The Possessed Page 10

  Had it somehow slipped into my sister’s body?

  I got up, padded alongside her bed, and scrutinized her face for any sense of discomfort.

  Noelle wore a lovelorn expression. She sighed and gripped her body pillow tightly.

  Nothing in her words, tone, or appearance gave me the slightest impression that she’d been under duress, and I certainly couldn’t call a sexy one-sided conversation a dangerous encounter.

  I reached out, prepared to grab Noelle’s shoulder and awaken her. But with only a few centimeters separating my finger from her skin, I realized that I shouldn’t awaken her. What if my imagination had gotten the best of me, and I’d conjured up an image that didn’t exist?

  The room didn’t feel heavy. My chest hadn’t worked overtime to snatch air into my lungs.

  I didn’t know if I’d had a bad dream that included an abhorrent smell, which might have made it difficult to breathe, only to wake me up, or if my overactive imagination and grainy eyes had given me the impression that the mist had returned. Did I fabricate that too? The same went for the noxious odor.

  I went to my blanket and pillow, settled down, and listened to my sister’s soft breathing from across the room. Try though I might, I couldn’t help but permit the lingering thought from trickling across my mind: what if I’d truly seen the last vestiges of the dark figure…slipping into Noelle’s body? If I had, that might be one way that a supernatural entity could manipulate her. It could possibly do everything my sister couldn’t remember doing, only to wipe those thoughts from her mind, making her think those events had never occurred.

  Although I hadn’t slept in nearly one full day, those thoughts kept drowsiness at bay. I looked at my phone, wishing it would power quickly so I could do further research about whatever plagued our home.

  With eyes that wanted to sleep but with a spirit that blocked that welcome refrain, I lay awake, splitting every glance between the door and my sister’s sleeping body, hoping the mist didn’t return, but praying it hadn’t somehow gained control of my sister.

  10

  Hours later, just as my eyes finally drifted off to sleep, Noelle’s phone erupted with the alarm of an airplane soaring through the sky while an unrelenting barrage of machine gun fire forced my sister awake with a jolt, her blanket kicking up at her feet.

  The sun’s rays peeked through the window, and my sister hopped out of bed and stretched as a slight squeak left her mouth before a yawn replaced it. While a good portion of her body may have been tired, Noelle’s eyes were alert and her limbs were as perky as if she’d had an uninterrupted nine hours of shuteye.

  While annoyed to have missed even a few minutes of sleep, I welcomed her company, as my sister collected her wardrobe from the closet and headed to the bedroom with an exhilarated smile. Granted, she didn’t leave time to talk, but knowing that she was awake and well reassured me that the entity must not have attacked her last night.

  On second thought, did I feel that way because I wanted to believe it? Or did I truly trust that she was okay? I had a tough time trying to separate the two. Noelle seemed fine now, but she’d also seemed that way…after accusing Jake of rape, minus the confusion about having lost time. In the end, I wanted to believe that the entity hadn’t accosted her, but I would remain wary of that possibility until I had more information about what may have tried to attack us.

  I returned my bedding materials to my bedroom and sadness hit my heart when I didn’t see John Doe at the foot of my bed. I went over to the window and pushed the curtain aside.

  Just outside our yard, J.D. stood at attention, looking up at me. He barked, wagged his tail, and remained in place.

  My pulse kicked into gear. I opened the window and poked my head out. “J.D.! Stay!” Then I bolted out of my room and hurried out of the house, but when I arrived at the place he’d stood only a minute earlier, he no longer inhabited that area. I glanced around and called out to him, but he didn’t come.

  How had he dashed away so quickly? Where had he gone? And why hadn’t he heeded my call?

  I spent the next thirty minutes searching the neighborhood in my pajamas, and while sorrow hit me hard at not finding him, at least I knew he was still alive. Maybe he hadn’t returned home because of the stench in the house. After all, dogs’ sense of smell was forty times stronger than that of a human’s, so if it annoyed us, it probably drove him so crazy he needed to leave. Taken in that context, I couldn’t blame him for leaving, and at least he’d let me know that he was all right. That obviously didn’t keep me from worrying about whether he had enough to eat or drink, but if he needed either, all he had to do was come home.

