Monster in My Closet

by R. L. Naquin

  He considered this. “From our point of view, it’s more like driving at night without infrared goggles. We never had them, so we don’t miss them.”

  I quieted while I chewed on the idea. My sense of other people’s emotions was mine alone. Nobody around me had any clue what I was feeling, what was happening in my head.

  No wonder communication broke down so often. How could people possibly understand each other? This explained a great deal about cruelty in the world. How easy would it be to dole out emotional damage if you didn’t get any backlash yourself? The more I considered the notion, the more it rang true.

  I shook my head. “This is crazy.”

  He smiled and gave me a cheerful bob of his head. “Yep. Crazy. Also true.”

  I wondered how I could have gone my entire life without realizing that nobody else was feeling everybody else. It was like I’d lived with a third arm and only realized now that everyone else had two. It was an embarrassing—and lonely—thought.

  All the times I’d stepped in when two people had a misunderstanding, I didn’t understand why they couldn’t see the problem as clearly as I did. I remembered the quizzical looks Sara gave me when I told her a bride felt like a breakdown was imminent.

  Sara must’ve thought I was nuts. But that’s what best friends did—they honored each other’s quirks as personality traits rather than flaws. For ten years, we’d talked about the people in our lives, from the nerdy R.A. running our dorm back in college to the dumbass who cut me off in traffic last week. I assumed we’d been using the same language to describe a new boyfriend, my father’s death or the divorce of Sara’s parents. She never once told me I was weird or that she didn’t understand.

  But apparently not everyone would label this insane deformity of mine as me simply being a lovable weirdo with an odd vocabulary. This guy had called me an empath. My brow creased in suspicion.

  “Andrew, how did you know I was in trouble out there?”

  “Zoey, there are lots of ways to be different. I heard the crash and went outside to see what had happened. You were standing there, brightly lit, with an aura the size of Wisconsin, and that guy was, well, he was bad. I could see how bad. His aura was the blackest, emptiest thing I’ve ever seen. And his aura was eating your aura. It scared me half to death.”

  “You see auras.” I reached down and rubbed Milo’s ear. His bushy tail thumped against my leg in rhythm with his panting breaths. “Like those weird photographs they take at psychic fairs?”

  “Something like that. I see them, and I can read them. And what I read in him had a badness level through the roof.”

  Auras. Empaths. Closet monsters. Okay. I was game. Enough weirdness had hit me in one day that discounting anything was pretty much an exercise in self-deception.

  “What was he?” I asked in a quiet voice.

  Andrew looked serious. “I have no idea. Nothing good. We need to work on making you less…tasty. This is going to take more tea.”

  He took my cup and moved to the counter where he kept hot water steaming in a coffeepot.

  Despite the circumstances, I felt safe in this tiny, odd-smelling place. Andrew felt safe. For once, here was someone who didn’t feel like any of his own problems. In fact, I felt nothing from him but a low echo of self-assurance. I wasn’t being either bombarded or drained.

  “Andrew?”

  He craned his neck over his shoulder and smiled. “Yeah?”

  “What do you know about closet monsters?”

  “Not a thing, my darling. But the world is full of strangeness for anyone who cares to look.”

  * * *

  Over a second and third cup of Christmas-flavored sweat socks, Andrew led me through a series of guided meditations. He taught me first to flush out the unwanted collection of borrowed emotions I’d been picking up all over town.

  “Every night before you go to bed,” he said, “remind yourself as you’re meditating that these emotions are not your crap. They don’t belong to you, and you don’t have to own them.”

  I had to admit I felt better than I had in a very long time. The tea had worked well, but the meditation felt like I’d opened all the doors and windows in a musty house. The cool breeze blowing through my mind made everything fresh, and my own thoughts were no longer dulled. I was ready to run outside and jog to my car.

  Andrew stopped me before I could throw the door open and stare back at my old enemy, the sun.

