by Harper Lin
I sauntered into the lobby thinking I might get an hour of sleep or at least an episode of my favorite crime show on the tube before getting my face slathered with sea kelp or red clay. But before I could get to the stairs—you can bet I wasn’t setting foot in the elevator—I found myself a comfy seat in a corner, my back against the wall, with a view of the whole place.
It was a very tranquil place. The lighting, the mellow music, and the soothing colors made it very relaxing to just sit and watch the people, the staff. I wondered if this place was run on a trust or by a board of directors, who paid the staff? Who was in charge here?
Standing up and stretching my legs, I went to talk to the tall guy pacing behind the front desk like a manager. But before I got to him, I saw a figure coming toward me that I wasn’t prepared for at all.
“Hey, Cath,” Jake said, waving to me. His face was crinkled with worry.
“Hi, Jake. What’s shakin’?”
“Have you seen Bea?”
“She was just a couple steps ahead of me. I think she was going to her room to do something. Burn some sage, maybe, to get into the proper frame of mind for our facials. You know Bea. Everything has a ritual to make it special.” I shrugged and smiled. I didn’t want to send him to the hospitality suite to catch Bea scouring the web for the history of this place and the Native American folklore plus lunar schedules for the past half century. He’d instantly know we were up to something.
“That’s okay. Actually, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Me?” My cousin’s husband was like a brother to me, and we’d had plenty of conversations, serious discussions, and even a debate or two. But he never really spoke to me when he was working on a case, especially if it was giving him the heebie-jeebies. “Okay. Do you want to sit or go somewhere private or…?”
“Let’s just walk.”
I nodded, thrust my hands into my pockets, and waited for Jake to point us in whatever direction he wanted to go.
“Where is Blake?”
“He’s still interviewing the last few folks who were on staff last night.”
Again, I nodded since I wasn’t really sure what else to do.
“So, what’s this all about, Jake?”
He swallowed hard. I could tell that he was trying to figure out what words to use. Finally, he decided to just spill it.
“I saw something last night.”
Drums
All I could think was that Jake had seen Aunt Astrid blending into the wallpaper or maybe Bea and me pulling ourselves up and over the balcony. I held my breath.
Jake looked around as if someone might hear him and two guys in white coats with butterfly nets were going to pop up from around the corner and snatch him up like a monarch.
“Saw something?” I acted dumb. It wasn’t hard. “Something like a clue or tip or something like strange lights in the sky or a floating apparition?”
Jake chuckled nervously.
“No. I saw something…”
“Where was Blake? Did he see anything?”
“He had gone to the car to get a set of fresh rubber gloves. He seemed to be gone a long time.”
Had that been the time he was up in my room? Did he lie to Jake about where he was going? I wasn’t even good enough for him to say he wanted to talk to me? Too embarrassed, I guess. My ego sulked.
“The bodies had long been gone by this time,” he started. “Those two women were from Glendale Heights, Montana.”
“Yikes. They are a long way from home. Or should I say were.” I grimaced. Jake didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me. He was reliving whatever he had seen.
“I was just going through their room. The luggage. The drawers.” Sweat started to form on his temples. I put my hand on his shoulder. “It was like I had blacked out for a few seconds. Maybe it was minutes. I’m not sure. But I sort of snapped out of it, and I was standing in the middle of the room, just staring at the curtains.”
He shook as a shiver chased over his shoulders.
“I heard something.”
Scratching? Growling? Heavy breathing? My mind jumped feet first into Terror-land. If it were anything like the elevator, I’d be sweating too.
“What did you hear?”
“Drums.”
I cocked my head. Not at all what I had been thinking.
“Drums? What? Like marching drums?”
“No.” Jake swallowed. “Like drums you’d hear before battle. Drums to scare the opposition, you know? They were pounding, pounding in a beat, and I could feel myself slipping into a trance again. Like I was being hypnotized or something.”
“Geez, Jake.”
“So I walked out in the hallway to see if I could hear them out there. And I could but not the same way. So I came back into the room and walked to the curtain. I could still hear them. I pulled the curtain aside, unlocked the sliding door, and leaned my head outside. I could hear them there, too. But…”
“But what?”
Jake slipped his hand under my arm, and we walked to the seat I had been sitting on just a few minutes earlier. We sat down next to each other, and he looked at me. But it wasn’t me he was seeing. He was seeing past me into something that he didn’t like.
“The sound was inside my head. And when I looked outside, I saw something in the trees.”
I gulped. I hoped he wouldn’t tell me he saw spiders.
“At first I thought it was just a trick of the light. It was dark while we were investigating, right? I felt a little bit of a breeze. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing?”
He seemed to be hoping I’d just say yes to what he had mumbled so far. Like maybe, on some off chance, I had imagined it with him and he wasn’t alone. Jake laughed a little, but it was sad. I could tell he thought something was wrong in his own head. Just a few days ago, it had been me sinking into that hole of doubt. Nothing was worse than thinking you were going crazy.
“There were so many of them.”
“What was it, Jake?”
“They were along the ground like they were crawling. Some darted in between the shrubs. I swear I even saw some in the trees. High up in the trees.”
