Authors note
Happy belated All Souls Day! Here's another chapter to appease my patient long time readers and let the newbies have something to sink their teeth into. I have at least two new readers so that cool! I was watching the story statistics yesterday and noticed someone was binge reading through all the chapters. Congrats on finally getting this far you random darling.
Go check out the Tumblr blog. I posted a collection of strange coincidences that have happened ever since I started writing this story. I might be a witch. Some things I write end up happening in real life. All in good fun, but some of the things have been really creepy. It's not an exhaustive list and most are a stretch. There have been a few other things but those are the main ones I wanted to share.
Please Read and Review! I feed off your written responses and reviews always give me a boost (thanks NeonArt1. I'm so glad you love the story.). Your review doesn't even have to be positive. Any interest is good and I'm always open to genuine critique or questions. I like to see what people think about my work because I can't always be a good judge of my own skill. I don't want to invite trolls but even some hate mail can have some insight and it's not like I have to take the words to heart. It's still my story and I can do whatever I want. I like candor. Once I even recommended this story to a friend of mine without telling her I wrote it, for the express intention of getting her opinion and feedback without her having to worry about hurting my feelings or anything. It was refreshing and I wish people felt comfortable being honest like that all the time. I was in a creative writing class recently and we were critiquing a former student's story. It was kind of bad. The class tore into it without being malicious and pointed out all the real problems but when the teacher asked what we would say to the writer about how to fix it, there wasn't as much talking. I found it interesting and thought to myself how I would prefer people ripped into my story like that to my face, because if I wrote like that, I would want to get better and I couldn't do that if I didn't know what was wrong.
Read, Enjoy, and Review!
Chapter 38
The Lady Isn't Important
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Jillian jumped at the sound of a snapping branch somewhere in the shadows of the surrounding trees, courtesy of a raccoon or wayward squirrel. She shuddered and looked toward the noise. She had mixed feelings about the dark. It was Anna's fault.
Jillian's elder sister wasn't the most child-conscious person, often sending the twins to sleep with nightmare-inducing stories. Urban legends, monsters that hunted in the dark—all were fair game. Anna always seemed to have a new one every night.
And yet they still asked for them. It was their thing they shared as siblings, even as they got older and realized that Anna's stories weren't real. Their requests were fewer and further between the past year or so as they silently tried to claim they were growing up, but Anna was always with a poem or a tale.
Perhaps it was a little cruel, but Anna always laughed at their fear. At least, Jillian always thought it cruel in the back of her head.
But one night, not too long ago, Anna had sat crisscrossed at the foot of Jillian's bed tossing a pillow back and forth between her and James. They each threw the pillow harder each time, trying to knock the other off the bed. The teen had stopped after a bit, a thoughtful look on her face.
Suddenly, she asked if she was too mean, scaring them all the time.
Both Jillian and James were a little surprised. Scaring them was just what Anna did. They were used to it.
Jillian had always supposed Anna liked scaring people because she couldn't feel fear herself, so Anna always wanted to see what it looked like on other people's faces, because she couldn't usually tell. Whether or not Anna cared about being mean didn't seem too important. She never hurt anyone. The worst Jillian got was cream in her hair, or a nightmare that left her sleepless for a couple nights. Yeah, those were mean, but they weren't dangerous. Jillian said so.
James affirmed her with something similar.
Anna had leaned back a bit.
"You know how I tell you about all those monsters? How some like dark, scary woods—the type people easily get lost in?"
James and Jillian had nodded.
"Sometimes when I tell these stories, I imagine if we were in them. I mean, that's what makes them scary right? What if those things happen to any of us?"
They weren't sure where she was going with that.
Anna had slid off the bed. She curled her toes into the carpet and shuffled to the window across the room after a moment. She stared outside—Jillian couldn't remember if it was full moon, but there was light shining on Anna's face. "Well, if we were walking alone in a forest filled with nightmares and all the types of monsters I—we—can imagine, I wouldn't be afraid. Of course. However, I never considered if you would be."
"Why not?" James was the one who asked while Jillian didn't see the point.
