Andrew's Library

The Arrival

 

The house was much bigger than anything my mother had previously owned. She had been ecstatic when she found out she was going to be moving into it and out of her tiny little apartment she, her boyfriend, and her son, my brother, had been living in prior. I had been talking to her on the phone a lot since she found out about the house and I had been making plans to go stay with her; I couldn’t stand my father anymore. All he seemed capable of doing was drinking, smoking, and swearing. Even when they were still together that’s all he ever did; that’s probably why they aren’t together anymore. She had told me everything about the house; that it was huge, beautiful inside and out, and many other things that I wasn’t really paying much attention to. I hadn’t believed her at the time, she always exaggerated the truth on everything she told me about, but now that I was sitting here in her truck looking at the massive house in front of me, I couldn’t believe that she was actually telling the truth about the place.

The front yard, which was all that I’ve seen so far, was actually bigger than the apartment the three of them lived in before. I couldn’t believe they had fit all of three of them plus two dogs into that tiny apartment; whenever I went over to visit I felt like I was canned food being compressed and prepared to be shipped to a grocery store. Their two dogs Sam and Isaac ran around the front yard wrestling in the snow. Unfortunately it was still winter, but only for a few more weeks; by the end of March the snow was supposed to be gone. My brother Chris stood on the front porch in his black jacket with the hood over his head, watching the dogs; he was holding their leashes in his right hand and had his left hand shoved in his pocket. I could only see his mouth from under his hood, but he liked to keep his face hidden; that’s why he grew his hair long enough that it covered his face.

Parked in front of my Mom’s truck was the large moving truck they had rented out to ship all the contents from their apartment to the new place. Her boyfriend, Jason, was unloading the furniture along with some help from a couple of friends. None of my stuff was in that truck, though, all of my belongings fit into the back of my Mom’s truck; I didn’t have much. The drawers were still in my dresser with all of my clothes still neatly folded and put away and a few boxes of books and CD’s. My backpack sat on my lap with my toiletries and my laptop packed in that and my mother had bought me a new futon-bunk bed that was packed in the moving truck. The plan had been to leave my old bed at my father’s house, which I was perfectly fine with; was too big for it now. I’ve had that bed since I was a kid, was about time that I got a bigger one. Chris’s old bed was still there too, but he hadn’t come to visit since he moved in with my Mom three months ago, I doubted he’d stop in to visit now, now that I wasn’t there anymore, not that me being there was much of a reason for him to visit before.

I’m not too sure where my mother was; somewhere in the house directing Jason and their friends on where to put everything. Every now and then I saw her looking out the window smiling at me. I knew she was happy that I had decided to come live with her too, and now that she actually had room for me, I felt more welcome than I had in her smaller apartment. It would be strange for me, though, not knowing anyone in Town or where anything was. I had lived in Barrie all my life and had finally memorized where everything I wanted was. Luckily the Town that I had moved into, Elmvale, was small enough that I wouldn’t have that hard of a time getting to know where everything was. I already knew that there was a Public Library across the street and a beer store, and a bank, and a gas station just all up the street. That’s where Chris worked: the gas station. He applied there the day after he had unpacked all of his belongings at the old apartment and has been working there since. The School I would be going to for my Grade 12 year was within walking distance of the house as well, so basically everything I needed was within walking distance, not that I needed the beer store, but I’m sure Jason appreciated how close it was.

 

I picked up my iPod and turned it off and climbed out of the car when Jason waved to me from the front door. I guessed they were taking a break or were done, but I doubted they were completely finished by now; they had only been an hour or so unpacking. A violent shiver ran through my spine the moment I opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the snowy driveway. I quickly shut the door and ran into the house, which wasn’t much warmer, but at least my teeth stopped chattering against one another. My mother hadn’t been exaggerating when she told me how big the house was on the inside. Mom and her friend Michelle had unpacked everything that was going in the kitchen and had it neatly put away while everything else that had been removed from the moving truck sat in boxes scattered throughout the huge living room. My bed was in there too, I hadn’t even noticed them move it, but then again I also didn’t know what it looked like, so I probably did see them bring it in, I just didn’t know what it was. The frame was a pink colour, which was like my favourite colour. “Do you want to see which room will be yours?” Samantha, my Mom, asked as she danced around the other people standing in the kitchen to my side. I smiled and nodded my head. I wasn’t that excited to see the room, I’m sure it wasn’t very much bigger, if not smaller, than the room back at my father’s, but she was too excited to say no to, I didn’t want to spoil her mood.

The upstairs looked even bigger than the downstairs, probably because there wasn’t anything in any of the rooms yet, except for Chris’s. He had carried his own stuff upstairs and piled them in the far corner of the room with his computer desk. I had a laptop, I didn’t need a desk. Chris’s room was the first room we passed; literally right across the hall from the top of the stairs. Next room we passed was the master bedroom, which was empty, but Samantha had to show me it anyways. I tried to picture all of her stuff crammed into this room and failed. Across the hall from the master bedroom was my room. Smallest of the three bedroom, but would do me just fine. I didn’t have much to fill it with, but it was a nice room. Right next to my room was a bathroom and then the room they were going to turn into the Entertainment Room, or Games Room as they called it, was at the end of the hallway. I hoped that they wouldn’t be making too much noise playing their music late at night; I, unfortunately, still had to go to School, so I needed my sleep.

Michelle was in my room with me and Samantha now. “Do you like it?” she asked me. I smiled back at her, but didn’t respond right away; I wasn’t completely sure on what I should say. I did like it, of course I did, and it was a cute little room. I was picturing where everything would be going. I could see my bed going next to the odd window that was almost on the ground, my dresser between that window and the normal window that looked to the neighbours, and my bookcase on the wall that the bathroom shared with my bedroom.

“It’s cute,” I answered after a moment. I had lost myself in the image I had painted in my head, but I managed to find my way out again. That happened a lot to me; I would be imagining something as someone was talking to me, trying to picture what it was they were talking about, and then I’d get lost in the picture I’d painted and wouldn’t respond to what they had said. People often thought I was ignoring them and never believed me when I explained what had really happened.

Michelle smiled back at me and then looked around the room once more before she stepped into the hallway, having heard something I hadn’t. It was probably Steven calling her, but it didn’t really matter to me, I wasn’t being called. Samantha disappeared with Michelle back downstairs to help direct where to put everything and I was left in my empty room with my backpack. I sat in front of the odd window and took my laptop out of my bag and rested it on the floor, flipped up the lid and turned it on. Once it was booted up the first thing I did was check to see if there were any wireless signals. “You won’t find any,” Chris’s voice came from behind me. I partially jump when I heard his voice and it took me a second to register who the voice belonged to. I looked over my shoulder and saw him leaning against the doorway. His blue black hair partially covering his face; I think it was the first time in a long time that I got a glimpse at his beautiful ocean blue eyes that were almost always shrouded behind his hair.

“You look already?” I asked as I turned my attention back to my laptop and looked for a wireless signal anyways, just to see if he was lying.

“Yes,” he answered. Before I could turn to look at him he was standing over my shoulder with his index finger hovering in front of the screen of my laptop. “That’s the closest signal, only one that actually works, but it’s protected,” he pointed out as I looked where his finger was pointing at the only signal that my laptop found that had a lock picture beside it. I sighed. “Don’t worry, Mom’s got Bell coming in tomorrow to hook us up with High-Speed Sympatico, I’m sure they’ll give us some wireless,” he stated as he stood up and turned his attention to the window. We normally got along pretty well; he talked to me, more than he talked to anyone about anything.

“So how’s the job?” I asked as I closed the lid on my laptop which put it in hibernate mode. He was on the other side of me then, watching Jason and Steve move everything from the truck to the living room. I wasn’t sure if he heard Samantha and Michelle’s voices downstairs, I couldn’t either, just mumbles and grumbles, but if he could he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what it was they were saying; he never did pay attention to other people’s conversations. He heard them, but didn’t listen to what the words meant. He stared out the window for a few moments before he turned to face me again.

“It’s alright; Alex is got me basically running the station now. He comes in maybe once a week to make sure I’ve given out the right amount of change, not that anyone uses cash to buy anything in the store now,” he answered as he looked back outside. “Thank God for self serve though, I would hate to have to come out of the store and pump everyone’s gas during the winter,” he added with a soft laugh.

I smiled and nodded my head, “It would be pretty annoying.” There was a loud crash downstairs which made me jump again. Then I heard Jason and Samantha swearing at whatever it was that dropped and rolled my eyes. “You know of any places that are hiring?” I asked, but when I turned my attention back to where Chris had been standing he was gone; not even in the room with me anymore. I slid my laptop back into my bag and hurried out into the hallway to see where he had gone. He was standing at the top of the staircase talking to Steven who was on his way up the stairs with boxes.

“What happened?” Chris asked.

“Jason dropped the couch,” Steven answered with a laugh as he stepped off the stairs and started walking in my direction. I stepped against the wall to let him pass, but he turned into the master bedroom before he reached where I was standing.

“Is he okay?” I asked when Steven stepped out of the bedroom and headed back toward the stairs.

“The guys a tank, it probably just stings,” he answered as he slipped past Chris and descended the stairs again. Chris rolled his eyes, looked to me, and then disappeared into his bedroom. I followed after him.

“I’m surprised you haven’t started unpacking your stuff yet,” I stated as I eyed the pile of boxes that sat in the far corner of the room. Chris was leaning against the window sill staring out at the street below. He didn’t turn to face me, but I could still see the grin spread across his lips.

“I figured it would be better to wait until I wasn’t needed to help carry anything upstairs before I started to unpack my stuff,” he answered, “knowing me, as soon as I get my computer out of its box-” he pointed the biggest of the boxes stacked in the corner, “-you wouldn’t see me again until there was food on the table,” he added with his grin still on his face, but it disappeared quickly afterwards.

 

An hour later Jason and Steven had finished unpacking everything from the truck and were laughing with one another on the couch in the living room that was still clustered with boxes that needed to be unpacked. I was helping Samantha and Michelle in the kitchen with dinner; we were just going to have some hamburgers as we hadn’t completely unpacked all the food and got it put away by the time they men were complaining they needed energy before they would begin to start heaving what boxes needed to go upstairs to their proper rooms.

I was in charge of setting the table which Chris had assembled in the dinning room which was attached to the living room where the Jason and Steven were sitting. Chris was back upstairs in his room, finally unpacking his belongings as he wasn’t going to be needed anymore until the food was ready to be eaten. Michelle handed me what needed to be put on the table over the little bar counter that stood between us and I twirled around and placed the plates, silver wear, cups, napkins, and whatever else was needed onto the table, and by the time I was finished Samantha had the burgers in their buns and on a plate waiting for me to place on the table. “Alright boys, dinner’s served!” Samantha called, not that she needed to.

I took a burger off the plate and sat at the counter in the kitchen and fiddled with my laptop. Chris grabbed a burger and disappeared back upstairs to finish unpacking his room. He had gotten his stereo system unpacked and had his music blasting loud enough that we could just hear the bass through the floor, but not the lyrics. Samantha, Jason, Michelle, and Steven sat at the kitchen table and talked and laughed with one another about things I was pretty sure I didn’t want to understand.

When I was finished eating my burger I stepped into the dinning room to grab another off the plate and then returned to the counter to play with my laptop when Samantha stepped into the kitchen to refill her glass of wine. “Did Chris tell you that we’re getting internet tomorrow, sweetheart?” she asked as she stood in the open fridge and poured a bottle of wine into her tall wine glass. Her face was almost beat red and was easy to tell she would be unable to control her speech and actions after she downed the glass that she was filling up.

I nodded my head and closed the lid on my laptop. “Is my bed going to be set up tonight?” I asked.

Samantha closed the fridge, took a drink from her glass, and looked at me with a smile on her face. “Beds will be the first things to be set up, that way no matter how far we get unpacking the rest of the stuff, we’ll have somewhere to sleep,” she answered as she took another drink and danced drunkenly into the dinning room to join the others. A sigh escaped my lips once she was in the other room and couldn’t hear me talking under my breath to myself.

When I was finished my second burger I put the paper plate in the garbage and hurried upstairs to Chris’s room. He was the only other sane person in the family that I felt comfortable being around. He didn’t drink like Samantha, Jason, Steven, Michelle, or John, my father did; he didn’t smoke like Jason and John did; he didn’t do anything adults did, he just minded his own business and tried not to get in the way of what they found entertaining. I knocked loudly on the door to his bedroom so he would hear me over his music, but I don’t think he did, so I knocked louder and he opened the door this time. He didn’t even ask what I wanted, it was painfully obvious that I was trying to get away from the drunken adults downstairs, and without a bedroom of my own yet, his was the only place to do so.

I dropped my backpack on the floor under the window and flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. He sat at his desk again and typed rapidly onto his keyboard. I couldn’t comprehend how fast he typed; he was faster than anyone I had ever seen in my life, and did so without making a single mistake or anything. His dream was to be an Author and he was well on his way to realizing that dream. On the bookshelf on the wall opposite of his bed was a binder that was filled with articles of his that he had sent into magazines and newspapers that had been published that he cut out, so whenever he managed to get an interview somewhere, he could show them all of his published articles along with his manuscript and hopefully get his first book published. I wasn’t sure what he was working on now, he never told anyone what his projects were, he kept them a secret so that you would have to wait until he got it published or needed a second opinion on his work to find out what it was the book was even about.

I knew the latest book he had been writing was about a group of students that were left behind during a School field trip and were then hunted down by a mass-murder in the area and slaughtered. He had only sent me the first chapter of it because I had given him the idea after telling him about the last field trip I had gone on during my Grade 11 year of High School. Apparently the main character, which was a girl, as was the main character in all of his books, was based off of me, and he didn’t even tell me that, I figured it out all on my own. I was surprised at how well he captured me in the character in his book. “What are you working on?” I asked when the song that had been blasting through his huge speakers that sat in each of the four corners of his bedroom ended and there was pause before the next song started.

“The final chapter in Death Trip,” he answered. Death Trip was the School Field Trip one. The title he had given it suited it pretty well, or at least I thought so, but then again I loved all of his work.

“Who’s still alive?” I asked, but I knew he wouldn’t answer me. Of course he didn’t, he just smiled, shook his head, and continued typing. Before its Too Late by the Goo-Goo Dolls was the next song to come on. It was one of the lighter songs that he listened to. He had almost 4 days worth of music on his iPod which was plugged into the stereo which sat at his feet under his desk, allowing him to change the songs and pause it all with his feet while he was at his computer; but there was also a remote which sat in front of his monitor that he could use if he was lying in bed reading, which he also did a lot. A lot of his music was crazy stuff that I had never even heard of before. He listened to French, Japanese, German, English, all kinds of different stuff. When the lyrics began I started to sing along with it and was surprised that he did too; he never sang along with his music in front of people.

