So I'm already writing the second chapter of this, and I'm not going to post any more of it till it's all finished, but I want opinions.
"Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring."
- Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
"I…I remember screaming…and being afraid…so afraid I couldn't open my eyes."
"What else Rachel? What else can you remember?"
"Nothing! I've told you! There was an accident! I can't remember anything from before then!"
"No Rachel. There was no accident, no tragedy that robbed you of your memory; it's all there, locked inside you! You just have to remember!"
"I-I don't want to."
"Then you don't have to. We're going. Now! Let us go!"
"Push deeper Rachel. You're almost there. It's in the room with the broken glass!"
"I-I don't want to! I'm afraid!"
"Stop this now!"
"I told you Santana, once it's began only Rachel can break the link. Open the door Rachel. Remember."
"Oh-oh god…I remember! I remember!"
She wasn't always afraid. There were sometimes long stretches, weeks, even months where they left her alone. Tony was always there, but he didn't scare Rachel like the other ones did. Tony was her bestest friend. He listened to her talk for hours about whatever musical she was obsessed with that week, he never told her she was a bad singer, and he never made fun of her for having two fathers.
Tony was sweet. He didn't talk, none of them did except the really scary ones, but the way he smiled at Rachel made her feel like everything was okay. He was a lot older than her, fifteen, which to her ten year old mind made him practically an adult, but he would still watch Disney movies with her. He looked like Tony from West Side Story, with dark hair and soulful eyes, and Rachel sang to him like she was Anita.
But the best thing about Tony, was when the others came, the nice ones and the really scary ones, he stayed with her, he protected her. She saw the others everywhere, at school, on the streets, sometimes for no reason at all they'd come into her bedroom, as if they were just drawn to her.
She didn't mind the nice ones so much. There was an old lady with sweet eyes that came every now and then. She'd sit across from Rachel and silently show her how to make the neatest braids in her dolls hair. And sometimes Rachel would wake up in the middle of the night to find her pulling the covers over Rachel when she had kicked them away, but that always seemed to weaken her a lot, and then Rachel wouldn't see her for months.
The old lady was the nicest, but in between her visits, and the visits from a few others she didn't mind, there were always the scary ones.
But Tony was always there. He'd talk to them, Rachel couldn't hear what he said, but eventually, usually after Rachel was terrified enough to scream, and her confused fathers ran into the room, the others would leave.
Tony never left her alone with any of them.
So she didn't know that he could be forced out.
Until he was.
"And then, when I'm famous on Broadway, I'm going to buy all the horses in the city and give them all the carrots they want, and they'll never have to pull one of those horrible carts again," Rachel Berry prattled on to her friend Tony, as she brushed the hair of her favorite princess doll.
Tony smiled and nodded across from her, silent as always, but still so comforting.
A few weeks ago had been Rachel's tenth birthday. On top of all of her presents, her dads had taken her to New York to finally see a show on Broadway. In between the show and the hotel they had passed a group of people protesting the city's infamous horse drawn carriages, and Rachel has broken out into tears the moment she realized what they were saying. Her dads had hurried her out of there, but it was too late, and Rachel had been going on about it non-stop in between blow by blows of the show for weeks.
Tony, of course, had been there too, following behind the three of them like he normally did. It bothered Rachel that her fathers couldn't see Tony like she could, he was her best friend after all, and she had felt horrible when he had to stand in the aisle to watch the show, but she didn't argue.
Her dads were weird about Tony, every time one of the others visited Rachel, she told them Tony had gotten rid of them, and they got even more agitated. They told her Tony, and all the others didn't exist, that they were all just figments of her imagination. They had taken her to a few doctors even, who had patiently listened to Rachel explain about Tony and the others, before telling her the same thing. The others weren't real. Tony wasn't real. It was all in her mind. After the sixth doctor, Rachel had just stopped talking about the others. Now the only time the subject came up was when one of the really scary ones made her scream.
The sound of her door opening turned Rachel's head to the door, and she smiled widely at the sight of her dads bringing her her nightly glass of water.
"Time for bed Pumpkin," her Dad said, picking her up off of the floor and carrying her over to the bed where her Daddy was pulling back the covers.