  When I returned to the house, I found the sofa vacant.

  Lilah stood in front of the stove, attending to sunny-side-up eggs and a few strips of bacon in the same frying pan. She lifted a cup of coffee, no doubt spiked with vodka, to her lips. She took one gulp, a second, and was about to place the cup on the counter but decided to take a third mouthful.

  I headed for the refrigerator to get some orange juice. “I saw John Doe outside a few minutes ago.”

  The tension in Lilah’s shoulders subsided and a smile split her lips. She poked her head into the family room. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. When I left the house to get him, he’d already run away.”

  “Do you think he might return?” she asked, concern lining her eyes as a frown replaced her smile.

  “I do, yeah.” I didn’t know what to make of his vanishing act, but his appearance made it clear he still cared about us and would return on his own timetable. At least I hoped so.

  “You must lower that television at night, Jocelyn. That screaming harlot may have awoken the neighbors.”

  I removed a carton of orange juice, grabbed a bowl, and took a spoon from a drawer. “It wasn’t an actress on TV. The television was off.”

  “Off? Don’t be ridiculous. It was blaring. It sounded as if you’d placed a megaphone next to the speaker.”

  “I was the one who screamed.” For a few seconds, I heard only the grease popping in the pan. I plucked a box of cereal from the cabinet, filled my bowl, added the orange juice to my bowl, and then swirled the cereal around.

  “What do you mean you were screaming? And you’re no longer a child. Will you please use milk instead of orange juice in your cereal? Why do you insist on carrying on in this manner?”

  “Because I like it,” I said, recalling how my mother had considered my concoction cute a decade ago. I just wished she’d accept me, instead of always pointing out what she considered as flaws.

  I hadn’t fielded any calls for potential jobs lately, which worried me. The video may have made the rounds, and prospective clients may have decided to hire a more “professional” contractor. I couldn’t blame them, and I hoped the video hadn’t gone viral.

  Similarly, I wished Jake would have given me a chance to explain what had happened, but since he wouldn’t answer his phone, I preferred to think we’d hit a rough patch, not that we were done. It was easier that way. It would also allow me to address the paranormal circumstances in my home.

  Lilah turned off the burner and began shoveling eggs onto a plate before doing the same with the bacon. Miraculously, there wasn’t a speckle of yellow on the bacon. Then again, she probably didn’t have to worry about salmonella. Even if some had splashed her bacon, all the liquor in her gut would probably kill it.

  “I screamed,” I said, returning to the original question, “because I thought I saw something about to attack Noelle in bed.” I started eating my cereal, hoping I’d piqued her interest enough to question my comments.

  “Are you certain the stranger wasn’t a boyfriend? She’s used plenty of ingenuity to sneak them into this house in the past, and one cannot help but overhear her yelling, “Ravage me, Blake. Oh God, ravage me.”

  “Wait, I thought Blake was your boyfriend,” I said, unable to keep myself from smiling at the prospect of my mother stealing the imagi
nary boyfriend she created for Noelle. “And wasn’t that you screaming his name?”

  “Hilarious,” Lilah said with a flat expression. “And for someone who isn’t religious, it’s a little disconcerting that your sister only calls out to you-know-who while she’s in bed with a man.”

  The last thing I wanted to discuss was my sister’s sex life…with my mother. I guess I deserved it since I tried using this subject to get off topic.

  Lilah plopped the plate onto the table beside me. It wobbled around the surface like a coin that had dropped to the floor before falling still. “Attacked?” she asked, as if she’d only now recalled that I’d mentioned the entity that may have went after Noelle. “In this house? That late at night? Do you take me for an imbecile?”

  I chose not to answer that one.

  “If an intruder had invaded our home, trust me, I would have noticed. The front door is less than ten feet from the sofa.”

  Again, I decided not to comment due to her oblivious nature while drunk.