Anna had smiled in that strange way that is seemed only she could manage. It always made Jillian think somewhere in deepest part of Anna's subconscious she knew something the rest of them didn't.
"Because I would be there. I imagine you wouldn't as scared as you usually would if I was with you. How arrogant of me…"
That confused them.
"Everything's afraid of something," Anna explained, turning back around to face them, though she had a distant look in her eyes. "In the 'Woods,' the scariest thing is whatever is absolutely sure they are the most frightening thing that exists. The more things that scare them, the less frightening they truly are. Nothing scares me. I could stare at death, and it would blink first."
Those words stuck. They were illogical and fairly ridiculous of course. Jillian laughed off her sister's words and went on to make fun of Anna's next story like she usually did. Anna not having any fear wasn't going to help against something stronger or faster or smarter than her. What was not being afraid going to do against something with three-foot-long claws and serrated teeth, for example? Or in more realistic terms, someone with a gun perhaps?
What use was it against fire?
But what Anna said stuck. No matter how hard Jillian tried to argue against them in her head, every story Anna told them after that was never quite as terrifying. Jillian had still jumped out of her skin when they watched horror films (at three in the morning with the volume low so Mom and Dad didn't catch them), but the bite ebbed away faster and her heart rate calmed within moments.
They hadn't watched any horror movies since Anna had died.
"I'm your own personal monster," Anna had said with an impish smile when Jillian admitted the phenomenon in annoyance a week or so later.
It was the strange way Anna said her piece that had Jillian remembering so many details of that night. But Anna was gone. And she wasn't coming back. Now the mere rustling of leaves that almost sounded like voices terrified her in a darker, emptier place that used to have something there.
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"Jillian," James called. He lost her. He lost her! If he had one job, it was to keep his sister safe and always know where she was. And he screwed up.
James wasn't entirely sure why, but that made his insides twist in terror. Trauma despite logic, he figured. That made sense.
"Jillian!" he shouted louder, just a little more desperately, only slightly concerned about bothering the neighborhood as the evening went later past the twilight hours. He had bigger things to worry about than annoying adult humans drunk on wine and turkey.
His breathing was starting to get a little ragged, either from the biting cold or panic. He sat on a curb, the logical part of his mind reminding him to do so in a well-lit area. His parents were going to kill them when they found out James and Jillian snuck out. Technically, Jillian snuck out, James just followed. What was he thinking? He should have told someone.
No.
Why not? He argued with himself.
Jillian would never forgive you. Just find her and take her home. Be there for her. She wants to be alone, and that's okay, but you should never be alone and unsafe. It's dark, in the middle of the night. If there are dangerous people out, they don't care that it is Thanksgiving.
James breathed. And again. And again. Just like Dr. Ramsey told him. He groaned through clenched teeth as he tried to force the tears back by driving his knees into his eye sockets. The pressure wasn't enough to stop his stressed tears.
He shouted in frustration as he picked up a broken piece of pavement and hurled it across the street, only worried about it hitting a car or something after it left his hand. Luckily there was no clatter of metal.
He was just a kid. Eleven-year-old boys didn't need to put themselves in this much stress. He didn't need to be hard on himself like this.
NO. He was learning how to be responsible. The protector. He needed to learn how to be a man. He needed to get a hold of himself. He wasn't supposed to break down and cry.
That was stupid. Of course, he was allowed to cry. He was tired. He was stressed. Anna was gone in one way, now Jillian was missing in another. Of course, his tired mind, run to the ground by worry and school and self-imposed responsibilities, would struggle to disconnect Anna from Jillian.
Just thinking her name hurt.
He forced himself to whisper her name under his breath, immediately feeling physical pain in his heart. It wasn't supposed to hurt. He shouldn't be afraid to say her name.
Maybe Jillian had the right idea, to run off so often merely for the sake of being alone—to not have everyone breathing down your neck, expecting things of you. Expecting you to fine or not fine.
James never felt peacefully alone these days. It wasn't like Anna was watching him over him like his Pastor said when James mentioned the feeling. Yeah, he knew she was (or rather, wanted to believe she was), but this was different. It was an uneasy feeling in his gut like he was always being watched by someone studying him inside and out. Something evil almost, but that was silly sounding. He could never escape the feeling. Even now, he didn't feel alone.
