Shade

Chapter 12 - Shards

Shards of bloodied glass rapped against a paper plate. Alessa muffled her own sobs as Walter extracted them from her face with a set of tweezers. Aside from that, it was silent in the living room.

The commotion had awakened the rest of the house; Daniel and Eddy were sitting on the floor in their pajamas while Caroline and Anke swept up glass and made a makeshift cover for the broken window out of a paint-splattered drop cloth.

Evelyn had yet to say a word. She sat in a yellow armchair by the front window, smoking a spliff and peering pensively outside as if she were on the lookout for another spirit to make an appearance.

I crouched in front of Alessa, lending my hand to squeeze through the pain. Her acrylic nails dug into my palm. Jonas stood above me, holding a flashlight for Walter as he worked. The dim and moody lamplight alone wasn't bright enough for emergency medical procedures.

"You don't think she'll need to go to a real doctor after this?" Hector asked. He was pacing and cleaning beneath his thumbnail with his teeth.

"I am a real doctor," said Walter calmly. "Or I was. But I decided I like art more. My mother was thrilled."

He pulled a large shard from Alessa's neck and cleaned the wound.

"I'm sure you'll find I am as qualified to administer first aid as you are to do your job," he added.

Alessa shot Hector a nervous look.

"Uhm, she won't need stiches?" asked Hector.

"She shouldn't," replied Walter. "The wounds aren't too deep. Just keep them bandaged and clean and use the ointment. Unless you want some cool scars."

Alessa smiled at him through her tears. "Thank you for being here... and for coming when I yelled... There's evil here."

Jonas looked at me, more troubled than I had ever seen him.

"Perhaps," said Walter, bandaging her final wound, "But there's also a lot of good here. There always has been."

"Actually," said Hector. "I was thinking that due to the aggressiveness of the entity, an emergency house cleansing is in order. I already contacted Father Laramie."

This shook Evelyn from her haze. She extinguished her joint and jerked out of her chair.

"A house cleansing? How much is that going to cost?"

"It's a suggested donation," Hector replied defensively.

She put her hands on her hips. I watched her try to process it all, what she had seen, what she had heard. She had left denial and turned to anger.

"You know what?! No. I'm not buying this shit!" She looked around the room from face to face, checking in with us, daring us to oppose her opinion. "Am I crazy? I mean besides Kit, is anyone buying this shit?"

I shrank lower to the floor as she called me out. Jonas put his hand on my shoulder.

"You did see the glass shatter in her face, right Evie?" He said. "And the voice on the ghost box?"

She responded with an exasperated gasp and looked to the others.

"We were asleep," said Anke.

"The boys and I were fucking," said Caroline with a shrug. Evelyn chose to ignore her.

"I listened to boops and beeps on the radio, and saw the window break in her face. It was very dark, she very well might have done it herself."

"Are you kidding me?" Alessa yelled back, standing. "Why would I do that?"

"I've met more than my share of doped up, masochistic compulsive liars who fit your M.O."

Alessa looked as if she had just been slapped. From her posture, she seemed ready to slap back.

"Evie, I don't think she's a druggy," Walter interjected.

"I don't care! I want them off my property."

"Evelyn, please," I said, surprising myself. "We felt it."

"As far as I'm concerned, you've got one foot out the door as well," she barked back. She eyed me with disdain, more than I deserved. She searched deeply and darkly into me until she found something that appeared to satisfy her. "If there is something here, Kit, it wasn't here before you got here. You brought it. If you truly believe that something paranormal is happening here, then walk out that door, take it with you, and leave us alone."

She offered brief glances to Alessa and Hector before addressing the rest of the group.

"I want them out," she said. And she walked upstairs.

I helped Hector and Alessa gather their things and walked them back to their minivan. Alessa checked her face in the car visor mirror as I helped Hector with the back hatch. It was still and dark outside. I focused on Hector's face for fear of movement in the shadows of the trees.

"I'm really sorry it had to end this way," I said to him. "Thank you so much for coming out."

"Hey, I'm sorry we couldn't convince her," he replied. "Sometimes people get real defensive when it comes to the paranormal. Like on one hand, a person might be comfortable with the idea that science hasn't figured everything out yet, and then they turn around and call every person who studies paranormal events a quack. But maybe she'll come around."

"I hope so."

"You gonna stick it out here, Kit?"

It was a funny question for him to ask me. Hector, as briefly as I knew him, was aware of my tendencies to move on the moment things got tough. It was a fair question, too. Evelyn had made me feel incredibly unwanted. The haunting, or whatever it was, was frightening. I honestly didn't know.

"For the time being," I said. "I do think that there's a presence here and that it's trying to share something with me. I've got to at least stay and hear it out."

"Well, you be careful," he said with a tight-lipped smile. He slammed the hatch and walked to the driver's side door. "And text if you need anything or if Evelyn changes her mind."

I nodded at him and looked to Alessa.

"And you feel better, Alessa."

She cocked her head at me.

"Kit, I think I jumped to the conclusion of this being demonic too quickly," she said. "Say it is a memory- a shade."

She rubbed the charms on her bracelet, jingling them like a wind chime.

"Evelyn may be on to something about you. Not that you brought the haunting, but that your presence somehow triggered it. There is a violent energy here. Something violent happened here and will likely happen again. Until this passes, everyone here is in danger."

She shook her head at me with earnest concern. My heart felt heavy. Hector's car reversed and his headlights drifted off into the darkness.