Out Of The Dark

by Phaedra Weldon

  And I was completely upset with myself when the boy actually fell backward off his chair. I stood up. So did mom. Rhonda was up and on the floor with him.

  He didn't get up right away and I had that sinking feeling I'd just done something awful again. I was feeling like the kid who couldn't get anything right, not even walking through a house carefully. One miss-step and I knocked over the Ming vase.

  "Zoë!" Rhonda's tone was upset. "What the hell did you do? His nose is bleeding!"

  Huh? I was around the table and standing next to an observant Jemmy Schultz. She had on a blue housedress today, with white stockings and matching blue slippers.

  Dags on the other hand lay on his side, his pony-tail splayed out about his head, his eyes closed and blood oozing from his nose.

  Son. Of. A. Bitch.

  "Zoë," Mom's voice was a little more calming, but I could tell she was still irritated. "I didn't see you go OOB. What happened?"

  "You threw your thoughts at him," Tim said in a very soft voice. He was visible near the counter that looked into the tea-shop's kitchen. "That's new."

  I--I didn't mean too. I knew Tim and Steve could hear me, but no one else. I looked about for my board, and reading my thoughts, Jemmy reached across the table and retrieved it for me. Guilt was an all too palpable thing at the moment--because in truth I had meant to throw my thoughts at him.

  But who knew they'd skewer him like a shish kabob???

  I DIDN'T THINK THEY WOULD HIT.

  Mom and Rhonda skimmed my board then both of them gave me identical faces. Ack. Was that rehearsed?

  Jemmy was abruptly in the kitchen, grabbing a clean cloth, loading it with cold water and then returning to where Dags was down. I stood dumbfounded.

  It just seemed to me that men were constantly getting hurt around me. And I was the cause of this. I thought of Daniel, and realized he was all-alone in the hospital.

  We were all here.

  Rhonda had propped Dags' head up on her lap and was now dabbing at his nose with the wet rag. It looked like a sweet moment. Too bad I was the bully on the playground that whacked him.

  Then he stirred, and moaned and looked up to see Rhonda, and totally turned seven shades of red. I put a hand over my mouth to avoid laughing--I was gonna say hysterically--but how can you laugh like that when you don't make noises?

  Shit.

  "Uh--" Dags said.

  "Oh--" Rhonda said.

  Both of them disengaged.

  But when Dags tried to sit up, he grabbed his head with his hands. His nose wasn't bleeding anymore, but the rim of it was dark with dried blood. Rhonda did an awful job cleaning it. And there was blood on his collar.

  "You okay, sugar?" Jemmy was bending over and I moved out of the way of her caboose.

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry oh I am so sorry--

  "All right, all right," Dags muttered in a strained voice. "I can hear you. Just--use your verbal jujitsu somewhere else. Okay? I'm not the enemy here."

  I blinked, and stood up straight. So you can hear me?

  Dags winced and looked at me. He slowly pulled his hands away from his head. "Say that again?"

  I pursed my lips. I said, so you can hear me?

  He nodded slowly. "Yeah, well, no. Not really hear you."

  Huh?

  Rhonda shook her head. "What?"

  "It's--it's more like I can suddenly see pictures. Images that kinda tell me what it is you're saying."

  Okaynowthatwasweird.

  Jemmy reached out her hand and Dags took it, allowing she and Rhonda to help him off the floor. He looked a little pale--which only added to his striking eyes and dark hair.

  "Lemme see," Jemmy grabbed his left shoulder and pressed her palm into his forehead. He glanced over at me and sort of gave me a helpless deer look. "Youse okay--but I'm afraid Zoë might have opened up your third eye."

  Dags nodded and stepped back. I was thinking he might bolt. And who could blame him?

  "What do you mean by images?" Steve said from his perch beside Nona's chair.

  "Well," Dags held out his hands, palms up. "I knew she was asking me if I could hear her. But what I saw in my head was a barrage of images of ears and then her face." He glared at me. "And I do mean a barrage. Please, don't yell anymore."

  Yell. I can yell?

  I somehow felt comforted. Guilty. But oddly comforted.

  Everyone took their seats again. I sat down and attacked my breakfast. It was cold.