  “Why must you carry on with these banal musings? Have I not raised you better than that?”

  At this rate, I could go all hour without saying a word.

  “Let’s assume you didn’t have such an active imagination, and an interloper had indeed entered our home undetected.”

  “You have my attention,” I said, willing to speak now that she’d asked a reasonable question. Besides, mornings were the best time to get an honest and non-sarcastic response because Lilah had only begun drinking upon waking.

  She pursed her lips, acting coy. “So this criminal—”

  “It wasn’t a criminal.” I lowered my spoon. I needed to get off this tangent and return to the matter at hand. “Have you noticed anything unusual happening around here since we used the Ouija board?”

  She tried to use the rest of her bacon strip to pick up a clump of eggs, but the bacon fell into her eggs. “You mean other than that incessant pounding in the wall that you still haven’t attended to? And that repulsive scent?” She wagged a bacon strip at me. “Yet another issue you have yet to look into.”

  I didn’t want another reminder of either occurrence because I still suspected they sprung from having used the Ouija board.

  “Otherwise, I haven’t detected anything noteworthy.” Using a fork this time, she scooped some eggs into her mouth and waited for a follow-up question.

  I doubted she’d notice the cold spots in the house because her alcohol intake most likely tricked her body into feeling warmer than actuality. “Have you seen or heard anything else unusual?”

  She shook her head and swallowed some of her coffee cocktail.

  “When we used the Ouija board, what if something other than Dad had responded?”

  “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

  I wouldn’t have expected such a prescient response from a former professor.

  Given what I’d experienced the last two days, I hated how she’d shrugged off my concern, all but stating that I was being melodramatic. Would she have noticed some of the other encounters that I’d had…if she’d been sober? “You’re underplaying things.”

  “We were precise in our communications,” Lilah said.

  Seeing her hands shake, a side effect of her alcoholism, she put the mug to her mouth and swallowed until she’d drained it. She smacked her lips a couple of times and glared at the mug, as though blaming it for not providing a more pleasant buzz. With a frown, she stood up, went over to the fridge, removed the bottle of vodka Noelle brought home the other day and poured the equivalent of three shots of liquor into the mug before mixing in just as much coffee. She returned to the table, grabbed another bacon strip, and chewed it like a Twizzler.

  I wrapped my palm around her knuckles. “Take it easy, okay?”

  Lilah acknowledged my hand for a long moment and winced as though that simple touch meant something precious to her. Moisture entered eyes that fidgeted in every direction but mine. “I’m fine,” she said, her voice quivering a little. She shoved the bacon in her mouth and chomped away. “No need to worry. I’m perfectly fine.” A half-hearted smile, the kind reminiscent of those who used the credo “fake it until you make it” appeared on her face.

  It touched me that she couldn’t pretend my concern didn’t mean something to her. I found it strange that she had begun giving me the idea that she actually cared for me. Although it touched me, I wouldn’t fall for it. I’d done so numerous times in the past, and it left me brokenhearted. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, “if you tried to contact Dad or not. From the little that I’ve read, trying to contact someone who has passed can open up—”

  “What are you suggesting?” Lilah snapped. “A spirit other than your father took my attempted communique as an invitation to enter our home? That this ghost appeared and attacked your sister?” She smirked, all semblance of the moment we’d shared seconds ago all but forgotten. “I think you place too much faith in the internet.”

  That last remark ticked me off. As someone who once took great pride in sharing knowledge with others, Lilah would never have made such a snide comment in the past. Then my gaze fell to her mug, and of course, I realized the alcohol had probably been talking for her. If she’d lost sight of her past beliefs and now considered her past as a waste of time. I wished she’d shared that with me. As it was, she wasn’t willing to share anything with me anymore, except for her bottle of vodka.

  “You’ve always had an overactive imagination,” Lilah said. “What does your sister say?”

  “She thinks I’m nuts.”

  “Like mother, like daughter.”

