by S. B. Niccum
“Who?” she asked callously.
“The four horsemen … no, make that three,” he slurred.
Agatha started to walk away, when Eros grabbed her forearm with unusual strength and pulled her back toward him. Not long ago Eros still kept himself meticulously well groomed and in shape, but in the last month or so he had let himself go so much that he now resembled a swine more than a man. Agatha recoiled from him and grimaced with disgust, then brusquely yanked her arm free from her husband. He grabbed her again and with a malicious look pulled her back even closer now. “I know how to make him pay,” he whispered as he petted her head with a heavy hand.
The surety in his blurry eyes let her know that he was serious.
“Fine,” she responded through gritted teeth, “then get on with it.” She jerked her arm free and left the room with contempt.
Chapter 33
“All of them?” Valery swallowed a lump in her throat.
“I used to hear just my grandmother, since I was very young. But over time I’ve been able to hear more. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Alex; he’s the one who usually comes. Your dad, your grandmother, your mother … I’ve heard them too.”
A gurgle of laughter formed in Valerie’s throat, then another and another, until she emitted a full out hearty laugh. Her laughter made me crack a smile and pretty soon I too was bent over the counter laughing.
“We’ll kill Dane, you and I with our craziness. We’ll wear him out and then we’ll live to a ripe old age; two old batty widows!” she laughed heartily, “We’ll have lots of cats too … we need cats, you know, or it won’t count.” Her eyes were half shut as her laughter wore off. “How about Katie? Has Katie come to you?”
I shook my head and took another sip of my now cold tea. “Not really, I’ve heard her talk to Robyn though.”
“Can Robyn?” She trailed off.
“Hear her?” I thought about it for a minute, “I don’t know. Not like me anyway. Children are more receptive and sensitive to those things.”
Valery turned to ash and nodded slowly. “So they’re still around.” She waved her hand in the air above her head.
I nodded. Her eyes filled with tears now and a few drops spilled down her sunken cheeks. “Well that helps … I suppose.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy?”
She lifted her gaze. “I wouldn’t be the best judge of normalcy, but for Robyn’s sake we’re going to have to pretend to be. If they take her away … ”
She didn’t have to say it—I knew.
“I’m sorry we screwed this up so bad for you, Tess. I was being selfish, I see that now.”
“Huh? Alex?” I was so exhausted; my head had a hard time waking up. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming Alex’s voice or actually hearing it.
“Alex! Russell!” Celeste burst in agitated. “Leo! He’s done it! Like I told him so many times, that he would if he persisted! I told you this was a bad idea!”
“No … ” Russell said aghast. “Alex, I’m going to Boston. Are you coming?”
“Give me a minute,” Alex whispered.
Dinner as a family had gone well. Luckily there were no…visitors from the other side to distract me from the conversation. We talked, we planned we even laughed a few times and it was decided that once the person from Social Services left we would all go on vacation to visit my aunts and Dorian in Mexico. It felt good to plan, part of me felt guilty for this, but I did catch myself wishing not to be able to hear Alex so much. I loved it! I did … but …
I got ready for bed for the first time in—I don’t know how long. I actually changed into pajamas and bathed Robyn, then read her a story and tucked her in her bed. I didn’t need tea or anything else for that matter; I fell in my bed and lost consciousness until I heard Alex tell me something.
“Mm … Alex?” I knew it was him because I felt a faint chill brushing against my lips and my check. The sensation stirred my senses, somewhat but I felt like I was down in a tunnel and I couldn’t quite get out of it.
“I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“Wh—where are you going?”
“Shhh … ” he soothed.
Leo? Did I hear Leo’s name being mentioned? What did he do? What was Celeste all upset about? “Leo … ” My mind drifted off to sleep and after a few moments I tried to will it back to the moment, “Alex!”
“Yes, Tess. Your dad has done something. I’m going to go help him if I can.” Silence. The room was perfectly silent for a long while and I drifted off again.
“ … Help him? Alex?” I was trying to rouse my head awake but it was no use, I was so bone tired. Did Dane slip something in my drink?
“Tess? Good-bye, love.”
“Good-bye? You’ll be back, right?” All of the sudden the panic that word inflicted on my brain woke me.
“No, baby, I have to go. It’s for your own good. I have to let you … live!”
“No! No!” I struggled to wake myself up and willed my mind to gain its faculties. “I didn’t mean it Alex, I want you to stay! It’s different with us; I get that! We can make it work! I’ll try harder! We can schedule visits! Just as if we were dating again! Oh heavens! … Again? We never dated! We’ll do it now!”
“No Tess, I have to go. I have to undo a great wrong, and I have to prevent another one.” His cool lips brushed my cheek.
My eyes opened wide and I sat up, “Alex, don’t! Stay with me!” I begged.
“I’m sorry, Tess. It was wrong of me to even come; I see that now. I have made things worse for you and Robyn. Maybe a lot worse than I care to admit.”
“No, no, no … that’s not true. It’s my fault! I can handle it! I always could, I just—it’ll get easier with time. I’ll get used to it, like I did with Celeste. It was hard at first too with her! Alex, don’t you dare leave me!”