  "Zoë," Rhonda said as an icebreaker. "I'll handle it. You eat." She turned to Dags and gave him a very nice reader's digest version of what had happened to us in the past month. From my meeting TC, to the Reverend Rollins, Hirokumi, Daniel, Susan, Rai, and then the Phantasm.

  I was a little surprised too. I'd told them all that? Wow. I'm a blabbermouth even when I don't have a voice.

  Dags took it all in, finishing up his coffee. I did notice he pressed his fingers into his forehead and temple a lot--like maybe his head hurt.

  After Rhonda was done, Dags spoke up. "Okay. So," he turned and looked at me. "You're a Wraith--whatever that is--and you can go out of body. That much I've seen."

  "And if you did see trouble around the Chief of Surgery," Nona said as she buttered a biscuit and then put it on my half-empty plate. "What exactly is it you could do?"

  "Nothing," Dags said with a shrug. "I was just told to watch and observe. I'm not an action hero, or an exorcist, or…," he glanced at me. "Or a Wraith. I'm just a guy that sees ghosts. But I was told to log in and report anything unusual."

  Rhonda put her hand up. "So, you were also paid to watch Nancy's grandfather?" She frowned. "By whom? Who is wanting to know about Bonville?"

  He suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I--I really don't know. Most of my clients come by the internet. And this particular one has been pretty interested in this guy for a while."

  "What do they ask you to do?" Mom said.

  I wasn't as suspicious as Rhonda--hell--my biggest client called themselves--themself?--maharba. So--who was I to judge?

  "Well, to keep an eye on everyone around him. See who pissed him off next and see if they disappear like all the others."

  "And the restaurant?" Mom nudged. "The reason why you responded to Rhonda's response to Maureen's inquiry?"

  Wow. She sounded all professional.

  I watched him.

  Dags' shoulders rose as he took in a deep breath and sighed. "Mostly because I knew Maureen. We'd gone out a few times. After I started there as the loft bartender--I noticed she never came upstairs. I always had to meet her at the foot of the stairs. Then one day the manager was there in his office and arguing on the phone. Most of the staff grew quiet--and I waited until he'd left before I asked them what was up.

  "Maureen and Toby--the main floor bartender in the evenings--both took me out back for a smoke--them not me--I don't smoke--and told me about the Shadow People."

  "Shadow People?" Jemmy spoke up.

  Rhonda gave out the definition she'd googled before. Jemmy nodded. "Oh I knows about them," she said softly before setting back. "But that's not what we calls them."

  I looked at Dags before shifting my gaze to Jemmy. I erased, scribbled. YOU SEEN?

  "Not seen, but I have heard the stories. They don't like people much," she said. "When I was much younger, they was several of them lived in a house over on Clairmont, near LaVista. Beautiful old house--wrap around porch and a large attic. There was a little girl lived there about--oh--twenty years ago. Went to one of those schools nearby, went to the Lutheran church down from Moreland. I cleaned upstairs in the church three evenings a week after services and meetings.

  "She used to sit out in the sunshine during the day when it was hot. Sweating. Wouldn't go inside in. Told me over a lemonade one day that the dark peoples lived in the shade. And they were mean."

  "She saw these dark peoples?" Nona said.

  Jemmy nodded. "She said they were in her house. Said they lived in the attic. And they hated her, and
her family. Wanted them out of that house. She tried to tell her mama and daddy that, but no one listens to a child."

  I grabbed up my board and wrote on it. DID THEY KILL LIL'GIRL?

  She nodded. I knew she would. "Coroner said she fell down the stairs leaving the attic one afternoon." Jemmy shook her head. "That's not true. She'd never go into that attic. They did it--I don't know how. But I was always sure those dark peoples--or Shadow People--had something to do with it."

  "So are they lost souls?" Rhonda asked the room. "Or demons? Why do something like that? What's their motive?"

  Dags spoke up. "Tim, Steve, have you ever seen them?"

  Both of the ghosts shook their head. "We're bound here," Steve said and pointed to the ground. "To this house. There have never been Shadow People in here. But if they exist on something other than the physical or the astral, then we can't see them anyway."