The two of us sang along with his music for a while until Samantha knocked on the door and stepped in before either of us could get up to answer it. “They’re bringing up your stuff now, sweetheart, come tell them where to put it,” she told me and then headed down the hall toward my bedroom. Before I was even in the hall Jason and Steven were carrying the box that my new bed was in. Michelle was behind Steven with a box of my books. They put my bed together against the wall that the door was on; placed my bookcase against the wall across from it, in between the two windows; and my dresser on the wall adjacent from the door. Michelle put the two boxes that held my books on the floor next to my bookcase and then disappeared downstairs with everyone else to help carry up the stuff for the master bedroom.

I made my bed first with the sheets that Samantha gave me and then I organized the books onto my bookcase in order from smallest to tallest and then flopped onto the futon part of the bunk bed and began to listen to my own iPod.

 

I must’ve fallen asleep listening to my music because the next thing I knew, it was 1 in the morning and everyone else was asleep in their rooms. I turned off my iPod and quietly went downstairs and was surprised to see that everything had been unpacked and placed somewhere in the room that it was going to end up in, it may not be staying in the exact position it stood in, but it was in the room and that’s all that counted. I noticed Michelle and Steven sleeping on the fold out couch in the living room and tiptoed across the tile flooring in the kitchen, quietly opened the fridge and got myself a bottle of water before quietly disappearing back into my bedroom.  I didn’t bother putting my pajamas on once I was back in my room, I just flopped back onto my bed and must have fallen asleep again because it was morning the next time my mind registered something.

The sun raised behind the house, fortunately, the windows in my room faced to the front and to the sides unlike the windows in my room at my Dad’s place that faced toward the sun rise and woke me up early every morning even on the days that I didn’t need to get up early. I rolled over and looked around my room and smiled. I could hear voices downstairs, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, though I could tell it was Samantha and Michelle in the kitchen.

After what felt like fifteen minutes I rolled out of bed, ran a comb through my messy hair and decided I would head downstairs to see what there was to eat for breakfast. The kitchen was still nice and clean like it had been last night when I had come down for a bottle of water. Samantha and Michelle were standing on either side of the bar counter that was attached to the normal counter, drinking something and talking about something I’m sure I didn’t want to know about. As soon as I stepped off of the last stair they both turned to me with bright smiles on their face. “Good morning sleepy head,” Samantha said as she took another drink of her drink, which I wasn’t quite sure what was.

“Morning Mom,” I sort of grumbled back. I was in Zombie mode, apparently. I couldn’t really see any colours, just bright lights reflecting off of the counters and the shadows where the light couldn’t reach. I stumbled over to the fridge and pulled out the milk and placed it on the counter where I also put a spoon and a bowl and then went to search for the cereal.

“Cereals in the pantry,” Samantha called to me when I had left the kitchen completely in my search for it. I quickly about-faced and walked into the walk-in closet of a pantry and grabbed my favourite box of cereal: Honey Combs. I filled my bowl with cereal and milk and then stumbled into the dinning room to eat it. Steven was still asleep on the couch, snoring loudly, which was distracting at first, but I eventually was able to ignore it and finish my breakfast.

“Where’s Jason?” I asked when Samantha and Michelle came and sat at the table with me. I would have enjoyed it better if they hadn’t, but there wasn’t much I could really do, after all; this was Samantha’s house and her furniture. Only place I really had any say in was my bedroom.

“He went to take the U-Haul truck back and get our deposit back from them,” she answered as she took the final gulp of her drink and placed the empty glass on the table in front of her.

“How is he going to get back?” I asked. Steven was still asleep on the couch and he had gone alone. Wouldn’t he have had needed to bring another car so he could get a ride back home?

“The U-Haul Office is just up the street, he said he could walk home,” she answered me as she leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. She was still smiling too; it was easy to tell she was quite happy with the new house, or maybe it was something else, but she was happy and that’s all that really mattered, at least that’s all I was worried about.

 

“Does the shower work?” I asked as I rinsed my bowl out in the sink after putting away everything else I had taken out for my breakfast.

“Yup,” Samantha answered. She had already taken a shower; it was quite obvious because her hair was nice and shiny looking. She took pride in her hair, more than I thought was necessary. Once I was done cleaning up I ventured upstairs to fetch my toiletries from my backpack and then locked myself in the downstairs bathroom for my shower.

The shower wasn’t very big; not like the one I was used to back at my father’s place, but was sufficient. I was used to showering in a bathtub, but this was a stand-up shower. I opened the door and turned the nozzle until the water was the temperature that I liked it at before I stripped out of my clothes and climbed in. I jumped a little bit when the hot water hit me, but I quickly got used to it and my skin and body relaxed. Samantha already had her shampoo and conditioner bottles stacked on the shelves that were built into the shower; I was pretty sure that the Axe Shampoo and Body Wash was Jason’s and the bottles for coloured treated hair were Chris’s. That left one cubby on the shelf empty which was where I stored my shampoo and conditioner.

After letting the water soak me I grabbed my shampoo and squeezed some into my hand before rubbing it into my hair; messaging my scalp like it told me to do, not that I really needed to, it just felt good. After letting it sit in my hair for a while I tilted my head back and let it rinse out before I did the same with the conditioner and then climbed out and wrapped a towel around my body and another one around my head to help absorb the water in my hair before I used the blow dryer on it. After my hair was dried out I began to brush my teeth while humming one of the songs that I had been listening when I had fallen asleep last night. It was one of those songs that you know, but you can’t ever seem to think of the name when someone asks you what it’s called.

By the time I was out of the bathroom Steven was awake and was sitting at the dinning room table eating some eggs and toast with Jason, while Samantha and Michelle were in the living room reorganizing things. I still hadn’t seen Chris though, but I was used to that. No one ever really saw him; even when the two of us still lived with our father, he spent all of his time in his bedroom with the door closed and music blasting so he would have an excuse for not hearing you when you called for him. No one seemed to care much though.

I scurried across the kitchen with the towel still wrapped around my body so that no one would see me and then quickly climbed the stairs to my bedroom. I’ll have to remember to bring my clean clothes into the washroom with me next time. I hoped Samantha was planning on installing a shower in the upstairs bathroom, I didn’t think anyone would ever use that tiny bathtub that sat right in front of you when you opened the door. I dug through my dresser to find something good to wear and ended up with a pair of black jeans and a purple long sleeved shirt with the Nike swishes across the chest. Samantha was obsessed with Nike and loved to buy Nike clothing for both me and Chris, not that Chris ever wore any of them. All of his clothing was either black or red with some design of the Grim Reaper on the chest.

Once I was dressed I grabbed my Laptop from my backpack and headed back downstairs in hopes that the Bell would arrive shortly to connect our internet for us. Chris’s bedroom door was closed still, but I couldn’t hear anything coming from the other side, he must have been still sleeping; if he was awake I would have been able to hear some form of music blasting through his massive stereo system he had set up around the room. Before I had even made it to the stairs Jason and Steven were on their way up carrying travelling bags. I looked above me and noticed the door to the attic and assumed that’s where they were going to be putting those bags.

“Out of the way Cassandra,” Jason ordered as he walked toward me. I obeyed and stepped back to let them get into the attic. Samantha was right behind them on the stairs with Michelle tagging along in the back. Jason was tall enough to reach the door to the attic without a ladder or anyone holding him up and pulled the wood away from the door. A sudden chill ran through me from my head to my toes, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I shivered violently. Samantha eyed me for a second but her attention was soon claimed by Jason who was asking her to hand him one of the bags that he had placed against the wall. It didn’t look like anyone else felt the chill run through the room, maybe it hadn’t run through the room, maybe I was just feeling something no one else felt, like a presence or something. I doubted that’s what it was, I was just being superstitious which I normally wasn’t.

While Jason was shoving the bags into the attic there was a knock to the door and Samantha quickly disappeared downstairs to answer it. I leaned over the railing in an attempt to see who was here, but I couldn’t see anything in the kitchen. I could hear Samantha talking to the man who was at the door and I quickly figured out it was the guy from Bell coming to hook up our High-Speed Internet. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but I could make out enough of the conversation to know that she was showing the man where they wanted jacks installed. I looked over my shoulder into the hole that lead into the attic and shivered again before I headed downstairs to see what was going on.

 

The man from Bell was on the floor looking into one of the many outlets in the living room to see where the best place to put a jack would be. He seemed to like the corner near the front of the room between the windows facing to the neighbours front yard and our front yard. He claimed it would be easier if that’s where the modem was. Samantha had also told him that they would need a cable run upstairs to Chris’s room, which luckily was directly above where he was going to put the modem. Jason would just end up running a cable through the vent that was inside the wall there and Chris would get internet that way. My Laptop was wireless so that was all they really needed. Samantha wanted another phone jack in the living room for a phone, one in the kitchen, and one in the upstairs hallway; that way no matter where she was she would be able to answer the phone as quickly as possible.

I was going to ask for a jack in my room, but I realized quickly before mentioning it that I would also need my own Modem if I was going to wire my Laptop to the internet. I would be fine with wireless.

When the man from Bell got out his tools and started drilling into the wall to install the jack, Samantha and I headed into the kitchen. “Why did you shiver when Jason opened the attic?” she asked me once we could hear ourselves over the sound of the drill coming from the living room.

“I don’t know, it felt like something was in the attic watching me,” I answered with a confused look on my face. Samantha returned the look while she thought for a moment.

“I don’t think there would be anyone up there. Would be far too cold for anyone to survive long,” she responded as her face returned to normal. She was still thinking though. She wasn’t completely letting go of the idea that someone was in the attic. “And I’m sure Jason would have seen or heard someone up there when he was putting up the bags,” she added as Jason, Steven, and Michelle came downstairs. “Hun, did you see or hear anything up in the attic?”  She asked Jason when they were all downstairs.

“Other than the house creaking, no,” he answered, “why?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around Samantha and pushed his lips against her cheek and then looked at me with my confused look still on my face.

“Cassandra said she felt like something was watching her from the attic,” Samantha answered after giggling from his kiss. Sometimes I wanted to tell them to get a room, but last time I did that they responded with ‘We have a room.’

“I don’t know what it was, to be honest with you,” I started, trying to erase the confused look off of my face before I started to scare anyone. “You know that feeling you get when someone is watching you?” I asked. They all nodded. “That’s what it felt like, but more intense,” I added. Samantha looked to Jason and then back to me before shrugging her shoulders.

“I think you were just imagining it, sweetheart,” she said as she then turned her attention to the Bell employee who had just walked into the kitchen. “All done in there?” she asked.

“Yup, where would you like the jack installed in here?” he asked as he looked around the kitchen. I was assuming he was trying to guess the best place to install it, but didn’t say anything until Samantha pointed to the open wall next to the front door. The man nodded his head and got to work drilling again. We were all quiet as we watched him work, it was pointless to try and have a conversation over the noise, and we all knew that as soon as we went into the living room to talk he would be finished and would be interrupting our conversation again. I was surprised Chris hadn’t come down to see what all the noise was; his bedroom was directly above the living room where the man had been drilling previously.

 

I wasn’t just imagining what I had felt, there was no way I could imagine a feeling as horrible as what I had felt from the attic. There had to be something behind it, but I couldn’t think of what it could possibly be. I didn’t believe in ghosts or aliens, or anything supernatural like that, so there had be a reasonable explanation for it, right?

What if it was a ghost? What would they possibly want with me? Why were they still here, why hadn’t they passed onto the other side yet? Did they want me to help them, was that why they only targeted me and no one else? What if it wasn’t ghosts, what if it was aliens? Did they want to do some weird alien experiments on me, and if so, why only me? What was so special about me that would make whatever was in the attic target only me?

I was paying too much attention to the questions running around in my head to really hear the conversation between Samantha and the man from Bell, let alone even notice he had finished installing the jack in the kitchen. My eyes followed him and Samantha as they ventured back upstairs to install the third and final jack before he would setup our internet, not that we really needed him to do it, Chris or Jason could have done it themselves, they were both pretty smart when it came to that kind of stuff.

What else could it have been, if it wasn’t ghosts or aliens? Did Vampires really exist? If they did, did I smell that delicious that only I would be killed by them? Did the rest of my family not appeal to them? I groaned as I thought over each of the different questions that ran through my head, each and every one of them was stupid and I was stupid to even consider believing any of them. There was a reasonable excuse behind what I had felt and I would find out what it was eventually.

I turned my attention to Steven and Michelle who were standing on the opposite side of the counter talking to one another. They were so quiet I had completely forgotten they were still here. They didn’t seem too concerned about what I had said, why would they? I barely knew them. I turned away from them and headed into the living room and sat on the couch with a huff; I couldn’t stop the thoughts and questions from running through my head and I couldn’t ignore them either; there was too many of them to ignore. I wanted to just shut my mind off and not think about anything, just sit here on the couch like a statue until I had reorganized my thoughts and put something I wanted to think about in front of everything else, but I wasn’t sure how I could do that.

Chris was in the kitchen now; I guessed the noise from the drill being right outside his bedroom now was too much for him to sleep through. He was pouring himself a bowl of cereal, the same kind as I had had when I had woken up. His hair was a mess though, only time you could ever really see his face; before he showered his hair was all over the place, but where it was supposed to be: in his face so no one could see it. I saw him say good morning to Michelle and Steven; didn’t hear it over the noise coming from upstairs, and then he sat at the kitchen table and ate his breakfast. He didn’t even seem to notice me sitting on the couch watching him; I’m sure he did, he just chose not to acknowledge the fact that I was there, but he knew I was. He was very good at ignoring people. His brain was like a radio station, more so than anyone else I’d ever seen. He was easily able to tune out the stations he didn’t want to hear, and the stations were the conversations and people around him. Sometimes I wish I could do that.

Samantha, Jason, and the man from Bell were back in the living room by the time I had managed to focus on a different train of thoughts. The man had a box in his hand that I assumed was the modem that he would be hooking up to the jack and then to Samantha’s computer, which I still saw as pointless. It was two plugs, how hard could it be to hook up? I could probably do it and I was pretty computer illiterate; I just knew how to use my Laptop for what I needed it for.

 

The rest of the day came and went fairly quickly after our internet was hooked up. Steven and Michelle went home around five o’clock, they didn’t want to overstay their welcome and wanted to have dinner with their own families; I guessed. Samantha and Jason spent most of the afternoon setting up their computer and the television while I scanned the internet and Chris probably did the same up in his room. He had disappeared back into his bedroom the instant the Bell had was done installing the phone jack in the hallway, taking his bowl of cereal which he had barely touched while he was at the kitchen table, with him to his bedroom.

I had received a lot of emails from my friends asking me how the new house was, how come I decided to move, when I would be able to come visit them, and if I had a boyfriend yet. One of my friends, Kyle, who had recently told me that he had had a crush on me since grade 8, was the one who had asked if I had gotten a boyfriend yet. ‘Kyle, I haven’t even been here a full day yet, I haven’t even seen the town yet, I’ve only met two of my Mom’s friends, and I highly doubt I’ll find someone on the first day as the new girl at School.’ I typed in response to his question.

‘Well how was I supposed to know any of that? One of your neighbours could have come out to see what was going on and you two might have hit it off.” He responded a couple of minutes later. I rolled my eyes and sighed silently so that Samantha or Jason wouldn’t ask me what was wrong.

