Reveal (Cryptid Tales)

by Brina Courtney

  Yes I just said a guy was beautiful, one whom I’ve never even talked to.

  We walk through the glass doors of the coffee shop and I see him almost immediately, sitting in the corner reading the New York Post. Oh my God -- he reads the New York Post! Could he be any more awesome?

  Olivia snaps her fingers in front of my eyes “Helloooo. What do you want to drink?” She thumb hooks to motion over her shoulder at the girl behind the counter. The girl looks impatient and begins to drum her fingers on the counter.

  “Oops,” I say. “Sorry. Coffee, black.”

  “Yuck, really?” says Olivia. “Since when do you drink black coffee?” She notices where my eyes are focused. “Oh, since you want to be dark like hot guy’s soul?” She laughs.

  “Whatever.” I shrug her off, knowing her well enough that she won’t stop if I don’t end it.

  “Let’s just pay and go sit in the Quad,” I tell her, hoping she’ll back off.

  “You don’t want to stay and ogle Tall, Dark and Handsome?” she whispers.

  “Who?” I ask lazily.

  She vaguely points in his direction and, honestly, of course I do! But instead I say “Oh no, let’s just get out of here.”

  We walk out onto the Quad, even though it’s cold. I can feel the sun warming me up even though I still have my pea coat on.

  Olivia sits down on our bench near the old oak and we slowly sip our drinks. Neither of us says anything for a while. A few very bundled-up students walk quickly past us and Olivia and I watch with unfocused eyes.

  “Shay,” she starts, without looking up from her steaming drink, “listen I’m sorry about the kid in there. I didn’t realize you were really crushing on him. I thought he was just eye candy like all the others.”

  She looks up when I turn to her. “Liv, it’s no big deal, really. I don’t even know him. I mean, I would like to, it’s just that I don’t. So don’t even worry about it.”

  She smiles at me and looks past my face and over my shoulder. “Well, not to further your unrequited love, but here he comes.”

  I turn my head and sure enough here he comes, looking slightly frantic.

  I look back to Liv who looks smug, but I hope she won’t try anything. Instead of getting up to greet him as he approaches our bench and risk looking ridiculous, she magically whips out a book from some invisible location and starts reading.

  “What are you doing? He’s walking over this way! Please pretend like you’re talking to me. Please!” She doesn’t respond, just continues to pretend to read.

  Tall, Dark and Handsome walks right up to me and says (take a deep breath, Shay) “Did you see an iPhone lying around here?”

  “A what?” I ask. Stupid, I know, but I’m failing for words here.

  “An iPhone, ya know? I think I left mine here when I was studying before. I had it before I went to get a drink.” He lifts his reusable mug as if to prove he actually bought something there.

  He begins muttering to himself and looking around the bench. I get up to help. “I really don’t see it. Liv, did you see a cell when we sat down?” I ask, imploring her to help.

  “Nope, sorry. That really sucks,” she says without looking up from her novel.

  “It’s whatever, I guess,” responds Tall, Dark and Handsome. “Well I gotta get to class. I’ll see ya around I guess.”

  “Yeah, us too,” I say as I pull Olivia to her feet, she still has one hand wrapped around her book. “Bye.”

  He turns and leaves, heading towards the math building and though I hate to see him leave, I do love to watch him walk away.

  “Well I would deem that a successful first meeting,” Liv says as she puts her book back in her purse. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with a book before, I still can’t believe she just did that to me!

  “Yeah, thanks so much for all your help back there.” I snarl back.

  “Oh, whatever. You didn’t need a wingman or wingwoman, or whatever. You did just fine for yourself,” she says like a proud mama. Puh-leez!

  “We’d better get a move on. Coach will kill us if we’re late. And it’s way too cold to do suicides today.” I say and hurry Her Highness along.

  Chapter 3

  Practice today is bundle up and run through the woods. I’ve got gloves on and long pants, so much for early spring. As we start out I’m keeping a pretty good pace with some of our better long distance runners.

  I love track and I run the relay, but Coach is constantly trying to get me to go out for cross country. She says it would be good for me since I always seem to do better on these outdoor wood runs than I do on the track. Since it’s my senior year she’s now on me to try out for the college team, meaning I would need to run all summer. I don’t think I’m the type to get up at seven a.m. and sweat my ass off during my free time this summer. Sleep seems like a better option.

  As we continue through the woods I catch something out of the corner of my eye, something floating in the wind and I know immediately what’s there. So as not to alarm anyone else, I pull a fake cramp.

  Olivia stops to check on me. “You OK?” she asks through labored breaths. Long distance has never been her thing.

  “Yeah fine,” I respond. “Just my hammy, I’ll catch up. You go on ahead.” She nods and keeps going.

  I pretend to sit down and stretch. It only takes a few minutes for all the runners to pass us. And by us, I mean me and whoever the ghost is that’s been running beside the team.