"Hello?"
James screamed and jumped.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," a woman said though she didn't sound sincere, unruly, curly dark red hair framing a somewhat angular face with bright red lips. She was white, but her cheeks and nose didn't seem noticeably red from the chill air, unlike James whose olive/pale cheeks were flushed. She was probably wearing a heavy layer of makeup to keep her pale complexion. The lighting wasn't great either. She carefully held a cigarette stained with lipstick to avoid getting ash on her long dark purple coat as a breeze blew around. She dropped it and extinguished it under her foot, twisting to thoroughly crush it, leaving James with only the streetlights casting unhelpful shadows to pick out the details of her face above the nose.
James felt terror and hurriedly stood up. Was that right? "Terror" felt like an exaggeration, but the term couldn't escape his brain.
Confusion?
Who is this?
"It's late, lad. What's a child like you doing out here?" There was a tiny dip of an accent in her voice, one James didn't recognize.
"Looking for my sister." Why the frick did he tell her?!
The woman hummed. "Yay tall? Brown hair. Wearing a hoody? Looks your age? Moping like someone died?" There was a flash of a grin with slightly upturned lips.
James flinched. The woman was probably joking, unaware of the accuracy of her statement.
"I saw a girl at that park a few blocks over. I was just heading home from my walk to call the police. Not that she was doing anything, but you know. Kid out alone in the middle of the night? Just in case." The woman paused. "Hindsight, I probably should have asked if everything is alright before I left."
James frowned and tilted his head, frowning even more when the action seemed to amuse the woman. She seemed oddly familiar, but he was sure he'd never seen her before. The way the red-headed woman talked reminded him painfully of Anna when she was excited by something. His sister wore a similar sly, knowing smile, wide and enthusiastic with a light in her eyes, on her birthday and days when she could run the woods and claim she felt free. "Uh…thanks miss. I'll…see if it's her." He knew which park she was talking about. James nodded politely, trying to walk around the woman without getting into arm's length. He wasn't an idiot.
The woman coughed. "Here."
James jumped as the stranger threw a small black cylinder at him.
"Pepper spray," she said simply, "I'd give you my flamethrower, but she's out of gas right now. Whoosh." She wiggled her long fingers in the air with a crazed smile.
James stared at her weirdly, tensed and ready to bolt.
"Bye," the woman said softly with a slight song in her voice, turning on her heel and lifting her coat to step over a puddle of icing mud.
James stared, completely perplexed, and briefly caught a glimpse of the woman's purple and orange striped socks.
"I'm not supposed to talk with strangers," James said bluntly. "Much less take stuff from them…"
"Yes. That's rather unwise isn't it?" she hummed without turning around.
"What are you doing out in the middle of the night?"
The strange woman, paused, shrugged, and glanced back. "I was in the neighborhood contemplating paradoxes and quantum physics while arguing with voices in my head," she said flippantly.
James stared completely and utterly confused as the woman disappeared around a corner. He briefly thought he heard other voices, tense and annoyed as if arguing with the stranger.
Cautiously, he ran after her, peeking around and down the street only to be greeted by nothing.
There was no one there.
"What the actual…" he said, glancing down at the plastic device in his hand. The pepper spray was a solid reminder he hadn't imagined the strange encounter.
He'll tell someone about the weird woman later. Right now, he had to find his sister.
It was a short walk to the park the lady mentioned. James knew it well. It was the park where the town set up festivities for the Souling Race on Halloween. Its location adjacent to the woods made it a perfect home base for the yearly exaggerated version of hide-and-seek.
He spotted his sister immediately and breathed a heavy sigh, a mix of relief and exhaustion.
He was silent as he walked up, though he was sure she heard his footsteps.
"Jilly?"
Jillian shifted and turned her head away after a short look in his direction. But she didn't say anything, like usual.
"Come on. We should head home before they notice we're gone."
Nothing.