‘Trust me, Kyle, I haven’t met anyone yet and I don’t think I will.’ I responded.

‘And how do you know that you won’t be the center of attention among the students at that School? I mean isn’t Bear Creek bigger than that town is? I’m sure everyone at that School knows everyone else and they’ll know you’re new.” He typed to me before I even had time to think about what he was going to say. I couldn’t believe how interested he was in me now that he had finally told me how he felt about me. So we had been friends since we were in grade 8, three days before I moved out of Barrie he decides to tell how he feels about me and expects that to be a reason for me to want to stay in Barrie.

‘Kyle, I appreciate your concern, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. I promise.’ I responded. He typed something back to me, but Samantha was talking to me then so I didn’t get to see what it was.

“Who are you talking to?” She asked me.

“Kyle,” I answered.

“How’s he holding up?” She asked.

“He’s freaking out a little. He thinks I’ve already found a boyfriend to replace him,” I answered with a grin and a roll of my eyes. Samantha laughed softly.

“He’s a nice kid,” She said with a smile as she turned her attention back to her own computer. I nodded in agreement and looked back at my screen and sighed. Kyle had IM’ed me four times asking me where I was because I hadn’t immediately responded to his previous statement.

‘Do you start your first semester tomorrow?’ was his question and it was followed by ‘You there? Where’d you go? Hello?’

‘Sorry, Mom was talking to me… Yes I start my first semester tomorrow, don’t you?’ I asked. This time he didn’t answer me right away. I wasn’t as impatient as he was so I wasn’t going to probe him with ‘Where are you?’ like he always did to me if I didn’t immediately respond to his message.

“Can you help me with dinner?” Samantha asked me as she walked into the kitchen. I nodded my head and took my Laptop into the kitchen and placed it on the breakfast bar that was attached to the counter just in case Kyle returned while I was helping her. Of course he didn’t, eventually his status was set to Idle and I gave up waiting for his response.

Samantha handed me a bunch of vegetables from the fridge and ordered me to chop them up for a salad while she cooked ran in and out of the house to cook the steaks on the barbeque outside on the deck. Once I had cut up the veggies I tossed them around in a bowl before adding the dressing and placing it on the table. I almost tripped on Isaac and Sam who were sitting right behind me watching me prepare the salad. I hadn’t seen them all morning and had completely forgotten that Samantha even had dogs. Luckily I caught myself before I face planted the floor.

 

Half an hour later the four of us were sitting at the kitchen table eating. Today was the first full day here at our new house and Samantha and Jason were babbling on and on about how much they were going to enjoy living here. Chris was quiet, like usual, and I added a comment into the conversation whenever I could. Jason did the dishes after we were finished eating and then we sat in the living room and watched some T.V; one and only time we really got a chance to talk to Chris outside of asking him for something. He always had something funny to say about whatever it was we were watching or about something someone else said about what we were watching. Samantha was on the computer at the same time, playing some game on Face Book; she was addicted to it. Her and her friends were having a competition to see how could get the most points and so far she was in first with 150,000.

By the time nine o’clock came around Chris had disappeared upstairs to his bedroom and Samantha had followed him shortly after we finished watching the new episode of CSI that she wanted to watch so badly. She had work in the morning and needed her sleep. She said I would need to get to bed early as well, but she didn’t give me a reason why. I was sitting in one of the two big comfy chairs they had in the living room watching whatever Jason had on the T.V. He was outside on the front porch smoking and I could have changed the channel, but whatever it was; it was slightly interesting. Jason had been outside for a few minutes; long enough to miss an entire commercial break and get back in before he missed anything. When he walked into the room his attention was immediately directed at me. I quickly looked at him wondering why he was staring at me like he was. “Is something wrong?” I asked him as I moved to stand to my feet in case he needed me to be standing.

He shook his head and smiled. I felt a wave of relief crash over me and fell back into the chair I had been sitting in. “You’ve got School tomorrow, remember,” he told me as he flopped on the couch and began to watch his show again. My eyes widened as what he had said processed in my head.

I had School tomorrow!

I quickly jumped from the chair and started to franticly pace the living room. “What’s wrong?” Jason asked as he turned his attention from the T.V to me.

“I have School tomorrow!” I shouted as I ran upstairs to my bedroom to go to bed. I had completely forgotten that tomorrow I would be starting my first day of Grade 12 at a new School. I was furious that Samantha hadn’t reminded me rather than just remind me that I should get to bed earlier than I normally would have. I cursed under my breath as I closed my door and changed into my pajamas. Now that my mind was locked on School, I would never get to sleep.

New Kid in School

 

Why was he still chasing me? What did he want from me?

I wasn’t even sure where I was anymore; the hallway I had been running through for the past few minutes still looked the same as it did when I first entered it. I didn’t recognize anything on the other side of the windows, nor did I take any time to stop and look at what was outside, not with him still chasing me. I wouldn’t even look over my shoulder to see if he was still there; I knew he would be, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know who he was, or even if it was a he. After what seemed like an eternity the hallway changed and I could see a door in the distance. I pushed myself to run as fast as my legs would allow me, but it didn’t seem like it was fast enough; the door never got any closer.

I could hear his breathing now and I instinctively glanced over my shoulder, but there wasn’t anyone there, just the hallway stretching out behind me endlessly. I turned to face the door that I had been running toward, but before I had started running again I heard the man behind me and felt his breath on the back of my neck. The hairs on my neck stood on end and a chill ran from my crown to the soles of my feet as I listened for the sound of a heart, but never heard one. The instant that I turned around I felt his cold hands wrap around my throat and could feel him trying to choke me.

His hands were like icicles on my skin, sending shivers raging through my veins as the blood pumped frantically to pass through the tight grip he held me in. I gasped and tried to force oxygen down into my lungs, but his grip made it impossible to get anything in or out of my lungs and slowly my sight began to dim away. Tears began to gather in the corner of my eyes as I tried to focus on the man’s face, but it was too blurry to make out any features. My fingers that were around his wrists began to sting and go numb and eventually flopped lifelessly at my side as I continued to gasp for air.

I opened my mouth to say something, but before even a gasp escaped me, I was being pushed in the direction I had been running in. I tried to turn my head to see what I was going to be pushed into, but the hallway hadn’t changed; the door was getting closer to us this time, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the door or not. Everything below my neck was stinging; like it was on fire and my head felt like it was spinning around on an out of control Merry-Go-Round. I wanted to be sick, but I knew it wouldn’t get past the man’s grip on my throat and I would choke and die on that before I died from not being able to breath. I tried my best to focus my eyes on the door as it opened by itself and I was thrown into the opening. The instant I was over the threshold the door almost vanished and I found myself falling through thick, black shadows. My body was still burning, but I could breathe again, so I worked my lungs as fast as I could to get the oxygen and the blood pumping through my body again, but I wasn’t sure how long I had until I wouldn’t need oxygen or blood. If the ground was far enough below me I would be killed by the impact and this attempt to catch my breath would be futile, but if it was only a couple more feet, I would just end up with a few broken bones, stranded in darkness for the rest of eternity.

I tried to manoeuvre myself so that I was looking in the direction I thought was down, which I was pretty sure was down because my hair was flailing around above me rather than in my face as it had been before. There was nothing below me, but more darkness. No differentiation between what would soon become the ground and what were the walls or even the ceiling, if there were even walls, a ceiling, or a floor.

Once I had managed to circulate enough oxygen and blood through my body I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I possibly could. Once my lungs were empty again and I couldn’t hold the scream for any longer I shut my lips, took a deep breath in threw my nose and listened to the darkness and after a moment my scream echoed back to me higher than I remembered it being. I had to cover my ears with my hands to keep my rebounding scream from shattering my ear drums, I could already feel my cold blood running from my ears against my fingers. Then suddenly the darkness below me gradually began to get brighter and brighter as I fell toward it; my screaming was still echoing in the background, but it was slowly fading into a beeping sound. Eventually the darkness below me had changed from absolute black to absolute white and it was getting closer now, the walls of black around me were disappearing into the white blob.

 

I abruptly sat up straight as a heavy thud echoed off my chest in the back of my head. My head was spinning again and what had once been my echoing scream had faded into my alarm clock that was sitting a few feet from the head of my bed on an end table. Everything around me was black again except for the bright red 7:00 that stared at me through the darkness. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness I was able to tell that I was sitting on my bed in my bedroom. I quickly put my hands to my ears to see if they were still bleeding, but there was no trace that there had ever been blood there. My ears began to ring and I quickly slammed my fist onto my alarm clock to make it shut up before I fell backwards on my bed again and rested my head on my pillow which was drenched from sweat. I didn’t move until my clock started beeping at me again and I had to use all of my strength to lift my hand to turn it off as I had apparently only hit snooze the first time.

It was now ten after seven, which didn’t give me a whole lot of time to get ready for School. I climbed out of bed and slowly made my way into the hallway which was just as dark as my bedroom had been. Was that all a dream? I asked myself as I slowly descended the stairs into the kitchen. There was some light coming from the living room; the television was on, but there wasn’t anyone in the living room; there wasn’t even anyone downstairs. Jason’s shoes were sitting at the front door with the rest of ours, so he wasn’t outside smoking; all the other lights downstairs were off except for the digital clocks on the microwave and the stove. I ran my hand across the wall where there normally would have been a light switch for the kitchen, but I couldn’t seem to find it. I gave up on it and just used the light from the fridge after opening it to find what I was looking for.

Once I had my breakfast I sat at the table in the dining room table and watched whatever was on the television. I slowly scooped my cereal into my mouth as I listened to what the man on the commercial was saying about the product for sale; it was one of those Sham-Wow Commercials, but before the commercial ended the picture began to get all scratchy and hard to make out. Eventually it had turned completely into black and white snowy static. I stared at the screen now, watching what looked like a face inside the static as it moved around. Was I still dreaming? I asked myself as I continued to watch. The noise that sounded like breathing was identical the breathing I had heard in my dream, if it actually had been a dream; I still wasn’t sure.

‘Cassandra’ said an eerie voice from the television. My eyes widened as I stared in disbelief as the static on the television seemed to reach off the screen and into the living room, like someone was on the inside trying to get me. I sat frozen at the dining room table with my spoon still in my hand as I watched a figure climb out of the television and stand up, looking directly at me. The figure had no features, just like in my dream; it was just black and white static. The television screen had gone black behind the figure, like it had been the static on the screen. ‘Cassandra’ it called out to me again, reaching a hand in my direction.

I couldn’t feel my body to move it, but I could feel it moving without my permission. I was standing a couple feet in front of the static figure faster than I could have moved by myself. The figure still had a hand stretched in my direction and as soon as it touched my face I felt the same chill run through my body as I had in my dream. Was this the man that I had been running from in my sleep? How did he come out of the television set, and why was he still trying to get me? I had to still be dreaming, just had to be.

“What are you doing Cassandra?” came another voice which broke whatever spell had been put on me. I blinked my eyes a few times before turning to look at Jason who was standing at in the doorway from the kitchen to the living room with one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know,” I answered after a few seconds of silence. I turned my attention back to the television which was playing the commercial it had been playing before it had gone all snowy. I shook my head and turned back to the table to finish eating my cereal.

“You alright?” he asked as he fell onto the couch, grabbed the remote, and changed to the T.V Guide to see what was on; nothing was on this early, nothing good at least.

I took another spoonful of my cereal, chewed it, and swallowed it before I responded: “Just nervous about starting a new year at a new School, I guess.” I had already tried to tell them that there had been something in the attic and they didn’t believe me, so that was the best they would get out of me until I had evidence that something was in this house, but maybe that was the reason behind what was going on. Maybe I was just nervous, scared.

 

I felt better after I had showered and gotten dressed, but I still hadn’t come to a conclusion as to what had happened to me this morning. I knew I wouldn’t be thinking about it all day, as soon as I got to School my mind would be more focused on School, hopefully. It turned out Jason had been watching television before I was awake and when he heard my alarm clock going off, he went to get dressed so he could drive me to School and make sure I got everything. I was glad that whoever that figure was hadn’t turned the television on for the purpose of contacting me; I didn’t think my mind would have been able to accept that as an answer anyways.

“What classes did you pick for this year?” Jason asked me as he pulled Samantha’s truck out of the driveway and started down the street.

I thought for a moment, I wasn’t completely sure what I had picked this year, but I knew I had picked my courses. My School back in Barrie, the one I had gone to while I still lived with my Father, made all the students pick their courses at the half-way mark every year, and they had transferred my form to this School so I would, hopefully, get the courses I had picked, whatever they were. “I don’t remember,” I answered, “I know I have English, that’s mandatory, but I’m not sure what I picked for my compulsory credits.” I hoped I had picked something interesting, interesting enough to get my mind off this morning. The rest of the car ride was quiet.

Next thing I knew we were in the Principal’s Office. “We received your course selection form, Cassandra, a few weeks back and looked it over. All of the courses you selected are offered here, and there were enough openings that you were able to get into all of the ones you picked,” said the Principal whose name was Mr. Jefferson, which was indicated by the name plate that sat at the front of his desk.

“What classes did I select again?” I asked politely. I really had completely forgotten what I wanted to take. Mr. Jefferson had no problem reminding me.

“Well, this semester, you’ll have English first period with Mrs. Waters; Computer Technology in Business’s second period with Mr. Dunlap; Third period Lunch, followed by Gym, or Physical Education, fourth period with Mrs. Holloway; and lastly you have Co-Op with our Librarian Mr. Mitchell,” Mr. Jefferson answered. He handed me a copy of my schedule with a bright smile on his face. “We’re very excited to have you with us and I hope you enjoy your first day here,” his attention turned to Jason then. “If you have any questions or concerns, please, feel free to contact me, I’d be more than happy to assist you anyway I can.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jefferson,” Jason said with a nod as he shook Jefferson’s hand, stood up, and left me alone in the forum. Mr. Jefferson had also given me an Agenda which luckily contained a Map of the School. There was no way in Hell that I was going to find my way around this place without one. According to my schedule, Mrs. Waters’ classroom was number 213, and according to the Map in the back of my Agenda, was upstairs. When I found the classroom I was surprised to find three other students waiting in the hall. I looked at my watch and realized I still had 10 minutes until classes actually started. I sighed and leaned against a wall of lockers and waited patiently for Mrs. Waters to arrive.

I quickly noticed one of the boys leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hall from me, staring at me. I watched him through my hair, hoping he didn’t notice that I had noticed him, and attempt to start talking to me, but the look in his eyes made me think he would talk to me regardless, and of course he did. We hadn’t been staring at one another for more than a minute and he casually pushed himself from the wall and walked over to me. “Hey,” he greeted with one hand out in front of him. I looked at his hand and then looked up into his eyes and smiled slightly before I took his hand in mine, shook it, and released it.

“Hey,” I responded. I couldn’t believe Kyle was right, or at least somewhat right. He was paranoid that I would meet a boy on the first day of School, I didn’t think I would, but here I was, introducing myself to a boy I had never seen before.

“I haven’t seen you around before, are you new?” he asked. I tore my eyes from his and stared at the ground for a moment before nodding my head in response. “I’m Davis Whitaker,” he introduced himself.