  "Not sure I want to," Tim said.

  Me neither. I was getting goose bumps. Me, Wraith. Sucker of souls, hear me roar.

  Mental Note: me-ow.

  "So there are Shadow People in the restaurant," Nona said. She picked up her coffee, and I noticed she'd done her nails. They were painted a light pink.

  Since when did mom do her nails?

  Dags nodded. "I think there's a link between them and Dr. Bonville. I'm sure you already know that Nancy's grandmother disappeared a few months ago. And the seventh employee to disappear under Dr. Bonville's patronage was Maureen."

  Seven? I waved at Dags and held up two fingers.

  He shook his head. "There are only two we can link directly to Bonville—his wife and Maureen." He shrugged, anticipating my next question as to how Maureen was connected. "He was having an affair with her."

  Dude was a playah for sure. Wondered what this Bonville guy looked like.

  "So the other five are simply missing?" Rhonda said, her previous questions about the Shadow People unanswered.

  Dags nodded. "There was talk the others were somehow involved with Bonville, but no one ever knew in what way. Since there wasn't any tangible link between them and him?" he sighed. "They're not really a part of the official investigation."

  I narrowed my eyes at Dags—why did I get the impression he knew a lot more than he was saying? I mean, not that I really knew this guy or anything. There was just something…

  …odd.

  Nona held up her hand. "So you think Dr. Bonville has something to do with the Shadow People and Maureen's death as well as his wife's the other missing employees?"

  He nodded.

  Mom shook her head. "Poppycock."

  I looked at mom with shock. Hadn't I warned her about using words like that? She was so going to get type-cast like that.

  Dags and Rhonda started to protest but Jemmy held up her hand. "Why you think that, Nona?"

  "Because he has the reputation of a magician. A magician in this day and age--given that meaning--isn't going to ally himself with Shadow People."

  Uh--I scribbled on my board. WHY NOT? And where did she suddenly get this fount of knowledge when earlier she didn't know anything more about Shadow People than we did?

  Rhonda reached out over the table and flipped the Big Book open. A few more pages to the right, then the left, one right and--

  "Because it says so right here," she pointed to a rather ornate page in the book. I stood up and leaned over the table to see just as Dags, Jemmy and Tim did the same.

  "Okay, I can't read that," Dags said in a dejected voice. "It looks like an ancient dialect of Finnish."

  "Actually it's Gaelic," Rhonda said. "First generation--though not far removed from second gen, B.C."

  I could feel the geek-meter in the room rise to the red-o-doom.

  I scribbled and put the board under her nose. YOU WANT ME SCREAM? WHAT SAY?

  "Scream?" Dags looked at me. "You can't talk but you can scream?"

  "You really don't want her to do that," Rhonda held out her hand. "Just everyone sit down."

  We did.

  "Shadow People, otherwise known as Shadow Folk--according to this tome--are in essence, elemental human spirits."

  Uhm.

  What? Wikipedia didn't say that.

  And that definition is like a kazillion light years away from Brownie.

  Dags shook his head. "So--what does that mean? I know what elemental is--being of the elements. There are elementals that control each of the five realms. Earth, air, fire, water and spirit."

  Rhonda beamed. I mean, she was glowing she was so happy to have found another information spout. "Exactly. But Shadow Folk are basically humans who transcended life in this physical plane, gaining a bit of elemental attachment."

  I erased with the back of my hand, scribbled. THOUGHT U SAID NOT HUMAN.

  Rhonda pursed her lips. "No, I didn't say that. The emails from Maureen said they didn't seem human."

  Oh. So much for that great memory of mine.

  Steve put a finger to his chin, a sign he was processing all this. "So how does this happen? This transcendental mingling of human spirit and elemental?"

  I turned my thoughts back to Daniel and wondered what time it was. I did not like the idea of him being alone.

  "The Book doesn't say. What it does say is that these creatures have been around as long as the planet itself--existing before people from what I can tell. And they have mischievous streaks and are known in several countries. Domovoi in Slavic folklore, tomte in Scandinavian, lares in the Roman dieties, and wirry-cow in Scotland, a tonttu in Finland and here--"

  We all waited. God she was being dramatic.