"Can we go get pancakes for breakfast tomorrow? Please, please, please?" Rachel asked as her Dad set her down and her Daddy handed her the water.
"We sure can," her Daddy said as he sat the glass down. "We'll get up early and go get pancakes before we go shopping for your school supplies."
The mention of the approaching school year made Rachel frown. She loved school. She really really did. But she'd be going to a new school, again, her sixth school in four years, and it always made her nervous. It was always the same, she'd make a few friends, and then one of the others would show up, one of the really scary ones, and after that everyone would make fun of her.
Her Dad must have noticed the frown, because he quickly sat down her glass of water and pulled her in for a big warm hug. "I know you're nervous Honey, but you're going to be fine."
"But what if it happens again and all the other kids start making fun of me again?" Rachel asked, pouting as her Dad pressed her down into the bed and her Daddy tucked her in.
"It won't," her Daddy said. "You just have to remember that all of that, is in your imagination Love."
For a moment Rachel considered arguing, but she knew it would be useless. Behind her dads, Tony gave her a sympathetic look as he settled into the chair he spent his nights sitting in.
"Okay," Rachel said, still pouting.
Her Dad sighed, obviously tired of this routine, but leant over and gave her a big kiss on the forehead. "Okay Honey, go on to sleep now and dream about chocolate chip pancakes and Broadway."
Her fathers traded places, and Rachel's pout turned into a giggle when her Daddy blew a sloppy raspberry on her forehead. "That's gross," she said, sticking her tongue out at the man as she wiped off her forehead with her blanket.
"Ugh I'm offended," he said, pinching her cheeks.
"O-offended," Rachel said repeating the word to herself and then looking at him for a definition.
"It means I feel insulted," her Daddy explained.
"You do not you big liar," Rachel giggled as she rolled over on to her side and curled up with the stuffed kitten her Dad handed her.
"Leroy did you hear that? Our little angel called me big," her Daddy scoffed.
"Well you did eat that whole baked potato for dinner, along with two servings of meatloaf," the taller man teased.
Rachel could already feel herself drifting off, but she shot out of bed a moment later when her Dad went to turn on her night light, only for it to pop and go out. "Uh-oh," he said, pulling it out of the wall and looking at the blackened bulb.
"What's wrong with it? Why isn't it working?" Rachel said, already panicking. If there was one thing more frightening than seeing the others, it was being in the dark not being able to see them.
"Looks like it's time to replace the bulb," her Daddy said shaking it next to his ear. "We'll pick up one when we're out tomorrow."
"No. I need one now," Rachel said, shaking her head frantically.
"Calm down Princess," her Dad said sitting down on the bed and pulling her into another hug. "You're Daddy and I will leave your door cracked and the hall light on for tonight."
"But-but what if it closes. What there's a draft and it closes?" Rachel asked as the man pushed her gently back into the bed. Her eyes flitted to Tony who was staring intently at the broken bulb and muttering something to himself.
"It won't close. See, I'll prop it open with this," her Daddy said, grabbing her glass piggy bank and setting it on the floor next to the door frame. "And here," he said reaching into his pocket and pulling out his keys. Rachel watched as he pulled the little light he kept on them off and smiled weakly when he sat it down on her bedside table. "Just in cast."
"You know Rachel, you're growing up now. Maybe it's time we start weaning you off the nightlight," her Dad said, his voice soothing despite the terror that suggestion gave Rachel.
"Or we can wait a little longer to talk about that," her Daddy said, narrowing his eyes at his husband.
"Fair enough," the taller man said, holding his hands up in the air for a moment before leaning over and kissing Rachel on the forehead. "Sleep tight Honey."
"D-don't forget to leave the light on," Rachel said, clutching her plushie closer to her chest and pulling her blanket up until only her eyes were peaking out.
Her Daddy blew a kiss at Rachel, and turned off her light, leaving the door open just a crack. Rachel already didn't like this. When her night light was on she could see everything in her room clearly in the dim blue light, if felt safe. But this was different. The light coming in from the hall was dim, only allowing a sliver of light to cross her room, and casting the rest of it in darkness.
Shivering she scrunched into a ball. "Tony?" She whispered into the dark. Of course there was no answer, but in a moment he was walking towards her, settling down on the side of the bed next to her.
