by M. Verano
It’s a good thing I was frozen to the bed, or else I might well have clawed all the flesh from my face.
Then Logan put out a hand toward my hairline, just above my ear. “Oh!” he said. “There’s one. Don’t move.” And he picked something off my face and held it up in front of my eyes. He held it by one leg, but the other seven danced before my eyes in a way that turned my stomach. “I can hear the birds now,” he said. “It’s almost 4 now, so the spiders will be pretty much done. I’m going to get back to my letter.”
And he got up and left the room.
Holy Christ, what do I do? What the fuck, what the fuck. Why are there spiders? Why is Logan like this? I can’t be alone with him. And Mom isn’t even home tonight. She’s sleeping over at Arthur’s. I can’t be alone with him. What do I do?
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 4:10 A.M.
Mom’s not answering my texts, so I tried Raph. I need to be around someone sane or . . . sane-ish. I guess most people would say (have said) that Raph isn’t the best choice, but he’s the only person who gets it. The only person I can deal with seeing right now. Oh, he just texted back, thank God.
He wrote:
It’s the middle of the night. What’s going on?
What does he think is going on? Okay, texted him:
I’m scared, I can’t be alone with him. Something awful . . .
I really can’t bring myself to describe that whole scene over text. Ugh God, what is he doing? Why isn’t he texting back? Okay, he just texted back.
K. The door’s open.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 4:25 A.M.
I think I am safe now. Posting from my phone, in Raph’s apartment. He’s gone back to bed, and I’m going to try to get some rest on his couch. Phone’s being weird, though. I’ve gotten six texts in the past half hour and none of them make any sense. I don’t know if it’s Mom trying to contact me or . . . I don’t know.
I don’t like leaving Logan alone in the house, but . . . honestly, I don’t want to be around him right now.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 7:54 A.M.
I don’t fully understand what happened last night. I don’t even really remember it. The best I can do is write it out to try to piece this back together.
I crept down the stairs after Raph’s last text, doing my best to avoid Logan. The last thing I needed was him asking me where I was going, or realizing he was alone in the house. And I made it out the front door and then down to Raph’s apartment, where the door was unlocked as usual. The whole place was dark, of course, except for some thin moonlight coming in from those small windows. I picked my way through the shadows toward Raph’s bedroom, at the back of the apartment. I’d never been in there before. It was darker even than the other rooms, and I could barely make out the outline of Raph’s dark curls against the white of his pillow.
“Raph,” I whispered hoarsely. No answer. “Raph,” I said again, in something closer to a normal voice.
“What?” he said. “Oh, right, Paige.” He sat up in bed. “I’m sorry, I drifted off again.” He rubbed a hand over his face and scraped it through his hair. “Is this real? I was dreaming, and then—”
“It’s not a dream.” If only!
Raph, just like on the night I met him, was shirtless. He was under covers, but I figured that if experience was any indication, he was probably wearing nothing but underwear. I felt suddenly self-conscious about being in my goofy pajamas, but . . . God, the brain is a weird organ. I can’t believe I was even thinking about stuff like that, given what had just happened. But at least it was distracting me a little from the horror.
“What’s going on?” Raph said, jolting me out of my nervous silence. I gave him a recap, with as much detail as I could bear. For a minute or so, he didn’t say anything.
“Raph,” I said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I know there’s nothing . . . I just . . . I can’t go back up there. I can’t be alone. Can I . . . stay here with you?”
Raph closed his eyes. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s dangerous, you’re dangerous. So you keep telling me. But at least down here my face isn’t covered in spiders.”
Raph opened his eyes again, and I saw resignation and sympathy in them. “Okay,” he said. “You can crash on the couch until morning.”
I thanked him and groped my way through the dark back to his couch. I tried to sleep for a couple minutes, but I was way too jumpy, so eventually I took out my phone, just to distract myself. Even so, though, I kept feeling—or *thinking* I felt—tiny legs tickling my skin. I shook my limbs and smacked at the strange sensations until my skin was red and raw, but I never saw anything.
Eventually I couldn’t bear it anymore and I snuck back toward Raph’s room. He was asleep again, stretched out in a moonbeam, his face peaceful, his pale skin almost glowing. Instantly I felt calmer. No matter how many warnings people gave me, including Raph himself, I just couldn’t see him as dangerous. In the madness I now faced every day, he felt like an island of sanity.
There wasn’t anyplace else in the room to sit, so I eased myself gently onto the edge of the bed, not wanting to disturb him. Idly I wondered about his history, the stuff he didn’t want to tell us. About what had gone wrong that had resulted in him getting kicked off campus. A failed romance, presumably. Gazing down on his elegant sleeping form, it was hard to picture anyone rejecting him. What kind of person could resist this gorgeous creature, as broken and tortured as he might be?
Eventually I started to get stiff in my position, so I carefully shifted and scootched in a bit to sit next to him in the bed, my back leaning against the headboard.
I was convinced there was no way I would be able to sleep that night, but the next thing I remember, my eyelids shot open as if I’d just received a shot of adrenaline.