“Jake?”
“People, or at least the shadows of people. Dozens of them. Maybe even a hundred. Like the place was being swarmed.” He folded his hands, his knuckles white with worry. “I thought we were being attacked or something. But the feeling in my gut wasn’t what I’d normally feel if I were going to be in some kind of altercation with a violent perp. Or perps. I mean, I was trained to handle situations like that.”
“What did you feel?”
“I felt terrified. The drums kept getting louder in my head, and these black things were shifting and moving in all the shadows. At first I thought they were men. Then they looked like dogs or wolves. In the trees, it was like they transformed into birds. Big birds.”
Shape-shifters. A very common American Indian concept.
“Cath, I was so freaked out I drew my weapon.”
My breath caught in my throat. That was a last resort for Jake. In Wonder Falls, the need for any of the officers to draw their gun was pretty rare. I wouldn’t say it didn’t happen, but it was more as a precaution than a real intent to use the weapon. For Jake to admit to this meant he was not only scared of what was out there but scared of his own response to it.
“Right as I was about to start shooting, Blake walked back into the room. He didn’t immediately see me out on the balcony. I swung around and had my gun aimed right at him. By the grace of God, I didn’t pull the trigger.”
Jake’s eyes were red. He was doing everything in his power to not break down and start crying, not that I would have blamed him if he had.
“Do you realize what I could have done, Cath? I could have killed my partner! All because I was hallucinating these things in the courtyard, hearing drums in my head. What the hell?”
“Jake, you need to talk to Bea. Tell her this happened.”
“I didn’t wa
nt to worry her. That’s why I came to you. I had to tell someone.”
“It’s okay, Jake.”
“Bea has been picking up on things, hasn’t she?” His face was concerned.
“You should really talk to her, Jake. I couldn’t say for sure.” The last thing I wanted was to get in the middle of their marriage. That would be a no-win situation.
“I’m so amazed by her. I’m amazed by her whole family. Even you. How you guys deal with your gifts I don’t know. It was scary at first. But after some of the things I’ve seen Bea do, I sort of feel, well, unworthy.”
This was a very strong contrast to what Blake had said in my room the previous night. He’d seemed very sure that Jake felt the same way he did. “Jake will back me up on this,” he had said in that smug, condescending way he always talked to me. Did Blake think just because they were partners Jake would choose him over his family? Did Blake think we would do something so selfish as to make Jake choose? It made no sense, but my blood boiled just the same.
“That is the last thing you should feel around Bea. For whatever reason, she thinks the sun rises and sets on you. But Aunt Astrid did drop her on her head when she was a baby,” I teased, nudging Jake with my elbow. He smiled, as I’d hoped he would. “Talk to her. You’ll feel better.”
He wiped his eyes quickly and stood up, helping me to my feet.
“You’re right, Cath.”
I smiled up at him and punched him in the arm.
He punched me back, and it throbbed.
“Ouch. You big brute. Police brutality,” I mumbled at him, smiling.
Between him and me, this exchange was the equivalent of an I love you.
“Here comes Blake. Don’t say anything…”
“Oh, gosh no, Jake. I won’t. In fact, I’ve got to get back to my room. It’s facials and mud baths today. I’ll see you back at home. Talk to Bea.”
Coming out of the wooden door marked MANAGER, Blake had his nose buried in his small leather notebook just as he had when he’d come to my room. Instead of looking down like I normally would have when walking past Blake, I felt I needed to hold my head high. He thought I was weird, crazy, and who knew what else. I was sorry for him. The world held so much mystery, and he was completely closed to it. What a sad existence to never witness a miracle because you chose to keep your eyes closed.
“Oh, uh, Cath, can I—” he started to speak, but I shook my head and quickly walked past him. In my haste, I headed right toward the open elevator, spun around, pressed the number three, let the doors close, and held my breath.
Bracing myself, I listened as the cables clicked and jolted like normal. Within seconds I was on the third floor, my stomach flipping as the elevator car settled and the doors began to open. A burst of adrenaline propelled me out of the car and into the hallway like a stuntman in a J.J. Abrams film, startling an older couple approaching from the direction opposite my room.
“Sorry. Excuse me,” I said to their wide-eyed stares. With long strides, I marched down the hallway to my room. I walked around the bed, pulled the balcony curtains open, cracked the door to get in a few breaths of fresh air, snapped on the television, and lay down on the bed to let the rest of my food digest.
I must have dozed off, because before I knew what was happening, I awoke to a wild pounding at my door.
Run
Bea had always been the one of us to keep her cool. In classes at school, when a pop quiz was announced, she’d calmly pull out a pencil. When the roof at the café started to leak after we had had more than a week’s worth of rain pour down on us in three days, she placed some buckets and just folded her arms, waiting for the sun to come out.
I, on the other hand, could freak out at the slightest ripple in my regular routine. It wasn’t that I didn’t like surprise parties or enjoy a good scare at Halloween, but if my car’s “check engine” light went on, as it often did, I would fret, lose sleep, chew my nails, and pace the floor until I could get it to the shop for a tune-up.