“Cassandra Riviera,” I introduced myself in return. Davis smiled and leaned against the wall next to me.

“So you’ve got English first period with Mrs. Waters, right?” he asked. I could hear a bit of hopefulness in his voice and I was starting to regret this move. If Kyle heard that I had made my first friend that just so happened to be a boy before my first class even started, he was going to be furious. I nodded my head in response again. His face seemed to light up with excitement. “Great, would you like to sit next to me?” he asked.

“Sure,” I answered. I didn’t know anyone else in town and Davis seemed like a decent guy so far and I’m sure I’d get along with him. A few minutes later Mrs. Waters appeared and let us into the classroom.

 

Davis and I sat in the middle row close to the window overlooking the parking lot where a few School Buses sat, arriving a little late. I felt a lot better now, I had almost completely forgotten about what had happened earlier and hopefully would never have to think about it again, but in the furthest corner of my mind I sub-consciously knew that I would relive the events that happened this morning tonight. “Good Morning Class!” Mrs. Waters chimed as she danced around the front of the classroom. I rolled my eyes as I watched her; this was going to be an interesting class. “My name is Mrs. Waters and I’m going to be your English Teacher this semester,” she continued as she wrote her name on the board, as if it was hard to spell Water.

“Now before we get onto anything, I would like to get to know you all a little,” she said as she danced around the room handing a sheet of paper to each student to fill out. I hated filling these forms out. I would have to fill one out in all of my classes today, probably. I unzipped my binder and pulled out a mechanical push pencil and began to fill out the form. Five minutes later Mrs. Waters danced around the room again, but this time she was collecting the forms. “Alright, now we’re going to play a little game so that you can all get to know one another,” she started and before she even finished the sentence my stomach flipped around. I hated this game more than I hated filling out those forms.

“Tell us your name, some hobbies or interests, and something interesting about you. I’ll start!” she chirped with a bright energetic smile spread across her face. She was having too much fun with this. “My name is Mrs. Waters; I love to go hiking with my Husband, Mr. Waters,” I rolled my eyes, what else would her husband be known as, Mr. Fire? “And I love to dance!” she chirped again. That was another obvious thing that I rolled my eyes too, she hadn’t stopped dancing around since she stepped into the room. “Alright, now it’s your turn,” she said as she pointed to couple of students sitting closest to her, which meant we would be next as the table between ours and the couple that was now introducing themselves to the classroom was empty.

“My name is Davis Whitaker; I like to play and listen to a lot of music, and I have my own Car.” I stared wide eyed at him as he finished. He has a Car! I didn’t even have a Car yet. He looked at me and waited patiently for me to introduce myself to the class. I had almost forgotten we were playing the game until Mrs. Waters cleared her throat.

“Oh, sorry,” I grumbled as I stared at my hands on my desk and thought for a split second about what I would say was interesting about me. “I’m Cassandra Riviera; I love to read and I just moved to Elmvale.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say; I didn’t find myself very interesting.

“Really, where did you live before?” Mrs. Waters asked. Of course she would ask me questions, but she didn’t have questions for Davis or the two kids who went before him.

“Barrie,” I answered.

“Why’d you move to Elmvale?” she asked as she leaned forward. She was perched on the edge of her desk like a bird.

“Wanted to live with my Mom,” I responded. She smiled and then pointed a finger at the couple sitting behind us and they immediately began to introduce themselves.

“You have a Car!?” I whispered to Davis so that I wouldn’t interrupt the other student’s introductions. He smiled and nodded his head. “That’s so cool! What kind?” I asked.

“Volkswagen Beetle, one of the new Convertible ones,” he responded, his smile still plastered on his face. I smiled back at him. I was beginning to think maybe moving here was a good idea; Kyle didn’t have a Car, and I didn’t think he ever would be getting one.

“What instruments do you play?” I asked. I was beginning to like Davis, too.

“Guitar, Drums, and Piano,” he answered with a grin.

 

With five minutes left in class, Mrs. Waters let us just mingle with one another while we waited for the bell to ring. We didn’t have any homework, which was good. We hadn’t even done anything all period, except for getting to know everyone else in the class and receive a bunch of forms to give to our parents so that they knew exactly what we would be learning. Davis and I were comparing our schedules to see if we had any other classes together. We both had third period lunch and we both had Gym right after that. “How far do you live from the School?” he asked me as he looked up from our schedules to me. I had to think for a moment. It took us less than five minutes to drive to the School this morning, so I didn’t think it would take that much longer to walk home.

“Few minutes, why?” I asked in return.

“You going home for Lunch?” he asked. I knew what he wanted then.

“Probably, didn’t pack a lunch, why?” I asked even though I knew what his answer was going to be.

“Was wondering if I would be able to come over and then we could walk back to School together for Gym,” he answered. Yup, I was right.

“I’m sure Jason wouldn’t have any problem with that,” I responded.

“Jason?”

“My Mom’s boyfriend,” I answered with a smile. He smiled back. “I must warn you though, he’s a joker. He’s probably going to be bugging us about going out on a date or something,” I added with a grin. Davis laughed as the bell rang to end the period.

“Meet you out front after second?” he asked as he stood up and walked toward the door. I nodded as I followed behind him. Wait a minute; didn’t he say he had a Car? Why did he want to walk to my place for lunch instead of driving, wouldn’t it have been faster? I didn’t really think about that too much, I had another class before I would find out the answer to that question.

My next class was Computer Technology in Business Environments with Mr. Dunlap. I hoped to God that he wasn’t as energetic about getting to know everyone in the class as Mrs. Waters had been, and he wasn’t. The period went by relatively fast as he had us fill out the same informational form that Mrs. Waters had passed around at the beginning of period one, and the rest of the period we were on the Computers making sure the keyboards, mice, monitors, and everything worked before we actually started to work on them. This semester was going to be a breeze; with only my English class handing out homework, I would have a lot of free time. All the work in this class would be done on the Computers except for a few little things which I could take home on my Jump-Drive and do on my Computer; when did you ever receive homework in Gym, and my last class wasn’t even a class: I spent the last period of the day helping the Librarian.

There was Davis, waiting for me outside the front doors of the School, just as he promised with his black hair blowing gently in the breeze. I smiled at him as he turned to look in my direction with a smile on his face as well. He laughed softly and started to walk in the direction my house was. I sped up my pace and caught up to him quickly. “So why did you want to walk to my place, couldn’t you drive us?” I asked as I slipped my hands into my jacket pockets to keep them from freezing.

“I figured if we walked we’d have more time to get to know one another,” he answered with a laugh. I figured that would be his answer and laughed too. We never stopped talking, not until we arrived at my house and he stopped at the sidewalk and stared up at it. I had reached the front porch before I realized he wasn’t at my side anymore.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I turned to look at him from the front porch. It looked like the blood from his face had been sucked out; like he had seen a ghost. His eyes were focused on the upper-most window that looked into the attic like there had been a ghost there. I ran across the driveway and stood in front of him so he had to look at me and repeated my question.

“You…live here?” he asked as his eyes focused on mine now that I was standing in front of him. I nodded my head in response and waited to hear what was wrong with the house that I was living in. “Really?” he asked again as he looked over my shoulder at the house again before looking me back into my  eyes.

“Yes, why, what’s wrong with the house?” I asked; impatient now.

“You don’t know?” he asked as the blood seemed to return to his face now. I shook my head and continued to wait impatiently for an explanation. He looked at me for what seemed like too long without blinking before he let out a sigh and seemed to relax a bit. “It’s probably just superstition, but there’s rumour floating around Town that that house is haunted,” he began.

I stared wide eyed at him, at the word haunted. That one word brought all the horrible thoughts and memories from this morning rushing back into full light for me to focus on. Before he continued with his explanation, if there was more to be said, I quickly looked over my shoulder at the attic window almost expecting to see the strange static man from my dream and from the television standing there, watching me. “Haunted?” I asked as I turned my attention back to him.

He shrugged his shoulders. “A man named Julius Roberts lived here once, he didn’t have any friends and everyone in Town hated him. Whenever you walked by the house you could see him standing in one of the windows watching you; it was pretty creepy,” he continued as he placed a hand on my shoulder, “Don’t worry about it though, it’s just a story,” he added as he walked past me toward the front door.

“What happened to him?” I asked as I ran up beside him.

“No one really knows. One day he was standing in his window watching you as you walked by and not even twenty four hours later all the emergency teams are outside his house packing him into an Ambulance,” he answered as he opened the front door and stepped into the kitchen with me.

 

We didn’t continue with that conversation once we were inside. Jason was bugging us, just as I told Davis he would, and we spent most of the time there talking about how our first two classes of the day were. I told Jason that I had English with Davis and that’s where we met, that we were sitting next to each other and that Mrs. Waters danced across the classroom all period. Mr. Dunlap wasn’t as interesting as Mrs. Waters had been; he didn’t dance around the class, I would have been surprised if he did; he was probably too old to dance like Mrs. Waters had. After Jason had stuffed his face with his food he left me and Davis alone so that we could talk between ourselves, but we didn’t have much to talk about; he refused to continue the Haunted conversation while we were in the house. Maybe he was afraid that Julius was actually haunting the house and would be mad if he heard us talking about him.

“Your Mom wants you to come straight home from School; we’re going to a store just up the street that sells a bunch of used furniture,” Jason ordered as Davis and I were getting ready to head back to School for our last two periods of the day.

“Do I have to come?” I asked as I slipped a shoe onto my foot.

“She would enjoy your company. She wants your opinion on some furniture as well,” Jason answered. I groaned. I didn’t want to go shopping tonight, but I probably wouldn’t have much say in the matter.

“What about Michelle, can’t she go?” I asked as I slipped my other shoe onto my other foot.

“She wanted to come, but she works till eight tonight,” Jason responded. Didn’t think I’d be getting out of it.

“Alright,” I said as I headed out the front door with Davis right behind me.

“Nice meeting you, Jason,” he said as he closed the front door and stepped up beside me. “He didn’t joke around as much as I thought he was going to,” he stated with a grin spread across his face.

I smiled back at him and wrapped an arm through his like we were a couple. I half expected him to stop and look at me like I was doing something I shouldn’t be, but he didn’t do anything. I smiled at myself; he was cute after all. “So are you going to tell me the rest of this Julius Roberts story?” I asked as I cuddled against him while we walked and tried to keep myself from smiling too much at my accomplishment, if you could call it that.

He sighed softly and then nodded his head. “He didn’t have any family, so when the news did their story on him, no one could tell them they couldn’t, so they gave out all the details on his body,” he began. I suddenly had that feeling that I was being watched and looked over my shoulder at my house as it vanished behind a bunch of trees, but there was no sign of anyone or anything.

“What happened to him?” I asked as I turned my head to look in front of us again.

“His body was mangled and scarred, but there were no signs of someone doing it. They didn’t know what to believe down at the Coroner’s Office; some think it was supernatural and others think he inflicted this upon himself,” he continued with a sigh as we turned a corner and could see the School in the distance.

“Supernatural?”

“One of the theories was that he was possessed by some roaming spirit looking for a peaceful passage into the afterlife, mainly religions people, and the spirit got too much for him to handle and tore his body apart trying to escape,” he explained as he closed his eyes and let me guide him down the sidewalk. I could see the tension in his face as he tried to remember exactly what he had read from the newspaper. “The priests from the Church refused to go anywhere near the house for a week after he had passed away, they claimed the spirit had possessed the house after Julius died; that it was looking for another body to possess, and they even had the Police close the building down so that no one would have to suffer the same death as Julius had,” he continued; his eyes still closed. “A week after his death they deemed it safe to go near the house again and the Town put it up for rent, but every now and then people claim to see Julius in the attic window, watching them like he used to from the living room window, which led the Priests to believe that the spirit that had possessed Julius removed his soul from his body, and now he’s haunting the house,” he finished as he opened his eyes. We were standing in front of the School now.

I didn’t know what to say in response to Davis’s story. It made it a little easier to understand the events that happened this morning, but how could I be sure that Julius’s soul really was still in the house, a spirit awaiting its passage into the afterlife? “What do you believe?” I asked as we walked through the front doors of the School with me still cuddling his left arm.

“I don’t know. I think that maybe he thought he was possessed, or maybe he was mentally ill and needed medical attention but no one wanted to help him, and in an attempt to rid himself of some form of pain, he inflicted that damage to himself and ended up killing himself instead,” he answered as he steered me toward the Gym. I had too much to think about now. Though one thing was for certain, Julius Roberts died a gruesome death that no one could explain and now there was something in his house, something that wasn’t human, I was convinced of that much.

 

The change rooms in the School were located at the other end of the building right next to the doors to the Gym. There was a hallway with two rooms to the left, one for the girls and one for the boys, that’s where Davis and I split up to get changed. I was a little upset that I wasn’t able to hold his hand anymore, but I was still slightly surprised that he had let me hold onto him the whole walk home. He didn’t have a girlfriend, at least not one that he had told me about. I told him about my friend Kyle who had recently told me that he loved me and that if the two of them ever met, Kyle would be a little angry, but Davis just laughed it off.

The girls change room was filled with the girls that I would be having Gym with or Physical Education as they called it here. I felt out of place amongst them; they were all beautiful girls that didn’t even look like they were my age. I took a seat on the bench that lined the wall and eyed each of them and then looked down at myself. I’m not ugly, am I? I asked myself as I took a deep breath. None of the other girls seemed to notice me sitting there in my normal clothes, and I didn’t take them off to replace them with my Gym Clothes either, not until I was the only one left in the change room.

I was being silly, they wouldn’t have made fun of me because I wasn’t as pretty as they were, they had no reason to; they didn’t even know me yet. But that’s the way some teenage girls were, they’re always comparing themselves to other girls, making sure their breasts look perky than hers, that their hair has more volume to it, more bounce, more style, that they’re showing off my skin than that other girl; I didn’t see the point in it. The kind of guys who they ended up with only cared about the looks and then a week after they get pregnant and lost their beauty, the guy leaves to screw around with another sexier, younger girl.

I hated the Gym Clothes before I even put them on. I was definitely going to bring me own change of clothes next time. The shorts were Short-Shorts that barely made it past my ass and the shirt was a disgusting grey colour. I ran my hands across my legs and sighed; I needed to shave tonight as well.

“Were you the last one in there, Ms. Riviera?” asked Mrs. Holloway, my Gym Teacher.

“Yes,” I answered with a nod of my head as I shyly joined the line of tall gorgeous girls. Across the Gymnasium was a line of boys, one of which was Davis. He quickly spotted me in the line up and waved his hand at me with a smile. I slightly raised my hand and waved, hoping that none of the other girls would see, though I didn’t know why I was so worried.

“Alright, we’re not going to do much today, just going to figure out what you girls can do,” began Mrs. Holloway. The male teacher standing in front of Davis’s line was saying the same thing to them, more or less. “You’re going to be paired up with one of the men and run through a bunch of different tasks together,” she continued.

“How are we being paired up?” asked the girl standing next to me. She was bouncing up and down on her toes to see one of the boys in the line up with a grin on her face.