  “If you go out there right now it would be like sunbathing naked on the equator. All you’ve done so far is clear out all the crap that’s been cluttering up your head for ages. In a way, it was keeping things out. You can only cram so much into a full box. But now the space is empty, so you’re more vulnerable than before. You need to shield yourself like I do. Think of it as psychic sunscreen.”

  Andrew spent the next hour teaching me to build an enclosure around myself. We’d started with bricks, but my visualization abilities were too vivid, and I fought. “I can’t see anything around me,” I said. “And how can I breathe in this tiny room?”

  We changed tactics. My imagination formed a rock-hard wall of crystal encircling me, forming a bubble. Because I could see through it, I didn’t feel like it was closing in.

  I felt invincible.

  Invincible, but not without some niggling worries. What if I couldn’t sustain my wall? Did I have to think about it all the time to keep it going? How would I know if the protection wasn’t working?

  What if everything Andrew was saying was a wheelbarrow full of manure from a flying circus elephant?

  His explanation for my problems felt right, though. The changes in me felt true, deep in my gut, and not a result of suggestion or positive thinking. So much of the strangeness in my life fell into place.

  “Practice, Zoey,” Andrew said. “Don’t walk out the door in the morning until you put your wall up. Believe it’ll stay put. And fortify it from time to time—take a moment to think about it, feel for flaws, smooth them out. Maintenance will be second nature eventually.” He pressed a plastic bag of herbs in my hand as I gathered my things to go. “Just in case,” he said. “Some days might be hard. I have a feeling you’ve got shit coming your way.”

  More good news.

  He stood with Milo in his arms, looking worried. Milo made a mewling squeak. I gave the fox’s gigantic ears a rub and hugged them both. “Stop worrying, guys. I’ll be fine. I’ll be by in a few days. With closet-monster baked goods, if he’s still around. Thank you.”

  I left the store a little apprehensive, but feeling like a brand-new Zoey. I’d been inside long enough that traffic from the accident had cleared, the sun had burned through the haze in the sky, and high tide had rolled in, washing the air clean. I yanked my yellow beret over my hair and had to hold myself back from skipping to my car.

  * * *

  The commute from Sausalito to the small beach town of Bolinas gave me time to calm my euphoria to a more natural level. I found myself inspecting my newly constructed, imaginary bubble for cracks and soft spots. I reinforced it wherever I felt the need, feeling both giddy with new knowledge and silly for believing in it.

  My cheerful outlook wavered when Maurice met me at the front door. The look of him was still startling, even with foreknowledge. He’d changed to a bright yellow dress shirt and lime-green slacks. The black and white checkered sneakers remained the same. His brow-less, mottled forehead was pulled down in a scowl.

  “Thank Betty Crocker you’re home. I’ve been worried sick. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  I could feel fault lines forming in my carefully constructed barrier, and his concern seeped through the cracks. Breathe, Zoey. Patch it up before the dam breaks. I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth while being ushered into the kitchen. Maurice muttered to himself while he pushed me into a chair an
d poured me a glass of pink lemonade.

  “I got the cheese and wine,” I said, feeling like a naughty child as I pulled it out of my purse and put it on the table. The cheese was a little sweaty. After digging around for a moment, I located my phone. Five text messages and two voicemails, not all from Maurice.

  One text message and two hysterical phone calls were from Sara. The timing of my departure in conjunction with the accident had not gone unnoticed.

  I made a quick call to Sara letting her know she could stop worrying. No, I wasn’t in the accident. Yes, I was fine. Sorry I didn’t get the call earlier. I hung up and realized Sara was the easier of the two to placate.

  Maurice was staring at me.

  “Something else happened, didn’t it,” he said. The certainty in his voice and the fear on his face brought a flash of green eyes, causing me to shiver.

  I took a sip of lemonade through a bright orange and green bendy straw. My mouth made a pleased pucker. Not pink lemonade, strawberry lemonade. I held up my glass and peered through the frosty condensation. Chunks of fresh strawberry winked at me.