  That felt like a dagger to my heart. Then I remembered that I’d forsaken any attempt to repair our broken relationship, and the hurt drifted away leaving behind a vacant hole. Of course, I knew what she meant. Dad and I had a closer bond than I’d shared with my mother, so Lilah tried to compete with our relationship by singling out Noelle and spending more time with her than me. When asked about it, my mother always dismissed my thoughts and feelings. I’d always tried to include her whenever Dad and I went out to ballgames or music concerts, stopped to check out garage sales or window-shopped, but Lilah and Noelle preferred to shop for high-end clothing and make-up, as well as visit museums and art galleries.

  “So,” I said, trying to wrap things up, “other than the fallen picture, the pounding in the walls, and the creaking floorboards, you haven’t seen anything strange or heard anything that didn’t sound right?” I asked, going for one last-ditch effort.

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ve been experiencing some strange stuff.”

  “You should speak with Noelle. She’s the one who pressures me to contact your father.”

  My sister had insinuated that Lilah had been the one in favor of continually using the board. So who was telling the truth? After contemplating how different my mother and I were, I realized that Lilah would probably prefer to exercise her intellectual prowess by playing Chess or Scrabble, not a board where she asked questions and mystical energy moved her hand around the board. In fact, that seemed more in line with Noelle’s preferred type of “game,” the kind that didn’t require her to think. Then again, Lilah had spiraled downwards since Dad died, not my sister. All told, I didn’t know what to think.

  Since alcohol lowered her inhibitions, she could have been speaking the truth. Furthermore, she looked like she didn’t care how this information affected me. But Lilah was always under the influence, so her opinions and actions should be consistent. Noelle would have a greater reason to lie. After all, she’d impersonated me. Or had the entity that manipulated her done that?

  The outfit! The one Noelle may have worn when she confronted Jake.

  Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  Those thoughts persuaded me to leave the kitchen, hurry up the steps, and rush into Noelle’s bedroom. I went over to her dresser and looked through her drawers, sea
rching for that sexy outfit.

  I didn’t find it there, so I looked under her bed, checked the drawers in her nightstand, and finally came upon her closet. I pushed aside all the clothes on hangars and explored the clothes on the ledge above it but had no luck. Finally, my gaze fell to at least one weeks’ worth of clothes on the ground, a place where I should have started my search.

  I got down, swished aside pants, socks, panties, dress pants, bras, a blazer, and…found the black leather skirt and tight T-shirt I’d supposedly worn when I’d accused Jake of rape.

  11

  Finding the outfit verified that Noelle had worn it and confronted Jake, but since I suspected the entity had influenced that decision, I still didn’t have what I needed: intel about whatever had penetrated our home.

  After searching the internet for a while, I found a blog post about a fellow Chicagoan named Eloise Blythe, a psychic who had multiple encounters with the paranormal and now worked full-time at the Fairfield Public Library Branch. According to her blog, she didn’t charge those she helped because she considered it her duty as an opportunity to help those afflicted by the paranormal, I traveled twenty-plus miles to her library branch in hopes of meeting her. The little neighborhood branch was cozy and inviting.

  I stepped up to a trim, blond woman my age who sat behind the Information Desk. The nametag on her chest read: Rosalind Lanners. “Hi,” I said, “I was hoping to speak with Eloise. Is she in?”

  “No, she’s off today. Is there something I can help you with?”

  My spirits sank. I needed to speak with Eloise in person, not speak to her through a third party. I supposed I’d need to leave my contact info and hope that Eloise would call me back, but I didn’t want to leave that to chance. I needed help. Now.

  “Are you two friends?” asked Rosalind, quirking an eyebrow, maybe suspecting I might not have a question she could answer.

  “Not really. I read a blog post of hers that made me curious, and I was hoping to chat with her.” Reluctant to meet her gaze, I noticed that her badge referred to her as the Branch Manager, and I figured that she wouldn’t have let me talk with Eloise more than a few minutes outside of ordinary business. My cheeks burned bright at the idea of getting in trouble with a librarian. “Um, I could probably follow up with her later.”