“The lines are even, so who ever is standing directly in front of you, is who you’ll be teamed up with,” Mrs. Holloway answered. I grumbled under my breath; that meant Davis was going to be with Ms. Big Boobs next to me. Great… “There is the same number of stations as there will be teams, so each team will start at a different station and rotate clockwise until they’ve reached their first station again. Each team will be given one of these papers and will be required to fill out the information it asks for,” Mrs. Holloway instructed as she stepped aside and the line of boys advanced on us.

I could see the disappointment in Davis’s eyes when he realized we weren’t going to be partnered together. I shrugged my shoulders with a smile and then eyed the girl next to me who also looked pretty disappointed. She was still bouncing up and down on her toes to see the boy she had been grinning at earlier, the motion was going to make me sick. “Now aren’t you something?” said the boy who was now standing in front of me, if he could be classified as a boy; the guy was huge, muscled and tall and looked like he was in his mid twenties.

“Excuse me?” I asked as I eyed him with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re cute, what’s your name?” he asked as he jotted his name onto the piece of paper he had been given by his teacher: Kevin Lowry.

I stared at him for a few moments before letting out a sigh. “Cassandra Riviera,” I answered as I shifted my weight from one foot to another; this was going to be a long period too.

 

The station Kevin and I were assigned to first was sit ups and he insisted I go first. I sat down on the mat and waited for the teacher to tell us we could start. Kevin wrapped his thick fingers around my ankles when we were allowed to start and I more than half wanted to pop my fist into his big nose. I quickly preformed as many sit ups as I could in the time limit given and when the teachers blew their whistles, Kevin jotted down how many I did and then we switched places.

Next were jumping jacks…

The whole ten minutes we were performing them, Kevin was staring at my chest. Again I wanted to punch him in the face. He would have been so much more suited to be partners with Ms. Big Boobs in the sit up station with Davis instead of with me. Davis was watching me with a grin and I couldn’t help but blush. “Am I embarrassing you, baby?” Kevin asked with a grin on his face.

Ugh! “Don’t get your hopes up,” I responded as I walked to the next station a second before the whistle blew. Kevin continued to bug me throughout the remainder of the period and only when I was finally back in the change room did I feel better. Course now we were suppose to shower so that we didn’t smell bad in our next class, but I never would have expected to be forced to do so; my old School had never done that. Mrs. Holloway stood at the door of the change room and refused to let us leave unless we had at least rinsed ourselves off, if not had a full shower. This was going to be my least favourite period of the day, I already knew it.

I stood in the corner of the shower room and kept my back to the rest of the girls as I let the water just wash over my body. The other girls were giggling and talking amongst each other about School, boys, homework, dances, and other girl stuff, but only when everyone went quiet did I look over my shoulder to see them all staring at me. I glanced down at myself and quickly noticed what they were all looking at.

“What happened?” asked Ms. Big Boobs. That was her name from now on; hers were the biggest of all of ours. I ran a finger across the scar that ran down the center of my back and then looked up to see Mrs. Holloway standing there looking at me. I didn’t say anything; I just stood there, facing the corner with my back that now had a scar reaching from my neck to my hips to the crowd. I couldn’t say anything, I didn’t have an answer to her question, I had never seen that scar before, and I had never even had any scars before.

Next thing I knew I was sitting in the Principals Office with my shirt pulled over my head so the nurse could look at my mysterious scar. Jason was in the room with me so I used my shirt to cover my chest; I wasn’t comfortable with him seeing me. “Do you have any idea where this could have come from?” Mr. Jefferson asked Jason.

“Well we have two Dogs, but she just moved in with us two nights ago and they sleep in our room with the door closed,” Jason answered with a finger to his chin as he thought. I jumped slightly when the nurse put her cold hands against my skin.

“Sorry,” she whispered to me as she stepped away. “You can put your shirt back on now,” she added with a smile. I nodded and pulled my shirt back over my head and put it on properly again.

“Did you hurt yourself at all lately, Ms. Riviera?” Mr. Jefferson asked as he turned his attention to me.

“This wasn’t there yesterday when I showered,” I answered and saw the worried expression spread across all of their faces.

“A scar like that would take more than a day to heal to that extent. Are you sure you didn’t get this before you moved here?” the nurse asked. I shook my head.

“I’m just as confused about where it came from as you guys are,” I responded with a sigh.

Witness

 

We didn’t go to the Furniture Store when I got home from School; Samantha was too concerned with my mysterious scar than she was concerned about getting new furniture for the house. She had me sitting on the edge of her bed while she sat behind me and applied some kind of lotion to my skin. She didn’t believe me when I told her that it didn’t hurt. Had the girls in Gym not pointed it out I would never have realized I had it until the next time I saw my back in a mirror, which I didn’t know when would happen. I had been in Elmvale for almost two days now and I had already become the talk of the town. I was now known as ‘That Girl with the Scar’. Jason popped in and out of the room when Samantha asked him to heat up the washcloth again and then he was gone again; she didn’t want him to see me either it seemed.

“Are you still going to that store?” I asked.

“When you’re feeling better,” Samantha asked.

“For the last time, Mom, it doesn’t hurt. I never would have even noticed it had the girls in Gym not pointed it out,” I repeated for the fifth time, but that wouldn’t stop her.

“Maybe I’ll wait until after dinner so Michelle can come with me. I don’t want you to go and rip it open moving around or anything,” she stated with a sigh as she applied more of the lotion to my back. When she was finished she tossed the empty lotion bottle into her garbage. “You’re going to need to keep your back open, so, you’ll have to just keep something covering your chest,” she added as she kissed my forehead and handed me back my shirt. As long as Jason stayed downstairs I wouldn’t need to cover myself up in my own bedroom, so I quickly darted across the hallway and closed my door behind me.

Why is this happening to me?  I asked myself as I flipped open my laptop and signed onto MSN and immediately got bombarded with IM’s from a few of my friends from Barrie; Kyle was one of them.

‘How was your first day of School?’ he asked. I rolled my eyes, not that he could see it. I didn’t know if I should tell him about Davis or about the mysterious scar that I had acquired. I didn’t want him to worry or get upset with me, so I made up something.

‘Boring, just filled out a lot of stupid forms, that’s about it,” I typed back hoping he would buy it.

‘My day was the same. What classes do you have?’

‘I’ve got English first period, Computer Tech second, Lunch, Gym, and then Co-Op in the Library’ I answered.

‘What did you do in Gym?’

‘Did a bunch of exercises, sit ups, push ups, jumping jacks, and stuff like that,’ I answered as a knock came to my door. “Yes?” I asked as I grabbed my shirt to cover myself in case it was Jason or Chris, but I doubted it was Chris; he would be at work for a few more hours.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” It was Samantha.

“Fine,” I responded as I let go of my shirt.

“Has the lotion dried?” she asked. I sat up and softly touched the center of my back with my finger; it was dry.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes,” I answered.

Samantha walked into my room and closed the door behind her before sitting next to me on my bed and looked at my back. Her face told me everything she saw. According to her it looked better, but had they not been paying so much attention to it I probably would have forgotten all about it and wouldn’t care about it either. She ran her index finger down the scar which sent a shiver down my spine. “Do you feel like coming to the store?” she asked as she stood up with a worried expression still on her face.

“Yup,” I answered. I didn’t really want to go, but she was worried about me now and I wanted to make her feel better, besides, how bad could it be to go shopping for furniture? Maybe I would find something for my room.

“Alright, put your shirt on and lets go!” she exclaimed as her face lit up with a smile and she danced down the hall to get ready. I smiled back at her before she had gone and then turned my attention back to my laptop. Kyle had once again freaked out because I hadn’t responded immediately after his question.

‘Sorry, Kyle, but I’ve got to go’ I typed and logged out, not even waiting for his response. I grabbed my shirt off of my bed and tossed it over my head before heading downstairs.  Samantha was ready and waiting and Jason was slipping his shoes onto his feet. I did the same and then headed out to sit in the truck.

“So I hear you have a new friend?” Samantha asked as she climbed into the passenger seat in front of me; Jason always seemed to drive now, but I wasn’t sure why. I sighed softly and nodded my head at my Mother who was looking over her shoulder at me. Of course Jason would have told her.

“He’s just a friend, Mom,” I stated before telling her anything else about him. “His name’s Davis and we have English together first period. He was just being nice to me and we became friends,” I explained.

“That’s not what it looked like when you two left for School after lunch,” Jason said with a grin as he pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the store. I groaned out loud; had he actually seen that? “You were clinging to him like he was your boyfriend,” he added with a laugh and I groaned again.

“My little girl’s got her first real boyfriend, I’m so happy for you,” Samantha chirped with a bright smile spread across her face. I rolled my eyes and that was the last of that conversation.

 

None of us said anything more for the remainder of the car ride, only when we were pulling into the driveway of a Barn did Samantha tell me we were there. I glanced out the window at the barn we were parking beside; it was an old looking place, but apparently the furniture was beautiful. Once inside Samantha and Jason went one way and I went another to look for something I would like and they didn’t seem to mind; I was sure that if she did find something she’d send Jason to fetch me so I could give her my opinion on the piece.

I somehow found myself in a room filled with dressing room dressers with large mirrors attached to the top of them. I didn’t really want one of these, but something caught my eye before I was able to leave the room. I stood in front of the large mirror that leaned against a wall and stared at my reflection. I wasn’t ugly; I was just being paranoid earlier during Gym. I looked around at the other mirrors and watched my reflection move to look back at me each time I looked at a different mirror. I looked around once to make sure I was alone in the room and then lifted my shirt up enough so that I could see the scar on my back. Using a group of mirrors to cast one reflection onto another, the reflection of my back appeared on the mirror in front of me and I gasped; it was huge! My mind instantly began to race around trying to find an explanation to where it could have come from, but I never came to a conclusion that made sense.

Maybe I had done something before I moved to Elmvale that I wasn’t aware of and this was the result of whatever had happened. That was the only conclusion that sounded real enough to believe; nothing else made any sense. Just then the single light hanging from the ceiling went out and I was left standing in the dark.

‘Cassandra’ said an eerie voice; the same one I had heard this morning from the television set. I pulled my shirt back down and looked around the room; I was still alone. The voice echoed through the room once more and I turned to face the direction it came from only to see the static man standing in the tall mirror I had originally been staring into, but this time he wasn’t static, this time I could see the features on his body and could tell that it was a man.

My throat seized up when I tried to talk to the man. I could only let out quiet whimpers as I breathed. His face was mangled beyond recognition; had I known the man previously I wouldn’t have been able to tell who it was. He only had one eye, there was no other eye socket for another eye; the skin on his forehead looked like it had melted down and covered up his other eye. His nose was missing and half of his lips were gone revealing that he had no teeth in his mouth anymore. A shiver rippled from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet again and I suddenly couldn’t move my muscles.

My eyes looked over the man and I noticed that his clothes were torn into shreds as well, revealing bits and pieces of skin that also looked like it had melted and then hardened. His left hand was covered in dry blood and was missing his middle and ring finger and the rest of his fingers were missing finger nails. His right hand was missing its thumb and pinkie finger and the rest of the fingers were also missing their finger nails. I looked to his face again and realized that his skin hadn’t just been burned; it looked like someone had clawed violently at his face like there had been something under the skin. I shivered again as I put together the puzzle pieces in my mind. This had to be Julius Roberts. He wailed in pain as his name passed through my thoughts and I jumped back and stumbled over something that hadn’t been behind me before.

‘Cassandra’ he whispered my name again as he disappeared from the mirror and appeared in one closer to my head which was now on the ground. I once again couldn’t move as his mangled hand reached out of the mirror to touch me. His rough skin felt so real against mine as he jabbed his index finger into my cheek. I squirmed and rolled over and forced myself to stand and ignored the burning that ripped through my body as I forced it to do what I wanted. He stood up as well and looked at me with his one eye and repeated my name again.

“What!” I barked at him and immediately the light came back on and Jason was suddenly standing next to me. I blinked a few times and looked at my reflection in the mirror again before turning to look at Jason.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he put a hand on my forehead. I didn’t answer him; I once again couldn’t speak, but not because something was stopping me; this time I wasn’t able to find my voice. He took my hand and guided me through the building until I was standing next to Samantha looking at an entertainment system.

“What do you think?” Samantha asked as soon as I was standing next to her. I still hadn’t found my voice yet, but I pretended to appraise it while I searched for the words I wanted to say. Were the stories about Julius Roberts true? Was his soul trapped in that house and now he was trying to use me like the spirit that had used him? I removed those thoughts from my head, that couldn’t be true. I was just imagining things now that I had the story in my head; my mind was playing tricks on me. I raised a hand and placed it on my forehead and took a deep breath and smiled, luckily no one noticed.

“I like it,” I answered after what felt like longer than a few seconds. Samantha smiled at me and fished her wallet from her pocket.

“I was planning on putting it in the living, put the television on it and Jason was going to hook up his surround sound stereo to it as well,” she said as she looked through her wallet for some money. I noticed the sign on the entertainment system that said how much it was and was surprised that it was only 50$; it looked a lot more expensive. “Chris downloads a lot of movies and it was a pain in the ass to watch them on the television at the apartment, so now it should be a lot better,” she added with a grin as she pulled out a 50$ bill and handed it to the man who owned the store and was standing next to us.

“Cool!” I exclaimed with a bright smile. I wasn’t that excited, to be honest, I was trying to forget what had happened in the mirror room as quickly as possible, but it didn’t seem like it was going to leave me alone that easily. Jason and the store owner carried it out to Samantha’s truck while Samantha and I looked around for more interesting furniture that we could use, which made it easier to forget about Julius.

 

“Do you like this Davis boy?” Samantha asked with a curious smile on her face as she lay down on one of the beds that were for sale.

“He’s cute,” I answered with a grin. I would take anything over the thoughts that were infesting my mind. Davis’s face appeared in my head and I suddenly felt better. “He’s very nice and he plays three instruments,” I continued as I sat next to Samantha on the bed. She smiled at me. “He didn’t seem to mind that I clung to his arm on the walk back to School, so maybe something will happen between us, I hope something does,” I added. Samantha sat up and wrapped her arms around me.

“My little girl’s growing up so fast,” she said. “You should invite him over one day after School so I can meet him,” she instructed with a bright smile on her face. She was too easy to please.

“Definitely, you’d like him a lot,” I stated as I hugged her back. Jason came into the room then and we began to look at other pieces of furniture, but we didn’t buy anything more. Samantha and I continued to talk about Davis and I had no problem with it anymore. I had come to the conclusion that I did like him and I was going to tell him that tomorrow, hopefully.

Chris was home from work when we got home from the store and he helped Jason carry the entertainment system into the living room and helped hook up the television and the stereo before he was back upstairs in his room. I often wondered what it was that he did in his room all day, whenever I was in his room he was typing a story or reading with music playing, but he had to do something else all day, didn’t he?