  After I’m sure the runners are out of earshot I ask, “Can I help you?” A little girl of about ten walks through the leaves toward me, though there isn’t any crunching sound to accompany her arrival. She’s small and wears what looks to be a white dress, it could possibly be a very old bathing suit. Her hair is long and dark.

  From the looks of her clothes I’m guessing she’s been around a while. I stay sitting on the ground, hoping to not scare her off. She’s approaching me and since she’s a child ghost, something is definitely off here.

  She looks at me with her big blue eyes, a little scared and a little curious. “You can see me?” she finally whispers.

  “Yes, don’t be afraid. Are you OK? Are you lost?” I ask her. She certainly looks lost and a little like she needs a bath. I never knew Jeremy to look this disheveled.

  “I can’t find my way home. Can you take me?” Her voice is so soft it’s hard to understand her, but she extends a hand to me, so I stand up and take it.

  “Sure Sweetie, where do you live? Do you know where you live?”

  “Yes, I think so. It’s a big blue house on the hill. It overlooks the water. My father has a boat there.”

  “OK then, to the lake we go. But first I have to stop and tell my friends, so they don’t worry, alright?”

  “Will you leave me?” she asks, looking like she will cry if I don’t give her the answer she’s looking for.

  ”No, you just stand behind me. They won’t even know you’re there.” We walk up to the start of the course and I nurse my fake injury.

  Coach comes jogging over to me in her matching blue Marksville Knights sweat suit. She has her hair cut short this season and it makes her facial features so much more defined. “Tafford? You OK?”

  “It’s just the cold, Coach. Not enough stretch time today, I guess. I’m just gonna head home, warm in up in the shower. I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  She seems to believe me and reminds me to rub some Icy Hot on my leg before letting me head out.

  We walk slowly up to my car. “Can you come in the car with me? I can drive you to your house.”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never been in a car before.”

  “OK well let’s try this, go around the car and sit down on the seat. I guess you don’t really need a seatbelt. What’s your name?” I open the door and sit down. She simply floats through the passenger’s side door and sits down.

  “Wendy, and yours is Shay, right?”

  “Yeah, it is. How’d you know that?”

/>   “I know a lot of things,” she says as her blue eyes staring right at me.

  With that, the car starts without me turning the key.

  Chapter 4

  “Whoa, you gonna drive this thing too?” I say grabbing the wheel as we fly out of the parking spot. She laughs a young girlish giggle.

  “No silly,” she says, “I can only start it, something with the electricity, I can control it.” With that she puts her thumb and forefinger together and produces a small blue spark.

  “Umm, that’s not normal.” I say staring at the spot where the energy was just made.

  “You can hardly discuss normal Shay, look who you’re talking to- a ghost, that’s not normal,” she says as a smile plays on her lips.

  Valid point. I look at her closely, “Yeah but I can’t do anything like that, that’s a little excessive don’t you think? And doesn’t it drain you?” I don’t ever remember Jeremy messing with the electricity.

  She looks at me and says honestly, “Not when I’m feeding off of your energy and you’re young so you have lots of it.”

  OK creepy dead child who’s feeding off my energy. I give her a hard look; children have never attempted to contact me before, why is she coming to me now? “Wendy, how long have you been lost?”

  The girlish voice returns and suddenly she’s all sweetness again. “I don’t know, a long time I guess. My daddy will be looking for me. He’ll be happy I’m home.”

  I don’t tell her I’m fairly positive “Daddy” is also dead and I’m not sure what we’ll find at the top of the hill overlooking the water, but I do know the blue house she’s talking about. It’s close to where the orphanage burned down, to where Jeremy and I used to play when I was a kid. I give her a side glance and I wonder… “Wendy, do you know a little boy? His name is Jeremy, he was my friend. We kind of had this fight and I haven’t seen him in a long time. Do you ever see other children like you?”

  She looks back at me. “You mean dead kids? Oh yeah, all the time. There are all those kids who hang around the old orphanage. I play with them sometimes. But they’re scared, they hide from The Darkness. I’m brave and I don’t hide. It’s just a story from their mistress so they stay inside when it’s dark.”

  I focus on this turn in the conversation I didn’t expect. “The Darkness? What do they say this darkness is?”

  She sighs and returns her eyes to the window. “A really bad man, he tries to destroy all the good in the world. And he doesn’t like people, ghosts, or cats very much. Mostly he doesn’t like the cats because they can see him. I don’t know, it all sounds pretty fishy to me. I’ve heard her talk about it a couple times, but I don’t believe it.”

  Interesting, well at least she doesn’t seem to be afraid of this thing.

  Suddenly she points, “Turn off up there.” I turn right onto a dirt road; the Civic is not going to like this. There are branches coming at the Civic from all sides like fingers trying to grab at us. As I press the gas pedal I remember that she hasn’t answered my question about Jeremy.

  “So do you know a Jeremy?”