“Tess … ”
I felt chills all over and I couldn’t suppress a shiver. “What!” I snapped, but his cool touch soothed me.
“Death will not do us apart.” And just like that his chilly touch disappeared, leaving me shivering all the same.
“Alex …” I whimpered and crawled into bed, bunching into a tight ball. “Alex,” I mumbled again and again, while tears soaked my pillow.
Now that sleep had finally left me, I wished it would return so I could spend some time unconscious. Instead, darkness descended on me … again, but this time I felt a despair that was all consuming. I could hear static all around me, like when a radio loses its signal, the sound grated on my nerves and made me feel completely and utterly alone and isolated.
Emptiness filled me and all I could envision was a future of loneliness and sorrow, much in contrast to the way I had felt a few hours ago during dinner. All that seemed to have vanished with the light of day and I felt sure that I would lose Robyn and that Dane and Valerie would not want me in their home ever again. Dorian and my aunts seemed distant and no longer part of my life.
“It’s all over … ” a sound broke from the static.
“… All alone … ” another sound came at me from another angle. “To be with him, you must die!”
“End it!”
“Go to him now,” voices assailed me from all angles. I stopped my ears, but the thoughts broke through and I could hear them better and better. “It’ll be painless … ”
“Valerie has strong pills, take them!”
“End it!”
“No!” I screamed. “That is not the way!”
“It was all a lie anyway … ”
“You are insane; you hear voices in your head.”
“I’m not insane, they are real! They exist, just in another—”
Laughter filled the room, evil mirthless laughter. “Schizophrenia … that’s what it’s called. That’s the term for people who hear voicessss … ”
“ … And roam the house at night … ”
“ … Talking to yourself … ”
“ … Locking yourself up in your room for
days … ”
“ … Neglecting your niece and your work.” All kinds of different voices assailed me from different angles so I couldn’t escape them.
“Admit it Tess, you are a crazy lunatic and you know it!”
“There is nothing after death, nothing at all.”
“You live and you die and that’s it.”
“No, that’s not true.” But even as I said it I doubted. Could they be right? Didn’t I just get done telling Valerie that they all still lived? Could I just be totally crazy and suffering from a mental disorder? That wouldn’t be so preposterous after all … I did act crazy, I did freak people out with the way I behaved.
I got up and rushed to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and I did look tortured and sick!
“You see? Your reflection doesn’t lie, you are mentally ill. You imagine talking to all your dead relatives because you simply cannot accept the fact that they are all gone! Gone, Tess, gone for good to never return.”
“But they believe me! Valerie believes me!”
“Valerie is sick too. She has been committed, twice! You were catatonic during that time, so while you were checked out, she was checked in! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” The horrible laughter continued and grated at my nerves. I put my hands to my ears to stop the noise and I started humming to myself to drown out that horrible sound.
“Aunty Tess?” Robyn’s little hand tapped me on the thigh. Her outline shone against the light that filtered from the open door. She was holding on to her rag dolls and a blanket, she couldn’t have looked more angelic and her presence seemed to dispel the darkness that surrounded me.
“Yes?” my voice cracked.
“Why did Uncle Alex leave?”
“He died, sweetie, he died.” I said trying to think straight.
“I know that … but why did he leave? Will he come back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he in Heaven now with mom and dad?”
Earlier today I would have given her a resounding yes for an answer. But now … what if I was schizophrenic? What if I did just invent whole conversations, from an early age. What if I have been sick my whole life?
“Is he, Aunty Tess? Is he with them too?”
Tears blinded me and I stretched a hand out and she rushed to my side. “I don’t know,” I told her as I held her.
She clung tightly to me then kissed me on the cheek. “I think so, because he said good-bye.”
I tucked her back into bed and wearily made my way back to my room. I threw myself listlessly down and wept miserably, calling for Celeste or Alex, or any other spirit who cared to prove to me that I was not crazy. But the time passed wretchedly and I had no visitations.
After some time, it occurred to me how to find out for sure if I was insane or not. This would prove once and for all I was crazy or not.
Agatha let out a blood-curdling scream, then another, and another. Ire flowed through her veins; the cast-out devils fueled her fury as they swirled around her, happy, dancing as it were with delight. They stirred Agatha’s rage and escalated the events to the point that she was now convinced that Tess was solely responsible for Eros’ death.
With every new piece of malignant information, Agatha’s soul darkened even more and her countenance changed to the point of distortion. If she was ever determined to succeed in her goal, she was more so now. If she ever hated, she hated more now. If she was cold, ruthless or murderously dangerous, she was more so now. The metamorphosis that she had undergone in those few minutes was visible as she stoically cut the rope lose from Eros’ neck, letting his limp body fall to the ground with an unceremonious thud.
She walked away from the scene, without another look back. Her last vestige of humanity had just died with Eros, the beast was now unleashed and she was gathering purpose. Locking herself in her sanctuary, she lit the candles on the floor, stepped into the circle and began her chant. After the chant, she meditated. Her ideas were erratic at first, but then she found a way to focus them and align them in perfect order. She had always been good at this—forming a good plan and persuading people—that was her true gift. The hearing was just an ability, like a sixth sense. It was useful, but alone it was of no worth to her without the other two.
