Entity
Sunday, August 2.
We debated our predicament with the break-in for a while. She said she left around nine that morning and then stopped by before work to drop off doughnuts at nine thirty. No broken panes.
I had gotten up at ten. I didn't notice the pane broken while I ate breakfast. I was upstairs until around noon, unpacking. When I came down for lunch I was too wrapped up in my thoughts to notice then. And I was downstairs for the rest of the afternoon. If something would have happened then I would have heard it.
My mom called the police and they promised to come out tomorrow.
The first thing I thought of was the click, the click that happened between ten and noon. The window-breakers time slot when I was upstairs and wouldn't hear a thing. Except for the loud click that probably sent the thief away. Who knows what else they might have been planning to do with that hammer.
The second thing I though of was the fact that Caroline came over right after the thief's window of time. I couldn't bring myself to think that the little old lady had anything to do with the attempted break-in, but she did act very peculiar.
It would be fairly embarrassing to tell my mom we had a – ghost. I have no ideas otherwise to explain the eerie noises that saved me from embarrassment and maybe scared the thief away, tried to warn me. Coincidence? It didn't seem plausible.
Nope. I wouldn't tell my mom about the clicking noises. It seemed as though if I did, if she believed me, something would happen and this strange new find would disappear. I, to my own surprise, wanted to meet the thing that potentially saved my life; to thank it.
What about Caroline Hopper who seemed to know my full name despite my not telling her. Were these events linked?
I was pretty freaked, how could someone, something, be so close and me not know? The fact remained that it happened and I was taking some precautions when mom left.
I drifted to sleep thinking disturbing thoughts and dreaming disturbing dreams.
. . .
The scenes flicked by in my brain, Georgia, Oregon, my room, my room back at Calvin's, the green woods behind the house, the gravel driveway, the interior of a plane, an old garage. They flicked by so fast that I could barely tell what the scenes were.
My focus was not entirely on the scenes flicking by though. I was staring at the thing in the center. Well the being, the – entity. I had no way to tell you what the thing was, there's no way to describe it.
He – I just knew that it was a male entity – wasn't looking at me he was pointing behind me, his expression horrified. I could hardly bring myself look away he was so beautiful even with his panic stricken face. I whirled around and saw the dark shadow of someone standing just outside our front door. There was no door it just looked like they were behind the one downstairs.
They were walking slowly toward me something in they're hand that looked suspiciously like a hammer. I whirled back to my entity boy and he wasn't there. I turned back to the man.
The man was lying on the floor, his outline blurred with the diamond like facets of the door. My entity boy was there holding the hammer and smiling at me his smile inviting and friendly…
. . .
Monday, August 3.
I stared at the ceiling for half an hour after I woke up. I just didn't feel like getting up and getting dressed just yet.
Mom was going to be here for the next three days while Molly was here.
What to do, what to do.
Yesterday's events flooded back to me.
"Stupid Caroline Hopper, Stupid Clicking noise, Stupid dream." I grumbled to myself as I got dressed. I carefully locked the door to my room.
I went downstairs and despite my grumbling, met my mom with a smile. This would be a good day, I could just tell.
"Hey, Mom!"
"Hey!"
"You know I met someone yesterday that I never got the chance to mention." I said this matter-of-factly. She looked surprised.
"Oh yea?" she looked at me with a sly smile.
"Who?" She asked.
"This lady named Caroline Hopper. Ring a Bell?" I wasn't expecting her answer.
"Nope, I've never met anyone by the name of Hopper." She looked puzzled, yet intrigued.
I stared at my toast as a little wave of fear washed over me. How did she know my last name?
"Are you sure? She lives a little way from here and she knew my last name but I didn't mention it." I said this hopefully.
"I haven't met any of the neighbors." She looked a little scared herself.
"You must have told her and not realized it," she said hurriedly.
"No," I shook my head.
"I can remember everything that I ever said to her and I never said my last name. I thought you knew her. But when I asked her is she knew you she said no." I was still scared, my eyes wide. First the attempted break-in now this!
I was mystified and she was puzzled. We defiantly had a mystery on our hands.
. . .
"So the window was broken when your mom got home but not broken before lunch?" the policeman was asking us multiple questions.
His name was Detective Mathews and he was all cop. He had his blue uniform on from head to toe and I could tell he was proud of it. He had a thick swatch of brown hair on his head that he kept clipped close. His face was clean shaven. He had a nose that took up a whole lot of his face and small brown eyes. His face was thin and his build was as muscular as cops' build will get. He looked my mom's age because he looked older but the grey didn't get into his hair yet.
"Yes, Sir." I answered.
"And the lady, Mrs. Caroline Hopper came after the window was broken?"
"Yes, Sir." I said again.
He seemed to ponder this.
"Hmmm. And she was acting suspicious?"
"Yes, Sir. She knew my full name when I didn't tell her." It sounded silly after I said it.