Sleep came slowly for Rachel.
It was the sound of breaking glass that woke her up. Her room was freezing, the kind of freezing that you can feel in every bone of your body and makes your teeth chatter and your toes hurt. Immediately the ten year old was sitting up, tears already starting to fall as she looked for Tony. Her door was closed and the only light in the room was from the moonlight filtering through her windows.
In the darkness shadows moved across her walls, making the tiny girl shiver not just from cold. "T-Tony," she asked shakily, clutching her stuffed animal tightly against her chest. Squinting her eyes she could just make out her glass piggy bank laying in jagged shards, the meager collection of nickels and dimes it had encased shining in the moonlight.
Suddenly Tony was at her side and Rachel could just make out his frantic expression. Hand trembling the little girl reached blindly for her bedside table, searching for the keychain light her Daddy had put there.
Tony's face scrunched up in a silent "No!" just as Rachel felt blinding pain shoot through her arm. The little girl let out a pained scream, clutching her arm that was hot and wet from her blood. Through the tears in her eyes she could see three cuts across her skin, deep and jagged. "Daddy! Dad!" She screamed in horror, scrambling off of her bed and towards the door only to feel to be pulled back. Whatever grabbed her was holding her by the ankle so tight she felt her stomach flip as the bones in it snapped.
Rachel was sobbing, clawing at thin air as whatever had her dangled her upside down and shook her violently. She could blurrily make out Tony silently yelling, only for him to be slammed back against the wall. He looked at her, an anguished sorry on his lips, before he flickered and then disappeared, leaving her truly alone for the first time in her life.
The scene was chaotic. Rachel was screaming loudly through her tears, and she could hear her fathers on the other side of the door, slamming against it with all their might but to no avail. The sharp claws, and she had decided they were definitely claws, tightened around her ankle and she nearly passed out from the pain. Barely holding onto consciousness the little girl vomited the contents of her stomach as the other holding her came into focus.
It wasn't like one of the other ones. It wasn't like anything Rachel had ever seen in her life or her nightmares. It was as if it was somehow nothing, a dark void in the shape of a monster, darker than the darkest of nights. An eerie chanting began, the language was foreign to Rachel, but she knew in her heart it was old, a dead evil old language.
Her fathers were bellowing outside the door, calling her name as they crashed against it again and again. As the creature's chanting picked up, the tiny girl began to struggle violently through the blinding pain she was in, knowing instinctually that the only way this would end was with her dead. The room was unbearable cold, the blood dripping from her arm freezing as soon as it hit the floor.
And then, suddenly, her door groaned and snapped from it's hinges, allowing her fathers to spill into the room. In the dim light from the hallway the creature was otherworldly, like a black hole opened up in her bedroom.
Her fathers obviously couldn't see it, but her Dad let out a roar and flung himself forwards, baseball bat raised above his head like a medieval mace, just as her Daddy turned on the overhead light. The creatures let out a roar of his own, and then Rachel was falling, barely missing her bedside table as she crumpled into a small, sobbing heap as the it disappeared with a rage filled shriek that blew the glass out of her windows and cracked her mirror.
Her Daddy was by her side instantly, hugging him against his chest and apologizing over and over again as her Dad pulled the sheet off of her bed and wrapped it around her mangled arm.
"We have to get out of this house now Leroy. Get us out of this house now!" Her Daddy yelled, the fear and anger in his voice as foreign to Rachel as the creature's chanting had been.
"Take Rachel and get to the car," Leroy said, picking her and her Daddy off of the floor in a show of strength and pushing them towards the door. "I'll be right behind you."
They had been driving aimlessly around the deserted city streets for two hours. Rachel's arm was crusted with blood, and her head was aching nestled in her Daddy's lap. No one spoke, no one knew what to say. Occasionally her Daddy would kiss her temple and repeat how sorry they were, but Rachel barely heard them through her exhaustion.
When her Dad finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and shaky, a startling difference from his usual deep voice that oozed confidence. "Rachel. Sweetheart…was that…was that one of the others?"
Rachel shook her head weakly, her eyes stinging from crying. "N-no…I don't know what that was. T-Tony left. It made him go away."
