A Dreadful Thing

4: FROM SPIRITS DERIVED

FOUR: FROM SPIRITS DERIVED

Orla

Orla was beginning to understand something wasn't quite right.

She knew she couldn't be counted as the most reliable in noticing when something was off or when someone wasn't behaving as they should. She'd spent her life surrounded by strange things no one else could see or believe, so she accepted peculiarities that probably didn't make sense to others. Funny phone calls and strangers in the woods made for odd curiosities—little mysteries for Orla to puzzle over with Morty—but when Mr. Byrne began acting...different, Orla started to feel concerned.

She didn't think he'd slept at all. She was still grounded, but he'd returned her radio, and ordered her to catch up on the school work the district had assigned while she waited out her suspension. Whenever Orla did happen to leave her room—to get a meal, use the restroom, or to attempt sneaking out into the yard for a breather—Mr. Byrne was always there, looking wary and alert. On the second night, Orla cracked open her door around two in the morning and spotted her guardian seated at the head of the stairs, in the dark, drinking. She'd shut the door.

"He must know what happened," Orla muttered to Morty. "Or maybe he heard from someone in town that those weird guys in masks were floating around." She chewed her lip. "Should I have told the police? Do you think that guy could've hurt someone else?"

"Reassurance. Safety. Peace."

"They probably wouldn't have believed me anyway...."

On Thursday, Mr. Byrne absconded out to his shed with firm instructions to Orla not to leave her room, or else risk losing radio privileges again. She huffed and grumbled about this, but did as told, pretending to do her schoolwork while she listened to the static-filled hum of pop music.

She kept thinking about those strangers in the masks. Every time her bandaged knee twinged, she remembered her fear, her panic, and the guy with the fox mask. What were those words he asked her about? Morsath? The Ominous? She knew what 'ominous' meant, but not in that context. And how had he known where she lived? Was he friends with Mr. Byrne?

Orla rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, exhaling. "What were they doing out there?"

Across the room, merged with the shadow cast by her laundry hamper, Morty flickered and stirred, making silhouettes on the wall. He pushed the hum of his voice toward her, and Orla laid still, feeling her own breath against her face as she concentrated on the words' impression.

"I dunno what you're saying," she told him after a moment. He pushed the words to her again, and Orla's face scrunched, listening. "Familiar?" she finally guessed, receiving a positive emotion in reply. "What do you mean by that?"

Another impression—blue eyes, brown, curly hair in childish fingers, and voices too far away to hear. Pain sparked in Orla's temple, and she rolled to her side with a grunt, rubbing at the offending spot. The hum receded with Morty's presence until Orla's head was silent again, and the shadows laid flat as they should.

"I'm going to have a headache," she complained. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

She sat up and shuffled to the side of her bed, sitting on the mattress' edge. Morty's behavior gave her another mystery to fret over, and she idly prodded her knee, feeling the wound sting under the peachy bandage. She glowered at the lamp on her nightstand. It flickered.

Was it possible they were...like me?

She shoved that thought away as soon as it occurred to her. Orla had never met anyone remotely like herself and she doubted she ever would.