“He’s coming today,” the voice announced. Elizabeth sat up straight and gulped. She recognized the disembodied voice that whispered to her in her head. He was the one who advised her to go to the Basque people on the day she and her mother left town. He’d been warning her about the stranger. The stranger that looked just like her Papa but was not him. The stranger that was evil and who was coming to harm her and Mama.
“He’s coming today,” the voice repeated.
“But I don’t know what to do,” Elizabeth whispered looking around the room.
“Wait and listen,” the voice warned her. He was the kindest voice apart from her mama’s, and he was always right. When he told her that she would receive a gift of love, it was only minutes later that the stray kitten scampered up to her door. She called him Sylvester, because he was black and white, just like Sylvester on TV.
The voice spoke the truth.
“Okay,” she whispered, and dangled her feet off the edge of the big blue couch, feeling the warm waves splash on her feet. She missed the ocean. Vicki ran into the living room with a shoebox full of troll dolls. Little naked fat-bellied dolls with large plumes of various colored hair.
“You two be quiet, I’m going to lay down for a bit,” Bernadette put her cigarette out in an ashtray on the coffee table.
“Can we play on the front porch?” Vicki cradled the box of dolls to her chest.
“Yes, but don’t go anywhere else, you hear?”
“Don’t worry, we won’t go far,” Elizabeth assured Vicki’s mother.
The two little girls skipped out the door and onto the front porch of the old house. The morning sunlight was already growing intense, and it felt wonderful on Elizabeth’s skin. She loved the sunshine. Vicki emptied the box and separated out the trolls. “Here, you play with these, and I’ll play with these. The box can be their house. That’s a boy troll,” Vicki pointed to the one with green hair in Elizabeth’s hand. “He loves this one,” she held up one with intense pink hair. The two little girls snickered.
“He’s coming,” the voice sounded more alarming now. “Move inside.”
A warm breeze wafted across Elizabeth’s face and she spotted a strange man standing across the street. He was watching her. He looked so familiar. He looked so much like Papa. Her skin felt frigid. She shuddered.
“I need to go in. Can we go into your apartment now?” Elizabeth rose up suddenly, a troll doll clutched in each hand.
“Okay,” Vicki shrugged and scooped the rest of the dolls back in the shoebox. Elizabeth hurried in front of her friend and held the door open for her. She closed the apartment door and scooted over to the wide bay window to peer out.
Apolline walked along the fence in front of the apartment house with both hands full of shopping bags. Elizabeth eased down to the bottom rim of the window to view her mama without being detected.
“I have the troll dolls ready,” Vicki said.
“Shh,” Elizabeth placed a finger over her pursed lips, but didn’t take her eyes off of her mama as she stepped through the gate. Vicki crawled up beside her and stared out the window too.
“There’s your mama,” Vicki whispered. “Do you have to go home now?”
“Shh, not yet,” Elizabeth ducked down until her eyes were even with the bottom of the window sill. She glanced over to the left. The strange man crossed Myrtle Street and quickened his pace to the apartment house. The front door of the building banged shut, and she heard her mama walking up the stairs.
The strange man closed the gate behind him and hunched down a little as he hurried up to the front porch.
“Who is he?” Vicki asked.
“He’s here,” Elizabeth whispered.
“Who?” Vicki whispered back.
“The man who wants to kill my mama,” Elizabeth scooted backward and sat down on the floor.
“Should we wake my mom?” Vicki asked wide-eyed. “She could call the police.”
“No,” Elizabeth shook her head. “Just wait.”
The two girls sat quietly in the middle of the living room floor for a minute. Elizabeth heard her heartbeat and her breathing as it moved in and out of her lungs. She saw her mama in her mind. She saw her unlock the apartment door. The strange man waiting at the top of the stairs.
“Run!” the voice inside her head urged. “Run upstairs.”
Leaping to her feet, Elizabeth dropped the troll dolls and dashed out the door. She raced up the stairs as quick as her little legs would take her. The strange man was not there. She rounded the corner to come face to face with him. She gasped. He looked so much like Papa.
Elizabeth pressed her back against the door to apartment 7, and keeping her eyes locked on the stranger, she kicked the door with her feet.
The door opened gradually, and Elizabeth backed into the vacant apartment. Step by step.
“David,” she whispered. “He is here.”