"Leroy, where are we going?" Her Daddy asked quietly, tightening his grip on Rachel.
"I don't know. We…I don't know what to do."
"Rachel, how does your arm feel?" Her Daddy asked, gently pulling away the bloody sheet and grimacing at the cuts.
"It's okay," Rachel said. It wasn't a lie. She knew that it and her ankle should have been throbbing, but the girl was so exhausted and still so terrified that she felt numb.
"Should we take her to a hospital?" Her Dad asked, slowing down and pulling onto an empty curb of a run down looking residential street.
"No please don't," Rachel said, perking up a bit to shake her head. Hospitals were bad. She couldn't go more than a few feet without seeing one of them.
"Rachel, Sweetie you're hurt. We have to," her Daddy said running his hand up and down her back.
"Hiram."
"Please don't Daddy."
"Hiram look," her Dad said, his eyes wide and fixed out their window.
Her Daddy frowned and turned in his seat, adjusting Rachel so she could look to.
The houses on the street were all old and decaying, with broken windows and graffiti covered walls. The only one that had a light on was the one right next to their car, and as Rachel looked at it, it became clear it wasn't actually a house, but a small store of some kind.
As the three of them looked at it, it seemingly became clearer, like the longer they stared the more detailed it became. What had been an empty expanse of brick now was covered in faded paper advertisements, a blinking red sign cast the word "Open" across their faces, and a banner materialized above the door as if by some kind of magic.
"Mother Yadeel's Occult, Voodoo, and Black Magic Emporium and Tarot Den," her Daddy read aloud, his voice shaking from obvious surprise.
"That wasn't there when we parked…I swear," her Dad said, his mouth hanging slightly open.
"That wasn't even there when we looked at it at first," her Daddy answered.
Suddenly the door opened and a squat little woman with bright blue hair stepped out, waving them towards her with one hand on her hip. Her dads looked at each other, silently communicating, and Rachel felt a pang in her heart for Tony suddenly. They must of made a decision, because in a moment her Dad was opening the door and pulling Rachel into his arms as her Daddy got out.
"Come on now, I don't have all night," the little woman called out, her voice sounding ancient but warm.
Wordlessly her fathers carried her into the store, her Dad bending over to clear the door frame. The room they walked into was warm, hot almost, and the smell of several lit candles and sticks of incense made Rachel feel light headed. The walls were covered in jars and boxes, each one labeled with strange markings, and the floor was covered in silk pillows and rugs.
"Go, lay her down on the pillows, and sit," the little woman ordered as she zipped around the room collecting random items.
"Who are you?" Her Dad asked, even as he was laying Rachel down and sitting next to her, his large hand resting on her stomach protectively.
"I'm Mother Yadeel of course," the woman replied as she sat down next to Rachel and brushed the hair off of her face. "You've had a rough night haven't you Sweet Child?"
"Yes M-Ma'am," Rachel said, her eyes fighting to stay open as her exhausted body relaxed and the pain in her ankle and arm finally registered in her mind.
"Oh no Sweetie, you can call me Mama Yadeel and I need you to stay awake for me. Something bad visited you tonight didn't it? Something not like the others you see?"
"Y-yes Mama Yadeel. I don't know what it was. It made Tony leave."
"Tell me about Tony," the woman said almost conversationally as she started mixing ingredients Rachel didn't recognize into a small stone mortar.
"He's my friend, he's never left me alone as long as I can remember except when I was in the bathroom. But he went away," Rachel said, her voice thick with exhausted tears.
"Oh Honey, you know he didn't want to leave you. That demon made him," Yadeel said as she began smashing a pestle into the mix of ingredients.
"Demon?" Her Daddy said, shock and disbelief evident in his tone.
"Yes a demon," Yadeel said as she began rubbing a poultice on Rachel's torn up arm. "Your daugher is a dark Conduit, she drawls the things that go bump in the night to her. Most of the things she sees, they can't hurt her, they're just spirits that for one reason or another haven't passed on. They usually need a Conduit help more often than not, to help them finish the business they didn't get around to when they was livin. But there are…other things in the dark, and from the look of the three of you, what came tonight was so lost soul, it was damned. Damned souls like that, they can be fought, even destroyed by dark Conduits when they get strong enough. My guess is this here one was trying to nip that in the bud if you will"
"What can we do to stop it? How can we protect her?" Her Dad asked, his voice rising in anger and fear.
