Vaggie and Angel both looked into the closet where Husk had been bitten, their devices picked up a lot of spectral energy coming from it but they could not see anything out of the ordinary. Nor did anything strange occur like with Husk. They checked the other closets in the house but everything seemed fairly normal. Still everyone else in the house felt that it would be better if no one slept in the bedrooms for awhile.
When it became late mattresses were pulled down into the living room and couches were made into suitable beds. As expected Aaron and Carrie were put to bed first but they were too frightened to sleep alone. Charlie shared a mattress with them, around nine o'clock they had both drifted off to sleep in their mother's arms. Vaggie who was typing on her laptop couldn't help but take a moment to smile at the precious sight.
"They're awfully cute when they're asleep." She remarked quietly as to not wake them.
"You should have seen them when their babies." Charlie replied in an equally quiet tone. "Like little angels who didn't have a care in the world. Alastor and I try so hard to keep them that way even though we know we can't. My own parents were the same with me."
"Let me guess they kept a lot secrets, told a few lies, and avoided answering certain questions for as long as they could?"
"How did you know?"
"My grandmother was the same way. She always tried to shield me from as much pain and sorrow as she could. She would only disclose a painful truth to me if she had to."
"I think to an extent that's how all parents are when they love their children. They know they can't protect them from everything but they try to anyway."
Charlie smiled down at her son and daughter who were nuzzled up against her securely.
"You know when I first got pregnant I was so scared."
"Well that's perfectly understandable. You were eighteen." Vaggie said.
Charlie looked at Vaggie in a manner that seemed to ask how she knew that.
"You're twenty-six, Aaron is eight, I did the math." Vaggie said.
"Oh right. My age did play a part in it but I was more afraid of how it would effect Alastor. Back then his dream was to have his own radio show and he had gotten an internship at one of the most popular stations in our home town. I didn't want him to have to give up a golden opportunity because of my carelessness."
"Your carelessness? With all due respect you're not the virgin Mary and unless science has altered the nature of human reproduction completely, it takes two to conceive offspring."
"Well yes but...I just couldn't help but feel responsible. You see the town we grew up in didn't believe in birth control so none of the pharmacies sold the pills. Meaning I had to keep track of my ovulation to ensure nothing happened when Alastor and I became intimate."
"What about condoms?"
"We were afraid to buy them because the town was very gossipy and judgmental when it came to sex before marriage. They condemned Al as a bastard because they found out he was conceived only two months before his parents married. So it was up to me to make sure I didn't get pregnant but I failed to do that so I felt that it was my fault and my responsibility."
"What did he think?"
"At first I tried to hide it from him. I didn't want to keep him from living his dream so I broke off our engagement and told him it was because I just didn't love him anymore. But he didn't believe me. He confronted me one night and insisted that he would only leave me alone if I told him the real reason I didn't want to marry him anymore. So I finally told him. I couldn't help myself, I broke down."
"What did he say?"
"He held me. He told me that he loved me and that he wanted the baby. I told him that he would most likely have to give up the internship. That he would probably never become a radio host. But he just told me that he could live without ever becoming a radio host but he couldn't live without me. In that moment I fell more in love with him than I ever thought possible."
"And I take it that you two are still madly in love?"
"Yes."
"Funny. I always believed love like that only happened in the movies."
"You don't believe in love?"
"It's complicated. I believe in it but I don't believe it really lasts."
"What about you and Angel?"
"I don't know if I love him. I mean I care for him very much. In fact he's the only man I've ever cared for but I don't know if it's love and neither does he. Before we met we had a lot of failed relationships so we're..."
"Afraid to get close?"
"You could call it that. Anyway love was never my passion. My studies were."
"If I may ask, what made you so interested in the paranormal?"
"Well it was the holiday of Dia de los Muertos that first peeked my interest in it but it wasn't until my grandmother died that I officially became obsessed with it as other people will say. My grandmother practically raised me and when I lost her I became desperate to see her again by any means. When religious methods failed I turned to science and that's when I added parapsychology to my studies. I know it's juvenile but she was all I had. Without her I felt completely alone."
"What about your parents?"
