Chapter Four, Shadowland

Kaitlyn Winslett had been waiting for her father to come home for nearly two hours before her resolve wavered and she climbed the big steps onto the verandah of the inn, slipping into the large wicker couch that was positioned beneath the corrugated reddish roof. A red cushion was there also and Kaitlyn used it as a pillow, desiring to lie down for awhile and watch for her daddy to return. She was confident that nothing bad had happened to him during his return journey to Little Twister, she knew these things without doubt, but also wished that she could reassure her mother with those same instincts as well, as Catherine was indoors in their rented room, lying on the family bed and crying. She was worried about her husband, worried if he was safe or not.

Clive was, in fact, riding the old aging mare he had taken with him from Westwood Station over to the outer fields of Little Twister, looking at the sparse but promising wheat crops. It was harvest season and workers were reaping them now, cutting down the plants with scythe and blade. Kaitlyn had known of Clive's location ever since he had stepped off the train and into familiar soil, so she wasn't very worried. Kaitlyn didn't want her mommy to be worried too, she wished she could tell mommy her big secret, the one that had given both her parents a slight awe and even a little fear about their sweet child.

Kaitlyn saw things that didn't exist, and knew things that she wasn't supposed to know. It had started not long after the incident of her broken hand, around about the time Jet had decided to become her friend, and Kaitlyn noticed things that she hadn't noticed before. Feelings and thoughts, she discovered, had a distinct colour and texture to them in her mind, and delving a little bit when a person she knew about was around, and concentrating very hard, those colours and textures sometimes turned into words. Kaitlyn still couldn't read very well just yet, she was a little behind in her schooling due to her father's exile from Humphrey's Peak, but it was a language that her heart could read and understand very well, she merely had to focus her mind.

It had been a feeling that was new and very scary to her, now that she reflected upon it, but also fascinating, it dulled out the pain of her constantly throbbing hand. Even in the present day it discomforted her somewhat and reminded the girl that she only had limited use of that hand now and only a little bit of feeling in it. She could wiggle two fingers and to a lesser extent a thumb, but her pinky and the one that sat next to it, Kaitlyn couldn't even remember the last time she had felt them move. Physiotherapy would have helped the girl immensely, and Catherine had insisted that Kaitlyn get as much of it as she possibly could, but Clive simply didn't have the money available to give Kaitlyn what she needed. Kaitlyn had known that her daddy had felt bad about it, nearly crying bad, for a long time he had reeked even worse of the Bad Thing and it had existed on his breath and stumbly words. There were some things her father just couldn't take back.

The little girl knew what the Bad Thing was. Lots of people in her old hometown had done it as well, including the daddy of her old friend Mock, who was now a sailor over in the port town of Jolly Roger. Mock had told her that his daddy had done the Bad Thing so much that he got mad and beat his mommy until she had to go to the doctor's clinic, from then on Mock only saw his daddy once a month and sometimes not even that. Both his parents had separated, they had gotten a divorce.

That word was one of the scariest words Kaitlyn had ever known. Not for what it was, but for how often it had popped up in both of her parents minds, sometimes jumping from mommy to daddy, and sometimes existing in the minds of both of them at the same time, like the day Kaitlyn had broken her hand, or when Clive had been kicked out of his hometown. The intensities varied from light, flitting thoughts that Kaitlyn could barely hold onto, to giant deadly monsters hiding in a forest of thought, equipped with poisoned spears. Would her mommy and daddy get a divorce too, and make those evil mind monsters real for her? Kaitlyn hoped to god that they wouldn't.

One night, scarcely a week after Clive had made his first big mistake, Kaitlyn was picking at her food and clumsily manipulating her plastic fork within her left hand, dropping peas and other shreds of vegetables into her little lap. It was best that they remained there, as the terrible dark thoughts flitting from either sides of the dining table were making Kaitlyn physically ill inside, the girl constantly having to force the bile back down into her throat. Her hand had been shaking like crazy, not caring where the food went. She had been paying more attention to what her mommy and daddy was thinking instead.

Divorce was in both their minds, pushed up to the front like two great flashing neon signs. Mommy's was a sickly green that was almost blue and shivery wet, a worry that was only a shade away from fear. She had been scared. Of what? Of daddy? It seemed so, but Kaitlyn also knew that this fear was for her, though she knew not why. Mommy had been playing with it like a child turns a shiny gella coin over in their hands, viewing it from each side, wondering if this was the best course of action for her family to take. Her mind was on Kaitlyn's slowly healing, though defective hand, on Clive and his steadily worsening Bad Thing, and upon herself, wondering where she went wrong.