  “Oh yes, sorry I forgot about that. That’s how I knew about you.” She looks down and gives me a shy sideways glance like she shouldn’t have said anything.

  “You know him? He talks about me?” There’s hope in my voice, I know she can hear it.

  “Yes he misses you, he’s sad you banished him.”

  I hit the brakes and we come to a screeching halt. As dust settles around us I turn to her and yell, “I did what? What are you talking about?”

  She sighs quietly and looks at me. “You banished him. When you tell a ghost to leave they must abandon you, unless they’re haunting you of course. Then they don’t have to leave, it’s the rules.”

  “There are rules?” This is news to me, Jeremy never mentioned them before.

  “Oh yes, and since Jeremy was there to be your friend, when you told him you no longer wanted him, he left, as he should have. I mean he should have never been that close with you to begin with.”

  I’m stunned. I never knew there were rules in the ghost business, why wouldn’t Jeremy have told me all of this? “Well what if I want to see him again?”

  She smiles smugly, “I’ll show you how, once we find my daddy.” She holds out a small cold white hand and I shake it to seal the deal. We’ll find her daddy alright and I’ll see my Jeremy again. Two can play at this game.

  Chapter 5

  I begin the car in drive again and we creep along silently for a while. The light is just beginning to die away and as much as I want to see Jeremy again, this whole situation is a bit much for me. So here I am with a dead girl in my car, in a super creepy forest, stalking a potentially dead father…yeah, not one of my brightest moments. After we’ve been driving for about twenty minutes in the lush forest, I begin to feel an electrical buzz. I look over to Wendy who, if it’s possible, is jumping up and down in her seat. The electricity feels like it’s rolling off of her nonexistent skin. It’s amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. She notices me staring and says, “Oh sorry, it’s just were getting close. I can feel it.” Sure enough only a minute or two later we arrive in a clearing. A huge house stands before us. I shut the car off and get out slowly admiring the mansion. Wendy silently moves away.

  In its heyday this place must have been immaculate; I can just barely make out the remnants of the sky blue paint that used to cover the exterior. A wide wraparound porch takes up much of what would have been the yard and the way the fence was built, there must have been a substantial garden. What now remains is a sad state of an old home. Broken shutters and windows litter the ground. I dodge them like bombs, giving them a wide berth, almost as if I disturb anything it will awaken more spirits. And one is enough for right now, thank you very much. I walk around to the side of the house and see that the French doors are missing. Near the empty doorway a white porch swing is still hanging, looking seemingly untouched compared to the rest of the home. Swinging back and forth on it is the little girl I brought here to look for her father.

  “Wendy? Are you OK?” I ask as I join her on the swing, it creaks in response to my weight, showing its age. Her head hangs low and in the fading sunlight I can almost see through her.

  “I thought he’d still be here,” she says in a whisper. “This is where I left him.”

  I squint at her slightly, “Where you left him? What do you mean?”

  “When I died, he was still here. His grave is still here.” She points across the grass towards the water. She continues, “I thought if we came here, he would be here too. And we could be together.”

  I feel her pain, I sometimes drive by my dad’s old job hoping he’ll walk out the front door of the lab, but he never does. “Tell me something Wendy, where is your mom?”

  She looks right through me as if she’s back in another time, her time. “Mama died when I was born. She held me for two whole minutes before she slipped away. From then on it was just me and Daddy.” She looks back at the ground and she wraps her arms around herself as if she remembers the feeling of being held by her mother. It makes my chest hurt.

  We sit on the swing for a while in the fading light. It’s not late but the early spring air becomes crisp and it stings my cheeks. Within minutes the sun is completely gone and I’m freezing. “Wendy,” I say as my teeth begin to chatter, “I need to get home. My mom’s going to wonder where I am.”

  “Oh yeah, OK.” She says, still not looking at me, instead she looks off into the woods. “I know where I am, I’ll be fine here.”

  As much as I hate to leave the little girl alone, somehow I know she can handle herself.

  “Bye now.” I say as I touch her shoulder and I get up and walk to the car. I know if she wants to she can find me. I hope she does. I still want to see Jeremy, but I guess it’s not going to be tonight. She needs time to figure all of this out. I feel bad for the poor kid.

  I start the car and immediately turn the heat to full blast. As I
turn on the headlights I look up to the swing where I was just sitting to see it still swinging, but the little girl is gone, encased in the night.

  Chapter 6

  When I arrive home my mom is sitting in the Adirondack chair with a blanket and a cup of hot coffee. I can see the steam rising from her mug and as I step out of the car the sweet smell fills my nostrils. “Got any more of that?” I ask her as I walk up to the house with my blue track bag slung over my shoulder.

  “Yep, fresh pot on the counter,” she says as she cups her hands around her own mug. I walk in the house and drop my bag by the door. I head right to the kitchen and see that Mom already has a mug set out for me on the counter. I smile as I fill it up and head back out the porch. “Think you can share a little of that blanket? Sure is chilly tonight.”