"I didn't exactly have parents." She sighed. "My mother had a lot of issues. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was in her twenties and she refused to get help despite my grandmother's constant begging to do so. It led her to make a lot of terrible decisions. She dropped out of college, got involved with a gang where one of the members fathered me but to this day no one knows which one. When she got too crazy even for the gang to handle they ditched her at a homeless shelter. My grandmother didn't find out about me til two years later when the police had to arrest my mom because..."
A pained expression crossed Vaggie's face and she briefly hesitated before she continued.
"Because she tried to drown me."
"My God." Charlie said with sympathetic horror.
"According to the reports the voices in my mother's head told her that I wasn't her daughter. That I was really some creature of the afterlife that had come to drag her to Hell. Luckily some of the concerned tenants of the shelter picked up on her unstable quirks and called the cops before it was too late. The articles said that she was just putting me in the tub when they came bursting through the doors. The next very day my grandma took me into her custody and my mom was committed."
"I'm so sorry."
"My grandma put off telling me about it for years. I don't know if she was right to do that but I do know that she only did it because she loved me. When she finally came clean she told me that she was terrified that the truth would break my heart and make me feel like my own mother hated me."
"Did you ever try to contact her? Your mother?"
"No. I was mad at her. I know she couldn't help that she was schizophrenic but why couldn't she just listen to my grandma and get treatment? If she had just done that then she could have had normal life and she could have been there for me."
"What did your grandma think?"
"She told me that I had every right to be upset with my mother but she asked me to not judge her so harshly because she was a very sick woman. On her deathbed she made me promise that someday I would forgive my mother and I will I just...I just don't know when."
"I understand. It's very hard to forgive those who have hurt you, especially when it's the people you love who hurt you."
"Oh? Did your parents ever do anything terrible to you?"
"No. Not that I can remember but...Um...Professor RamÃrez-"
"No please, call me Vaggie."
"Vaggie can I disclose to you something personal that might sound...Well crazy."
"Hey I study ghosts and the supernatural. Nothing is crazy to me." She joked.
"Good point." Charlie chuckled quietly. "Really it's the strangest thing but all my life I've always felt that someone I loved very much did something awful to me. Something unforgiveable. Yet I have no idea who that person is or what they did to me."
"That's actually not so odd. People have plenty of traumatic memories that they've repressed. Usually when the events that caused these memories took place at an earlier time. Perhaps this happened when you were very young. Do you believe that your father or your mother could have done something to you? Something traumatic?"
"No. My parents were a little on the peculiar side and they would do some questionable things but they would never hurt me. Never. They loved me above everything else in the world. Loved me form the moment my mother became pregnant. They were so happy because they thought she could never have children. In my opinion they're only flaw in raising me was that they were constantly terrified that they would lose me."
"How do you mean?"
"One time when I was a little girl I went outside alone when my father was at work and my mother was asleep. When she woke up to find me gone she had a panic attack. As soon as I came back inside she just held me and couldn't stop talking about something taking me away. I always figured that she probably had a bad dream about me which explained her behavior that day."
"Did your mother ever mention anyone taking you away again?"
"No but my father mentioned it before he died. He said something about someone coming for me but I assumed that his mind was going when he said that."
"What were his exact words?"
"He said 'Once I am dead he'll be coming for you. You must not go with him unless it's what you truly want.' I don't know what he means by that."
"Hmm...Mrs. Devalcourt-"
"Charlie please."
"Charlie could you tell me about your father? What was he like? His occupation? The company he kept?"
"He was very strict and religious. He was a reverend and an exorcist. He didn't have many friends."
"He was an exorcist?"
"Yes. A protestant one."
"Charlie how long ago did your father die?"
"A week and a half ago."
"Would you say that's when the unusual occurrences started?"
"Yes."
"Did your father keep any records of his work in exorcism? Documents? Files? A diary perhaps?"
"Any article my parents kept was in a journal. It's in a trunk along with other things that belonged to them."
"May I see that trunk?"
"Sure but why?"
"Your father being an exorcist might explain the purpose of this poltergeist. Exorcists are men who battle evil spirits and demons. Banishing them back to hell when they someone how managed to reach earth again. Maybe something your exorcised wants revenge and feels that it can finally take it now that he's passed on. To be certain will have to look for clues relating to his past."
"Do we have to do it tonight?"
"No. Tonight we'll rest and pick up everything tomorrow."
"Alright."
Charlie lightly tightened her hold on her children out of protective instinct, worried for what tomorrow could possibly bring.