Daddy's thoughts had been much different, much scarier and far more wrong. They were red and felt like invisible fire, burning but not warm, streaked with lightening-jagged lines of the purest black. Divorce was there as well, like a dragon waiting to breathe fire at the slightest change, but these thoughts were different, directed towards himself, hatred, loathing, and regret. They were like sharp slaps in Kaitlyn's face as she watched her father stare into his glass of warming gin and tonic, as if he was looking into an ocean with no bottom. She remembered dropping her fork when her probing mind had pushed past daddy's mental defenses with a little grunt and stepped into a new territory, feeling like a hill at night under a dead tree, with a noosed rope hanging from one branch. A word in daddy's heart hit Kaitlyn like a bullet, killing all her nerves instantly.

SUICIDE.

The next thing Kaitlyn knew, she was on the floor with the contents of her dinner all around her, an end of the dining table cloth clenched tightly into her workable fist. Her mother was beside her and going into moderate hysterics, while her father had banished the dark thoughts momentarily and was trying his best to resuscitate the little girl back into consciousness. Kaitlyn had sat up, calm and confused. Why on earth were they worried about her? Shouldn't they be worried about themselves and the monster words sleeping inside their heads? Away to the doctor Kaitlyn had gone, and she had been diagnosed as being prone to bouts of seizures. She didn't know what that meant, along with the scary suicide word, but she particularly didn't want to find out. If she could never see that 'S' word again, she would be a thankful girl indeed.

But she never forgot about that noose.

She wished she could just tell her parents about her special power without either of them mistaking it for mere childlike imagination, she also wished they would believe in Jet as well, who, like the impressions of feelings and weird thoughts that she picked up from others, came along with her from the time after daddy had made her hurt. Jet was the only friend who had followed Kaitlyn from Humphrey's Peak over to Little Twister, her "Imaginary friend", as Clive liked to call him with a bemused smile and a glint of concern behind his eyes, unsure if he thought it a charming childhood instrument or an undiagnosed side-effect of Kaitlyn's seizures.

Jet sometimes came when Kaitlyn was practicing using her power. It didn't happen always, sometimes she'd just get dizzy and woozy for a little while, and then maybe a short blackout afterwards, but if her mind was like a faucet, and if she turned it onto full-blast, Jet would appear from around a corner or out of the thin air itself, always far away, but close enough for Kaitlyn to hear his voice. He and Kaitlyn were friends, she knew this without having to exchange any words with him at all, it was like she could pick up his feelings as easily as anybody else, and he could simply do the same. Jet and Kaitlyn were friends.

There were times when Jet did weird things for her without her asking, like once while her family was on their constant nomadic move, they were in the mining town of Little Rock, hoping that daddy could get a temporary job here. Jet had come to keep Kaitlyn company when all her friends had gone home. He had stood a street away, spending his entire time silent and pointing downwards at the sandy ground. Kaitlyn had watched him do this with perplexity and then had succumbed to a child's attention span and went to play elsewhere, the curiosity quickly disappearing from her mind. Two weeks later a new water vein had been discovered right where Jet had been standing, because Kaitlyn had pointed out to her father where Jet had silently told her to dig. Clive, thinking it harmless fun, had reported the site to the water requisition board and not long after that a well was established.

Clive had taken her aside and had asked her his question. "Kaitlyn," He had asked, "How did you know about the water down there? Was there a damp patch that you noticed?" Clive knew that this was impossible, as the land had been dry there for weeks, but couldn't think of anything else to attribute Kaitlyn's knowledge to.

Kaitlyn had shaken her head and had answered honestly. "No, Daddy. That's not what happened. Jet showed me the way." Her father had blinked once but had kept his eyes neutral. Kaitlyn easily saw past that though, taking a harmless and innocent peek into Clive's mind, knowing that there was no Bad Thing in there right now.

(Jet? Oh, the seizure hallucinations. She didn't have another one, did she? I wish I could afford medication for her, it just isn't fair for her to go through this, although how the hell did she know about the- A guess, it must have been a guess…)

That was the way things went for her, the short sad story of Kaitlyn Winslett's life. The little girl sat up from her lying-down position, imitating the pose that her mother had made a short while ago. That had been the daddy of her past's thoughts, she wondered what the daddy of the present was thinking about now. Was he close enough for her mind to reach him? Kaitlyn didn't really know very much about distances, but she guessed that as long as she could locate where he was, she could probe his thoughts as well. It was interesting enough for her to try.

