if she wanted to.
“It might be worth looking into whether he’d like to speak with you as well,” Jacob said, bringing Luna back out of her head.
“Yeah,” she sighed. She’d have to find him first.
“How have things been outside of your dreams? How is business at the bed and breakfast?”
Luna went into autopilot, halfway listening as she tried to examine his face and body language without looking like some sort of creeper.
There was something about his face that hadn’t struck her until now. Something familiar. She wondered if she’d seen him around town before and just not really noticed. It wasn’t farfetched—Calidity wasn’t so tiny she recognized everyone on the street. But she usually did notice if someone completely new turned up—and Jacob didn’t feel completely new.
“Boundaries would relieve a lot of stress for a lot of people. Perhaps setting some boundaries in what you do—”
“Have we… spoken before?” Luna asked, too late realizing he was mid-sentence.
Jacob stopped. “I don’t believe so. Why?”
She wasn’t answering that one, at least not with the truth. “Calidity’s a small town. I just find it odd that we haven’t run across each other before,” she said, pushing a friendly smile onto her face.
“You’re right, that is odd.” He shrugged, then grinned. “And now I’m sure we’ll see each other constantly.”
She nodded noncommittally and he continued, “Now as I was saying, boundaries would help with intrusive thoughts. That, in turn, might help with the nightmares. Something to consider.”
“Back,” Liza whispered through Luna’s mind.
“Boundaries seem like something that most of us could use more of,” she mused before thinking, “And?” to Liza. She was used to multi-conversing.
“I’m not getting anything from Jacob.”
“Then why the heck am I so uneasy?” She smiled at Jacob and asked, “Boundaries seem helpful in your line of work. How do you keep the burdens of others from going home with you?”
He looked touched she had asked, but what Liza said next distracted her.
Liza had never not been able to read someone. Except a vampire they’d come across once, and they were pretty sure that was because they are the un-zombified version of the walking dead. Nothing with vampires worked the way people thought it would.
“That is concerning, but it wouldn’t make me feel off,” Luna thought, nodding pleasantly at Jacob.
“That’s his office, but I can’t tell you why though. Something seems to be confined to one side of the room, the wrongness radiating outwards.”
Luna’s eyes shifted towards one of the corners of the room. She wasn’t even sure that was the right one, but she was a bit paranoid now. Jacob was going on about how he maintained a stress-free home.
“Does he have something hidden over there maybe?”
“I can’t tell without doing a lot more than I can while the two of you are sitting here playing nice.”
Luna refocused on her therapist as he closed the notebook. “It looks like our time is almost up, Luna. Today was a really great session, and I wanted to thank you for asking about me as well. I don’t get too many patients that seem to care about my well-being in return.”
Luna returned his grin as the two of them stood and began moving towards the exit.
“I always thought it was human nature to care,” Luna replied. “But you’re welcome. It’s always good to know someone other than just you cares.”
They walked into the empty reception area, and Jacob took a seat at the small desk. “Should we schedule your next appointment now?”
“Is your receptionist ever here? She was absent the last time too.”
Jacob frowned and shook his head. “That had been going on for a few weeks by then, so I had to let her go. You can’t be a receptionist if you’re never at the desk. For now, I’m pulling double duty until I find someone new.”