Disclaimers: In Part One

Seeing Things
Part 2

by Kamouraskan

By ten the next morning, I was on a train heading back to my childhood home. Alone. I had lots of time to stare at my reflection in the window and think about that particular childhood. Thinking of all the times I'd gazed at that reflection and wondered if it was really there. Thinking of all the uncertainties I'd had until I'd eventually remembered who I was.

What I was.

Also, thinking with no small amount of regret, that I'd had the choice of seeing my Mother or killing myself. For some stupid reason I'd decided to see my mother. As for Dad, he was long dead. Despite what many thought, I hadn't killed him, not exactly. I'd wanted him to live, but he hadn't been as strong as Mother. Or as strong as me.

I know I resented paying for the cab from the train station. Not that I figured anyone would be waiting for me, even if I had called ahead. I mean, I knew what was waiting wasn't going to be pleasant, and yet it kept costing me more money.

Familiar landmarks of the town slipped by in a blur as the sun set: places I'd torched, homes where my victims had once and possibly now lived. My mood and the skies were pretty dark by the time I rang the bell of my mother's house. A perfectly symmetrical Georgian-style mansion I'd spent so much time trying to unbalance.

A maid I didn't know answered the door and then interrogated me on the doorstep. I kept my temper, and eventually she decided to let me in. She haughtily told me to wait in the front sitting room. That I didn't know the staff wasn't surprising. Few of them had lasted long when I'd lived there. And there were a lot of staff; it was that big a place. I'd chosen my birth parents well.

After a few minutes of me checking out the magazine stacks, Mom emerged, looking every inch the pillar of society that she was. Country casual, still slim and tall like me except with silver hair. It was pretty clear from her tight expression that there weren't any fatted calves on tonight's menu. Spending your childhood bringing pain and misery into everyone's life can have that effect on a welcome.

"What do you want?" were the first words to me.

I tried to be casual. "No asking if I'm taking my medications?"

She shrugged coldly. "I learned, to my regret, that the Lithium dampened your hallucinations. It didn't change who you were."

I figured I only had a minute, so I got to the point. "Mother." I think she might have shuddered at the name, but I had to continue. "You remember Grouch? We met up last night. He's headed this way. He's planning something, and he's…"

"He what? Needs the house for another 'party'?"

I could only nod. From outside there was the sound of a car pulling up and then the doorbell rang. I knew what that meant, and I didn't care, for once. Mother stared at me and shook her head. "I told you what I would do if you ever came here again."

I probably could have made a run for it, but it all seemed pretty pointless. We waited in silence as the door was answered, and then two cops filed into the room. I just put my hands out. I think Mother was surprised at that, because she didn't say a word right away. And that's all it would have taken. I'd chosen well; their money had kept me from having any sort of criminal record. But Dear Old Mom could come up with enough charges against me to put me in the worst cell in the county. And after that small hesitation, it was clear she'd decided to do exactly that.

But I'd forgotten all about my little blonde Jesus Freak. To my complete surprise, she bounced into the room from where I had no idea, looking like a secretary at an upscale firm. It took me a moment to recognize her without the messianic gleam, much less the change in clothing. I'd later find out she'd asked around to find out who I was and the internet had taken care of the rest. She handed my mother and one of the cops a professional looking business card, saying, "I'm Paula's counsellor. I'm sorry if I'm late. What seems to be the problem?"

"The problem?" my mother managed.

The blonde was all professional composure. "Yes. My client is here under my advice as part of her twelve-step program. Confronting those she has wronged and attempting restitution. I'm sure you must be aware of the process?"

The cops looked to Mom, who was staring at the card in her hands for what seemed like hours before she looked up at me. There was something in her eyes that I thought I'd killed years before, and I suppose it was hope. She swallowed, turned to the cops and said, "I apologise, Officers. I've made a terrible mistake. I'm sorry you had to come all this way. My daughter…" and there was a catch in her throat as she said those unfamiliar words, "…is welcome here. Thank you for coming." There was some unease and suspicion as they left the room and their attempt to take Mom aside was rebuffed. While this was going on, the blonde was clasping her hands with a bland smile. I pulled her over to a window seat and glared at her. "You're not really…?"

She blinked. "A therapist? Of course not. I have piles of those left over from one of my shrinks."

Finally she'd said something that I could believe.