Kaitlyn sat up straight, folding her hands into her lap. This preparation wasn't necessary, but she wanted to seem composed enough so that in the worst case scenario, her mother wouldn't panic as much if she had somehow gone into a vision and had looked the worst for wear. Kaitlyn didn't close her eyes, they merely attained a distant quality as she focussed on something far away from her, needing only to imagine one facet of her father's environment in order to tune into whatever was there.

So, he was with his horse at the time, so Kaitlyn imagined the carefully thudding hooves of Clive's old mare, slow, uneven and aged. The deep rhythm, which had coincided with her heartbeat in the beginning, detached itself from the beat and became almost like a real sound in her own head, like it was coming from close by. And now sandy footsteps became apparent beside the horse's movements, Clive was walking beside her. Like somebody hitting the correct radio station after some searching, Clive's thoughts flooded into her head, the thought patterns resembling a long sheet of silk being pulled though Kaitlyn's head, from one side to the other.

(What happens if one of the duke's pet monsters falls ill during the winter? Would I then have to try and bring it back to health, or just let it die? I should have asked Ortega when I had the time, I always seem to forget a vital piece of information when I need it the most. That Ortega, what a character! I could make a friend out of him, nevertheless. That duke however, Jesus Christ, he gives me the chills. Uppity son of a bitch, of course! I will keep his home clean and safe, as long as it is for the right price. Maybe we can settle down with the money he is paying, start anew again. Catherine would-)

"Kaitlyn… Hey kid…Over heeere…"

Clive's thoughts fuzzed out as Kaitlyn unknowingly stepped over an inner barrier in her mind and Jet called out to her, using words this time. This was something new for Kaitlyn and she obligingly looked up to him, though her body remained in a slumped, almost unconscious position. Jet was far away down the road, but close enough for Kaitlyn to barely see his face, half obscured by the mess of a white and red scarf he always wore. His eyes looked amused, his hands behind his back, but Kaitlyn could sense some kind of darkness behind him, something that hadn't been there in all the times Jet had visited her before.

Kaitlyn did as she was told. Standing up, she felt a nagging tug at the middle of her spirit's body, but when she moved forward a bit and fought against that ghostly force, the tug broke like a thread being ripped in two and she pattered down the verandah's stairs, heading towards where Jet was.

When her feet left the last step and touched the dusty ground, the solid soil became liquid and Kaitlyn was plunged into a sea of mixed light and darkness, snatches of thoughts and words existing like debris upon the waves. Kaitlyn couldn't swim but she cried out and thrashed for the surface anyway, breaking the water's barrier with a bursting gasp of air. She was not wet but the raging sea was carrying her and flinging her body from side-to-side, words striking her brain, violating it, filling with it it's everything, it's essence. Jet was calling out to her, standing calmly upon the surface of the waves like they were nothing more than cobbled stone.

BE CAREFUL. DON'T PANIC. BEWARE. IT'S COMING. YOU'LL RUN. SAVE YOURSELF. FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE. DON'T END IT. PLEASE DIE WITH ME! CAN'T STAND IT ANY MORE. I'LL KILL YOU! YOU DESERVE DEATH. I LOVE YOU. DON'T DO IT! WE DEVOTE OURSELVES. IT IS MIDNIGHT. I DO NOT CARE. PLEASE, STOP!

"Be careful, kid. You gotta be careful…"

(Jet, what are you saying it's really scary don't-)

The final thought was like a heartbeat, and Kaitlyn disappeared from the sea like a light going out.

REDRUM.

It was now a room, dark at night. The windows were flung open and freezing cold air rushed in along with an unfamiliar pattering of icy rain. The wind was shrieking like a howling banshee and the flash and roar of thunder partially illuminated the room for the briefest few moments. That was enough for Kaitlyn to see.

REDRUM.

The room was ransacked, tables and chairs overturned, walls wet and slimy with the entrance of the rain. Picture frames were on the ground with their photographs ripped and their glasses broken, all the people faceless, all the people unexisting. It smelt like metal in here, coppery, it felt red and burning and black. And she knew something was coming.

Lightning lit up the broken mirror. Etched upon the reflective glass was the message, written in drying-
(mommy's)
blood.

REDRUM.

(Jet, stop it!)