"Mom made eggrolls," James said hopefully, plopping down on the bench next to his twin. With numb fingers he stuffed the pepper spray canister into his pants pocket and fished a slightly crumpled eggroll out of his hoody pocket, offering it to Jillian.
After a second, Jillian's pale hand left her own hoody and took the food. But she didn't take a bite. She studied it critically before impressively tossing it into nearby trashcan without getting up. "I ain't eating something out of your nasty hoody."
James jumped, shocked to hear her speak. "She speaks!" He regretted his outburst the second Jillian flashed him a hurt expression. Why had he said that? That wasn't like him.
You were just surprised.
Jillian sniffed, "Jerk…"
"Jilly…"
"I haven't felt like speaking in, like, three weeks!" Jillian snapped with her hourse voice. "And the second I do you say crap like that?"
"I'm sorry…" James murmured. "I didn't mean anything by it…"
Jillian snorted and curled up tighter.
James flinched and swung his legs awkwardly.
Talk to her. Tell her you'll listen.
"I'm listening," James said softly. "Talk to me? Please?"
"…"
Neither of you can do this alone.
"Jillian, we can't do…this," James said.
"Do what?"
"This!" James said, tucking his legs up on the bench like Jillian. "We can't just…not talk. To anyone. To each other? You can't get through this alone."
Jillian was silent.
"What?" James said, knowing she was responding to him in her head. "I can't read your mind."
She flashed him a glare. "You sound like the shrink. And you seemed to be doing fine alone, Mister Straight-A's. Mom and Dad don't have anything to worry about with you." She squinted and tucked in tighter. Jillian scoffed. "She's gone. And she's never coming back. People don't do that. How long are you going to pretend everything's fine?"
"I'm not!" James said indignantly.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes! You don't think I'm hurting too?!"
"You sure don't act like it," Jillian muttered.
"And just how am I supposed to act," James snapped, surging to his feet to stand in front of Jillian, fists clenched at his side. "Am I supposed to mope around and do nothing?" He gestured at her sharply. "Like you?" He immediately froze.
Jillian seethed. "As if anything you're doing is gonna fix anything. Sending those guys to jail isn't going to make anything better."
"IT WAS THEIR FAULT!" James shouted, grabbing Jillian's shoulders and shaking her.
"It was an ACCIDENT! Not some stupid conspiracy to murder her!" Jillian shot back, throwing James' hands off her and standing up abruptly.
The twins stared down each other, eye-to-eye before teenage years would eventually push James taller than Jillian. Their breath crystallized into a cloud between them.
"You got everyone fooled," Jillian hissed quietly. "Going to the doctor. Spending hours at the police station every day, hoping they found more evidence. Putting on a show for Dad and Mom. Saying what they expect you to say. 'I miss her, but I know she's in a better place,'" Jillian said in a mocking pitch. She pointed at her own chest. "At least I'm not lying to everyone."
"You can't lie if you don't say anything," James retorted. "You think bottling everything up is any better? At least Mom and Dad don't have something else on their plate wondering if I'm suicidal!"
Jillian stared, recoiling slightly, glancing away before forcing herself to meet his eyes again.
They stared eye to eye as an awkward silence stretched on.
Jillian tsked and turned away, crossing her arms.
"Jilly. Come on," James said softly, regretting what he said.
"Why are you so obsessed with those guys anyway? Their lives are ruined enough."
"They caused the fire, Jillian!"
"So? You and I both know it wasn't their fault she died."
Jillian heard James' sharp intake of breath, and a chilling quietness stretched between them again. She refused to look at him as her brother slowly sat back down. He stared at her, before he looked down.
James stared at the damp frosting ground, hands clutching the bench on either side of him.
"It wasn't our fault." He didn't sound like he believed it.
"It was mine," Jillian corrected, her voice broken and sharp.
"No, it wasn't," James said.
"Wasn't it?" Jillian snarled, spinning around. "If I hadn't…" There were tears in her eyes. "If I wasn't..."
James' throat hurt. He wanted to say something, tell her it wasn't true.
But it is.
SHUT UP.