Somehow she continued her con throughout a very strange and constrained late tea, begging off any further discussion on the basis of exhaustion, then accepting an invitation to stay the night, when to my complete amazement, it was offered. I kept my mouth shut waiting for some more time alone with the chameleon to figure out how to play this.

Mom couldn't have been entirely sold on my latest conversion, because she put both of us up in the only room in the house that had nothing worthwhile stealing. She sent us off with a couple of nightgowns, toothbrushes and to my real shock, leaned up to give an uncertain kiss on my forehead. We separately stripped, washed and changed in the john, and climbed into the twin singles of the smallest guest room.

I would have expected the blonde, (whose name I had finally found out was Gloria, appropriately enough,) to want to rack out after what she said was a long hitchhike, but no; she wanted to talk.

At first I admit I was thinking, great. Laying about in PJ's, whispering across the beds. Like norms. Maybe this is what it would have been like to have a sister. Maybe things would have turned out differently if I'd had…etc, etc. But a cold voice inside me reminded me nothing could ever be changed. What I was, was what I was. A sister would have been someone else to torment, nothing more.

Gloria had her own kind of torment in mind. Recklessly, she pushed and pressed me for more info with the excuse that as my 'counsellor' my Mother would expect her to know about my 'problem' in the morning. So, having blurted it out once before to Father Rod, it was easier this time. I basically gave her Scrype 101. She took it pretty well, but from someone that claimed to see angels, I think I expected more. She asked all the usual questions, like what did they look like, why did I think I didn't see them when I took the meds, and then she got to a real sore point.

"What about the big guy from the graveyard? How does he fit in?"

I lay back and thought about it. I figured I'd get away with, "Grouch? He was my first… Scrype."

But she was too fast for me. "He was your first in other ways, too, wasn't he?"

I didn't say anything.

"How old were you?"

"Pretty young. Young enough so's I don't really remember."

She cleared her throat nervously; I don't know why. "That's kind of weird, isn't it? That you don't remember, don't you think?"

Now she was pissing me off again. "You're sounding like a shrink."

"Sorry." And she did sound like she was. But not enough to shut her up, unfortunately. "It's just that, you'd think…"

I cut her off. "Leave it." I was getting itchy, my head felt like there was something inside it, trying to clumsily dress itself, and I remembered feeling that way just before Father Rod had been killed.

"Father Rod?" she asked.

I must have spoken that out loud. Crap. But maybe it would warn her off. "Father Rod was asking me questions like this. About when I was little, and about Grouch. I was getting this headache. And, this swarm of the things came through the window, hundreds of them, more than I could remember seeing at once. It was like they sucked up all the air and the place was dripping with their ooze. Stupid buggers actually went for me, but it was like hitting a bathroom door. You know, 'sorry, already occupied'."

I tried a grin but she was staring, head resting on one hand, completely caught up. I continued. "I must have passed out, and when I came to, he was there, all torn up. Never seen them kill anyone before, but he must have been special. You know, holy. Good. And they… devoured him."

Again there was that look. Weirdly, it wasn't scared, and it was supposed to be. Which made me nervous. "What?" I demanded.

"So whatcha do then?"

"Took off. Not crazy enough to think the cops would buy a story like that. I only went back last night to… tidy up."

There was a rustle of cotton as she shifted herself enough to sit up on the bed. I didn't like the idea that she was getting even more focused, but I counted and took a few deep breaths, and things seem to calm down inside.

"Ummm… You said you didn't think Scrypes could always see each other, and in your memory Grouch has never admitted he could see them, so…?"

"You want to know how come I can see them?"

"Uh huh."

That was the big secret, the one I had never told anyone else. The one that had taken me years to admit, in this very house.

"Because I am one of them. I'm a Scrype."

It slipped out of my lips to her ears for no reason I can figure. I began to think I must really be crazy. I couldn't stop telling her these things. 'What the hell was she doing to me?' I was screaming in my head. But outside, I kept blathering on.

"See, some very strong Scrypes, like Grouch, they go from host to host, they can live for centuries if they're careful. Or smart. But the really smart ones… like me, know a better way. I searched and searched. Checked out… pregnant women. And found one. A girl, still in the womb. A rich little girl. With loving parents, who would have all the advantages."

"And?" she whispered.