The strange man sneered and followed Elizabeth into the apartment. “Ya’ll must be my brudda’s little girl,” Julien licked his lips.
Looking up, Julien stared toward the window with a startled expression on his face. His brow furrowed. “Who da hell are ya?” he demanded.
Running into the corner of the room, Elizabeth glanced over and exhaled in relief at the sight of her friend David, standing in front of the window. David smiled at Julien and held his hands out as if to welcome the strange man. But then something remarkable happened, and Elizabeth couldn’t believe her eyes.
Instead of David standing in front of the window, it was her papa. Still smiling, still holding his arms wide apart in welcome. “Come brudda, come…”
“Brother?” Elizabeth murmured to herself.
“Yes,” the voice inside her head confirmed.
“Ya’ll nothin’ but a filty rat. Ya’ ain’t no brudda of mine!” Julien screamed at the figure before him. His fists tightening. “I buried ya. Ya ain’t real!” he shouted even louder and bolted at the figure. But as Julien reached the man in front of the window, the image dissolved, and Julien crashed through the brittle glass and plunged out onto the pavement below.
Pierre and Apolline both came rushing at the commotion. Elizabeth met them in the hallway. She grinned up at her mama. Mr. McLaughlin ran up the stairs, with his wife huffing and wheezing a few steps behind him. They stopped at the open door to number 7.
“What happened?” Warren asked. “Someone just…jumped…out of the window?”
“Well, that does it!” Mildred McLaughlin stood with her hands on her hips.
“It’s over Mama, we’re safe now,” she angled her head and reached up for her mama’s hand.
“What are you talking about? Safe from what?” Apolline knelt down to pick up her daughter.
“David took care of the scary man, Papa’s brother,” Elizabeth looked back at the busted window and splintered glass smeared with blood.
“Who is David?” Pierre asked looking into the vacant apartment, then at Elizabeth.
“He is her imaginary friend,” Apolline kissed her daughter on the forehead and hugged her.
“He’s not imaginary, Mama. He’s the man in number 7.”
“What?” Mildred gasped and fell backwards into her husband’s arms.
Apolline pulled her daughter away from the room and down to their door as they listened to the sirens screeching through the neighborhood. Police came up and talked to everyone, but they didn’t talk to Elizabeth. Even though she was the only one who knew the truth. Mama said it was her husband, but she didn’t know what happened in apartment number 7. No one knew why he was in there. The McLaughlins, Stephanie, Pierre, and her mother all shook their heads not knowing what happened. No one saw anything.
No one, except Elizabeth.
Elizabeth watched as the police placed wide yellow tape crisscrossed over the door to number 7. David whispered in her ear secrets she couldn’t share. He said what lived in number 7 was still there. It was what killed him. And it would kill again.
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sp; ◆◆◆
It took a month after that for everything to settle down. Lying in bed one morning, Elizabeth wrapped her little arms around her sleeping mother’s neck. She smiled at the sound of the Angelic choir that accompanied the light that poured into their bedroom window and washed over the two of them. The light was so brilliant Elizabeth had to shield her eyes and it made her giggle. It was as if the sun was right outside their apartment. She knew now, that she and her mother were safe. The dark dreams were gone as well as the shadows.
It was early August now, and in another week, Elizabeth would be turning six. She would start school this year and she was excited about that. But as she gazed into the sunbeams that fell across their bedroom, she had the thought that her biggest lessons wouldn’t be learned in school. They would come from the other world, the one her mother didn’t see.
Late that afternoon, Elizabeth and Vicki ran out onto the front porch of the apartment building to play. Each with a handful of little troll dolls with colorful hair. Elizabeth stopped before running down the steps into the grass. She glanced over at her mother sitting on the front porch rail, drinking a glass of wine as the late summer breeze danced through her long auburn hair and ruffled the skirt of her pastel cotton dress.
“Is everything okay, Mama?” Elizabeth called out.
“Yes, cher,” Apolline sipped her wine and smiled at her daughter. She held up her glass as if making a toast. “Laissez les bons temps rouler, ma cher. Finally, everything is truly okay.”
Walking barefoot into the front yard, Elizabeth sat down next to Vicki. She smiled at her mama, then glanced to the upstairs window of apartment 7. A man she didn’t recognize gazed down at her, then turned and disappeared. She shuddered and picked up the troll dolls. It was time to play; after all, she wasn’t quite six years old.
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The Man In Number 7 Page 12