I sat on the couch and dug through my backpack for Davis’s email address so I could talk to him after School, which reminded me that I needed to get Samantha to sign all the forms I had been given by Mrs. Waters and Mr. Dunlap. She happily signed them and then continued to watch Two and a Half Men with the new surround sound speakers while Jason did something on the computer in the corner. We ordered Pizza for dinner and then all sat down and watched one of Chris’s many movies: Mirrors. Samantha said she had seen a preview for it on T.V the other day and wanted to watch it pretty badly, but like usual, she hid behind a pillow during the entire movie, but then again, so did I.

By the time the movie was over it was time for me to go to bed. I had had an interesting day and was exhausted now. I carefully climbed the stairs with Chris right behind me as he was going to spend the rest of the hours he would be awake for in his bedroom. Samantha would be going to bed soon as well; she needed to be up early for work.

That night I dreamt of Davis and only Davis. Julius Roberts didn’t make an appearance at all, which I was happy with. I had forgotten about him, for now.

 

I was in class the next morning before any of my classmates. Mrs. Waters had already unlocked the door when I arrived, but she wasn’t in the room. I sat quietly in my seat with my iPod on staring out onto the parking lot watching parents and School busses pulling in to drop of kids and sang along in my head with the song I was listening to. Between songs I heard the sound of a chair moving and looked over my shoulder to see Mrs. Waters taking the chairs from the stacks they stood in against the walls and placed two under each table. I had taken a chair down for Davis and tucked it under the desk next to me and hoped he would be showing up today. Mrs. Waters looked up and saw me watching her and smiled at me so I smiled back and then looked back out the window and waited for first period to begin.

After all the chairs had been placed under a desk Mrs. Waters perched herself on the desk ahead of where I was sitting, crossed one leg over the other and waited for me to pull my headphones out of my ears so she could talk to me. “I heard about your back,” she said after I plucked one headphone from my ear and left the other one there; my music wasn’t that loud, so I could still hear her. “Did you ever figure out what caused it?” she asked, a more curious tone was behind her voice now.

I shook my head in response and let a sigh escape my lips. “Everyone’s making a big deal out of it, but they shouldn’t be,” I stated as I glanced out the window again.

“It’s not often something like this happens in Elmvale,” Mrs. Waters responded with a smirk and a wink of an eye. “It was either this or being bugged about being the new girl in town,” she said as she turned her attention to the door. I glanced over my shoulder as well and saw Davis talking with a friend of his in the hallway. “And by the looks of the interest Davis has taken in you, being the new girl in School would have been a little more complicated,” she added with a laugh as she stood up and walked to her desk while I continued to watch Davis; waiting for him to come sit next to me.

“Hey, Davis,” I said as he took his seat next to me with a grunt.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” he asked. Of course that would be the first thing on his mind.

“I’m fine,” I answered with a smile on my face. He smiled back at me as the bell rang and the rest of the class filed in from the hallway to take their seats. Today we started our first real lesson in class about proper paragraph style. Most of the other students were immediately lost as soon as Mrs. Water’s started the lesson. Having read many of my brother’s books, I was fully aware of to and how not to write a paragraph.

The day went by pretty quickly after first period had ended. Davis and I went our separate ways after English and met up again outside the School to walk to my place where we had Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for lunch. We were coupled with the same two students that we had been coupled with yesterday in Gym and ran through another set of exercises. Mrs. Holloway was the only one to ask about the scar on my back. By then Davis had gotten the hint that I was fine and stopped asking me and the rest of the girls in my class didn’t seem to remember ever seeing it.

When I arrived at the Library I handed Mr. Mitchell a note that I had been given by Mr. Jefferson before I headed home for lunch. I didn’t read it, but I was fairly certain it was explaining my absence yesterday. Mr. Mitchell smiled brightly after reading the note. “So I’m guessing you’re feeling better?” he asked as he folded the note and placed it on the counter that stood between us.

“If people would stop asking about it, I’d have no problem forgetting it,” I answered with a smile on my face as well. Mr. Mitchell grinned and then beckoned me to accompany him in his office. He took a seat at his desk and began to type onto the keyboard. I watched his monitor as he explained to me what my first set of objectives for today included. Behind me against the wall was a cart of books that needed to be put away on their respective shelves. Having spent some time at the Public Library in Barrie for my Community Service Hours, I knew how to put books away, so after being explained where each Genre was located, I got to work with a smile on my face.

I was happy that I had gone an entire day at School without thinking about Julius Roberts, though my good mood was spoiled a few minutes after walking through the front door. Samantha and Michelle were sitting in the dining room. Michelle had a tear or two trickling down her cheek. “You understand that it’s a great job opportunity, right?” Samantha asked. I was listening from the kitchen while I got myself something to drink. “I’m sure it’s not going to be easy on him either,” Samantha continued. I hadn’t heard Michelle answer so I assumed she had just nodded her head in response to Samantha’s question.

“I know,” Michelle finally said. I closed the fridge after filling my glass with some Coke and leaned against the counter and continued to listen. “I just wish he didn’t have to leave so soon,” Michelle added. I quickly gathered that they were talking about Steven, her boyfriend.

“Well if they hadn’t given him the job after just the interview over the phone, he’d still have to go for the face to face interview, and if they gave him the job after that, he’d already be there and would just need to have his belongings shipped out to him,” Samantha stated.

“I know, I’m just going to miss him,” Michelle said after a couple seconds of silence. I put my glass down and quickly headed up to my room before they noticed that I was listening, but I’m sure Samantha knew I was; she was sitting facing the kitchen and more than likely saw me.

I didn’t stop to see if Chris was home from work and went directly to my room and started up my laptop. Sprawling my notes from English onto my bed next to me, I grabbed the one that we had been given today and began working on the questions that were listed on the bottom of the sheet. It wasn’t until dinner was on the table did I leave my room. I had finished my work a couple of hours earlier, but stayed in my room and read some more of one of the books I had started a few months back.

Samantha and Jason talked during most of the meal about work and other topics, but not the one I was more interested in hearing. I wanted to know what Samantha and Michelle had been talking about when I came home from School, but neither of them wanted to bring it up. After I finished eating and cleaned off the table I returned to my bedroom for the rest of the night.

 

I was once again standing in that hallway that I had been standing in when my nightmares about Julius Roberts had begun. I recognized the hallway now: It was the hallway where my English class was. I was the only one standing in the hallway this time. I looked through the small window that looked into my English classroom. My eyes widened as I watched my entire class learn the lesson that we had been taught today. Mrs. Waters danced around the front of the class like she always did with a piece of chalk in her hand as she wrote the note on the black board. I looked over to where Davis and I sat and was even more surprised to see that I was sitting in my desk. But how could that be? I was standing right here, in the hallway. I grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open and then slammed it shut behind me, but no one in the class room turned to look in my direction.

“Hey!” I shouted as loud as I could, but still no reaction from anyone in the room. I let a sigh escape my lips before wondering to the closest student and smacked him in the back of the head, or at least tried to; my hand went through his head like he was a hologram. They moved and talked exactly the same way they had earlier that day during class, like it was a movie being played back and I was digitally inserted. I gave up on getting the attention of these people and wondered over to the window when I heard a high pitch scream come from the hallway. I quickly darted into the hallway only to wind up in another movie.

Standing not 10 feet from where I was standing was me. I watched in horror as the disfigured body that belonged to Julius Roberts wrapped his mangled fingers around my neck and then ran down the hallway toward a set of doors at the other end. I was watching the first nightmare I had had about Julius Roberts, but this time I wasn’t trying to see through blurred eyes and my body didn’t feel like it was on fire from the powerful grip he had on my throat. I tried to keep up with Julius, but he was moving too fast for me to keep up with. Before my other self was thrown through the open doorway I noticed something I hadn’t noticed when I had originally had that dream: Julius had cut the back of my shirt open. I couldn’t see what he was holding against my back, but I quickly came to the conclusion that it might have been the cause of the scar. As he let go of my neck and let the other me fall into the pit of darkness, he turned to face the real me and smiled, the hand that had been on my back covered in blood. Then I noticed a trail of blood running down the hallway where he had been running with the other me. Before I could think any further, I awoke.

Julius Roberts

 

We spent all of first period in the Library picking out a book for our ISU that would be due at the end of the semester. I had a few books from home that I mentioned to Mrs. Waters and she told me to bring in one tomorrow so she could see if it was ISU material; I had no doubt that it would be. I followed Davis around the Library while he looked for a book for himself and tried to help him pick one out, but he wasn’t much of a novel reader. He ended up getting a short medieval novel. Once every one had picked out their books we were allowed onto the Library computers so that we could make a folder on our account for English, which I had already done in my Computer Tech class. Mrs. Waters then proceeded to explain our ISU as well as handed out a sheet of paper that told us exactly what we needed to have in our ISU. I had written a Book Report for an ISU before so I knew the majority of the information that would be required.

After Mrs. Waters had finished explaining the task she let us start working on it for the remainder of the period. The book that I was going to be doing my ISU Book Report on was at home and I wasn’t completely sure I would be allowed to use it, so instead of starting the assignment I took the remainder of the period to see if I could find some information on Julius Roberts. Before I had managed to get onto one of the sites that Google gave me, Davis grabbed my attention and kept it for the remainder of the period with his work. He read the prologue of his book, A Noble Death, to me and asked me if I thought it was an interesting story afterwards. I had read the Book Summary printed on the back cover while he read and got a general idea of the story before he had even finished reading a sentence.

“It sounds very interesting,” I answered with a bright smile on my face. He smiled back and began to type the first paragraph of his ISU.

“What book are you going to be doing?” he asked as he looked down to the keyboard to make sure his fingers were positioned properly before looking back to the monitor to make sure he hadn’t spelled anything wrong. He repeated this until he was finished typing his paragraph.

“I’m not quite sure. I just finished reading Whispers and I’ve got a few books that I haven’t read yet, so I’ll choose one of them,” I answered. I wasn’t sure which I was going to choose, but I hoped Mrs. Waters approved of it.

“Who’s the author of that one?” he asked, I assumed he was referring to Whispers.

“Dean Koontz. He’s one of my brother’s favourite Authors and he lent me the book and I was addicted to it the instant I started reading it,” I answered. I had closed my Google search on Julius Roberts and decided I would spend most of next period looking up any information I could on him.

“Does your brother like to read?” he asked as he finished typing the paragraph he had been working on and saved the document.

“He loves to read. He wants to be a writer. He’ll be going to College next year to take some experienced writing courses to increase his skill and hopefully get one of his books published,” I answered.

“Really?” he asked. I nodded my head with a smile.

“He’s currently working on the last couple chapters of his latest project: Death Trip. He likes to write supernatural/fantasy thrillers. All I know is that it’s about a group of students who go on a field trip and then get lost and are then hunted down by some murderer,” I answered with a grin; I was looking forward to reading it when it was done.

“Nice,” Davis responded with a smile. We talked for what remained of the period and before the bell rang, he mentioned that he couldn’t come to my place for lunch today; he had a Doctor’s appointment and wouldn’t be in Gym either. I nodded my head. I didn’t want him to know that I was upset with that; I was going to miss talking to him over our food. I hugged him tightly in the hallway and then went our separate ways toward our second period class. I was slightly surprised when he hugged me back just as tightly. Maybe he did feel for me the same way that I felt for him; only time would tell.

 

Mr. Dunlap was sick today and left the class with an old man for a supply teacher who didn’t know the first thing about computers. I thought when they were looking for Temps that they looked for ones qualified to teach the subject they would be Temping for, not the exact opposite. I wasn’t complaining though, nor was the rest of the class. Mr. Dunlap had left us a very simple assignment that I was quite sure that none of the kids in the class would do, but I opened the program needed and made it look like I was doing some work on the side while I looked up Julius Roberts on Google again. I hadn’t made any friends in this class yet so I had no distractions while I dug up any information I could.

The first website I checked out was a government website that didn’t give me a whole lot of useful information. Because Julius had no known friends or family, I couldn’t even find a website dedicated to his Biography. After going through four or five sites, I finally found one that had four pages of information on Julius.

 

“There are many different theory’s revolving around the Julius Roberts case. Many of which were ignored by the court because they were too supernatural to believe. One of these theories was possession. According to multiple Priests that were brought in when the Detectives started looking beyond any natural cause of death, there was a dangerous presence remaining in the house after Julius passed away. After being presented evidence from the Priests that there could be an evil spirit still locked within the walls of the house, the Detectives were forced to close the entire building off.

The Priests claimed that the marks present on Julius’s skin were self inflicted in an attempt to remove something from within. If this something was this evil spirit that they could sense was not entirely known. All of his fingers were missing their fingernails because he had been clawing at the hardwood floors and walls trying to escape the pain he was in. This was proven when Detectives found shards of Julius’s fingernails lying around the home near multiple scratch marks dug into the floors and walls. Even with all of this information gathered by the Detectives, the Court refused to listen to the case until there was more concrete evidence that could be proven; this infuriated the Detectives.

Couple of weeks later the Detectives were ready to scope out the house again in an attempt to find more concrete evidence to prove their statements. They took along with them Father Matthews, one of the most respected Priests in the area in hopes to keep themselves safe from the evil spirit if it still inhabited the walls of the house. Father Matthews immediately claimed that the spirit no longer dwelled within the building as they pulled into the driveway, but was brought inside as a precaution and to help explain some of the things they found within the house. During this search, the Detectives came across a hidden doorway they hadn’t seen before that led to a secret room.

Inside this room they found multiple books dealing with black magic and other spells as well as tools used back in the medieval times to cast curses on enemies. Father Matthews claimed that these tools were still used by followers of Satan in order to please him so he would grant powers. He said there had been one or two occasions when individuals had actually been granted evil powers with these tools, but none of those individuals lived very long afterwards; having killed themselves with their powers. With these tools and black magic books, the Detectives were able to prove that something beyond anything natural had been going on in Julius’s house and with this evidence, the Court listened to the case and looked more into the possibility that Julius had been possessed by someone or something.

It is still a mystery to this day why Julius had been possessed, or if he really was possessed. Some believe he was just crazy and thought he was possessed and those who believe he was were just as crazy as he was, but the fact still remains that Julius had been interested in something beyond the natural realm and something beyond natural happened to him. No conclusion was ever drawn as to what the spirit that had possessed him wanted, but some now believe that Julius’s spirit now dwells within the walls of the home, possibly looking for a safe way to travel to the other side.”

 

I stared with eyes wide at the monitor as I finished reading the first page of information. I wondered if Julius had really been one of those that believed in Satanism. Maybe he had conjured this evil spirit that consumed him by himself in his secret room, or maybe whoever had lived in the house before Julius had removed his spirit from his body using the spells in one of the books and when Julius discovered the room, was consumed by the spirit in its attempt to pass onto the afterlife. The damage to his body that I had seen didn’t look like he had inflicted it because he wanted to. I was starting to believe that maybe he was possessed and there was more to the story, but before I could continue reading, the supply teacher walked up behind me and cleared his throat.