I didn’t remember where I was, or maybe even who I was. Everything felt strange and wrong, and my whole body was trembling, my muscles spasming. I sat straight up in the bed, and after a moment felt my senses returning to me. I’m in Raph’s bedroom. There is a weird, thick feeling in my throat, as if I swallowed a penny or something. My pajamas are all twisted up, and also sticking to me because I’m coated in a slick film of sweat. The bedclothes are tangled around me as if someone has been thrashing wildly in the bed, and they are also damp, presumably with sweat. I am alone in the bed, my breathing shallow and labored, my pulse erratic.
I took a few deep, slow breaths, like my mom taught me for dealing with exam stress and stuff—in through my nose, one two three, out through my mouth, one two three—and gradually started to feel like myself again. It was at this point that I realized I could hear voices. A voice. Raph’s voice. Coming from the kitchen.
I got out of bed and moved quietly toward his voice. From the doorway I could see him facing away from me, leaning over the kitchen sink. He had slipped on a pair of jeans and he was talking on his phone, but there was something weird about his voice, like it was slightly muffled.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying. “I know. I know, but this is different.” His voice was trembling and his words seemed to come with difficulty. “You have to come, please . . . It isn’t about that! I swear.” Raph paused to listen, and hung his head at whatever he was hearing. “I know. And I promise I wouldn’t call if it weren’t—” [pause] “I understand all that, and look, in six months I haven’t talked to you once, I haven’t contacted you, I haven’t—I’ve abided by the—but this is different, it’s not just about me.” [pause] “Monty, listen to what I’m saying! I don’t care. You started this, you can’t just walk away when you feel like it.” [pause] “I told you.” [pause] “You promise?” [pause] “Yeah, okay, I know, just . . . come quickly.”
Raph hung up the phone and turned around. He startled a little when he saw me. My mouth was already moving to ask, “Who’s Monty?” but the words were replaced by a different question when I saw his face. I realized now why his v
oice sounded weird: he had a dish towel pressed up against his mouth. “What happened?” I said. “Are you okay?”
Raph dropped his hand with the dish towel to his side, revealing a large, messy gash in his lip, which looked like it had only recently stopped gushing and started to seal itself. As he stood up straighter in the sunlight, I saw something else: there were tiny reddish bruises, maybe the size of a nickel, all over his chest, his throat, and a few on his wrists. I gasped and rushed to his side. I was just trying to help. I wanted to examine his injuries, clean them, and see if they needed a doctor’s attention. But Raph moved away from me. In fact, he was . . . cowering, shrinking away from me, backing himself up against the refrigerator, his eyes big with fear.
Growing desperate, I kept asking what happened, if he was okay, should I call a doctor, but he wouldn’t answer. Then something caught my eye from the counter: a smear of bright color reflected at me in the chrome side of the toaster. It was me. My face and chest, red with blood.
I touched my face, not believing what I saw, but my fingers came away sticky with the stuff. “Raph . . . ,” I said uncertainly. “What happened to us?”
Raph squeezed his eyes shut. “Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Please, get away from me.”
I ran all the way to our upstairs bathroom and set about cleaning the blood from my skin. The strange thing is, though I checked my whole face and neck and the inside of my mouth, I couldn’t find a cut.
I don’t think it was my blood.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 8:13 A.M.
I’m panicking. I texted Mom so many times last night, but now I don’t want to see her. Don’t want to try to explain the inexplicable. Where would I even begin? But she just got home. She’s banging on my bedroom door, asking if I am okay. She sounds so scared. Of course she is scared, after the crazy texts I sent.
Okay, if I wait any longer, she’s going to break down the door. I better face her.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 11:23 A.M.
Mom gave me a big hug when I opened the door and checked me over. Good thing I’d cleaned up all the blood and changed my clothes, or she would have really freaked. But before I got a chance to explain anything, the doorbell rang.
Mom looked at her watch. “Who could that be?” I had an idea, but I kept silent.
We both headed downstairs, and as we passed the kitchen, I noticed Logan sitting at the table and eating a bowl of cereal, as if this were the most ordinary Tuesday morning in the world. “Morning,” he said, his mouth half-full. I stared at him, boggled at the difference between my kid brother now and whatever he was last night. “Hey,” I said, more out of habit than anything else, and I followed Mom to the door.
The man standing there looked strangely out of place in this sleepy Idaho town. I hadn’t seen a man in such a finely cut suit since Dad took me to one of his movie premieres. He was small and slight, probably in his late 40s, but with a dramatic shock of prematurely snow-white hair. His eyes were a piercing, icy blue, and he carried a cane with an ornate silver handle.
“Good morning,” he said, holding out one hand. “Montague Verano. I’m a professor of history at the university. My apologies for disturbing you at this hour on a fine summer morning, but I’ve come to search your house.”
For a moment, Mom just stared at him in blank surprise. Meanwhile, gears clicked in my brain. Montague Verano—Monty. And sure enough, I realized that Raph was standing a few feet behind him, his hands thrust awkwardly into his pockets.
“I’m sorry?” Mom tried at last, taking his hand as almost an afterthought. But Verano was regarding her just as closely, and instead of shaking her hand, he pulled it toward his body.