Calmly now, she reached into her pocket and took out her phone.
“Were you successful?” She texted.
“Yes, we’re back now.”
“Where did you put him?”
“Where you told me to.” After hanging up, she left the circle and went to her bedroom. She reached in one of the cupboards and took out the wig. When she was done, she looked approvingly into the mirror.
Relief flooded Eugenia once she landed safely on American soil. She never wanted to see that awful city again; in fact, she didn’t care to see any other city again. World travel had been forever soured. Bur her relief didn’t last too long because the moment that she stepped into her apartment, she found herself face to face with the cloaked figure of that mysterious woman with whom she had been dealing. An oversized dark purple hooded cloak covered her face. “Who wears those?” Eugenia thought, the moment she managed to slow the beating of her heart.
“How did it go?” the woman inquired evenly.
“Fine … just fine. She’s dead.”
“You know this for sure? You verified this?”
“W—well, sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of? Did you see Tess’ dead body or not?”
“Um, he said he did it.”
“And you believed a hired gun?
Eugenia plopped herself on her couch, she was exhausted and didn’t want to get into this right now. She had barely slept in the past few days and all she wanted to do was to wash herself clean of this nightmarish situation.
“I didn’t get a chance to see her dead body because I was too busy trying to get money to pay him.”
“So you paid him.”
“Of course! He said he had done the job and told me to pay him! At gun point, I might add!”
The woman’s laugh was the most disconcerting thing Eugenia had ever heard, it gave her the creeps, but it also reminded her of something.
“You truly are an idiot, aren’t you?”
“What? Why?”
The woman turned on the T.V. and a recorded news flash played on the screen. With a serious demeanor the anchorman reported on the untimely death of Congressman Alex Preston, who was shot while on vacation in Buenos Aires. The gunman was said to have burst into a coffee shop and opened fire. Congressman Preston was shot and killed while trying to protect his wife from the attacker.
The woman turned the T.V. off and started for the door.
“This—is why you don’t pay until you see the body.”
Eugenia was aghast, what was this hellish nightmare that she was living now? She had hired a man to kill the person she hated most, so she could have the person she loved. Now she was left with neither and this awful woman held her own life in her hands. Her passport would put her in the country and she emptied her own bank account on the same day of the shooting.
Anger flooded Eugenia’s exhausted frame and she leapt to her feet and grabbed that ridiculous cloak and tore it off the wearer. The woman stopped stock still for a moment while Eugenia gasped for air. Eugenia had no idea why she had done this, and feared that perhaps antagonizing this person was not the best thing to have done, but she was not prepared for what she saw.
The woman turned slowly and revealed a familiar face, somewhat changed by pleasant looking make-up and blond hair, but familiar nonetheless. Eugenia peered into the woman’s eyes and her mind reeled back to some elusive memory of those features.
“Remember me, Genie?”
Eugenia’s mouth fell open. What did this mean? Had these freaky foster sisters ensnared her somehow? She staggered back toward her sofa and sat back down.
“Your life belongs to me, Eugenia. From now on, I say move and you move, I say speak and you speak. Understand?”
Eugenia nodded numbly.
From that moment on, that was exactly what happened. Eugenia found herself operating as some sort of assistant to Agatha. She woke up to the sound of Agatha’s messages, telling her to do this or that errand for her. Then she was made to accompany the woman to different appointments and get lunches and coffee’s while Agatha held private meetings with some pretty important and impressive people.
But Eugenia didn’t walk away empty handed; she got crumbs now and then. Agatha would give her cash, here and there, and one time she even surprised Eugenia with new clothes. It was odd, but who was she to say no to designer clothes? Besides, Agatha got showered with gifts from grateful ‘clients’ who saw no other creative way of pleasing their ‘spiritual guide’ or ‘muse’ than through merchandise and expensive gifts.
“Why did you call me to do this?” Eugenia looked disgusted at the sight of the rope and the body on the floor.
“Because, in a way, his death is your fault,” Agatha said as she picked up the body by the arms. Eugenia moved around to the legs and with a look of repulsion, bent down and picked them up.
“I don’t see how,” she grunted with the effort. Why was it that limp bodies were so heavy?
“I do.”
“Enlighten me,” Eugenia groaned as they shuffled toward the living room.
“You’re an empty headed twit who failed in a most simple task, killing Tess. You didn’t even have to pull the trigger; all you had to do is make sure someone else got the job done.”
“I already told you, the guy I hired was the one who failed. I told him who the target was. But how was he supposed to know that Alex would jump in front of her?” This thought was doubly bitter to Eugenia, who had hopes of winning Alex’s heart back once Tess was out of the picture, and also because he had proven his love for his wife by such a heroic act and this last thought intensified her dislike for Tess.
“No, you failed, because you hired him, and you failed because you paid him.”
“Well, I’ve never hired a killer before, how was I supposed to know how the procedure works?”