"There is a way, but it's…it has to be Rachel's choice, and after it's done with, she ain't going to remember anything from this day and back," the old woman explained as she moved to Rachel's ankle and began gently rubbing on the poultice there.
"She won't remember anything?" Her Daddy asked, his eyes flitting back and forth between Rachel and Yadeel.
"It's the only way. Tony attached his spirit to you daughter the moment she was born. I don't know why, but it's not uncommon for Conduits to have one or two spirits protecting them. Like supernatural bodyguards," Yadeel explained.
"There's another one. An old lady that visits every now and then. She teaches me how to braid my dolly's hair," Rachel murmured as her the pain in her body began to ebb away.
"Jesus Christ," her Dad said rubbing his face.
"Oh your Lord doesn't have anything to do with this business here, trust me," Yadeel said putting aside the mortar and grabbing a scarf. The old woman rubbed away the poultice on her arm, revealing the bright white scars against her tan skin. "Now like I said, Tony has been there probably from the beginning. Every memory she has is going to have him in it. If we want to close the open gap and sever her abilities, everything has to go."
"Will she…will she know who we are?" Her Daddy asked, his eyes shimmering in the candle light.
"She won't know who you are, but her feelings for you won't change."
"And…and this will stop it all. She won't see them. They won't be able to hurt her?"
"That's the deal," Yadeel explained as she wiped off Rachel's ankle, a light mottled patch of skin the only evidence anything had ever happened.
"We have to do it Leroy," her Daddy said looking down at Rachel and then at her Dad.
"Now hold on Hiram, we need to talk about this."
"I doubt we'll be able to find a second opinion Leroy."
"Does it have to be tonight, right now?" her Dad asked turning to Mother Yadeel with a desperate look on his face.
"It doesn't, but if you walk out that door you're putting Sweet Child O' Mine in a lot of danger. Demons don't randomly attack children, even Conduits. It came looking for her, probably has been waiting for just the right moment, and Demons in my experience don't let one little setback stop em when they have a goal in mind," Yadeel explained, soothingly running her hand up and down Rachel's leg.
Her Daddy seemed to collapse against her Dad, and the both looked down at her sorrowfully. "
"Rachel?"
"They won't be able to hurt me anymore?" Rachel asked, looking up at Yadeel.
"As long as the link is severed they won't be able to touch a hair on your perfect little head Baby," the woman said, her tone soft.
"As long as?" Her Daddy asked.
"What we're going to do is make a room in Rachel's mind. We're going to push all of her memories into that room and close it up. The only way to get them back would be if Rachel herself opened that door," Yadeel explained.
"Why would she open it?" Her Dad asked.
Yadeel smiled, revealing a row of crooked yellow teeth. "Mysterious ways Mr. Berry. The world of the dark works in mysterious ways."
"O…Okay," Rachel said shakily, setting up and leaning against her Dad's sturdy chest.
"Okay," Yadeel said smiling widely before getting up and moving across the room. When she came back she had a small silver necklace in her hand with a delicate looking chain and a small gold star.
"I like stars," Rachel said, tiredly reaching her fingers out to brush against the warm metal.
"I guessed you did," Yadeel said, winking at her. "Now Rachel, I want you to watch this star. I'm going to move it back and forth and while you're watching it, I want you to concentrate on all the feelings you get when you see the others. And I want you to put them away in your bedroom in your mind and close the door."
"Yes Mama Yadeel," Rachel said sinking back into her father's arms and watching the gold star as she slipped into a daze. She saw her room and she pushed, she pushed all of her fear and wonder into it. The feeling of terror she had felt tonight, and even the happiness Tony always gave her; everything was pushed into that room in her mind, her bedroom at home littered with broken glass and her blood.
And then, before she knew it, she succumbed to a dreamless, deep sleep.
"I remember. Oh god I remember it all Santana. I remember him."
"Then you can fight him Rachel."
So what do you guys think? Reviews would be greatly appreciated so I can decide how to continue with it.