Note: This is set Post 'Insidious: The Last Key' and may contain very minor spoilers.
1. The Orange Grove
When Elise Rainier ran away from her "house" in Five Keys, New Mexico four years ago, she calls it a house as it was never a home, she never in a million years would have pictured herself picking oranges in St Lucie, Florida.
Compared to her old life, this was a slice of citrus pie. Spending her days under the warm, beating sun loading crates with hundreds upon hundreds of fat, juicy orbs of fruit. Her hands, her skin and even her hair seemed to smell permanently of oranges. She could keep to herself and enjoy her own company, she had a clean, comfortable place to stay and most importantly a roof over her head. This had always been the sought-after luxury since she had run away. She had spent years in an unsettled limbo, not knowing where she would sleep, or when her next meal would be. But now she was still. Now she was settled.
And although her father had never come looking for her, as far as she was aware, the spirits always came.
They visited her in her dreams at night. Occasionally she would see them on the street or in a particular shop, but she had never seen them at the Orange Grove. A place of such serene beauty could never house a tormented soul. How wrong she was.
She heard laughter behind her, two other pickers were working on the trees in the next row. They were laughing and joking about something, it might have been her. Everyone thought she was weird- the blonde chick who wore long sleeved shirts in the Florida heat, she knew they all called her 'Sister-Mary'. The kinder ones said it behind her back, but the others used it whenever they addressed her. It was a biblical joke because she didn't smoke, she didn't drink, she didn't party like the rest of them and she didn't go around with boys. She didn't mind, it meant everyone left her alone.
She sighed, sipped at the 2-dime bottle of cloudy lemonade she was keeping in the shade of the tree and then ascended the short ladder to carry on picking. The tree she was working on was one at the top of the great slope. She could see the next 500 trees all sloping before her, filled with bright orange bulbs ready for picking. She smiled to herself and then busied her hands with the oranges.
She worked hard, diverting her mind to the task at hand, sweat beaded around her hairline and dribbled down her neck and down her temples. It tickled her scalp and behind her ears. The long-sleeved shirt began to stick to her back and arms.
It was a hot day, the hottest yet, and she could feel the sun baking her pale, novice skin. She wanted desperately to peel off the shirt that seemed to weigh her down and press against her claustrophobically. She could work just as well, maybe even better wearing just the pale vest she wore beneath, but she couldn't risk anyone seeing the scars that left raised rail road tracks across her shoulders and back.
Even years on her father's punishments swam vividly in the front of her mind. Him placing her hands, palm flat, against her paisley papered bedroom wall. Seeing his shadow, cast by the lamp in the corner of the room, looming over her own shrunken, frightened form. The looming black mass held his cane above his head, the light and the shadow seemed to transform the cane into an elongated and deadly sword which her father would use to strike her and her ghost stories down!
The memory made her shiver, even in the burning heat.
'Sister-Mary!' the shout made her jump and she felt the ladder give a violent wobble. She braced herself against one of the lower arms of the tree, the side of her hand scraped painfully against a branch which snapped as she regained her balance.
She turned angrily towards the two pickers in the row behind to her, one of them laughed at her and the other stared at her, hands in his pockets, wearing a cocky grin.
'We're calling it for lunch. You coming?' the cocky one asked, tongue pressing against his top teeth.
'I'll be in after I'm done here' she said matter of factly and turned back to the bright oranges.
'Why don't you take that shirt off?' he said and his fried guffawed like an animal.
Elise turned around slowly, and stared at him, he sneered horribly, his lips pulled over his teeth in smug ugliness.
'It's just so hot. You must be soo hot' he jeered.
She cast her eyes down embarrassed and then went back to work, checking each orange with more attention than was needed, she heard them laugh as they walked away back towards the old house at the side of the fields.
In her embarrassment and her distraction, she did not notice the cut on the side of her hand caused by the snapped tree branch. She did not feel or see it dribbling down her wrist and soaking into the sleeve of her shirt. It wasn't a deep cut but because she kept moving and working it bled quite steadily.
A trickle of sweat tickled her eyebrow, she brushed it away with the cut hand and left a streak of scarlet, she flicked her hand out to get rid of the sweat and as she did a few thick droplets of blood were cast into the dirt beneath the tree.
The dark droplets lay there for a few seconds, as if startled to be out of their fleshy vessel and in the open, but then the earth seemed to swallow them, absorb them into the dry, loose soil beneath the shade of the Orange tree.
In the same second that the blood disappeared into the earth Elise saw a flash of white out of the corner of her eye, as if someone had run between the rows of trees. She turned her head quickly to see who it was, but she couldn't see anyone. She placed her hand on the bark of the tree and felt the sting of the cut. She looked down at her hand and was shocked to see so much blood from such a small graze. She wiped it on her shirt and then descended the ladder.
A familiar sensation began to cover her like an invisible veil. She knew the feeling well and knew what it meant. Someone was here with her, a ghost, a presence of some sort. The veil always covered her when they were near. At times she thought it was only through this veil that she could see and talk to them, and maybe no one else in the world had this veil so that's why nobody else could ever see them!
She stood very still and quiet for a few minutes, just listening. There was nothing but silence, strange silence. She could not even detect the sound of buzzing insects or birds. The sweat on her skin suddenly felt very chilly and made her feel resolutely cold.
She sensed rather than heard someone behind her, she turned slowly and saw the top of a cream coloured satin shoe poking out from behind the base of the tree she was working on. It was a small shoe, it must have been a child's. As if it knew it had been spotted it was suddenly snatched back behind the tree.
Elise took a very deep, settling breath, and paced slowly towards the tree to see who was hidden behind it.
There was no one.
No one stood behind the tree, no one was hiding. But then Elise saw that the figure, a young girl with thick blond hair spilling down her back, was standing further up the row. She was standing completely still with her back to her, feet together and back straight in an obedient stance.
Elise walked forwards slowly, not taking her eyes off the young girl, admiring the beautiful golden hair that cascaded down the back of her cream satin dress. Perfectly bright and flawless in the Florida sunshine.
She had walked close enough to reach out and touch her, and she did indeed reach out a hand to place on the young girl's shoulder, but before her finger tips could reach her she seemed to flicker out of existence and appear again further up the row.
Elise realised then that this girl wanted to show her something, and being the naïve philanthropist that she was, she did so without caution.