"Watch it, Kaitlyn… Watch all of this…"

Now Kaitlyn was in a hallway way of some sort, torches burning on the walls. They were dying though, like they hadn't been changed in awhile. The wind reached her even in here, like a crooked cold arm that bounced along the walls, Kaitlyn held her ears and shrieked, denying this vision, denying the everything that was around her. This couldn't be real, this is a bad dream-

You fucking bitch!

A fraction of the wall exploded behind her shoulder, the girl lucky enough not to have been injured by the shrapnel. Kaitlyn heard the sound of something small and metallic tinkle to the ground, then the click-click-snap of something being reset. Footsteps were echoing through the hall along with the wind, wearing it as a mantle of purest evil. A figure, a shape burst out of the growing darkness, red eyes glowing like slits of hellfire. It wore a cloak of blood and flames, green poison dripping down into its eyes. Walking tall and somehow regal, like a prince, it had a large gun in its hands, the wood-grained finish of the handle and the steel-capped butt smeared with blood and clots of hair, stinking of gunpowder. It was coming for her.

Get over here, bitch! I will break the rest of the bones in your fucking body!

Ba-blam! Kaitlyn started running at the exact right moment, missing being shot in the throat by a few inches or so. She had no idea where she was running to, for all she knew this hallway could lead on forever, but she wanted Jet, she wanted her mommy to be with her, she wanted her daddy to come and save her from the gun-toting shape, the demon of divorce, suicide and redrum hunting her down.

Dammit, get over here! Come and meet your maker!

(Jet!) She cried, (Jet, please!)

Everything went dark. For a moment Kaitlyn hysterically came to the conclusion that she had gone blind, or even worse, that the demon had finally gotten her. But then Jet appeared, looking down at her with a look similar to remorse.

"Kaitlyn, don't go to Heaven. If you do…you have to be careful…You have to be careful, kid…be careful, care…ful…"

And then he was gone, and Kaitlyn was awake again, sitting up and realizing that her blue dress was clinging to her body by sweat. The little girl grabbed at her head right afterwards, expecting a headache to overtake her mind, but it never came. Strangely, she felt somehow refreshed, although her heart was racing faster than a hyper mouse in a wheel. Brushing disheveled blonde hair out of her eyes, Kaitlyn looked up at the sky, leaving her couch in order to glance above the verandah's roof.

It was only a dream… Yes, just a dream…

"Hello there, Kaitie. Counting all the stars in the sky?"

Kaitlyn turned towards the direction of the voice. "Daddy!" She cried. Clive smiled as Kaitlyn raced all the way over to him and flung herself into her father's arms, certain that Clive would catch her. He did so with a certain degree of grace and handled the girl effortlessly in his arms, giving her a welcoming cuddle. His horse was there beside him, quiet yet looking particularly tired, though Clive didn't seem nearly as tired as his equine companion was. "Daddy!" Kaitlyn repeated, overjoyed. "I missed you!"

"Well, it has not been that long, has it?" Clive smiled, turning that somehow pure smile he made on towards his daughter. Kaitlyn knew from the very beginning that this smile was an immaculate one, her daddy wasn't in the bad thoughts right now, or thinking of the Bad Thing, which he usually did every day. No, this was perfect. Daddy was happy, and so was she. "Where is your mother?" Clive continued, holding the girl in the crook of one arm and guiding the horse with the other.

"Mommy is indoors. She's-"
(Not crying anymore-)
"Gone to sleep. She made dinner, though. Can we go inside now too?"

"Hold it for a moment, Kaitie honey. I bought us a little celebration meal for the night before we go to Heaven. You do like lamb, correct?" Clive put the child down and turned to search through the horse's saddlebags, trying to find his prize. That was one little quirk about Clive, he hated to go home empty handed. Kaitlyn opened her mouth to answer her father, looking up towards Clive's back. Whatever words she was going to say instantly died on her tongue.

The blood-soaked, hair matted rifle was slung along Clive's back, dripping a trail of ichor down Clive's red coat.

Then it became a simple brown rucksack.

"Daddy," Kaitlyn said, looking down. "I love you. You love me and mommy, right?"

Clive paused, then turned back towards the girl. Smiling, he picked her up again, forgetting about the lamb for the moment. He kissed his daughter lovingly on the cheek. "Of course, sweetheart. I will always love you and your mother forever."

Kaitlyn nodded, a slight seed of fear trying hard to grow in her heart. The things she had seen today, what Jet had shown her, she couldn't forget them, not now, but looking at her daddy smiling at her and loving her mommy, the thoughts of divorce gone from his head, she could push them out of her own head too, it was an adult thing to do. Daddy was happy. She didn't want to change that.

So she smiled.