For the first time in a while, he violently squashed that little voice. It quieted but didn't entirely leave, those few words spinning around in the darkness. Ever-present little itches. The voice was reasonable a clear majority of the time, but that was just too far.
James growled in frustration, much like before and grabbed at his hair, bending over his knees.
Jillian looked on, her lip trembling as her voice cracked. "If I hadn't tried to hide in the closet…"
"It wasn't your fault," James said muffled.
"Yes, it is."
"No. It. Isn't. No matter how many times you say that, it wasn't. You can't do that to yourself. You can't do that to us." James' voice grew shaky, and he sniffed as his own tears came anew.
There was the soft sound of weeping for several minutes before Jillian sat down again.
James linked Jillian's arm first, and she buried her face into his sleeve as they both cried.
"I just want her back," James said.
"I can't remember the last thing I said to her," Jillian said, "No matter how hard I try. I keep racking my head. I just…It was probably something really horrible. I was mad she didn't want to play hide and seek with us."
"She decided to dance with Mark," James said.
Jillian nodded, sniffling.
"S-she said she was going to help with our science project," James added. "It's…it's really stupid but I'm…angry she didn't keep her promise." His voice dripped with guilt. "Isn't that dumb? Being angry at something like that?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything. Everything's so wrong," Jillian whispered. "Everything just feels wrong! I keep feeling like this wasn't supposed to happen."
They trailed off into quiet crying for several minutes.
"Do you remember that story Anna told us? About the mirror?"
"Hmm," James said non-committal.
"The story about a boy who stared into a mirror for so long he switched placed with his reflection and didn't realize until he tried to move on his own. He could only copy his reflection's movements," Jillian struggled to paraphrase the story. "He was trapped in the mirror. Everything in the mirror world was wrong and terrible, and he also had to watch as his real life went spiraling downhill with the reflection in his place, like the universe was trying to tell the reflection it didn't belong there."
"Yeah. Mirrors freaked me out for a while."
"….How did Anna end that story? Was it a good ending?" Jillian asked.
"I don't think so," James said quietly.
"You ever think….it's silly, but do you ever think we're the reflections?" Jillian questioned. "Everything's just…so bad. Maybe Anna's actually alive somewhere, and none of this is real."
"Maybe," James shrugged. "If stories like that were true." He nudged Jillian. "But they aren't. Anna made up a lot of stories. None of them were real."
"Hm," Jillian mumbled. She sniffed. "A lot of kids our age don't believe in fairy tales anymore, you know."
"Hm…"
"Do think Anna honestly believed in that stuff? Even though she was older."
"I think she pretended. For us," James admitted though he didn't sound sure.
Silenced stretched on between them again, tears ebbing away.
"What did you do today?" Jillian asked eventually, her voice so soft James almost didn't hear the question.
James hummed, trying to think. He tried wiping his tear streaks with the back of his hand, but that didn't do much good. "School was…school. You know. A-and…then Mark took us to see Dr. Ramsey. He was…nice. I talked to our cousins a little. Harvey got a pet snake you know. Aunt Isabel's not happy about it."
"…Is it a python?" Jillian mumbled.
"Yeah." James paused for a second. "What about you?" he said, wanting to derail his own thoughts.
Jillian was quiet for a long moment. "I got into a fight today…"
James jumped and stared at Jillian, wanting to kick himself for not noticing the bruises Jillian was hiding under her hoody. "What?" He took her arms and held her away from him as he pulled her hood down. "With who?" He noticed her crusting bloody lip and scowled.
Jillian tugged her hood back into place in annoyance. "I started it."
"With who?" James repeated. He winced at a sudden headache and rubbed his neck distractedly.
"It doesn't matter. I punched h—them in the nose and they beat me up. I didn't want Mom and Dad to see."
"They're still going to worry about you holing up in your room."
"Well at least they wouldn't worry about me getting into fights," Jillian retorted. She opened her mouth and stuck a finger in. "Dasth thisth tooth look loosth to you?"
James stared angrily and didn't get a chance to answer.
The powerful pressure wave cut through the air sharp enough to send them ducking for cover against the bench.