To see Bea with her long red hair spilling all around her face, three different pencils sticking out from it, and her lip trembling—well, it scared me more than being stuck in the elevator.
“What?” I said, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into my room. “Did you find something good? Did something happen to you in the elevator?”
“You’re not going to believe what I found out.”
“Yeah, you’re right, because heaven knows when I’m around you, everything is normal and calm. What? What? Tell me.”
“Do you know where Mom is? She wasn’t in her room.”
I looked at the clock. Aunt Astrid had been gone an hour.
“She went for a walk.”
“By herself? Where?”
“Along the grounds. She said she was going to check the path those kids took and see if something was left there.”
“We’ve got to get to her. She might be in serious danger.”
Without another word, we both hurried out of my room, down the stairs, and out into the fresh early morning.
“She headed this way.” I pointed to a path of rust-colored mulch that gradually turned into gravel. We hadn’t taken this path when I was still carrying the astral spiders as a backpack, so this was unfamiliar to Bea and me.
“Is it just me, or does this path seem a little darker than the one we took the other day?”
Bea nodded.
“I was just thinking that. Is it the branches? Are they thicker?” She looked up, but neither of us said anything more. We looked into the pretty scenery that to both of us had become a little more sinister.
Turning around, I kept checking to see if we were being followed, but I never saw or heard anything.
Sweat started to form on my forehead, and my breath was getting a little shorter. Both Bea and I were practically running, our heads on swivels as we searched in every direction.
“There she is!” Bea yelled, pointing through the trees to a small clearing.
Had anyone been walking past, they might have thought Aunt Astrid was practicing Falun Gong, but we knew different.
“Mom!” Bea shouted as she ran toward Aunt Astrid. I was bringing up the rear, unable to shake the feeling we were being watched by a lot of eyes.
“Mom! Mom!” Aunt Astrid didn’t respond, and when we finally got to her, we could see why.
As a witch who could slip easily from one dimension to another, my aunt would sometimes appear to just be staring into space, lost in a daydream. Bea and I had seen her hundreds of times carrying on complete conversations or watching some unseen play unfold in front of her, yet we saw and heard nothing. Shaking her or snapping her out of it was out of the question.
That was what made seeing her like that all the more unnerving.
Her hair was always wild, but now it was charged with static, causing the strands to stand in an unnatural halo around her head. Her hands were gnarled as if she were holding an invisible bar, her shoulders were hunched and rigid, and her arms moved as if she were pulling taffy. But it was her face that made both Bea and me gasp.
My aunt’s rosy, round face had been pulled down into an ashy and deeply creviced mask. Her lips had become just things, dark slips that curled and trembled as if she were mumbling a prayer. A thin line of drool dripped down her chin. Her eyes had rolled over to show the whites. They didn’t blink, and heaven only knew what she was seeing.
“Do you hear that?” Bea asked, her whisper cutting through the silence of this little clearing like a chainsaw.
I listened but didn’t hear anything. Not a thing. Not a bird. Not a cricket. Not a breeze. Nothing. My shoulders shook as I looked around us.
It wasn’t a huge figure, maybe the size of a cat or a raccoon. That was what I thought was there when I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to the left, only to see the trees we had run past to get to Aunt Astrid. The path was right beyond it just a few paces. Never in my life had I wanted to be somewhere so ba
dly. Just on the path. It was a man-made path. The people from the spa took this nature walk. It was real and it went somewhere.
Then something moved to my right. I looked, but nothing was there.
Get ahold of yourself, Cath.
I called out to any animals that might have been in the vicinity, hiding, peeking, wondering what the heck was going on just like we were.
“You’re sure you don’t hear that?” Bea said, slipping her hand around my arm and pulling me closer to her as she looked nervously around.
“I don’t hear a thing. Nothing at all,” I said, my voice shaking. “Bea, what should we do? Should we wake her up?”
“We aren’t supposed to. She always said we’d cause more harm than good if we snapped her out of one of her trances, but…she doesn’t look right.”
I looked at Astrid’s face and watched her for a moment.
“Bea, is she breathing?”
Bea’s head snapped to her mother, and we both stared. Was her chest rising and falling like it should have been? Were her lips turning blue?
“If this is where those kids died, maybe what got them has got my mom!” Bea cried. She leaned close to her mom and listened. “I don’t feel a breath, Cath! What should we do?”
I stared. My mind wouldn’t start. It just turned over and over without kicking into gear.
“Cath!” Bea cried. “Mom! Mom!”
If it were my mother, I’d suffer the lecture about leaving her to her own methods if it meant getting her back. With all my strength, I slapped my aunt across the face, screaming at her to wake up.
Her body jerked to the left, and I thought for sure she was going to fall over. But she jerked back up and sneered at me, those white eyes staring me down.
“Give her back!” Bea yelled, grabbing her mother by the shoulders.
Whatever was in there didn’t want Bea’s hands on it. The repelling force was so strong it threw Bea back about five feet to land with a solid thud on her butt. Aunt Astrid also collapsed in the soft grass where she had been standing.