  I sighed. “Yes, something happened. But I’m fine now. Better than fine, I’m great.”

  His yellow eyes stared at me across the linoleum table without blinking. He wasn’t going to let it go.

  I gave it up like a homecoming queen on prom night. Once I started the story, it burbled out of me until it lay between us on the table, heavy and full of dark omens.

  Maurice was agitated and ran a gnarled hand through the few spiky hairs on his head. “Zoey, my gods, that was an incubus. You could have been sucked dry right there on the street.”

  He rose from his chair and paced across the tile floor, his shoes squeaking as he walked. I glanced down.

  “Did you mop the floor? It’s all…clean.”

  “Don’t change the subject, you’re in deep shit.”

  I watched him make two more circuits of the kitchen before I grabbed his wrist and yanked him into the chair next to me. The warmth of his pale skin still surprised me. I wondered how long it would take to get used to that.

  “He’s gone. I’m fine. Stop pacing, you’re making me queasy.”

  Maurice appeared to gather himself for another onslaught, then smoothed his face into a mask of calm. “Incubi are demons, Zo. Very bad. They feed off the emotions, the energy, of their victims. They seduce their victims into compliance and drain them until the brain is a shell filled with a gooey center. You’re a helper—an empath. You draw other people’s emotions to you, even with your bubble in place. For an incubus, you’re like an all-you-can-eat buffet with no sneeze guard.

  “And now he’s had a taste.”

  Chapter Four

  Friday’s insanity melted into Saturday, which dawned a fresh kind of crazy. I took a few minutes to rebuild and examine my bubble shield for cracks and chips before poking my toes out from under the duvet. All secure. With an unfamiliar spring in my step and clad in a knee-length, retro Hong Kong Phooey nightshirt, I skipped outside and down my porch steps to get the paper at the end of the drive. Halfway across the lawn I whacked my shin against a protruding growth.

  Overnight, a mushroom with a cap the size of a cantaloupe had sprung up out of nowhere. I leaned forward to examine it and was thumped on the side of the head by a rogue dragonfly. The insect chittered at me and grabbed a hank of my hair, yanking me in the direction of the house.

  I flapped my hands over my head without effect and took a step backward. The bug let go and flew off.

  I blinked. My mind refused to put together what I had observed, and I glanced at the mushroom. It was not alone. A row of fungi grew across my lawn and stretched around the corner of the house. I padded on bare feet, following the curved line. I tracked it until I circled my way back to the front walkway. No, no, no. I am not seeing what I’m seeing.

  I darted my eyes left and right, then took an experimental step across the mushrooms.

  Three creatures bombed me, scolding in indecipherable, high-pitched voices. They yanked at my sleeve, my hair, and one made a grab for my lower lip. No, definitely not dragonflies, I thought. I’m on lockdown by fairies.

  Waving my arms to shoo them away, I pivoted and stomped up the steps, slamming the door both open and closed. I stood in the living room seething.

  Maurice popped his head out of the kitchen. “Zoey! Good morning! Perfect timing. Sit-sit-sit! Breakfast is almost ready. Come have coffee.”

  It was difficult to maintain a high level of outrage in the face of such overwhelming cheer. But I tried. I stalked into the kitchen and threw myself in my chair, hoping to have achieved at least a small show of defiance and ire.

  “I’m on house arrest. I can’t even get my paper.”

  Maurice looked unconcerned. “Paper’s right there, Zo.” He slid a cup of coffee under my nose and pulled the folded newspaper toward me.

  “Fairies are in my front yard!”

  He ignored me. I took a sip of coffee and wondered why everyone always gave me something to drink when I was upset. “Fairy rings, closet monsters, incubi. I quit going to my shrink too soon.”

  Maurice snorted and kept working at the stove. So he was listening to me; he refused to answer.

  I sulked and stared out the window. Mushrooms jiggled on their thick stalks, taunting me. Maurice put a plate of food in front of me, and the smell of something incredible blew into my face. I took a bite and tried not to show my pleasure.