"And?" I tried to sound nonchalant, but it caught somewhere in my throat. "And I smothered her. Smothered her soul inside her mother's womb. And I took her place."

She was shaking her head, and I think she there were tears in her eyes. "You made that up. You don't know that. You can't know that."

I stared her down. "Yes, I do."

She swallowed again before speaking. "You aren't stupid. You know what all this sounds like…"

Now I was angry. "I am not a fucking schizophrenic!!!" I expected her to cower at the sound of my voice, but, like the freak she obvious was, she widened those clean green eyes till she looked like a kitten on velvet. "You're in no position to talk." I lashed out. "Angels talking to me on my shoulder? Unless you figure you're sane and everybody else is crazy??"

"No." She simply sighed and lay quietly back again. "I figure everyone else AND me are crazy." Before I could finish rolling my eyes, she had bounced back up again. "So maybe you're right. That would explain why the angel doesn't sit on your shoulder like most. She seems scared to touch you."

"Ha!"

"But," and that saintly smile beamed across the room, "that doesn't mean she's not there, and there for you."

There wasn't much I could say to that. So I threw a pillow at her. It was too much bother to get my knife out. That seemed to satisfy her somehow, and despite whatever misgivings she had developed, she rolled over to sleep.

As you might guess, I didn't fall asleep so easily. But I must have eventually, because I remember this dream. There was a sound. A sound like crying. And I saw it, on my shoulder, this sort of glow, and the feel of tears sliding down my arm. But the tears began to burn, really burn, and a rip appeared in my arm and then across my chest, and this clawed bloody bat wing thing reached out and crushed the tiny golden glow.

I woke up gasping and saw she was having a nightmare as well. I fell out of the bed reaching for her and that must have woke her up. She opened blurry eyes to look at me with a frightened stare. And I realized that was the first time I'd seen her scared of me, even if it was only for a moment.

In a second, I was holding her hand for some nutsy reason and asking her what was wrong. Seems she'd had a dream about angels too. But hers was a little different. "It was nothing," she whispered, in a sorry attempt at being offhand. "I just saw the angel, the one on your shoulder. It touched you, and it cried. It cried and shriveled and… it died."

We were quiet for a while then, until I heard her breathing slow and realized somehow, she'd gone back to sleep.

I wasn't going back to sleep. Not that night. I needed the time to think. Our dreams seemed to fit together. Things generally began to fit together. Once I knew what I was going to do, I stared long and hard over at her sleeping form. Wondering if I had the right to use her.

That was an entirely new experience.

I thought again about how a sister wouldn't have changed anything. I was what I was. But, I wondered, did that mean I couldn't make things better for at least one person? I could save my Mother, couldn't I? She deserved at least that much and if I were wrong, hey, Gloria would probably like to be a martyr. I lay staring at the ceiling for a few more hours until it was light again.

I had everything ready by that evening. The staff had all gone, and the curtains were closed so we couldn't see the crowd outside. Throughout the end of the afternoon, 'visitors' had begun arriving. The thrum of motorcycles and fast cars revving in the drive leading to the house seemed to build until I could no longer hear the rustling in the trees as even more Scrypes flew in to wait their turn.

At precisely seven, the doorbell finally rang. When I opened the door, he was again backlit, but this time it came from the beams of all the headlights of the vehicles in the yard. Charismatic is a word that devalued the presence Grouch carried with him, but he still couldn't resist having props. And even though I recognized the bad theatre of his entrance, he still could make me doubt myself.

Trying not to let it show, I gestured at him to come in. He didn't move. "It's just you and me. Or are you afraid to come in alone?" I taunted him. He shrugged, and made a motion, and all the bike and car lights went out. The sky was dark, with no stars to be seen. I could also hear the thrash of thousands of wings in the trees and my mouth went dry. I was angry at the fear but I found it was already hard to breathe, just knowing how many were waiting, how many would soon be coming into the house. Groucho dropped his expensive Italian coat onto the floor, and sauntered in alone.

"Where are the servants? Where's your lovely Mother?" he asked.

"Don't sweat it. I have something you might be more interested in."

I led him into the main living room where Gloria was tied to the chair, still in the borrowed dressing gown. Her eyes were bulging over the gag.

Grouch grinned and looked at me with admiration and lust. "I know you usually like them even younger," I suggested. "But she makes up for it in other ways, I think."

TBC