The twins knew what a bomb felt like, secondhand. When a gas main exploded downtown, their mom had freaked and said it felt like a bomb. This felt like the shockwave of a distant bomb was reverberating in their heads and chests, over and over again. Vibrating. Whining in a high pitch. Rhythmic and almost musical with echoes that sounded like comforting voices but at the same time not. It was almost-voices, wind, soft radio static, and a low bass all at once after that initial shock. What strange music. If it was music. Chaotic and light with not-quite a beat but almost no tune. It seemed to twist and curl around them, if that was possible for noise to do, and the notes wavered gently.
The strange part was there was no real sound. The night remained still to all others, silent except for the rustling of dead and dying leaves. But the twins didn't even notice. They clapped their hands over their ears, looking insane as they shouted in fright at nothing, not aware that the strange noise was more coming from within their heads than anything in the physical world. The noise was not necessarily unpleasant, but it was shocking and unsettling to humans who never heard such an overwhelming thing. They were very close to whatever was causing it, the vibrations twisted at their guts and causing nausea due to proximity.
They didn't even notice the large black bird almost fall off his perch before flying off in the direction of the explosion, muttering curses under his breath in a human voice. He glanced back at the two children, worriedly turning back to circle in the air for a moment as they continued to cry out in shock and confusion. It was extraordinary that they could hear anything to begin with.
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Mark screamed, jolting up in bed, and nearly fell out of bed as he frantically searched for whatever made that noise. Did he fall asleep with his headphones on? What was that?!
"Mark? Honey? Is everything okay?" There was a knock on his bedroom door, and his mother's face gingerly peeked into his room.
"What do you mean 'is everything okay'?" Mark shouted. "Does Dad need to listen to music at eleven at night?"
It was like twenty different radio stations with random songs nearly the same rhythm were all playing at once at full blast. It was a haunting and gorgeous mix of sounds but at the same time painful to listen to and not something he wanted to be woken up by.
"Hun, what are you talking about? Don't you shout at me."
"Can't you hear that!?" Mark said, trying to yell over the noise that he could faintly feel in his bones.
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Sarah groaned into her pillow and tried to put the second one over her head in a sleepy stupor. She was too tired to hit snooze. She'd sleep through her radio alarm if need be.
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"What the hell?" Harold interrupted Reggie and went to the window.
Reggie cut off, "Uh. Harry?"
Thim moaned as the noise exasperated her headache and she set down her beer as the rest of the family stared. Just the adults. The kids were sent to bed a while ago. "What on earth is that? It's beautiful. But loud. Goodness…"
"What idiot is blasting out…what is that? Classical? Rock? Goddamnit, I don't care." Harold stalked toward the front door, ready to shout at whoever was listening to that weird music so loud in the middle of the night.
"What the hell…" Isabel murmured. "Harold, I can't hear anything." She was getting a strange headache though.
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Nevermore immediately knew what the strange noise without real sound was. They were so close! He hadn't expected that. He had an idea what Jack was doing, and he dearly hoped Jack had a plan if he was so obviously luring all the demons in the city like that. But now he knew where the others where. Now everyone knew where they were, Anna in particular. As he watched Annalise's siblings panic, he seriously doubted anyone knew about this side effect of that spell, and he wondered if anyone even knew it could affect humans.
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Final Note:
Guess what I did for Halloween? I went to a graveyard in my college Town and stayed for several hours visiting for the souls there, particularly the unknowns who's markers were so weathered I couldn't read them. I kind of casually prayed for them, more thinking than praying if I'm being honest. Then yesterday, on All Souls' Day, I went home to my great-grandma's funeral. She was an awesome lady who lived to 101 years. So cool. There were a whole bunch of people praying. Anyway, afterward I learned from my Catholic aunt that there's this special type of indulgence where if someone goes to a graveyard on Hallow's Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, and offers prayers for souls in purgatory, then it's like a get out of jail free card for them and anyone else stuck. One prayer per person. Whether or not I personally believe in Purgatory, if it was true then several people got out, Great-grandma first of them yesterday and several people when I visited on Halloween earlier, and I thought that was very interesting.