“That doesn’t look like the assignment Mr. Dunlap left for you to do,” he said. His voice was very scratchy, like an old record player. I wondered how old he was. I switched windows and showed him that I had already finished my work. I had been working on it at the same time as I had been reading and only then had I realized that class was about to end. I groaned after he walked away to bug another student; I wouldn’t have time to finish reading the second page. I signed onto my School email account and emailed the websites address to my hotmail email account, packed my bag up, and headed home for lunch.

I grabbed my laptop from my bedroom as soon as I got home and quickly booted it up while I waited for my left–over from last nights dinner to heat up in the microwave. Once it was done I sat at the dining room table and read the second page of the website while I ate.

 

 

“Another theory presented by Detectives stated that the damage dealt to Julius Roberts was not self inflicted. Supernatural Specialist Derek Castro says ‘There have been many cases in the past few years regarding situations such as these, where and individual is physically abused by an unseen entity, a ghost if you will.’ Detectives believed that this could have also been the cause behind the Julius Roberts Murder Mystery. ‘These situations aren’t as uncommon as people believe. We aren’t quite sure exactly how these tormented souls can physically harm certain individuals, but the truth is there. People have gone to bed perfectly fine and woken up with blood covering their sheets and scars scattered across their skin,’ Derek stated during an interview with Sci-Fi Magazine in 2002.

‘Doctors claim that a skin problem is at fault, but I highly doubt that all twenty of these cases all coincidentally happened because of a single skin problem. After doing some research on the skin problem, I discovered exactly what could cause it on any individual, and after talking to those individuals who are still alive, found out that none of them had the prerequisite for this skin problem to break out.’ Derek continued. He told the Detectives that came to him during their investigation of Julius Roberts exactly the same thing he told Sci-Fi Magazine, but the court still refused to listen to this case. After showing Medical experts pictures of the abused individuals and stating that the skin problem they claimed it to be couldn’t possibly do this, the Detectives gained the support they needed to have this theory looked into.

Unfortunately because Julius Roberts had no known friends or family or written entries about what was happening to him during the months before he was found brutally disfigured in his bedroom, Detectives as well as the Court have put his case on hold until further evidence can be found to prove this was more than a suicide.”

 

“What happened to you?” I asked as I finished reading what was on the second page. Everything I had just read would seem too crazy for anyone else to believe, but for some reason I believed it, maybe it was because he was contacting me, I wasn’t sure, but I believed that his death was more than a brutal suicide. I looked down at my plate in front of me and sighed; I had gotten so consumed in what I was reading that I forgot to eat my lunch. I poked at my food with my finger. Great, it’s cold now. I thought as I shut my laptop and shoved my plate in the fridge before I headed back to School. I would try to eat it again after School if Jason hadn’t devoured it first.

A faint whisper echoed through the kitchen as I slipped my jacket on. The hairs on my neck stood on end as I looked around the empty kitchen for the source of the sound, but I was the only one there. After a moment of silence I heard it again coming from the Laundry room. As much as I didn’t want to be late for Gym, I quietly opened the door to the Laundry Room and looked in.

I didn’t see anything.

As I went to close the door, I heard the whisper again. This time it sounded like it was coming from the freezer against the ball wall. I slid my hand along the wall to my right until I found the light switch and flicked it on. I was still the only person in the house. Isaac, the puppy, was panting beside me, but that wasn’t the sound I was hearing. I carefully lifted the lid on the freezer and peered inside, but there wasn’t anything in there either. Isaac began to whimper which made me curious. People say that Dogs and Cats can sense things that Humans can’t, like danger. Maybe he sensed something that I couldn’t and was trying to warn me. “What it is, boy?” I asked as I placed my hand on his head and scratched it, but that didn’t stop his whimpers. His eyes were locked on the closet next to the freezer. I reached in with my free hand and moved the hanging jackets out of the way, but there was only a wall behind them.

I slowly stepped into the closet, placing my feet around the boots and other junk that littered the floor and ran my hand along the wall that Isaac was staring at. I was beginning to believe this was where the secret room was located, but shouldn’t the Detectives have sealed it so no one else could enter it? If it was the cause of all of Julius Roberts’s problems they would have. Maybe there was something more to the Julius Roberts case than what I had read, but my mind quickly left those thoughts behind as I knocked on the wall only to hear that it was hollow behind it; there was a room behind the closet. I couldn’t find any lever or switch to open the passageway to this secret room, I wasn’t even sure if there was one anymore. Maybe it had just been a hidden room inside a closet and the Detectives built this wall to keep any other Home Owners out.

Isaac was still whimpering out in the hallway, probably wishing I would come out of the closet and leave alone whatever it was that he could sense, but I was determined to find out what was behind this wall that shouldn’t be here. As I leaned further into the closet my toes cramped up and I fell toward the wall I was knocking on, but to my surprise the wall didn’t stop my fall; it fell back and I fell into the room beyond it.

A cloud of dust lifted into the air as I went head over heels into the secret room. I covered my head instinctively in case anything was going to fall on my head, but nothing did. The room was too dark to see anything and the only source of light was coming from the laundry room behind me, but that wasn’t enough to make out anything that was in the room. I slowly got to my feet, unaware of how high the ceiling the room and I didn’t want to hit my head off anything, but as I stepped off of the fake wall, it lifted up and slammed back into place again, sealing me in the room with no lights.

Isaac started barking as soon as the wall closed behind me and eventually Sam, the older Dog, joined in too. I quickly spun around and knocked on the wall in hopes that it would fall into the closet and let me out, but it wouldn’t budge. I pulled it toward me, but it refused to move. “Sam, Isaac, quiet!” I ordered through the wall, but of course they didn’t stop barking at the closet. If Samantha came home for her break she’d probably think her Dogs had gone insane.

I turned around again and waved my hand through the air hoping to find a pull cord for a light and fortunately I did find one, but it wasn’t very bright. Sitting directly in front of me was a long old wooden desk that had cracks lining the top. Hanging from the wall directly above the desk was an old wooden shelf that probably was used to hold the books that were once in this room. A candle that looked like it hadn’t been lit in decades sat in the middle of the desk, wax from previous uses melted against the wood. A single drawer hung from the desk that also looked like it hadn’t been touched in decades. I tried to remember exactly when Julius Roberts died, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing a DOD on any of the sites I visited.

I heard the faint whisper again, but this time I could make out what it was saying, though after hearing it I wish I couldn’t. The whisper was saying my name and it was coming from the drawer of the desk. I ignored the frantic barking of Sam and Isaac back in the laundry room and knelt in front of the desk and opened the drawer. I was expecting the drawer to be stiff and hard to open, but it slid open like it had been oiled a few minutes prior. There was nothing in the drawer of course, not that I noticed right away. After staring into the empty drawer for a moment I stuck my hand in and felt around only to find that the bottom of the drawer wasn’t actually the bottom of the drawer, but an envelope. The whispers whispering my name got louder as I carefully opened it and pulled the key from inside, eventually they got so loud it sounded like whoever was saying my name was standing inside my ear.

I had no use for a key; at least I didn’t think I did. I wasn’t aware of anything in the house that was locked other than the front door. Maybe the key was for something in this room. I looked around but other than the desk and the shelf above the desk; there wasn’t anything in the room. I turned around and looked at the wall that I had come through getting into this room. The next question was how I was going to get out, but before I could start to think about it I heard the front door open and Samantha walk in. There was someone else with her, probably Michelle, but I couldn’t quite make out their voice to tell who it was.

At least the Dogs stopped barking.

I wanted to knock on the wall and get their attention, but I was afraid I’d get in trouble for being in here, not that they knew this room even existed; at least I didn’t think they did. I also didn’t want to give my Mom more to worry about. She was trying to help Michelle cope with the fact that her boyfriend was moving out of Province for a Job, she was working long hours and then had Ball Hockey games almost every night of the week. The only set back about waiting for them to leave was that their lunch break was half an hour and I was already late for Gym. I figured if I was going to be that late for Gym I might as well skip the last two periods and try to figure out what this key was for.

 

Half an hour later when the two of them returned to work I began my escape. I really hadn’t thought through my choice all the way. Now I was alone in the house again and what if I couldn’t get out from this side of the wall, then I would have to wait till 4 o’clock when Samantha got off shift and attempt to get her attention. It was only noon, so I would be stuck in here for four hours if that was the case.  I put the key in my pocket and began to push and pull on the wall, but it still refused to budge.

After what seemed like another half an hour, or maybe an hour, sweat began to build in my hair and ran down my face. The temperature in this room was sky rocketing. There were no vents to circulate the oxygen and the room was running out of oxygen. My skin felt sticky and my head began to spin as I began to inhale the carbon dioxide that I had been replacing what oxygen had been in the room with. I could faintly hear Isaac’s whines from the laundry room again which gave me an idea.

I began banging on the wall as hard as I could force myself to in an attempt to get Isaac to come into the closet. As time passed by it began to get increasingly harder to breath and concentrate on trying to get Isaac to push the wall so I could escape. His whining got louder as he got closer to the wall, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to get him to push against the wall with the force that would be needed to open it. I coughed heavily as the rooms oxygen depleted faster now that my breathing was frantic. Was I going to die in here? My stomach started flipping around like it was trying to escape my body as that thought ran through my head so I quickly tossed that thought out. Of course I wasn’t going to die. They wouldn’t have made this room inescapable when they built it with the house, would they? The beads of sweat running down my face were getting in my eyes now, making it almost impossible to see; not there was anything in the room to see.

Just as my vision began to fade to black I heard the whispers again and the wall opened up for me. Isaac started barking at me as I fell into the laundry room gasping for air and covered in sweat. I lay perfectly still on the floor for a few minutes as Isaac licked my face. I slowly looked over my shoulder to see that the wall had closed up again. I took in a deep breath and released it; I certainly was glad to be out of that room. After a few minutes of lying on the floor, I climbed to my feet and slowly made my way up to my bedroom. The clock in the kitchen said it was quarter to one. I had been in that closet for 45 minutes and any minute sooner I would have passed out and been lost forever. My stomach flipped around inside of me as the thought once again passed through my head.

My breathing began to go erratic as I climbed the stairs to the second floor of the house. Half-way up the stairs I collapsed to my hands and knees and was forced to climb them that way. Once at the top I stared down the never-ending hallway in front of me with my bedroom door at the opposite end. I took a few minutes to calm myself down so that I might be able to walk rather than crawl across the floor, but it didn’t work. I began to see black dots float in front of my eyes and eventually my vision had gone completely, blocked out by the millions of tiny black dots that only existed in my mind.

 

The next second I was downstairs again, standing in front of the open fridge, staring into it. I blinked a few times and looked around; wondering how I had gotten here. I looked back into the fridge and quickly noticed that it was empty, which made me wonder why I was standing there even more. As I closed the fridge I spotted a silhouette out of the corner of my eye. I slowly turned my head to watch the figure ascend the stairs to the second floor. The figure, whoever it was, had come from the living room. Maybe it was Jason. I glanced at the clock; it was only two o’clock, Jason wouldn’t be home from work for another 2 hours and the same applied for Samantha. Once they had reached the top of the stairs I quietly followed behind them, but soon realized that the stairs didn’t creak once as I ascended them. It had sounded like a heard of elephants when the figure had climbed them not seconds before me.

As I neared the top of the stairs I spotted the figure standing in the middle of the hallway, just under the door to the attic. They reached above them and pulled the string that lowered the wooden staircase and just as they climbed the wooden staircase a bit of light hit them, revealing who it was. My eyes widened as he stared down at me, but didn’t see me. The startling slam of the wooden staircase woke me up. I was lying at the top of the stairs again at that point. I rubbed my eyes gently and looked around. What had just happened? Had I imagined that or did it actually happen? I decided not to worry too much about what I had just seen, but instead on what was in the attic that Julius Roberts was going to get.

My breathing had returned to normally, thankfully, and I was able to run downstairs and grab one of the stools from the bar in the kitchen and use that to reach the doorway to the attic. Unlike in the vision I had just had, there wasn’t a pull string, instead there was just a sheet of plywood that I had to push up into the attic before I could climb in. I was barely tall enough, even with the stool, to lift myself into the hole in the ceiling. Once I had lifted myself into the attic I immediately covered my mouth with my hand; it was really musty. There was a tiny window situated at the wall that looked out onto the driveway, but was so covered in cobwebs that I couldn’t see the light outside. Tiny beads of light managed to sneak through the webs, but it wasn’t enough to be able to see anything.

I dropped down into the hallway again and ran downstairs again to grab a flashlight from Jason’s toolbox in the mudroom. Isaac and Sam sat at the top of the stairs and watched me as I climbed into the attic again. Once I was up again, I flicked the flashlight on and looked around the dark room. A lot of the stuff in the immediate vicinity of where I was sitting was our stuff that Jason had shoved up here the day after we had finished moving in. Behind me, in a corner, I spotted a pile of really old looking newspapers that stated they were from 1984 when I carefully made my way over to them. The pages looked like rats had gotten at them and were almost impossible to read, but there was something much more interesting under the newspapers: a lockbox. I quickly fished out the key from the hidden room downstairs from my pocket and slide it into the keyhole and was amazed that it fit. Was this what Julius was trying to show me earlier? I didn’t open it, not yet; I climbed out of the attic, slid the sheet of plywood back, put the stool in the kitchen again, and then flopped onto my bed and opened the lockbox.

The first thing in the lockbox that I saw was a large book with a strange star design on it. I had seen it before many times online, but I didn’t know the name of it. I flipped to the first page and was surprised that all the writing was in another language, one I didn’t recognize. I flipped past a few more pages, hoping that somewhere it would be in English, but all 200 pages were written in a different language. I was sure it was Latin, but I couldn’t read or write it, so I wasn’t completely certain. Under the book was a piece of old parchment with what looked like ingredients on it. It didn’t say what the ingredients were for though.

 

·         Cylindrical glass container(s).

·         Paraffin-based candle wax.

·         A large pot in which to melt the wax.

·         Wick.

·         Scissors to cut the wick.

·         Tongue depressors (One per candle).

·         A heavy paper clip.

·         Crayons.

 

Under the piece of parchment was something far more interesting than the previous two objects I had looked at: It was an old black and white photograph. I didn’t recognize anyone in the photo, nor did I think I would; but there was one person in the picture that looked oddly familiar. On the back of the photo was a list of the names of people. I wasn’t surprised when Julius Robert’s name came across, but I was surprised when my name came across. I flipped the photo over again and looked at the girl that I had recognized and realized that it was in fact me. The hair, the face, the body, she looked exactly the same as I did now. I shook my head; I couldn’t be in this photo. It had to be from long before I was even born. I stared blankly at the girl in the photo as my mind processed what I was looking at. I glanced into the lockbox again and noticed another piece of parchment. I quickly grabbed it and began to read it, hoping it would explain what I had just seen, but it was in the same language as the book had been. I grunted as I put the piece of parchment with the book and the other parchment and returned to the picture of me.

There had to be an explanation for this. There was no way that I could be in a picture from the 70’s when I wasn’t born till 93. My eyes darted to the boy who was Julius Roberts and noticed that he was staring at the girl that looked like me with a grin on his face; he hadn’t been before. When I looked back to the girl, she too was grinning. “What the hell!” I shouted at the picture, expecting the two kids to answer me, which of course neither of them did.