  "We call them Brownies."

  There was that dead silence again.

  "You're shitting me," Dags said in a deep voice.

  Well, so much for Wikipedia. I told you.

  "Brownies?" Nona looked at the book. "You sure you read that right? I mean, your ancient Gaelic is up to date, right?"

  That's about the time it hit me: how come Rhonda, whom I always assumed was younger than me, can read Gaelic?

  What, do they teach that in schools now?

  "Well aren't Brownies supposed to look like little people?" Nona asked.

  And to be honest--I'd kinda had that image in my head too.

  "Well, they might have looked like little people centuries ago, before the disbelief in magic became the social norm," Steve said. Everyone looked at him. "But over the centuries they've become shadowy because of our perception."

  "How so?" Jemmy said.

  "Well, think of myself and Tim. Not everyone can see us, even when we pull our energy together and become corporeal. Which tells me that different people have different filters. Ways of viewing the world. Much like a channel on a television."

  Dags nodded slowly. "I'm getting there--"

  Glad he was. I was still stuck on Brownies, and I wasn't getting the image of some movie with a Brownie swimming in a Stein of beer out of my head. Oy.

  "Think of it as the picture's only as good as the television's reception. Bad reception, bad picture. I don't think we as humans have the necessary capabilities to see them clearly anymore, so we see shadows. As to what they are--" he shrugged. "I feel that's still debatable. They might be Brownies--but I'll hold my opinion on that for now."

  Here here. Now where was my watch? I started to stand up. Nona reached out and pushed me back down with a hand on my shoulder. Ow.

  "So the clearer the reception, the better the image," Rhonda said. "Well that's easy to understand. And I like it."

  "So we see shadows because we're removed from their channel," Jemmy said. "So what would Zoë here see?"

  I looked at them and blinked. See what?

  "Good point," Rhonda propped her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. "I think it would be a good experiment to have Zoë go OOB and take a look inside the restaurant. In Wraith form she's between worlds, and sees all sorts of things we can't see."

  Blabbermouth.

  Dags nodded. "I have the key and the alar
m code. It's no big deal if we leave now and I get there early. They're used to me opening up to start the dinner shift."

  "Let's go," Rhonda stood up.

  So did everyone else.

  I banged on the table to get their attention. Well…what do you want me to do? Yell?

  They all stopped and stared at me. I grabbed up the board and scribbled.

  NOT LEAVE DANIEL ALONE.

  Nona had her hand on mine. "Daniel's not alone, honey. He's being watched over. He'll be fine."

  Watched over? What? I scribbled again. BY WHO?

  "Whom." Dags said.

  I glared at him. Watch it.

  He put a hand to his head and closed his eyes. "I don't even want to tell you what image I just got in my head."

  Heh.

  "Honey," Nona said in a quiet voice. "Captain Cooper's with him. He comes in when you're not there. Asked me to give him a buzz when you left."

  I blinked. Wha--? The Captain hated me that much that he didn't want to be there when I was?

  "Now don't freak out. Captain Cooper's good for Daniel, and he's a good man himself. No--he's not too fond of you, but I'm working on him. I called him this morning and said I wanted you to get away for a bit and he promised to keep a close watch on Daniel. When we're done with these pesky shadow folk I'll take you back to the hospital myself. Okay?"

  I looked at her. I mean I really looked at mom. And I saw a part of me staring back. And a part of her. I was the sum of part of her. And of dad. And I could see in her eyes that she understood the guilt and the pain I was going through--and she also understood how much I needed to get away from it all.

  I needed to breathe for a while. And not the air of the sick and the dying.

  "Zoë," Rhonda said and I looked at her, aware my mom was slipping her arm over my shoulders. "Look at yourself. Have you taken a good look? It's like--something's being sucked out of you. Or you're missing something. You look dried up and used. You need to get out of there."

  And the truth was, I felt just like she said. I felt used and dried up. The constant spooks that appeared in that hospital--the ones I ignored as best as I could--the shades, ghosts, entities, wisps--they were all there. Yammering at me. Trying to get my attention.

  Day after day after day.