“You seem quite familiar to me,” he said, running his eyes over her face. “Have we met before?”
“Um,” she said, caught off guard. “No, we don’t—that is, I—I get that a lot.”
Verano dropped her hand and made a movement toward her, crowding her against the doorjamb. “Yes,” he said with a nod. “You have an old soul?”
“No,” said Mom. “I mean, yes, but—no—I was in movies. You’ve probably seen them.”
“I don’t watch movies,” said Verano. “Which ones?”
“Some Sacred Summer? Dayton Tuscaloosa? High School High?”
Verano raised an eyebrow. “Is that the one with the dead skunk in the bathroom?” Mom nodded. “I may have seen it on a plane.”
At this point, it looked like Mom was becoming overwhelmed by Verano’s forced proximity, and she stepped away from him—a move that he apparently took as an invitation to enter the house. I took some pleasure in the sour look on his face as he was forced to navigate the cloud of flies.
Raph followed just behind him, his shoulders hunched in discomfort at the whole scene, though I guess with Verano here, he was no longer too nervous to enter the house at all.
“These all yours?” said Verano, examining her assortment of dream catchers and ritual candles. Mom nodded. “Quite a nice collection,” he observed, which coaxed a smile out of her. “Many of these items could be picked up at any one of the innumerable and interchangeable New Age bookshops that dot this country, but a few of these are rare pieces.”
Verano’s accent was unplaceable. It sounded British to me at first, maybe by way of Swiss boarding school. Then, as he went on, his vowels became rounded in a much more American way . . . but every few words that hint of clipped, foreign speech would reassert itself for a syllable or two. I couldn’t decide if this meant that he had lived all over, or if it was meant to convey that impression. He was clearly someone who cared a lot about his image, so I didn’t rule that possibility out.
“Thank you,” said Mom. “I started collecting after the—”
But Professor Verano didn’t appear to be listening. He glanced over his shoulder at Raph. “Find me a trash bag, would you please.”
“Wait, what?” said Mom as Verano began pulling her trinkets down from the shelves. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I understand you have a problem with spirits.”
“You misunderstand, then. We don’t have a problem. Professor . . . Verano, is it? I appreciate your interest, but as I’ve explained to my daughter many times, it’s only human prejudice that makes people afraid of the spirit world. In this household we respect our neighbors, embodied or otherwise. We are not in need of an exorcism.”
“Mom!” I exclaimed. “Stop it.” Given his rude behavior, I wasn’t eager to take Verano’s side against my own mother, but I had to admit that his confident manner gave me hope that he might know how to resolve our situation. At the least, he was the first person who seemed willing to take it seriously. “Stop acting like this is all a cute little game,” I said to her. “Look what happened to Logan, look at what has happened to all of us. Whatever is in this house does not have our best interests at heart.”
Verano unceremoniously dropped a clinking armload of my mom’s ritual objects into the bag Raph had found. “Ms. Blanton,” he said, “you should heed your daughter. I don’t think you fully appreciate the nature of the forces affecting this house, and your family. Your trinkets have done more harm than good here. You have disturbed some very powerful forces, and you are now in a position of considerable danger. Your sage smudging, your altars and dream catchers and crystals and grimoires . . . It all seems quite harmless to you, but it may not seem so benevolent to . . .” He raised his eyes toward the ceiling, almost as if he could see a demon squatting there. “To others,” he finished.
Then, with barely a glance more in her direction, Verano proceeded to show himself around the first floor of the house, moving swiftly from room to room, stopping here and there to press his ear to the walls and tap the head of his cane three times.
“What—what are you looking for?” I asked.
“Amelia,” he replied in a hushed voice.
“Who’s Amelia?” I said, but Verano was in his own world, and showed no inclination to answer. Raph, luckily, was able to fil
l us in.
“Amelia was Williamson’s daughter. She shows up a bunch in Pronoica stuff when she’s a baby, but she disappears from the record when she’s around 13.”
“Exactly!” shouted Verano from the pantry. “An absence. A very significant absence.”
“What does that prove, though?” asked Mom. Verano came in through the kitchen and stood very close to her.
“Nothing,” he said with a strange smile. “Nothing at all. But it is suggestive, isn’t it?”
“Are you thinking that something happened with Amelia at the clinic?” said Raph. “That she saw something, something she shouldn’t have, and they needed to shut her up?”
“Yes,” said Verano, “yes, I believe . . .” But he stopped himself, and his eyes grew large with some sudden realization. “Ah yes, shut her up. Exactly,” he said. “Don’t you see, Raphael? She didn’t just disappear from the record, she disappeared.”
“You mean he killed her?”
“Possibly. But no. I think that he . . .” Suddenly he turned toward me. “Do you know of any unaccounted-for spaces in this house? A blocked-up door, or a room that seems too small for its place in the house?”
I glanced at Mom and Logan. “There is a blocked-up door, but it just leads down to Raph’s apartment. I don’t know any other—”
“The turret,” said Logan. “My room is under a turret, but the ceiling is flat. There must be some extra space up there.”
Verano said nothing, but his face lit up, and he dashed up the stairs, his cane clenched purposelessly in his fist.