‘Do you see?’ said a voice which I recognized as Julius’s.

“See what?” I demanded in return as I stared at the photo still.

‘Look closer.’ He said; so I did. I held the photo as close to my face as I could before it began to go blurry, but I couldn’t see anything. ‘What do you see?’ he asked. I still hadn’t seen anything, but I decided to lie to him.

“I see a ladybug.”

He was silent for a few minutes as I stared at the photo, laughing in my head at my smartass remark.  After a while I got impatient for him to respond and took a deep breath and calmed myself down. I was either thinking too much or not enough to see what he wanted me to see. After a few more minutes it clicked in my head. When he first started to bother me, I had been constantly asking myself why he was haunting me and no one else in the family. I had thought that maybe I had done something to deserve this, when in reality, it had always been me. He had been waiting for me to arrive since the day whatever happened to him. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, but I was certain now that it had to be me, and I came to accept that; I didn’t have much of a choice though. ‘Do you see?’ he asked and I simply nodded my head.

“But why did it have to be me?” I asked.

‘It is your destiny. As soon as you walked through the front door you sealed our fates.’ He answered. I closed my eyes and let a sigh escape my lips. ‘It was always you.’ He continued as memories began to flash behind my eyelids.

 

I could see myself standing at a fence at an old farm watching a herd of Cattle feed in the field. My hair bellowed out behind me in the cool summer breeze that came at me from the North. I raised my head and sniffed at the air with a bright smile on my face.

“God you’re beautiful,” said a voice which I instantly recognized as Julius’s.  I turned my head and looked over my shoulder at the young man walking down the dirt path toward me and smiled brightly at him with a blush spreading across my cheeks. He scooped me into his arms and planted his lips against mine as I loosely hung my arms over his shoulders and kissed him in return. “What are you doing out here by yourself?” he asked as he pulled his lips from mine.

“Just thinking,” I answered with a smile on my face as I turned and stared at the herd of Cattle again.

“About what?” he asked.

My smiled faded as I began to explain my thoughts to him, as did his. I could see it in his face that he wasn’t expecting to hear what I had told him. I don’t think he was ready for it, but neither was I, to tell the truth. He gently placed me back on my feet and backed up and stared at me. “You’d never guess,” he stated as he sighed and let his eyes drift to mine.

“I know,” I responded as I folded my arms in front of my stomach: I was pregnant.

“How long have you known?” he asked, still standing a couple feet from me. He’d never stood this far from me since we started seeing each other. We’d always walk hand-in-hand with each other wherever we went and it was making me worried.

“Couple weeks,” I answered. I looked away from him as his expression changed immediately. “I was afraid to tell you, Julius,” I added as I stared out into the empty field now that the Cattle had gone into the barn. “I wasn’t sure what to do,” I finished as I took a quick glance at his face to see his expression.

He stared at me with his eyes widened for a few minutes before his expression finally calmed down and he let a sigh escape his lips. “What are we going to do?” he asked as he closed the distance between us and placed his hands on my face and stared into my eyes. He was angry, I could see it in his eyes, but I couldn’t turn away from him, not now, not ever.

“What do you want to do?” I asked as I placed my hands over his and stared back into his eyes.

 

‘Do you see now?’ he whispered into my ear. My eyes snapped open and I looked around my bedroom, but didn’t see him. Tears were slowly trickling down my cheeks as I stared back at the photo and smiled slightly. ‘We loved one another in our last life, but when our Souls ascended to our next life, you lost your memory,’ he began to explain when I didn’t answer his question. The book on my bed next to me began to flip through pages and then stopped. I looked at the book and realized that the writing wasn’t in another language, it was in English. I paid no attention to that and began to read the English portion of the page.

I didn’t quite understand it, but I knew that it was a spell for something. ‘You didn’t ascend at the same time as I did; this is why you’re so much younger than I am this time.’ He began to explain. I spotted him appear in the mirror above my dresser, but I didn’t look at him. ‘It’s too late for us to try again, as you can see,’ he stated and I thought I heard a laugh in his voice, but I couldn’t be sure with how soft it was.

The Departure

 

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked as I finally turned my gaze to his appearance in the mirror. I was a little startled when I didn’t see the mangled Julius I had been seeing for the past couple days, but instead the young Julius that I had just seen played in front of my eyes. He smiled at me and sent a shiver running down my spine which almost caused my eyes to start to water, but I held them back.

‘The list,’ he began as he pointed a finger at the first parchment that I had been in the lockbox. ‘Get those items, please, that is the first thing I need you to do,’ he ordered. I picked up the parchment and looked over the list of ingredients it listed. I wasn’t sure where I was going to find half of this stuff, but I took the parchment downstairs with me and began looking. I easily found a boiling pot in the cupboard next to the stove, a cylindrical glass container from the pantry, a pair of scissors, a heavy paperclip and a box of crayons were elsewhere in the house, but I had no problem finding them. I placed those objects on the counter before I started to think about where I would get the rest of the ingredients.

“What is all of this for?” I asked as I leaned against the counter and stared at what I had found.

‘You’ll find out soon enough…’ his voice trailed off. I looked in the direction that it was coming from, but again, he wasn’t there. He liked to move around it seemed, but then again I wasn’t even sure if anyone else would be able to hear his voice; it was probably only in my head. ‘Go to the dollar store,’ he ordered and then he was gone. I tried to talk to him again, but there was no response. Where could a voice that was in your head go, could it leave your head? I got my jacket on and headed down the street to the newly opened Dollar Store – Needful Things – that I was going to apply for a job at. I instinctively headed for the arts and crafts section as I knew that’s where I’d find the remaining objects on my list. After I got the remaining ingredients from this list, I began to head toward the counter, but he stopped me. ‘There’s more,’ he said and I was forcibly spun around and sent in the direction I had come from.

 

Once I was back home with everything he wanted me to get, I waited for my next set of instructions. I only had a couple more hours until Samantha and Jason would come home and I wanted to be done all of this before then so I wouldn’t have to explain anything; not that I knew how to explain what I was doing. I filled the boiling pot with water and let it boil before I filled the cylindrical glass container with some of the candle wax that Julius had sent me to the Dollar Store for and lowered it into boiling water with the wick hanging out. I wasn’t sure why he was having me make a candle, but he seemed rather impatient with the amount of time it was taking to perform it. I had to dig out a pale blue crayon from the box and mash it up and add that to the mix along with a few other miscellaneous items I had to pick up around town before he allowed me to return home.

By three o’clock the candle was completed to Julius’s specifications. He had been quiet during the candle making process, but now that it was done he couldn’t seem to shut up. ‘Take the rest of that crayon back upstairs with you and take the candle with you,’ he ordered as I heard his voice trailing away. I quickly followed upstairs, I couldn’t stand it when he yelled at me; his voice was horrific to listen to then.  Once I was back in my bedroom, he had me use the remains of the crayon to draw the symbol from the cover of the book on the floor. I knew Samantha would kill me if she came home and saw it; I hoped she wouldn’t see it.

 

I sat in the middle of the pale blue star that I had drawn on the carpet with my eyes closed and the book from the lockbox on my lap opened to the page that Julius had shown me earlier. I hadn’t heard his voice in a few minutes and was beginning to wonder where he was, but he had ordered me to keep my eyes closed and I was going to obey; the last thing I wanted was to piss him off after all I had already done for him. Sam and Isaac were outside so they couldn’t bother us and the only light in the house was coming from the pale blue candle that I had made, that burned in front of where I was sitting. It had a beautiful smell of lemon and sandalwood. It was a peaceful, calm, smell, that I didn’t expect it to have when I had been ordered to gather the ingredients for it.

I sat quietly and listened to the sound of my own breathing, the sound of my heart pumping gently in my chest, the sound of the blood running through my veins and to the many sounds that came from outside. For the first time in my life, I felt whole. I couldn’t remember a time in my life that I had felt so peaceful, so synced with my surroundings; it was an amazing feeling. The memory that Julius had played in my head a few hours before stayed in my mind and was playing on the back of my eyelids on repeat. I no longer feared him, no longer misunderstood him, but I didn’t love him; I couldn’t, not now. He had been dead and had been stuck in this house waiting for me for many years, I understood that, but I couldn’t feel sorry for him.

As much as he had tried to make me remember the love we shared in our last life, I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to either. The memory ended every time as I asked him what he wanted to do with our child that I was carrying, I never got to hear his response. Maybe he wanted me to remember the rest by myself or maybe he was keeping it from me so that I would do as he wanted; maybe it wasn’t the answer I had been hoping for when I had asked him the question then. His question from earlier; Do You See repeated in my head as I watched the memories. I wasn’t sure now if I had seen the right thing. I had originally seen that the two of us had loved each other once, but how could I be certain that what I was seeing actually happened?

I stopped watching the memory and stopped listening to the sounds around me, but focused on his voice, trying to find out if he was still watching me; when I was as certain as I could be that he wasn’t, I opened my eyes. Sitting on my bed was the photo that had started all of this; the photo of us. I quickly grabbed it and sat down again before looking at it. I wondered who the rest of the people in the photo were. None of them had the same last name as me or as him, or as anyone else in the photo; each person had a different last name and none of them looked the same, so I ruled out the option of this being a family portrait.

But what kind of photo with friends looked like this? Granted these other people were our friends. There had to be something in this photo that could help me put together my memories from that life, but I couldn’t find any puzzle pieces. I looked over the top of the picture at the book on the floor in front of me and read the passage that had been translated into English, but had been in another language when I had originally looked through the book. There was nothing in there that could help me either. I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling and let a sigh escape my lips. I was sure he’d be back soon and whatever he wanted me to do would begin.

 

By 3:30, he had returned from wherever he had gone. I had since returned to my quiet position on the floor and had put the picture back on my bed hoping he wouldn’t notice that I had moved. I knew he was in the room with me, I could hear his breathing mixing in with the rest of the sounds that filled my ears. “Where’d you go?” I asked calmly as I continued my relaxed breathing.

‘That’s of no importance to you,’ he answered coldly and I felt him brush passed me. A cool wind blew through my room and blew my hair out behind me, but didn’t affect the flame on the candle. I grunted in my head. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. I slowly nodded my head in response. ‘Read,’ he demanded.

 

“What was done was done. Be it now undone. By the light of the full moon's wane, cleanse my soul of taint and stain. Let now my hurtful spell reverse. And lift from me this vicious curse. As I enter now this sacred space. Return my spirit to its grace.”

 

When I had finished reading the English passage in the book, the words immediately changed languages as I stared in amazement, but something quickly grabbed my attention. There was a strange tension building in the air next to where I was sitting and I could see a figure materializing. I had no doubt in my mind that it was Julius. I could hear the whispers that I had been hearing the last few days echoing through my bedroom, getting louder and louder until I could hear Julius’s voice repeating the passage that I had just read from the book. Behind his voice, was the passage again, but in the language it had been written in; it was also his voice.

I stared in awe with my eyes wide as the air took form to the boy from the photo. His luscious golden hair was the first to take form; hovering in the air mysteriously as his 19 year old face materialized under it. His piercing blue eyes bore into mine and I could tell he was grinning before his mouth had fully materialized. I quickly noticed that he wasn’t wearing a shirt as his torso began to appear and as it got closer to his waste I turned away in case he wasn’t wearing anything down there either.

After he had fully materialized next to me, I felt his one hand on my shoulder and the other on my cheek, forcing me to look at him. Luckily he was wearing shorts. His lips were stretched into a smile as he stared into my eyes. I felt like I was in the memory again, standing at a farm staring into his eyes as he scooped me into his arms, but he hadn’t scooped me into his arms.

“Cassandra, why are all the lights out?”

My eyes widened in horror as I heard my mother’s voice from the kitchen. I heard her quickly climbing the stairs, continuing to call my name as she got closer and closer to my bedroom. I stared at my closed bedroom door and waited for her to walk in and see this ghost like figure in front of me and the pale blue circle I had drawn on the floor. ‘Forget about her,” Julius said as he moved in front of me again so I was looking into his eyes. ‘She doesn’t matter anymore,’ he added as he moved his face closer to mine and gently pressed his lips against mine. I gasped as an eerie chill ran through me immediately after his lips connected with mine and I instinctively attempted to push him off of me, but he wasn’t real; my arms went right through him, yet he was able to touch me.

“Get off of me!” I ordered as I tried to move away from him, but his grip on me was as intense as it had been when I first started dreaming about him; when he was choking me in the hallway at School. “What are you doing?” I asked as I tried to kick him off of me, but my feet went through him as well.

‘Don’t you see?’ he asked again; he was always asking that. ‘I can’t live without you, Cassandra,’ he began as he pressed his lips against mine again. The eerie chill ran through my body again, causing my body to shake. As the seconds ticked by, my body began to shake more violently and I was beginning to feel like I had felt in my original dream. I was beginning to lose the feeling from my neck down and it felt like he was stabbing me with millions of tiny needles. I could no longer move any part of my body.

It felt like he was sucking the air out of my body, sucking my life force straight out of me, as my vision began to clog up with tiny black dots, I began to see the memory he had shown me again.

 

“What do you want to do?” I asked as I placed my hands over his and stared back into his eyes. I could feel his pulse quickening as my skin touched his. I smiled softly and waited patiently for him to respond.

“I think we should raise it, together, as a family,” Julius answered as his lips pulled up into a smile and then placed his lips against mine again. I felt a wave of happiness rush through me as I heard his words. I was ecstatic that he wanted to raise our child together, that he didn’t hate me for not telling him sooner that I was pregnant, that he still loved me. I wrapped my arms tightly around him and clung to him like I had never been here with him before. It was an amazing feeling, knowing that no matter what happened, he would be there for me, and I would be there for him. “What do you think it’ll be?” he asked as he pulled his lips from mine.

“I hope it’s a boy and grows up to be handsome just like you,” I answered with a grin.

“I hope it’s a girl that grows up to be as beautiful as you are,” he responded with a grin of his own.

 

A wave of nausea washed over me as my vision returned to the sound of my mother’s voice calling my name. My eyes darted to the doorway to see her and Davis standing there, eyes wide, jaws about to hit the floor, as they stared upon the scene in my bedroom. I could see the confusion and horror easily in their faces. Tears began to swell in the corner of my eyes as I reached my hand out to them. Julius had pulled his lips from mine, but was still holding his face close enough to mine that our lips were basically still touching. I could tell that they were trying to find something to say to me, I could see that they wanted to help me, but I knew now that there was nothing that could be done.

Julius hadn’t lied to me; he had been showing me the truth the entire time. I had doubted what he had shown me before, but now I believed in the love we had. I turned my gaze to Julius and smiled softly at him before turning my attention back to Samantha and Davis and smiled at them as I waved good-bye. I watched their faces twist in horror, but I already knew what was happening to me. I could see my fingers begin to fade from existence and slowly my arm did as well, followed by the rest of my body. Julius’s body was doing the same. “Bye,” I said as my vision began to fade. I was no longer seeing my bedroom, but endless white, but I was happy.

 

The End