  “I’m not going to stay locked up here,” I said with my mouth full. “You can’t—oh my God, did you make these croissants from scratch?” I closed my eyes, savoring the buttery flakes dissolving in my mouth before I swallowed. I opened them again and glared. “I’m not hiding in here, so you can forget it.”

  Maurice grinned in the way good cooks do when someone enjoys their food.

  “It’s not forever, Zoey. Give it a little while for the ring to set. Then you can come and go as you please.”

  “How long?”

  He shrugged. “A couple hours. The mushrooms will disappear. If you leave now, the ring won’t know you belong. Trust me. It’s a good alarm system. People won’t be able to wander in and out without us knowing about it once it’s set.”

  I had the overwhelming feeling that I was being handled. It did not sit well with me. Over the last twenty-four hours I’d been dragged, pushed, guided and manipulated by an incubus, an aura-reading herbalist, a closet monster and several fairies.

  “Then what? Bells ring every time a neighbor crosses into the yard for a chat? Sirens go off at three a.m. when a raccoon tries to break into the garbage can?” The food on my plate wasn’t so appealing anymore. I shoved it away and threw my crumpled napkin into the dish. “I can’t live like this. Whatever that guy was, he’s gone. I’m safe. You can’t take over my house like this.” I scraped my chair back and stood up, glaring at Maurice. His calm grated at me and served to piss me off further.

  “Zoey, nobody’s taking anything over. You won’t notice the change. Trust me on this. It’s necessary.”

  How was I supposed to trust a monster I met yesterday? A monster who couldn’t keep his own marriage together? I opened my mouth to say so, a thing I would have instantly regretted. Hurting people was not in my nature.

  The phone rang.

  I snatched it up and snarled a greeting. “What?”

  “Zoey, baby. How’s my girl this morning?”

  “Brad, what the hell do you want?”

  “You always were grumpy first thing in the morning. Have some coffee.”

  “Not the time, Brad. Spit it out or hang up.” In a small back room in my head, I felt a tiny bit of shock. I didn’t talk to people like this, not even Brad. Whoa, girl. Ease up. You’re dangerously close to being hateful. Somebody’s feelings could get hurt.
>
  “Ok, I gotcha. You’re on the rag. I’ll speed it up,” he said.

  “Hanging up, Brad.”

  “No, wait. I wanted to thank you for getting me the extra work yesterday. So, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. What else?”

  “Nothing much.” There was a pause. I could hear him breathing while he gathered his nerve to ask me for God only knew what this time. “Well, it wasn’t quite enough to get me through, so maybe, I thought, well, have you got anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No. Goodbye, Brad.”

  “Wait! Could you maybe float me a couple hundred, just for the week?”

  My anger level reached the boiling point and the lid blew off. “Get a goddamn job, Brad. Work like the rest of us. Or go bother your parents. Sell your body to science, for all I care. I am not your wife, your girlfriend or your banker. Piss off.” I jammed my finger on the disconnect button, wishing for an old-fashioned receiver to slam.

  I dropped my phone on the table and covered my face with shaking hands. What the hell is wrong with me?

  * * *

  I spent the next two hours locked in my room—crying, pouting, throwing pillows at the dresser and staring out the window. I made a brief trip to the bathroom to shower, but it didn’t help my mood. At intervals I peeked out the window and saw the mushrooms circling the house gradually diminish until I looked out and saw no sign of them.

  I walked through the house and found Maurice on his knobby knees, scrubbing an old stain on the Egyptian throw rug in the living room.

  “I’m going out,” I said in a cool voice.

  Maurice said nothing. He nodded once and returned to dabbing at the carpet with a damp rag.

  I loved my blue convertible VW Bug. Not only was it a sassy fashion statement, but it got great gas mileage. A long drive would help me think, sort through my crowded brain, in peace. I closed the car door and fumbled with the keys. What is that obnoxious smell? Did something die in here?