"Don't you believe this is alarming that the woman knew your name and where you lived when you have never seen her before?" He looked at me than at my mom.
"Yes we do. I think she could have something to do with the break-in." I said this but doubt crept in. She could have just been there at the wrong time.
"Yea, yea. Um, where does this woman live and all the other people in this area?"
I pointed to the place that Bobby lived and the direction Caroline lived. He nodded and thanked us, then took off down the gravel road in his cruiser.
We had explained our whole story the best we could and showed him all the evidence. He had asked us if Molly might have anything to do with it, but of course she couldn't have, she hadn't been here.
We hoped that something good could have come from this. She decided that she needed to complete some errands that were piling up. I was stuck with Molly.
She came out of her room only to get something to eat or go to the bathroom. Now, she has become more comfortable with sitting on our couch. She was watching TV and eating microwave popcorn.
What to do, what to do.
The image of the woods came to mind. I remembered a waterfall that my mom took me out to when I was little. There was a wide sheet of water falling from about fifteen or twenty feet. You could walk behind it and there were logs washed up in the cavern from the winter floods. I remember it very clearly.
I couldn't get it off the brain so I decided to try and find it.
Filling a backpack with snacks and water bottles and told Molly I was leaving, she just nodded. I went out the back door after locking the kitchen door behind me. I looked for the three, familiar, snaking trails and chose the one in the center.
I walked, marveling at the trees and the light streaming through them. I found myself looking up. There were green ferns, squishy green moss, and trees and bushes by the ton. It was so beautiful. Like a giant green kaleidoscope.
I could smell the green moss. It didn't smell bad but it didn't smell good either, like dirt. I breathed in the strange scent. It was nothing like dry Georgia.
I walked along thinking about my dream, completely at ease. Than I felt uneasy, it hit me so suddenly that I stopped on the path. I looked around twirling in a circle. When I had made full circle and I was faced in the direction to head deeper in the forest again I kept walking. I still felt the unease.
I felt the need to stop again and I did. I looked around me again and when I faced the path to head deeper into the woods I saw a figure ahead. I jumped and then hid behind a bush to peer at it.
I couldn't tell what he looked like because he was facing away from me. He never looked away from the direction he was going. This startled me because I always felt the need to look at the green surrounding me or the beautiful sunlight streaming in.
I got up from behind my bush and started a brisk walk toward him, never taking my eyes off him.
"Hey!" I called out I wanted to know how the hell he got on the trail without my noticing. I knew this was my feeling for unease. Had he been watching me from behind a bush? Is that why the multiple times I had spun in a circle I couldn't see him? I had looked very carefully, looking for any sign of color hidden the green.
He was wearing a red quilted jacket despite the heat. This startled me all over again. Red and green are contrasting colors and I would have spotted him through the bushes even from this distance. Plus, he was wearing a jacket and jeans! I was sweating in my tank top and shorts!
"Hey, you! In the red jacket!" I called after him again. I picked up my pace breaking into a steady jog; it was a good thing the trail was well worn but the vines and bushes threatened to cover the trail if not kept up.
"Hey!" I called again but it was useless he just kept walking at a steady pace. I had no idea why I wanted to reach him. I felt like I needed to know who he was; needed to see his face, to meet him. I needed it as much as I needed the water I was craving to bring out of my backpack.
I was getting out of breath as I picked up my speed even more; I was running now. I should catch up to him any moment. The backpack jumped on my back as I ran I could hear the water sloshing in the bottles. I desperately wanted some but I had to keep running.
I heard the sound of the waterfall ahead. The trail curved and I saw his profile which was disturbingly angry, he was out of sight. Despite all my running he never got any closer to my eyes.
I turned the corner and I couldn't see him but I saw the clearing up ahead with the white-grey river rocks blazing in the sunlight. I broke out of the tree line and looked around desperately for him. He was no where to be seen.
How peculiar that he should just disappear. How peculiar that he should never hear me yelling through the echo of the forest. How peculiar that he should appear on the trail so suddenly. How peculiar that I didn't see him through the bushes even though he wore that red jacket. How peculiar that I never caught up to him even though he was walking so slowly!
I sat on a rock as I pondered this. I chugged the water. I was tired from running. I was angry at him. He was ignoring me. What if –
My thoughts trailed off as I thought of my dream the night before. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and the water bottle slipped out of my hand and began to drain onto the rocks, making them turn dark gray. Hell, I wasn't even paying attention to that. A chill slipped down my spine and a little gasp escaped my lips.
I left the water bottle on the ground and I turned back to the trail that I came out of. I didn't even have a chance to have a look at the beautiful waterfall. I ran through the woods as I slung the backpack back on my back. Hopefully I didn't have to run too far.
The boy in my dreams, my entity boy was the one I had seen in front of me walking for all that time. The beautiful boy in my dreams had been wearing the exact same quilted red coat and blue jeans. The boy was real and he was there. He was real.